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Top 5 List: Effective Group Projects In Online Courses

Top 5 List

Participating in group projects will offer students the chance to develop interpersonal communication skills, build relationships with each other and increase the level of competencies as each member brings something different to the group. In online courses, however, where work is done asynchronously students are resistant to working in groups with others.

Students say that they do not like group projects because they are expected to contribute more than others or they will have difficulty scheduling times to meet with each other. Students also report being uncomfortable with the idea of being assigned an individual grade based on the work of others.

Having taught fully online courses for over 15 years I’ve discovered a few best practices that can be used for group projects in online courses:

Small groups – use smaller groups wherever possible. As groups become larger, the more challenging meetings and communication can be. Having an odd number of group members also eliminates the potential for groups being split when a decision is needed. Encourage groups to come to a unanimous decision knowing that this may not always be possible. Having an odd number guarantees there were always be a majority in the event of a team vote. Depending on the overall size of your course you’ll have to define exactly what a small group means. Does this mean a group of seven or nine… or can this be a group of three or five?

Expectations – all assignments should have general directions with a rubric explaining exactly how assignments will be assessed. For group projects, it is important to go beyond this and define exactly what the individual contributions and expectations for each member are. A good strategy to follow here is to divide the project into equal parts for each member of the group that they all know exactly what they’re expected to do. All expectations should be laid out within a framework that will help facilitate the overall process.

Shared space – all learning management systems (LMS) have tools that facilitate communication for group work. Create a shared private space for each individual group where they can connect with each other and share ideas away from the other students who are not part of the smaller group. At a minimum there should be a place to have discussions, share files and allow for real-time chat. Instructors should provide directions for the use and make suggestions that will help students be successful. It is key that all students understand how to access the shared space. Ask groups to conduct all of their discussions in the LMS rather than rely on tools that you as the instructor can not access. This is helpful should you be called upon to act as judge or jury during times of conflict.

Monitor – a best practice to consider in an online courses is to monitor the shared group space and make it known to all students that an instructor will be present. By consistently offering advice and feedback as work progresses instructors will be modeling the expected use of the shared space. Instructors should find a balance between providing feedback and being too involved. The goal here is to simply guide the process and help make adjustments as needed. By monitoring the shared space faculty will also build presence within the course and create another opportunity to engage the students.

Individual and group grades – it is important to assign both individual and group grades for any group work assigned. Students need to be assessed on their individual contributions as well as how they participated with the other members of the group. The individual grades requires clear expectations and assigning individual grades increases individual accountability that will lead to a positive collaborative experience.

Overall online instructors should not eliminate effective pedagogical techniques that are present in traditional courses such as group work. Online instructors must take advantage of the technologies and best practices to create equal learning opportunities for students in the online space.

-RG

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Top 5 List: Ideas For Training Faculty

Top 5 List

Training faculty often falls within the scope of work of those that practice instructional design and/or educational technology. This training can be challenging when it comes to the use of new digital technologies and tools. While some of my colleagues over the years have expressed how challenging this can be, I find that to be just the opposite of my experience. The training should focus on several strategies and this will lead to an effective and efficient outcome for all of those that are involved. Here are couple things to consider:

Relationship building – this strategy will offer the opportunity to apply newly acquired knowledge directly into daily practice. Building a professional relationship allows the person doing the training to better understand the baseline knowledge and comfort level of the individual receiving the training. This allows open communication that can lead to possible opportunities for collaboration in the future.

Staying informed – research is a very important part of training. To research the latest trends in higher education, instructional design and learning in general can serve as a starting point for training development. Many times faculty are not able to articulate what they need because they don’t know what the options are.

Walk the walk – the person conducting the training should have an inside scoop on what is involved in teaching courses prior to conducting any training. A key ingredient will be that the trainers have first hand knowledge of the entire process of building a course: designing, developing, implementing, assessing and revising.

Build bridges – instructional designers have the opportunity to view a variety of courses across different disciplines. This offers a unique perspective and can often serve as a bridge between faculty members. Many times faculty would like to collaborate across disciplines but they’re just not aware of what others are doing. Sharing information across disciplines will benefit all involved in the process.

Leadership – successful instructional designers that do training proactively support faculty and allow faculty to share experiences with each other. One of the ways to do this is to establish an online faculty learning community within the institution. In this space ideas can be shared in an effective manner. Once established,  some of the things it can be shared include job aids, quick tips, best practices and other digital tools to increase efficiency and improve student outcomes.

