10 Motivational Topics to Spark Your Next Team Meeting
As a new manager, you might be feeling the pressure to lead a productive team – as much as 70 percent of employee engagement is determined by you! But it may surprise you to learn that much of this engagement stems more from day-to-day practices than big projects and objectives. Simply striving to motivate your team during meetings can make a significant impact for the better.
So what does that look like? Well, motivation is fuel for team focus, morale, and synergy. When you build motivation intentionally, you build stronger teams and step into truly great leadership. Meaningful, consistent team communication will go far toward organizational success.
And fear not: you don’t need to be a seasoned speaker to lead motivating meetings. With the right prompts, you can facilitate powerful connections that spark engagement and ignite productivity.
Take a look at the following list for some conversation starters to try at your next meeting.
1. Learn everyone’s motivation
If you want more motivation and engagement on your team, start by learning what actually motivates each person.
Motivation isn’t a one-and-done checkbox. It’s like a campfire that needs fuel, heat, and oxygen to keep burning strong. Motivation it’s also deeply personal, like a playlist: what energizes one person might do nothing for someone else. So if you haven’t already, take time to have conversations in 1:1s or as a group.
Ask questions like:
What kind of projects do you love?
What drains you?
What does success look like for you this year?
These conversations reveal whether someone is more driven by growth, purpose, recognition, autonomy, or something else entirely.
2. Run a rose, bud, thorn exercise
A rose, bud and thorn question can help your team take a holistic view of what’s on their desk. The thought exercise highlights a positive, an opportunity, and a challenge, and identifies strengths and weaknesses, inspires ideation, and empowers self evaluation and growth.
I love asking the rose, bud, thorn question during weekly team meetings and 1:1s as the first question to build a sense of safety and trust. When your team feels like you truly care about them as individuals, this increases trust, which can increase motivation and engagement. In a team setting, ask people to take turns sharing answers. With larger groups, encourage people to type a rose, bud, or thorn into chat boxes.
Try this at your next project debrief or regular stand-up meeting. Looking to go deeper? See more trust-building questions.
3. Celebrate small wins
Don’t wait for big deals or mega successes to celebrate your team. Identifying small wins on a consistent basis can contribute to team engagement and long-term morale by acknowledging progression, growth, and individual contributions.
Ideas:
Publicly share praise and appreciation in group channels (e.g. Teams, Slack) when someone achieves a milestone (big or small) or went above and beyond on a project
Ask your team to vote for “Team Member of the Month” or “Quarterly Hero”
Encourage peers to share positive feedback with each other during monthly meetings or project retrospectives
4. Showcase resilience and adaptability
Setbacks are par for the course, but how you lead your team through challenging situations can define your leadership for the better. Sharing stories about bouncing back from difficult experiences can contribute to professional growth and foster team bonds. Start a dialogue about resilience and adaptability by taking a few minutes to walk through the five pillars of resilience, and see what reflections arise.
Another way to model resilience and acceptance of failure is to run monthly retrospective meetings where people share the types of feedback they received. This helps people accept that feedback is healthy and productive and not to be avoided, which can build resilience.
5. Realign on purpose and impact
When it’s a busy or stressful season, it’s easy to get laser-focused on impending deadlines and lose sight of how day-to-day work contributes to broader organizational goals. Yet a key hallmark of good leadership is clear vision, which you can maintain with a quick reflection on how your direct reports feel their work is connected to the bigger picture.
A simple gut check? Ask yourself: “Do my direct reports understand how their work connects to our broader goals?” Clarity creates calm. When people know what they’re working toward and why it matters, they can focus, prioritize, and move with more confidence. In fact, one of the most common themes I hear in 1:1s with individual contributors is a lack of clarity or vision from their leaders.
So don’t be afraid to level-set. Don’t be afraid to repeat yourself. Repetition is a feature of effective leadership, not a failure. Keep coming back to purpose and impact!
6. Focus on gratitude
It’s natural to have your attention at work pulled toward what’s not going well, so it’s important to take time to acknowledge and appreciate collaboration or a job well done. Inviting a brief check-in at the top of a meeting or during a project chat to tap into gratitude in an authentic way can make a world of difference in good times and in stressful ones.
Try these questions out:
What is one thing you’re proud of, but haven’t taken the time to celebrate yet?
What is one bold courageous move you’ve made over the last month?
What are you grateful for right now?
7. Have courageous conversations
Encouraging courageous conversations is an essential undertaking for new and seasoned managers. But it doesn’t have to be painful! Fostering a psychologically safe workplace, practicing your ability to listen, and contributing to a culture of feedback can increase engagement and build strong, resilient teams.
Real talk matters. When you are honest, authentic, and show up boldly, you give permission for others on your team to do the same. You can start with any of these ten questions.
8. Run a CliftonStrengths icebreakers exercise
Another great way to realign around purpose is to clearly highlight how your teams’ actions are contributing to your organization’s mission and values. Tap into Gallup CliftonStrengths language to encourage your team to take pride in their best qualities and support each other.
Hate the word “icebreaker”? It may bring to mind awkward games that lead nowhere. But leveraging icebreaker exercises that are constructed to foster genuine connections can set the stage for stronger, more engaged teams.
Try focusing on strengths-based activities to keep spirits high. This could include things like the Strengths Manifesto, the Marshmallow Challenge, or asking personal questions. Try these questions out:
What strength have you been leaning into lately?
Where have you been energized the most?
What project are you most proud of recently?
What strength do you want to start using more of?
What do you need from the team to boost your motivation over the next month?
9. Discuss prioritization
One of the biggest killers of motivation? Overwhelm.
When people are juggling too much, working long hours, and feeling like there’s no end in sight, engagement drops fast. It might sound counterintuitive, but one of the best ways to boost motivation is by helping your team feel energized.
People do their best work when they’re rested, focused, and clear on what matters most. So talk about prioritization — openly and often. If you’re not already meeting weekly as a team, try a weekly Monday meeting to help the team align on what’s truly urgent versus what can be deferred and what should be de-prioritized.
Normalize saying no to things that aren’t priorities. And as a leader, you need to own that clarity. Remove the noise, protect their time, and pay attention to energy levels. If someone’s online 24/7, they probably need support with boundaries, not more work. Prioritization is about sustainability, not just productivity.
10. What we’re learning right now
One of the qualities of great leadership is a commitment to learning. This can take many forms. Engaging in conversations about learning with your team, listening, and inviting feedback will cumulatively build deeper connections and normalize learning curves. You can implement this easily at quarterly check-ins or even organically as topics arise, whether it’s about a new tool, project, or industry trend.
Motivation is about creating space where people feel seen, heard, and energized. As a new manager, leveraging motivational communication topics and thinking exercises helps you lead with intention and build real trust with your team.
Try one of the above ideas at your next meeting, and you might be surprised by the conversations that follow.
If you need support in developing your leadership skills as a new manager, explore our Startup Manager Training Program!