Do you want to talk to your staff and inspire them to work smarter? If YES, here are 10 tips on how to give a powerful motivational message to your employees.
Motivating other people is usually no easy feat, yet, if you want your employees to grow, get better and stay satisfied with their job, then you have to learn how to motivate them. A motivational speech can be that push that your staff need in order to work harder, which in turn will lead to more productivity for your organization, overall satisfaction and subsequently result in higher employee retention.
As a business owner, seeing signs such as reduction in the quality of your employees’ work, or failing to meet up with work schedule calls for your intervention. Whatever the signs you have detected, you suspect that it’s time for a feel-good speech in order to boost morale.
Some small business owners may be intimidated by the idea of making a ‘speech’ so you can always see it as a ‘pep talk’. No matter what you call it, here are some tips for invigorating your staff with your motivational speech.
How to Give a Powerful Motivational Speech to your Employees and Inspire Them to Work Smarter
1. Plan Your “Stage”: when you want to deliver a motivational talk to your staff, you will have to bear in mind that where you deliver your talk is just as important as what you say. You can send out an email to your staff asking them to be in the conference room at a certain time of the day or you can choose to tell them to close up early one day and make a “spontaneous” presentation? (They’ll think it’s spontaneous, but you’ll know better.)
2. Plan your Speech: consider some of the greatest motivational speeches from the past, from Winston Churchill rallying the British against Hitler to JFK’s challenge to Americans to do more for their country, these speakers employed a call-for-action from their audiences.
There are tons of videos on YouTube that you can watch to give you can idea. Take note of the speakers’ cadence, choice of words and delivery. Also, take note of how the speakers used certain words.
Martin Luther King repeated “I have a dream” to emphasize his points. President Kennedy offered a balance in his “Ask not …” passage. Notice that all great speakers use short phrases in repetition to drive their points home and keep the audience engaged
3. Think Like a Performer: even though you may not be the type that likes to show off, there is still a need to burnish your skills during your presentation. Be yourself, be authentic, but think about adding a dramatic touch to your talk, just as a performer would. At the very least, your employees should feel good about the fact that you put thought into making your speech memorable.
4. Monroe’s Motivated Sequence: one of the formats that has proven to be effective for giving motivational speeches to staff is the Monroe’s Motivated Sequence. For example, capture your employees’ attention with a riveting statistic and convince them that there is a need to address the statistical problem, and then demonstrate that there is a solution to the problem.
Paint a visual picture of what happens if the problem is solved, such as higher sales and more job security for everyone. Then paint a picture of what happens if it is not solved, such as a need to cut costs and reduce payroll. Conclude the speech by challenging your employees to take action to solve the problem.
5. Pick One Message: in order to give a motivational speech that will resound among your staff, it is best to stick to just one message, not multiple messages. For instance, is your goal to bolster morale? To motivate your employees to reach a sales goal? To find new referral sources? The purpose of your feel-good speech – your thesis – should be clear in your mind so you can convey it clearly to your employees.
6. Craft a Mantra: if possible, develop a catchy mantra for your message; that is a unifying statement of purpose. If it sounds good, it probably is good. You can go on to repeat it a couple of times during your speak since repetition is an effective oratory technique. (If your mantra is particularly pitchy – “We See Opportunities, Not Problems” “Be All In”– it could serve as the subject line to follow-up emails and supply the cornerstone for an internal marketing campaign, too.)
7. Give your employees a reason to feel good: in order to make your employees feel good, you should always encourage them. Your mantra should take you halfway around this curve; articulating your support through encouragement will fuel the other half. Fortify them and even flatter them, but stop just short of being solicitous.
8. Be succinct but be prepared: you should draw inspiration from some of the greatest speeches ever given. Some of them include John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address and Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. The former took about 14 minutes to deliver and the latter took only 3 minutes. The point is that you don’t need a very long speech in order to get your idea across. Try to be brief yet articulate.
9. Delivery Style: Whether you are consoling the employees about recent failures or motivating them to overcome future challenges, your delivery must be personal, persuasive and passionate. You should try your best to talk with the employees, not at them.
Use your natural style of talking. For instance, don’t change your voice to sound different or use big words that you would not normally use. If you attempt to change your delivery style, your employees will notice and you will lose credibility.
A motivational speech is an emotional appeal, so your presentation must be made with passion. If your speech is addressing a morale problem, avoid blaming anyone for the problem. Instead, emphasize that everyone can be part of the solution.
10. Start strong and finish strong: people have always found the opening and conclusion of a speech to be the most difficult, yet it has been found that it tends to work better when the two are linked together. (In other words, if you open with a story, close by returning to a point in that story.)
Conclusions are an especially powerful part of a motivational speech because they give you an opportunity to make a lasting impression in the mind of your employees. They also encourage applause; get people talking right on the spot and, incite an immediate, feel-good emotion that you were determined to spawn in the first place.