-RG

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Team Motivation

Recently, I came across a problem statement from the early 1960’s and it tied nicely with the topic Mission and Vision statements.

Many years ago I was lucky enough to work with a gentleman who had made a career of providing consulting and corporate training services. While I am not sure this would classify as a Mentor-Mentee relationship, he did leave a lasting impression. 

During our time together I attended several workshops that he facilitated on the topic of Mission Statements. Many of his workshops were focused on small teams that existed inside of much larger organizations. 

The workshops were always great and he was a great facilitator…no matter the size of the audience. Very personable and connected with all in attendance. During his workshops he would educate attendees on the purpose of a vision statement and a mission statement for their larger organization as well as their smaller working group/team. 

As workshops moved along and small teams started to zero-in on their missions statements he would ask the teams how motivated they were feeling. It was no surprise that hands did NOT shoot into the air by attendees who felt especially motivated. 

These mission statements were not motivating. The problem he explained was that they are simply vague statements. Samples usually included:

  • To empower creation
  • To change the world
  • To become the number 1…
  • To give everyone power
  • Etc.

He would push the teams further to develop a vision… a future state of their smaller working team. This helped with motivation, but only slightly. 

The real change came about when he introduced the idea of the Mission Essential Task List. [I believe this was a requirement of the military during wartime missions]. This was a to-do list of the tasks that members of the team would do regularly to achieve their desired future state [Vision] that would be directly aligned with their Mission and that of the larger organization.

Today, I am wondering if an exercise in Problem Statement creation might be beneficial to smaller groups that have been created inside of larger organizations.

Problem statements are very similar to Mission Statements but are tied directly to a reality of something that needs to be fixed or changed. Fixing or changing some product, service or process is what motivates people. Problem statements don’t have to describe a problem, just something that can be solved. It is possible to arrive at the correct answer.

Finding the correct answer is especially motivating to those individuals that work in technology.  Here are a few things that will make a problem statement more motivating:

  • Learning – individuals that work in technology would love to learn new things and master them
  • Value – individuals that work in technology would love to work on something that makes a difference
  • Competition – individuals that work in technology would love to compete and prove their intelligence and hold bragging rights
  • Difficulty – individuals that work in technology would love to solve a problem that initially seems to be unsolvable

The problem statement mentioned at the beginning of this post was:
“First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish. “ – John F. Kennedy in May 1961.

-RG

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Online Discussion Forums

Many years ago distance education courses were labeled as correspondence courses. We now refer to courses being taken across a great distance simply as online courses. One of the biggest differences between the older correspondence courses and more recent online courses is the idea of online discussion forums for the students. The idea here being that students can communicate, debate and share ideas in general about the course content.

Over the years we’ve learned many things about online discussion forums and here are a few things to keep in mind that can help instructors maximize the benefits of online discussions. 

Domination – a number of studies show that a few students typically dominate an online discussion forum, this is very similar to a traditional face-to-face discussion. Overall students still have a tendency to talk more in online discussions than they would in a face-to-face environment. The benefit here is that this has a tendency to draw out the quiet students who might shy away from discussions in a face-to-face environment. This is exactly why discussion forums should be a key component to any online course. 

Unequal – it is important for faculty to establish requirements for participation but they must realize that equal participation is not going to be likely. No matter the requirement there is a small group of students who will still dominate the discussion. If too many discussion items are required for each student this may have a negative impact by leading students to post just enough to meet the requirements.

Participation increases – in general studies have shown that the initial discussion takes place between faculty and students but as time goes on students start talking to each other on a more regular basis. If the goal is to move the course from the traditional lecture format and include more discussion this is a positive. This is most likely the result of every student having an equal opportunity and online discussion so it makes sense that they will organically start speaking to each other. Overall faculty should be involved in, but not dominate any of the discussion forums. Providing a solid structure and a gentle nudge when necessary will be just enough to let it get taken over by students.

Interactions – researchers have found that responses generally contained supportive messages about each other’s postings. This is important to recognize as many people who do not participate in these types of discussion forums generally have a negative connection to anonymous online discussion feeds that contain a lot of inappropriate and flaming text. 

Challenges – one of the challenges in creating discussion items is the requirement that all students make an original posting. Oftentimes this creates multiple discussion threads that are hard to follow and students will run out of original ideas after a few postings have already been made…thus posting unoriginal comments.

