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ZDNet / Insight / Business / Story
Upping morale: Whose job is it?
Summary
Who has which part when it comes to whipping up morale? The manager, or team members?
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My theory on morale is that it extends beyond simple enthusiastic work and into
complicated psychological issues, such as dedication and a feeling of unification
as a result of problems.
One of my clients forced me into a conversation on the theory. After I started repeating myself, he bought me another beer. "So," he said, "this sounds like a decent idea. But you only mentioned goal alignment as a usable tool. Is morale all my fault?"
I looked him as squarely in the eye as I could manage. "No. It's more complicated than that."
"Why did I know you were going to say that?" He ordered up another round, and we started chatting.
A failure of thought
We first have to accept that morale is a process, not a set
of unconnected actions. No single action or set of actions can create team
morale. You cannot send your team to a motivational speaker or run though a
bunch of teaming exercises to create great team spirit. Worse, at least from a
management point of view, actions and games capable of helping one particular
team could end up crushing another's morale.
In reality, morale's elements build and disperse over a period of time due to the dynamic application of social and work pressures. If the quick fixes favored by modern speakers simply cannot work, what does?
Not enough time
Logically we should look to mechanisms involving incremental
changes for possible solutions. The hundreds of techniques involving
incremental change all share one common element: a constant investment of hours
over a long period of time.
Of course, the curse, cure, and source of responsibility is time, one of the most limited commodities in modern business. For all of our talk of productivity gains, people are working harder, longer, and in a less-personal fashion than ever before. Worse, we all know that the moment we express interest in something or spend some time on it, that thing becomes our responsibility in the business.
In terms of morale, therefore, each team member assumes responsibility for his interactions with the team, his role within it, and the social network surrounding that role. We, as managers, accept responsibility for establishing common goals and monitoring/mentoring the team unification process.
Let's discuss the first two elements—enthusiasm and dedication.
Responsibility for enthusiasm
It is easy to say, "Enthusiasm comes from working
toward a personal goal." However, this self-evident statement only
encompasses a small portion of the motivational arsenal and says nothing about
whom should wield it.
The creation of job enthusiasm comes from three basic sources: interactions with coworkers, the relationship between personal achievement and job goal achievement, and enjoyment of the type of work involved.
As managers, we can affect all three elements indirectly, but the individual team member obviously invests more time in them. If he does not, then he probably needs mentoring in basic personal skills. Our indirect influence can assist our team members toward a positive dynamic, but they have to invest the time to both create and sustain the system.
In the first and third elements—interactions with coworkers and enjoyment of work—we can mentor employees or engage in guided discussions, but cannot effect massive change on the skills they bring to the table already. Many of them learned their social and personal coping skills in their early childhoods; we cannot expect to make radical changes to those skills.
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As production is the basis of morale then it follows that primarily the individual is responsible for her\his own morale. His\her immediate senior is secondarily responsible as the senior can remove impediments to production, ensure sufficient tasks are assigned, align tasks and take other steps, including demanding a higher level of production from the individual. The team members are responsible to a lesser degree but by their actions they can create or enforce a more or less productive environment that makes it easier or harder for morale to be high.