No free soda? Keeping your team happy outside of Oz

I’ve always wanted to work at one of those companies. You know, the ones we keep hearing about that offer their employees massages at their desks, pool tables, snacks, and free sodas. To be sure we heard a lot more about them before the last .com bubble burst, but they’re still out there. And the periodic stories on slow business news days torment me with images of a magical work Oz done in technical-worker-bee happiness.

Meanwhile, I’m still clocking in back in Kansas. Black and white, buy your own sodas, thank you very much.

If you’re a new manager or team leader, you might long for the ability to take care of your guys this way. After all, how much can a couple sodas cost, right? I went through the same thing, with the same results you’re likely to have: buy your own sodas, thank you very much.

Fact is, most of us don’t work in an environment where this kind of attention to employee comfort is a necessary recruiting/retention tool. And until a business case can be made for it in your area of the country, it probably just isn’t going to happen.

So what can you do to keep your folks motivated and happy? I’ve got a couple ideas tested by my own experiences leading teams large and small. No doubt there are many others, and if you’ve got some that work, or some that don’t, I’d love to hear about them in the comments.

An easy one: say thanks

This is English for “recognize and reward accomplishment.” I’ll do a longer post on this later this week (in fact, I thought I already had but can’t find it), but this boils down to being on the lookout for an opportunity to recognize someone else’s hard work.

How you recognize it depends on your own style, and the magnitude of the accomplishment. From the simple “pat on the back” to the full blown award and commendation, you’ve got a whole range of ways to say thank you. Find what works with your team and your style, and then spread the love around.

The only thing to watch here is that you keep your recognition in scale with the accomplishment. Gushing over a one line addition to a python script that took all of 30 seconds to write is going to devalue all future recognition you give.

Include your team

The people on your team are there because they have something to offer. Let them offer it. When there is a decision to be made or direction to be chosen, ask some advice. Bounce ideas off your team. Get input.

You can do this formally or informally, but the benefits are real. The quality of your solutions will increase from the benefit of additional points of view. And your team will feel like they are part of where you’re all headed, investing them even more fully in the team’s success.

Empower your employees

That’s a $5 management industry word, but I can’t think of another one. Basically what I’m talking about here is pushing decisions down to the lowest level in your organization that they can be successfully made. You don’t have to make all the decisions. You might want to know about many of them so you aren’t surprised in a meeting, but if someone on your team can really make that architecture or API decision, let them.

Again, they’ll be more personally invested in the successes (and failures) related to the choice, and you may find that your team does more innovating with this kind of distributed decision making.

The (occasional) outing

I’m not big on doing a lot of outside-of-work activities with the people I work with. Maybe that’s just me.

But the occasional lunch or weekend picnic can be a valuable opportunity to help your team relate more effectively to one another, and if you’re footing the bill this kind of activity can provide a real boost to the team.

Buy a round of appetizers after work one day, or spring for 45 minutes on the go-carts after meeting a tough deadline. It doesn’t cost much, but could pay off big.

In the long term

Sure, soda and massages are a great recruiting tool, and if everything else is going right they can give you just the edge you need to keep your best people around.

But if you aren’t focused on the fundamentals – on building a team where everyone has a place and understands the real value of their contributions – then no amount of soda and snacks is going to hold things together.

And, lucky for you, you can start building a great team right now, from the trenches. No budget required.

This post is inspired by material in my book, The Only Trait of a Leader.