Faculty should consider the purpose of the original posting requirement. What is the goal? Is it to simply be creative, then responding to someone else’s point of view might contain more creativity than trying to develop an original posting. Faculty might consider requiring one or two original thoughts on a particular topic, instead of requiring a *post once and reply twice strategy*.

Researchers have also found that in general most responses to your discussion items are supportive and positive in nature. Students in many cases appear to be too nice and not willing to challenge one another in a professional manner. If the goal is to participate in a constructive disagreement an instructor might deliberately pick an extreme point of view to stir things up and invite students into a disagreement and then facilitate the interaction and engagement amongst the students.

– RG

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Improving Group Work – A Student Point Of View

Many of the college courses offered today include some type of group-work such as an assignment, project, presentation or some other type of paper or report. This includes both online courses and traditional face-to-face courses. Unfortunately, instructors [including myself] are often met with resistance from the students who don’t like working in groups and feel that their grade will be negatively impacted by group members who do not share the work.

We all know that there’s plenty of research that details the many benefits that come along with group-work. This is not just limited to developing teamwork skills but…active learning, improving communication skills and time-management skills. And as a result of the increased group work found in today’s office environments it’s important for students to have some prior experience with group work. Students will need to have a collaborative attitude and the ability to work with others at just about any place of employment.

Several years ago I was inspired by a presentation I saw at an EDUCAUSE conference that I attended. The theme of this presentation was getting to know your students through the use of direct conversation and/or task force that included members of the student body. 

After returning from the conference I made a point to start working closer with students and small groups myself to get a better sense of what they thought they needed to have from their instructors in order to have a more enjoyable small group experience within a course. Here are a few things that I learned:

**Communicate – clearly communicate the purpose of the group work being assigned. Specifically detail the benefits that relate to academics AND the professional workplace.

**Discuss –  hold a discussion about past group work to identify concerns. This is the moment when perceptions can be altered to learn new strategies for collaboration.

**Define – define the differences between cooperative learning and collaborative learning. This is a good time to put into place the best strategies for completing a project as a group.

**Time – set aside time and technology for group work. If you are facilitating a face-to-face course, you should consider using some class time to ensure participation. If you are facilitating an online course you should consider providing a technology [with training] to allow for easy collaboration. Google Hangouts is currently a popular option for many reasons. 

**Visit –  provide guidance and support by visiting each small group on a regular basis.

**Allow – students often ask to be allowed to evaluate each other. From my experience this has many benefits. One of the things that I have been impressed by is that of the accountability students have to each other. 

As educators we are expected to prepare the students for their professional lives in the workplace after they have graduated. Some of the top priorities mentioned by employers when seeking job candidates include the ability to work in groups, good communication skills and a good work ethic. Overall it’s important to teach students how to be better team players and how to deal with all of the things that come along with Group work and the group collaboration process.

– RG

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Time Management – Creating An Extra Hour In Your Day

One thing that we would agree on is that we could all use more time. No matter what we do it seems as if there just is not enough time to deal with work, family and individual tasks to keep our lives rolling along. If you could create an extra hour in your day what would you do with it? From what I have seen and read lately here are a few things that productive individuals do to squeeze more time out of already full days.

  • Get it done – whether you run your own small business or work for a large corporation most things you do don’t have to be perfect. Unless you’re a surgeon and are dealing with Life and death situations…just get over it already and get it out there – get it done.
  • End of day list – the one thing that efficient individuals due at the end of each day is to organize the tasks that need to be completed the next day and write them down. Make a list of the day so that you may begin first thing the next morning.
  • Block the Internet – many of us now work in environments where we have easy access to the Internet via a workstation or some handheld device that has easy access to the Internet. It’s all too easy to slide over To Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn or a variety of other news sources. Each time you slide over to one of these websites you can almost count-on a loss of 30 minutes. Personally I have discovered the Chrome browser –  the StayFocused extension. While not a perfect solution it does remind me to be aware of my time.
  • Automation – take a hard look at the processes you do over and over again each day. Are you still doing these things by hand or with some outdated software? You might be able to do them faster and better with some cloud-based option. Google Drive comes to mind as an example of a cloud-based tool that helps me create efficiencies on a daily basis.
  • Delegation – of course we can do things ourselves and can probably do these things better and faster. However, that may not be the best use of our time. If we are in a management position or running our own business we might better use our time on time-saving activities or income-producing activities. The bottom line is just delegate.
  • The answer is no – the simple way to keep something off your to do list is not to put it there to begin with. Before you take on a difficult or time-consuming activity just simply ask yourself “what impact will this have on my time?”
  • No multitasking – set aside time to focus on just one thing and see it through to completion. Many individuals might be great multitaskers but actually doing too many things can be counterproductive…and this only lengthens your to do list.

