Whether you are leading a project team, engaging your stakeholders, or building your reputation, finding ways to inspire the people around you will raise your profile and boost your charisma. Here are my top 10 ways to inspire your stakeholders and team.
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Here are my Top 10 Ways to Inspire Stakeholders and Team Members
1: Inspire with Brilliance
Step one should be obvious – give your idea some “Wow! factor”. Wonder, novelty, and excellence are principal sources of wow factor – they not only inspire us, but they draw us in compelling us to listen, watch and learn more.
2: Inspire through Meaning
Being brilliant is not always enough, though. When the things that captivate our interest are also meaningful to us, we come to value them. This can motivate us powerfully. Show me how your goals, dreams, and intentions can deliver something that has real meaning and significance to me.
3: Inspire with Your Ambition
A startling level of ambition that will take us beyond where we have been before, to accomplish something spectacular and audacious is another source of inspiration. Never settle for the mundane: always aim that little bit higher, better, more innovative if you want to captivate my attention.
4: Inspire by Making the Impossible Possible
Dreams and fantasies do not inspire alone: what inspires us is when you can show us how to make them real. Give me blueprints and models to visualize your ideas and plans I can trust to make them come true.
5: Inspire with Your Passion
Do you articulate your vision with an enthusiasm and passion that tell me it really inspires you? If you aren’t getting inspired by it, how can I? Show me that you are inspired and maybe I will catch some of your enthusiasm from you.
6: Inspire by being Compelling, Persuasive, and Powerful
How can you describe your ideas in a way that is compelling, persuasive, and powerful? The answer lies in the three principal techniques that great speakers use: tell a story with a logical flow, to compel me to listen. Make it persuasive with well-chosen examples, illustrations, and evidence. Give it power by the language you choose and the rhetorical flair you deploy.
7: Inspire through Your Demeanor
Your behavior and demeanor can amplify or diminish the passion of your message, so choose it well. Calm authority when discussing your plans or handling setbacks is essential to balance out enthusiasm and exuberance when discussing your dream. Passion without authority will mark you out as a fantasist. Calm without enthusiasm will signal worrying nonchalance.
8: Inspire by Engaging with the Resistance
Radical, novel, inspiring ideas will inevitably excite resistance from some – perhaps many. How you handle that resistance will say a lot about you and differentiate between inspirational and fearful. Engage actively with resistance and respect the people who resist. If your ideas cannot stand up to resistance then either they or you are too weak to make them succeed. My “The Handling Resistance Pocketbook“ is filled with tips and techniques to help you.
9: Inspire by Fighting the Right Fights
Fight the fights that are worth fighting and fight the fights that you can win. A fantasy is not inspirational, so if you really believe in your ideas and you know how you can make them come to fruition, then show me you care by straining every sinew to make them happen.
10: Inspire by Tackling the Trivia
If you want my help and support, that’s fine, but trivia doesn’t inspire; it frustrates. Get it out of my way and get it out of yours too. If for one moment you start to fixate on it, all will be lost ad what was inspiring will become mired in a swamp of petty obstructions.
Recommended Videos
Carefully curated video recommendations for you:
- Motivating a Virtual Team [Livestream]
- 10 Ways to Say Thank You to Your Team | Video
- Team Refresh: 10 Ways to Give New Life to a Tired Team | Video
- Build High-Performing Project Teams – Conversation with Charles Vivian
- The Single Best Team Effectiveness Tool | Video
- Real Project Team: What Will You Do to Create One? | Video
- How to Run a Great Project Team Meeting | Video
- Dealing with Difficult Stakeholders – Conversation with Andy Kaufman | Video
- Astonish Your Stakeholders… with a Stakeholder Listening Plan | Video
Recommended articles
- Effective Teamwork: Do You Know How to Make it Happen?
- Performance Feedback: How to Turbo-Charge Your Project Team Members
- Project Team Motivation [Everything You Need to Know]
- How Servant Leadership can Deliver Better Results from Your Project Team
- How to Get the Best from Your Project Team with Situational Leadership
- Ten Ways to Win Team Commitment on Your Project
- Boost Your Project Team Performance with these Hacks
- What You Need to Know about Building a Great Project Team
- Good Customer Service: How to Keep Your Client and Stakeholders Happy
- Stakeholder Leadership: Leading Bystanders as well as Followers
What Kit does a Project Manager Need?
I asked Project Managers in a couple of forums what material things you need to have, to do your job as a Project Manager. They responded magnificently. I compiled their answers into a Kit list. I added my own.
Check out the Kit a Project Manager needs
Note that the links are affiliated.
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