Learn how to apply the principles and skills of motivational interviewing (MI) to enhance your research and evaluation team's performance and outcomes.

With the four principles guiding MI, the critical part of the relationship with clients is vital, when clients understand the reason for their bias, how to handle their emotion, self reflection and awareness, it becomes easier for them to deal with resilience in life and career through this empowerment.

How can you build a stronger research and evaluation team using MI?

Motivational interviewing (MI) is a collaborative and client-centered approach to help people change their behavior and achieve their goals. It is widely used in various fields, such as health care, education, social work, and counseling. But did you know that MI can also be a powerful tool to enhance your research and evaluation team's performance and outcomes? In this article, you will learn how to apply the principles and skills of MI to build a stronger and more effective team that can conduct high-quality research and evaluation projects.

1 What is MI?

MI is based on four core principles: expressing empathy, developing discrepancy, rolling with resistance, and supporting self-efficacy. These principles guide the MI practitioner to create a supportive and respectful relationship with the client, elicit and reinforce their own reasons for change, avoid arguing or confronting their ambivalence, and encourage their confidence and ability to change. MI also involves specific skills, such as open-ended questions, affirmations, reflections, and summaries, that help the MI practitioner to listen actively, understand the client's perspective, and strengthen their motivation.

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Yemmie Olaleye (CMSA®, FTIP™) ✪

I help individuals make informed & strategic decisions in the financial market; impacting with charts. Market Analyst| Coach| Mentor| Thought leader| Futurist CFI: FMVA®| CMSA®| CBCA™| BIDA®| FTIP™| FPWM™
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With the four principles guiding MI, the critical part of the relationship with clients is vital, when clients understand the reason for their bias, how to handle their emotion, self reflection and awareness, it becomes easier for them to deal with resilience in life and career through this empowerment.

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2 Why use MI for your team?

Research and evaluation teams often face a range of challenges, from conflicting priorities to data quality issues. These can have a negative impact on team morale, communication, collaboration, and productivity. MI can help your team to overcome these challenges by fostering a positive and constructive team culture. Team members should be encouraged to share their ideas and feedback openly and respectfully, while also acknowledging each other's strengths and perspectives. When discrepancies arise, they should be addressed collaboratively. The team should also be flexible in adapting to changing circumstances and equipped with the necessary skills and knowledge to cope with any difficulties or setbacks.

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3 How to use MI for your team?

To use MI for your team, you can assess their current situation, needs, and goals by using tools, such as surveys, interviews, focus groups, or observations. You can also create a trusting and supportive environment by using the MI spirit (partnership, acceptance, compassion, and evocation). Then you can plan the team's MI intervention using the MI framework (engaging, focusing, evoking, and planning). For example, you can use engaging strategies to establish rapport and alignment. You can use focusing strategies to clarify and prioritize objectives. You can use evoking strategies to elicit and reinforce motivation. And you can use planning strategies to help with implementation and monitoring.

When it comes to delivery of the intervention, there are various methods available such as workshops, coaching sessions, peer support groups, or online platforms. The MI skills (open-ended questions, affirmations, reflections, and summaries) should be used to facilitate the intervention. Finally you can evaluate the team's MI intervention by using tools such as feedback forms or satisfaction surveys. The MI principles (expressing empathy, developing discrepancy, rolling with resistance, and supporting self-efficacy) should be used to guide the evaluation.

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4 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?

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Faezeh Elahi

Social worker
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Teams of people working together for a common purpose and in human history is a story of people working together in groups to explore, achieve, and conquer.Research and evaluation is the same in modern life, understanding and influencing the processes of team effectiveness in research need Paying attention to each ideas of team members,build clear communication,encourage honesty and cooperation between them,motivate them to share their information, enable more rapid, flexible, and adaptive responses to the unexpected subjects such a structure of work has made team effectiveness, focusing on cognitive, motivational/affective, and behavioral team processes to enable team members to combine their resources

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How can you build a stronger research and evaluation team using MI?

1

2

3

4

1 What is MI?

2 Why use MI for your team?

3 How to use MI for your team?

4 Here’s what else to consider

Motivational Interviewing

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How can you build a stronger research and evaluation team using MI?

1

2

3

4

1 What is MI?

2 Why use MI for your team?

3 How to use MI for your team?

4 Here’s what else to consider

Motivational Interviewing

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