Have fun – stay focused.

-RG

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Getting Things Done

Getting things done – for many individuals the hardest part of getting organized is simply deciding what’s the most important or what’s the highest priority. Individuals are often paralyzed by the fact that they simply don’t know where to start on a project. Here’s a short list of things to help you get organized and get things done:

  • If something takes less than five minutes, just do it now. Your to-do list won’t become cluttered with small items that can add up to big chunks of time or provide an excuse to do it later.
  • When you take the time to make a note to make that phone call later be sure to add the number or other information that you’ll need. This will make it easier to make calls when you find that you have a few minutes during the day, now the information will be right at your fingertips.
  • Group smaller items like phone calls and purchases you need to make. You’ll be able to prioritize them easily and then decide which you can accomplish with the time that you have right now.
  • Always capture the to-dos as they occur to you. Use your device to record a quick message or ask the device to set a reminder for you.

-RG

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Wanted: A Professional With These 6 Skills

All workplace teams will eventually be faced with turnover and the opportunity to replace a team member that is moving on for one reason or another. For the candidates that are looking to be considered for such openings this is the time to showcase the soft skills they possess such as communication, time management and interpersonal skills. Here is a short list of the things employers will be looking for:

  1. Confident – Being a confident team member is a key ingredient when it comes to winning over employers and co-workers. Displaying confidence in person rather than on a resume can be a difficult soft skill to manage. I recently spoke with a hiring committee chairperson and she shared with me that she is often let down when meeting a candidate in person, after discovering that their personality doesn’t live up to the same confidence that they displayed on their resume. She shared that many recent college graduates have difficulty making eye contact,  don’t carry themselves well and don’t speak with authority.
  2. Time Manager – Being a good time manager and having good time management skills are important for newly hired team members because they’re often juggling roles and responsibilities. One of the ways candidates can help potential employers understand how well they manage their time, candidates should be prepared to explain the way they prioritize daily tasks and why they prioritize that way.
  3. Positive Attitude – There aren’t too many people who want to work with a grumpy coworker. To avoid being labeled as a negative team member, don’t criticize and don’t complain. Instead of always pointing out others’ mistakes, look for opportunities to acknowledge things that others are doing well and praise their improvements.
  4. Flexible – One of the keys to success and an enjoyable work experience is that of flexibility. Don’t just say you’re a team player, show it by being flexible with your schedule and responsibilities. Others will see this can-do attitude as an essential part of the workplace and can easily make individuals stand out when it comes to promotions, raises and other opportunities. During an interview candidates might bring attention to the soft skill by describing instances when they’ve been flexible and that flexibility has benefited others and the employer.
  5. Team Player – Being able to contribute to and work with small teams will display an individual’s ability to get along with others and complete tasks. Having the ability to cooperate and compromise with others is a trait that is becoming more sought after by employers and hiring committees. Candidates who would like to be seen as team players should be prepared to mention times when they worked effectively with others on their resume and be willing to describe those scenarios in detail.
  6. Communicator – Technology has advanced to the point where in many cases it has robbed young people of their ability to communicate effectively by allowing them to use abbreviated e-mails and text messages. In a recent interview on FOX Business two hiring managers discuss the importance of being able to communicate without technology by engaging coworkers and others in face-to-face conversations. This is an area that all working professionals, of all ages can continue to improve in.

Overall it would be worthwhile to practice effective verbal communication, being purposefully positive and learning to work in teams. Time invested into fine tuning any of these soft skills is a good investment for candidates.

-RG

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Top 5 List: Lessons Learned from Leading a Large Online Course

Top 5 List

As an instructional designer, one of my primary responsibilities includes managing the design, development and delivery of online course content for our college’s online courses, most of which enroll more than 200 students in a section. For a class of that size our college hires several Academic Associates – degreed professionals hired to work with up to 30 students and facilitate learning under the leadership of a Lead Instructor. This past year presented me with the opportunity to serve as Lead Instructor for one of our freshman-level online courses, managing a 12-member instructional team to facilitate a high-enrollment course of nearly 300 students. This was by far the most interesting, challenging and learning experience I have had teaching online courses since I began in the late 1990’s, both as an instructor and also as a team leader.

