By: AMA Staff
You understand the power that influence can have on your business. Mastering the proper influencing skills will make your customers responsive and motivate your team members. But creating influential messages can be demanding. You have dozens of conversations and send hundreds of emails each week. How can you make your communications clear and impactful?
Having a few “message templates” can help. These templates are simply a list of common points you will address whenever you have a specific type of conversation. Adding message templates to your communications toolkit will save time and help ensure your messages are comprehensive.
Templates for Influential Conversations with Work Teams
Here are a few examples of team-building templates from AMA’s The Voice of Leadership training program. You can use these templates when working with project teams or adapt them to other kinds of common group communications:
When taking charge of a new team, be sure to:
- Compliment the group
- State and affirm your commitment to the mission
- Share your vision of what the group can achieve
- State your core values
- Ask for the support of team members
When supporting a team that is doing well, always:
- Compliment the group and its previous leader
- Affirm your commitment to the existing mission
- Declare your support for the existing vision
- Affirm your support for the organizational values and state your personal values
- Ask for the support of team members
When setting direction for a team in trouble, remember to:
- Declare your belief that the group can succeed
- Describe the importance of the existing mission
- Share your vision of what the group can achieve
- Declare your core values and your expectation that everyone supports them
- Challenge the group to succeed. Ask for the support of team members
Try coming up with some message templates for your common conversations with your team and others. You may become a more efficient, memorable, and influential communicator.
About the Author(s)
AMA Staff American Management Association is a world leader in professional development, advancing the skills of individuals to drive business success. AMA’s approach to improving performance combines experiential learning—“learning through doing”—with opportunities for ongoing professional growth at every step of one’s career journey. AMA supports the goals of individuals and organizations through a complete range of products and services, including seminars, Webcasts and podcasts, conferences, corporate and government solutions, business books and research.