How do you ensure your team stays motivated and productive?

Situation: At a payments company, my team of 10 had just gone through a difficult quarter: we'd missed a major launch due to external dependencies, and two key engineers had left. Morale was low, and I could feel the energy draining in standups and retrospectives. The remaining team was questioning whether the project was worth the effort.

Task: I needed to rebuild motivation and help the team see a path forward without dismissing their frustration or pretending everything was fine.

Action: I ran a candid retro where I acknowledged the setbacks and invited everyone to share what they were feeling. I then shifted the focus to what we could control. I worked with each engineer in 1:1s to understand what motivated them—for some it was visibility, for others autonomy, for others learning. I created stretch assignments aligned to those motivations: one engineer led the technical design for the next phase, another presented our architecture to leadership. I also instituted a simple "wins" ritual in our weekly sync where we celebrated small progress. I negotiated with leadership to get the team visibility at an all-hands for the work they had completed despite the delays.

Result: Within six weeks, our team NPS score improved from 32 to 58. We hit our next milestone on time. Two engineers who had been considering leaving stayed. I learned that motivation is individual—there's no one-size-fits-all, and the best lever is connecting people to meaningful work and recognition.