Want to boost your team’s energy levels?  In this little article, I’m going to share five quick energy boosters you can use in any office environment. Don’t worry there are zero trust falls involved.

It’s not uncommon. That afternoon lull at the office or that sense of being in the doldrums on your team. Maybe it’s common, but it can really be a block to productivity.

If you feel it. They feel it. Your team feeds on your energy. If you’re upbeat and positive, they will be. If you are second guessing The company’s Leadership, they will.

Let the games begin.  Here are the five in no particular order…

Spontaneous Life Question Game

This is one of my absolute favorite tactics for raising energy in a group.  Make a list of Open-ended questions surrounding positive thoughts and simply ask your teammates to respond.

You could write these questions on a whiteboard in a common area and invite responses. You might write the questions on index cards, hand them out ahead of time, and bring their answers to a team meeting or huddle.

Don’t forget about a simple one on one question session. I have done this by choosing a question and walking around our team’s area and asking each person individually to respond.

Your questions should be open-ended (no “yes or no” questions).  You want them to be about exciting things like “What’s your favorite place to visit?” and be thought-provoking.

An example would be: “What was your most exciting vacation and why?”

This works because our emotions are generated from our thoughts. Our emotions are evidence of our energy. If we are low on energy, we just feel blah and the vicious cycle begins.

Get people’s emotions high and positive and productivity will follow. The emotion provoking question doesn’t even have to be related to your work.  In fact, it’s better when it’s not.

Raise the positive emotions; raise the energy and get back to work.

Brainstorm Solutions For Another Team

Brainstorming is a fantastically creative activity. Any way you can boost creativity will boost the mood too.

Think about when you are most creative (even if you are not a creative person).  What do you feel like when you were being creative? Excited? Energetic? There’s a reason for that.

Positive energy and creativity are like twins with ESP. They both are on the anabolic end of the energy scale and they feed on each other.

Having your team brainstorm is like magic, but can sometimes be tough to get started. Especially when your team is stuck and low on energy.

In situations like that, it’s much easier to brainstorm solutions to someone else’s problem. This activity will get your team out of a funk, raise the energy level of the team, and then you can return to your own team’s solutions.

Brainstorming solutions for another team’s issue acts as a primer and gets the creative juices flowing. It works best if you choose an issue outside your organization like something in the news. You could also use an issue that is internal as well.  Just beware of the politics.

Change The Environment

Changing your environment can be as easy as going for a walk or bringing in a house plant. The point is to sense when the mood or vibe is getting stale and change things up.

This could be moving your meeting to a different building on your campus or even changing a single meeting to a lunch meeting.  Just the change in scenery can spark creative thoughts. And remember thoughts fuel emotions. Positive thoughts… positive emotions.

Create A Short-term Challenge

A short-term challenge might be as simple as some type of contest. I see this used in sales teams a lot because it works.  But the challenged doesn’t have to be work related to be productive.

In fact, a challenge that is non-work related works best. Try a walking challenge where you tally steps for the day or week. Maybe a no-soda challenge or even a buzzword bingo challenge where you make a list of office buzzwords and the first person to five in a meeting wins.

The point is to do something that gets a laugh or creates movement. Both laughing and movement generate anabolic energy and spark the behaviors that make people feel great.

One thing to watch out for is repeating the same challenge over and over. That can get stale too.  Instead, switch it up. Make yourself a list of things to do and periodically change them. This keeps things fresh and keeping things fresh creates anabolic energy too.

Cheer A Common Cause

What kind of common cause you ask? Great question. I’m talking about things like the World Series or the NBA Finals. Right now our team is following a live video feed of two American Bald Eagles waiting for their two eggs to hatch.

These may seem silly, but the fact is they give us something outside of work to have in common.  We also have something to tell people outside of our workplace that happens inside that isn’t all work.

Simply having something we have in common with each other lightens the mood. Lighter mood… positive thoughts… positive thoughts… positive emotions… positive emotions… happier reality.

Wrapping It All Up

If you were looking for a handful of magic beans you may be disappointed. However, this is the closest thing you can get to magic for lifting up the mood in a catabolic or neutral energy office.

Take one of these five that seems doable to you and start it this week. I’d love to hear how it went or if you have a way to lift the vibe in the office, please share it in the comments.