How to Build a Results-Oriented Team Culture Without Risking Burnout
Creating a results-oriented culture within your organisations is not something that can be achieved overnight. It requires highly motivated staff, all pulling in the same direction and working together to achieve the best possible outcomes.
Of course, this doesn’t come without its risks. By creating a culture that focuses exclusively on achieving top level outcomes you may run the risk of burnout, losing valuable team members, low productivity and much more.
So, What’s Burnout Anyway?
If you want to avoid pushing your team too far, then it’s a good idea to understand burnout and the signs associated with it.
According to the Mayo Clinic, this is the official definition of burnout:
“Work-related stress — a state of physical or emotional exhaustion that also involves a sense of reduced accomplishment and loss of personal identity.”
This means that an employee suffering from burnout is likely to not only be unable to perform at the very best in a professional capacity, but is also likely to be experiencing difficulties personally too.
How to Create a Results-Oriented Team
Create Values That Resonate
You can never realistically expect an employee to get behind your business if they can’t get excited about the values you’ve laid out for them.
A recent study reveals that more than 58% of employees would consider leaving their roles if they didn’t feel that their values aligned with their employer.
Setting out clear and shared values means that everyone can get behind you as you move towards the goals that you’ve set for yourself, the business and each and every one of your employees.
Simplify Management Structures
Simplicity is key when it comes to management structures.
Excessive management layers only serve to stifle efficiency and ring fence communication, which, as we all know, is absolutely crucial to success.
This type of structure creates an overly corporate atmosphere and discourages team members from communicating with you directly, which can create a disconnection between management and employees.
It's much better to communicate with each employee directly when issues arise, this is much faster and cleaner.
Even better still, ensure that everyone that needs to know about something is involved from the very beginning.
This encourages an open-door policy where everyone can speak freely and contribute to the success you’re working towards.
Be the Example You Want to See
As a leader within your organisation, it’s up to you to shape the values and culture of your team. Your actions will be the driving force for the way the business operates, and if you want to create a results-oriented culture among your staff, you need to be one creating this atmosphere for them to feed from.
What this means day-to-day, is ensuring you’re the one delivering important messages, setting targets, celebrating the wins, resolving issues and pushing the standards you’ve formulated.
Above all though, it simply means showing up everyday with a smile on your face and a willingness to push yourself. There’s nothing more motivating to a team than a leader who follows the practices they’ve set out for others.
Trust the Process
While ingratiating yourself into the team is a good thing to an extent, it’s very easy to find yourself micromanaging every aspect of the process. If you find yourself involved in making even the smallest of decisions, then you need to pull back and let go.
There’s nothing more frustrating for an employee than having someone looking over their shoulder and questioning every little aspect of their day. It derails confidence when someone believes they aren’t trusted to make and follow through on decisions.
If they are pushed to defer to you on everything they do, then this is the exact opposite of a high-performing member of staff. In fact, a lack of control on the job is statistically one of the biggest causes of burnout.
So long as you’ve clearly defined your expectations and what values you’ll be holding your team to, you need to take a step back and allow them the freedom to find their feet, express themselves and get on with the job you hired them to do.
Define Progression Paths
Without a clear path for progression, it's easy to understand why employees might begin to feel disheartened. A feeling of being stuck in a rut, with no prospects to look forward to can be absolutely crushing for motivation, which is why it's so important to clearly define what prospects are available for your team.
Bear in mind that progression isn’t the same for everyone. In fact, for some “progression” may not even mean a promotion. It might be more of a sideways move, which allows them to try something different and perform a different role within the team.
This is why it’s so important to understand each employee’s ambitions individually, and put in place a roadmap on how you can work together to achieve them.
Takeaways
Preventing burnout and creating a happy, motivated and well-balanced team work hand in hand. If you don’t take the time and effort to invest in your team, you’re unlikely to ever build that consistently results-orientated team.
Creating a culture of success is never an easy process, but once you’re happy to get the cogs moving, you’ll find a motivated group of people who are looking to aspire to great things.
