The past 18 months organizations have ridden a rollercoaster of challenges. Even the strongest companies are suffering leadership fatigue and employee burnout. Executives and managers are virtually keeping constantly in touch, usually by Zoom, guiding employees as best as they can. The challenge many executives face, now that things are returning to normal, is motivating employees and getting them over the uncertainty of the past 18 months. Some employees are even afraid to go back to the office when they may. Other employees can’t wait to get back to seeing others in the office and are giving out high fives and bro hugs like they just won the Superbowl. With such a variety of reactions and challenges there’s a solution to getting everyone on the same healthy, high performance trajectory.
A company-wide reboot is exactly what a world-class motivational speaker can do better than any internal executive, because of something neuroscientists call novelty. Novelty means that when something is new and different, your brain allocates more resources to it – you pay more attention, you find it more interesting; you listen. A great motivational speaker inspires with a story steaming in novelty and overflowing with interesting advice or knowledge.
Here are 5 reasons to book a motivational speaker now:
- Re-boot Your Team
- Strengthen Mental Health
- Employee Self-Discovery
- Invest in Your Culture
- Make 2021 a Great Bear
Re-boot your team
Let’s face it; working virtually spending several hours a day staring at a computer screen is a recipe for lethargy and declining motivation. That’s why the pandemic has skyrocketed the amount of alcohol consumed in the United states, and relationships have suffered with the highest increase in divorce rate in recorded history. Teams are not feeling cohesive and energized. A motivational speaker who is also a skilled storyteller can plant a seed that will grow into an entire tree of excitement and motivation for your team. Finding someone who has overcome extreme odds to face a fear, beat deadly cancer, or performed at the highest level is always a welcome story of hopeful optimism. This should be the primary purpose of an inspirational speaker coming to your organization. Make sure they have a great story to tell and are good at telling it.
Strengthen mental health
This second point is important coming off of a pandemic year. An outstanding example is the one of the best commencement speeches of 2021 that every graduate should watch. In this short 20-minute conversation with the graduating class of 2021, I make a point to share just three critical points and some hard-earned truths. The talk dramatically shaped the way these graduates looked at their past year and completely changed the mindset of several people who had been very negative about the events of the pandemic.
Finding a speaker who has expertise in mental health, neuroscience, or psychology, is especially helpful in 2021. The important thing is that they can move beyond academia and presenting like a professor to weaving their advice into the tapestry of an entertaining story. Speakers are always credible when they have a best-selling self-help book as well.
Employee Self-Discovery
It is rarely that company leaders or executives help their team members find their real self and discover their authentic voice. Usually leaders are so focused on performance and deadlines that they often miss an area to dramatically improve the happiness and therefore productivity of each person on their team. Creating a culture where people are encouraged to engage in self-discovery helps to create a culture of courage. People then feel safe to experiment and learn. Many people do not want to shine a light on reality or face their own frailties and shortcomings. With self-discovery comes an acceptance of reality as it is rather than how someone would like it to be. It’s at that point when a person can reshape reality to how they would like it to be, but first comes that hard truth and authenticity.
Invest in your culture
Create motivational and inspirational speakers are expensive, it’s an enormous investment for any company to hire someone who can dramatically impact their organization and team. However, if it is a person who is truly world class and great at what they do, employees will appreciate the fact that they intended this investment to make their life better. When a company CEO announces a special event that includes outside talent, team members know that it comes at a cost and the goal is to help everybody be happier, find their purpose, and perform better. The fact that a great keynote speaker should also be entertaining is not lost on your audience.
Make 2021 an exceptional year
Hiring and keeping talented people is challenging, so building meaningful relationships and constantly aligning goals and values with your team is critical. This only comes if you have a culture of courage and people can be radically honest with each other about everything from performance to motivation to relationships. Hiring a motivational speaker helps ensure personal development of your team members. The right speaker can greatly improve the culture of courage that you are trying to create in your organization. This is true for a live in person person even more so than a great virtual speaker.
There are a lot of executives in struggling companies who are only focused on the bottom line. If you are generous with your team and you bring in someone who can dramatically impact their lives, that generosity will be returned to you 10 times over. As Aristotle said, “For what is the best choice for each individual is the highest it is possible for him to achieve”. As an outstanding leader, it’s your job to help your employees achieve meaning, success and happiness sometimes an outside perspective is the best way to do that.