Teaching the course and leading this dynamic instructional team taught me several new things about working online. Having so many students enrolled in a single course, all working in smaller groups of up to 30 with different instructional personnel, highlighted the need for clear and consistent guidelines and applications of policies, such that students would understand them and instructional personnel would know how to carry them out. Our inter-team communication and collaboration was also critical and allowed us to coordinate as a team – discussing key issues, raising and discussing questions, clarifying information, and highlighting changes for the next course offering.

Several key items emerged as essential to the successful course experience. Here are the top 5 things that I learned, in no particular order.

Lay the Groundwork – to lay the groundwork with the instructional team before an online course begins is synonymous with establishing the *rules of the road*. This is a must for all instructional teams and a good practice for individual instructors to think through. Laying the groundwork consisted of creating and sharing a document with the members of the instructional team that would be used to guide the discussion at the pre-course meeting, and refer back to as needed once the course went live.

This document provided general guidelines as to how we would together facilitate the course with as much consistency as possible. For example, how would the instructional team communicate with students, how would we communicate with other members of our instructional team, how would we as an instructional team handle grading and feedback, how would we handle student issues and how would we address modifying course content.

Establish Weekly Meetings – the idea of a pre-course meeting with all of the members of the Instructional Team seemed like a no-brainer and a must as most of us would be meeting for the first time during this meeting. I made initial contact with the members of the Instructional Team using email and we agreed to use Google Hangouts for our first and subsequent meetings.

In that first meeting, because of the size of our team I decided to bypass individual introductions and get the course management discussion started. Our laying the groundwork document drove the discussion for this first meeting and we talked about the course in general being offered in a different LMS [we were part of a pilot project and asked to provide feedback about our experience using a competing LMS], the final project and the Lesson 1 assignments. We spent nearly 75 minutes in that first meeting and it became very clear…very quickly that we would be meeting weekly.  

The Instructional Team agreed to meet on Tuesday evenings at 6:30 pm. Agendas were created using Google docs and all members of the Instructional Team were able to add items throughout each week. The weekly meetings evolved into a recorded Google Hangout session that was hosted on YouTube and could be viewed by a member of the team that arrived to a meeting late, or viewed by a team member that missed a meeting or reviewed by a team member to better understand an agenda item.

Write Clear Directions – when I first began working as an online Instructor I would spend a significant amount of time composing the syllabus and schedule for a course to make sure course policies and assignment due dates were clear to the students. Those documents were always the priority and I recall not spending quite as much time on assignment directions, rubrics and feedback for students. That all has changed now after seeing what a large online course looks and feels like. As an Instructional Team we quickly realized how important it was going to be to provide clear directions not just for the students, but for us as the Instructional Team as well. Examples of areas where we provided clearer directions include:

  • Policy – when we began we realized that each member of our Instructional Team had a different definition of late work ranging from *5 minutes* to *within the first 24 hours*. If we were to provide consistent grading we needed to DEFINE late work. Here is how we defined late work:
BEFORE AFTER
No late work will be accepted LATE WORK: NO late work will be accepted. Late work is defined as *any graded item that is submitted after the due date – this includes items that are submitted ONE MINUTE past the due date*
  • Rubrics – word count criteria – this criteria is common in rubrics and our course was no different. We found that we needed to present word count ranges in order to prevent students from submitting work significantly below or in some cases beyond the expectation.
Criteria: Word Count
BEFORE AFTER
Minimum word count of 350 words is expected Response must be provided in 300-450 words. Responses with word counts below or above this range will be penalized

We also wanted to address the resources that were being used for student  research. The goal was to push the students to find more credible resources than what they might find doing a simple search on the internet.

Criteria: Resources
BEFORE AFTER
Provide two resources that support your position in the discussion Provide two resources that support your position in the discussion. These resources must come from the university library
  • Assignments – in a smaller [25-30 student] online course there may not be a need to provide clear direction as to the file type that will be accepted. There may be 1-2 students that submit a file that can’t be opened and reviewed. In a large online course those numbers could be much greater. We provided clearer directions by changing this direction:
BEFORE AFTER
Submit your document here Submit your document here:

**ONE file – do NOT submit more than one file.

**The file must be saved and submitted as a .pdf, .docx or .doc

**Submitting more than one file, or a file type other than what is listed here, will result in a zero for the assignment.

