Management let go of some of the most talented people on my team. How do I motivate the remaining staffers to fill their recently vacated shoes?

One of the most serious mistakes an organization can make is to purge its most capable people. To recover, you must first survey the knowledge base of those that left and compare it to those that remain. This therefore means recognizing the information and skill gaps your team now has and ultimately getting them up to speed for the tasks ahead.

The key to doing this lies in how well you can motivate them. Effective motivation is founded on emphasizing feelings of success, which means you will need to accentuate your staff's genuine achievements and downplay the occasional stumble. (Patience is a key element here because mistakes will occasionally occur.) The general rule of thumb is to supply four times as much praise as criticism to keep your team encouraged and striving during this time of intense challenge. Avoid increasing pressure on them to perform until they have shown they can master their newly assigned tasks.

As their leader, you can better motivate when you openly acknowledge their pain and frustration and when you clearly show you are an advocate who will work hard alongside them to help them achieve their best. So roll up your sleeves because you have some work ahead of you. But in due time, you'll find that they have now become "the most talented people" on your team. E