Remember, the best way to motivate others is to give them the opportunity to motivate themselves.

Having your employees hit the ground running on Monday morning often has more to do with what you do on Friday than what you do on Monday.  If you want to have a great Monday, you need to start preparing on Friday.

People tend to feel great on Fridays.  The weekend is coming and the excitement about the weekend, for some people, is better than the actual weekend itself.

I find it interesting that if you ask people what their favorite day of the week is, many people will say Friday.  One would think that Saturday or Sunday would be the clear winner, but Friday also ranks pretty high on the list and in terms of motivation, you can use this to prepare to have a great Monday.

To begin, pick a time on Friday when you can get your team together to prepare for the following week.  Keep the following in mind when picking the time:

• If you decide to have an early meeting, providing breakfast can put everyone in a great mood
• Long lunches tend to happen from time-to-time on Fridays, avoid times like 11:00 am or 1:00 pm so your employees don’t feel rushed during lunch or the meeting
• Don’t pick 4:00 pm, they may show up physically, but they’ll probably have already checked out mentally

Your goal in this meeting is to get your employees looking ahead and setting goals.

Top performers are forward looking and whether they’ve had a great week or a terrible week, this meeting is about getting your team focused on future achievements.  This isn’t about delivering a bunch of status reports.

Instead think of this as a group meeting to brainstorm and prepare for the future.  Another goal is to make sure that the important things are getting taken care and that urgent tasks don’t continue to push important projects into the background.  Here are some things you can discuss as a group:

• What are the important objectives for the week?
• What are the biggest obstacles we are likely to face?
• What can we do on Monday to set ourselves up for a great week?
• Are there any important projects that have been neglected that we can start on or complete next week?

When Monday morning arrives and everyone is already primed and fully associated with their objectives for the week, it’s easier for them to tap into motivation, even on a Monday.