Imagine the frustration when, with one week to go, one of our licenses on a key tool expired. When we finally did get a proper infrastructure going, motivation improved significantly. This allowed the team to play together as well as work together. I am surprised to hear of Fortune 500 companies that are only recently beginning to understand this. One key thing for managers to realize is that toys foster coworker relationships that are made when the team plays together.
People love to work together, but they get tired.
Giving them an opportunity to play together oils the machine and makes the whole team function together more effectively. But, the most significant lesson we learned about keeping motivation up is to take the time to build a quality product. We compromised our deadline and as a result, our product was not as robust as it could have been, and the team knew it. People like building something they are proud of, and sloppy work never promotes pride. Had we planned for our team to work 40 hours per week, we would have kept them well-rested and creative.