Project management can be a real roller coaster. When you get to the end of something big, it can be a thrill, but when something goes wrong, or you’re up against a strict deadline, it’s easy to get stressed out and discouraged.

However, to be successful as a project manager, you need to be able to navigate the Tough Times. Things aren’t always going to go well, and if you don’t have the right approach, then you risk losing your team, which will cause the entire project to suffer, or worse, go incomplete.

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So to help you make sure everything stays on track no matter what happens, here are five ways to keep your team Motivated when things get tough.

1. Set Small, Individual Goals

One of the biggest reasons people lose motivation for a project is that they get overwhelmed. They begin to look past what’s expected of them and they get lost in the grandeur of the overall project. This is why scope management is such an important job for any project manager, and it’s also why you must work to keep people focused on smaller individual goals.

By doing this, you help make the project seem less daunting to everyone. If things aren’t going great overall, you can encourage people to just stay focused on their own tasks. This will help take their attention away from the bigger picture, even if for just a moment, which will make it much easier for them to focus on doing their jobs well.

A good way to do this is to spend some time meeting with each member of your team individually. This will give you the chance to go over what you expect from each person, and it will also help you emphasize to them the importance of their personal contribution to the overall project. Then, when these goals are met, people will appreciate the significance of their own work, helping them stay motivated moving forward.

2. Celebrate Success

Obviously the big celebration will come when the project is over, but it’s important to reward people along the way, especially if you’re going through a tough part of the project. Waiting until the end to acknowledge success and to celebrate it can be quite detrimental to team morale. It sends the message that all you care about is the end result, and that it doesn’t really matter what happens to people along the way. And no one wants to work for someone who has this attitude.

There are a couple of different ways you can celebrate success along the way. You could do something more individual, meaning you could call people in for a one-on-one meeting to congratulate them on a job well done. Or, you could offer extra compensation to those who have achieved above and beyond what’s expected of them, although be careful about this. You don’t want to come off as unfair.

You could also make this a team-wide thing. More specifically, before you start the project, set up a couple of milestones that you think are important. Then communicate these to the team and emphasize how important they are. This will help give everyone something to work towards even when things get difficult.

And these celebrations don’t need to be huge. Simple things, such as bringing in bagels for the team, or treating them to pizza, can help remind everyone that their work is valued. That’s often all any of us need to stay motivated on a difficult project: some appreciation and encouragement, and, oh yeah, pizza, too!

3. Emphasize The Project’s Importance

It’s easier for people to stay motivated when they can see how their individual work contributes to the project, or the company, as a whole. If someone is lost in their own world, completely secluded from the rest of the project, the it will be really easy for them to throw up their hands and say “what’s the point!!” as soon as things start going against them.

However, if they are aware of exactly how their effort fits into the overall puzzle that is the project, and also how that project is going to affect the health of the company as a whole, then they’re less likely to get to this point where they feel like giving up. Or, if they do end up feeling that way, it will be easier for them to pick themselves up and get on track.

Part of the reason this is so effective is because it helps to build a culture of accountability in your team. If every person is aware of the impact they are having on the project and the company, then they will also be aware that there will be more than just individual consequences should they fail. This sense of responsibility towards others can be a powerful motivator when things get tough.

4. Lead By Example

While we’d all like to think that in a professional setting people wouldn’t need an example to follow, this simply isn’t the case. As the project manager, people will be looking to you to set the tone for the entire project, meaning you need to do everything you can to stay motivated yourself.

Of course, it’s important to strike a balance here. If the team is really struggling and you come into work hyped up and super motivated, this might not only discourage people, but it might come off as phony, something that will turn team members off immediately.

So work to demonstrate empathy for what people are going through, but also make sure to show off your strength in the face of adversity. This will make people feel more comfortable with their own struggle, but then they will also have someone to look to that can help guide them through the more difficult parts of the project.

5. Encourage Constant Feedback

Lastly, the best way to keep people motivated through the tough times of a project is to prevent the tough times from happening in the first place. These means having a finger on the pulse of the project right from the beginning, as this will allow you to head off any issues before they become too serious.

How you go about doing this will depend slightly on your team. If it’s a small team, you may be able to solicit feedback in a group setting, as this intimacy will make it easier for people to speak their minds freely and openly. However, if you’re dealing with a larger team, then you may want to find a way to build in more private feedback sessions into the project schedule.

This could be in the form of meetings, or if time is really short, you could just make sure to reach out to each team member individually to find out how they are doing and what problems they are facing. Hopefully you’ll be able to get people to open up, and this will allow you to get to know them better, which makes it easier to adjust along the way and prevent people from losing motivation for the project.

The Tough Times Will Come

The worst thing you can do is be unprepared. No matter how good your team is, or how well everyone gets along, the tough times will come. And the bigger the project, the tougher they will be. As a result, start thinking about how you’ll implement some of these strategies with your team so that you can weather the storm and achieve your goals all in one piece.

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About the Author:

Kevin is an entrepreneur and business leader. He’s used to running large, complex projects and fully understands that’s sometimes, things get tough. His latest digital venture is Broadband Search, which is focused on making it easier for individuals and businesses to get better value from their broadband internet service provider.

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5 Ways to Ensure Your Project Team Remains Motivated When Things Get Tough was originally published in ProofHub Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.