How to Use Your Main Thing to Engage Your Team (Video)

Most of you have probably wrapped up your Annual Planning sessions and feel prepared for 2017. You have the best 3-5 initiatives to move your business forward this year, you have your targets in place and set high, you have your theme or Main Thing that you and the executive team are so excited about - it’s really going to motivate all your employees! You have it all organized in Rhythm or a spreadsheet, and then what? How do you keep your team motivated all year and use your Main Thing to keep employees engaged and focused on your initiatives and targets? There are certainly many right answers to this, but I thought I would share what we did at Rhythm Systems since we do practice what we preach!

I have heard awesome stories about sharing your company’s theme. From Go-carts to swag, or cookies, you name it! At Rhythm Systems, we have a hallway in our office with a blank white wall. For the past two years, we decorated it with our theme and used it to keep track of Breakthroughs (2015), #Awesome victories (2016), and this year, we’re Winning As A Team.

I decided to go a little bit bigger than just writing down breakthroughs and awesome happenings. I’m starting with our team! What better way to win as a team than to know your team? What better way to represent a theme that talks about winning and teams than with sports? So, I sent out a Google Form to ask my colleagues what their favorite sport is, who their favorite team is, who their favorite athlete is and why that person is inspiring to them.

Then, it was time to have some fun! With my colleagues’ answers, I did Google searches of their favorite athlete, did a little photoshopping along with a little copy and paste magic to transform my colleagues into their favorite athletes. Then, I printed out all 19 players and pasted them on the wall.

I took their answers about their favorite athletes and why, along with their hometown and college and created a program, like one would you get at a sporting event. I wanted the wall to be fun for our team and a way for us to get to know each other better - the more we know about each other, the better we can play and win as a team.

My plan throughout the year is to collect wins on the wall. I printed out ribbons and trophy templates for my teammates to write their victories so by December 2017, we will have a showcase full of achievements!

Before we closed the office for the holidays, I talked up the wall so much to get everyone excited. Since most of Rhythm Systems employees are able to work from home and only come into the office occasionally, I gave a little teaser video to get the team pumped up for 2017. Check it out!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The final wall will be ready to be revealed by our first company meeting at the end of January.

Good luck engaging your teams with your Main Thing for the year!

Photo Credit: iStock by Getty Images