Increase Instructor Presence – we all agreed that establishing instructor presence was the key to creating an engaging community of inquiry. The presence of our instructional team would have a direct impact on the small group interactions and the development of thinking skills of the students enrolled in the course. We decided to create interactions with students by using:

  • Interactions that would encourage participation in the course – the goal was to be welcoming and personable from the beginning of the course and provide motivation and encouraging language using the student’s name at every opportunity
  • Interactions that monitor student progress – the goal was to provide timely interactions with students. This meant all students…and especially those that appeared to be behind and not making satisfactory progress towards the objectives
  • Interactions that provide feedback on submitted work – the goal is to provide timely and frequent feedback to help students determine where they need to spend additional time. We made every attempt to sandwich recommendations for improvement between positive comments to avoid leaving the student with the feeling that everything they do is wrong.

Talk with Students – the goal here is to actually “talk” with students. Many times when I ask faculty how they talk with students they reference email, scheduled course announcements, canned feedback based on the course rubrics etc. I too use those methods as they are a must in online courses and our team will continue to use those going forward. During this last Fall semester I found significantly more opportunities to talk with students live and in-person due to the size of the course and some of the issues that arose due to the pilot project we were involved with. I found these opportunities to be well worth the time I invested. In the Spring semester, I randomly selected 2 students each week to speak with. Each conversation started with two questions: What are we doing well as instructors? What can we do to improve?

I found students were willing to speak openly about what they thought and what was confusing to them. For example, during one phone conversation a student asked me: “should the discussion boards be used like a regular conversation in a regular class?”. Yes, I replied.

Whether you are a seasoned online instructor with years of experience or preparing for your first online course assignment these 5 things will lead to a more enjoyable online experience for the students and the instructional team.

-RG

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Communication With Colleagues

From what I have experienced having been in different leadership positions along the way I always felt as if motivating the team is one of the most important tasks that I was faced with. From what I have read, those that study leadership and write on the subject are quick to point out that this is also the case for several reasons: boost in production, morale in the workplace and reduced turnover are all benefits of motivation.

Probably the most overlooked way to motivate a team is through communication. And effective communication can empower an entire team as it gives them an increased sense of belonging and responsibility. Employee motivation improves as employees feel more comfortable with their working relationships. Here are a few strategies to improve communication and motivate others to become better.

Schedule – schedule weekly meetings for no other reason than to simply open up the lines of communication. At the most basic level it gives the team the sense that as a leader you care about their opinions and will also value their feedback. The priority here is to open the floor to any questions, comments or concerns.

Loop – consistent and effective communication with your team will not only empower and encourage them to make their own decisions but will also build trust and loyalty. Just be honest and straightforward and don’t try to spin the truth.

Clear directions – many leaders find it difficult to set clear directions and then stand-by those directions. Communication needs to reinforce and provide a strategy with what you’re attempting to do. The best communicators in the workplace find ways to communicate to keep employees on course and make sure that the objectives are being carried out.

Feedback – the majority of leaders fail to give constructive feedback to their teams simply because they fear how the employees will react. To help resolve this, the leader should provide frequent feedback so the small issues don’t grow into much larger ones. From my own experience I have found it helpful when a leader would simply ask “how often would you like to receive feedback?”. In general most employees would say monthly or weekly…very few would respond by saying annually. Nobody wants to be surprised during their annual review.

Personal – share stories of your own personal failures and successes. This is a great way to lift the spirits of anybody on the team that might be in the need of a boost. You will also build a heightened sense of community by doing so.

Interest – if a team member approaches you as the team leader and shares a particular concern…ask what you can do to help address the issue. Ask if they have a solution in mind. This is a great way to show commitment to solving the problems of the employees and helps them feel like a valued member of the team.

Encourage – schedule time to meet with the team and encourage them to brainstorm and offer their input. Everyone should be available to generate ideas and participate in this discussion. Generally, employees want to help solve problems and give them a chance to feel that they’re being heard.

Open – early on in my career a team I was assigned to would encourage open lines of communication to prevent low morale and this prevented any type of toxic work environment. This particular leader always let the employees know that there are open lines of communication and as a result everyone was comfortable and brought forward problems and issues.

Kindness – leaders should never belittle, threaten or embarrass an employee in front of anyone. Rather they should only offer improvement opportunities. It’s just common sense that when an employee feels under attack and caught off guard their motivation is going to suffer. On the flip-side when employees are rewarded or provided an opportunity to grow you can bet they are going to feel empowered!

-RG