Team Morale

Team morale is closely related to team spirit discussed earlier. But where team spirit is about creating a cult of special-ness for your team, team morale is about being able to manage the intensity of the cult. You need to be in a position to control it like a tap, today more, tomorrow less.

You begin by identifying the “neutral” position. This will tend to depend on the individual personalities within your team and needs to be achieved through observation, not manipulation. Then you need to try out the controls, in the same way as you need to learn to drive a car.

“Up” is achieved by allowing them to persecute you a little more. Let them win a few more arguments than normal, or perhaps ridicule a you little more in public than the you would normally permit. Better still, create some artificial issues in which you take a patently ridiculous position, ideally one which can be painted as a “management view”, and let them talk you out of it. Then admit you were wrong. (If your organisation practices 360-degree appraisals or some relative of it, practice “up” before assessment time.)

“Down” is achieved by transference. All teams have one or more individuals who are either generally resented as more incompetent or obnoxious than the rest, or alternatively have individuals who are under stress as a consequence of their unfortunate home lives and therefore behave somewhat eccentrically at work, particularly if you can put them under pressure. Most of the time, these individuals serve a purpose within the team for letting off steam and/or holier-than-thou-ism, in a harmless sort of way.

However it is straightforward to encourage it to turn into something a little more sinister, by supporting the persecution of such individuals behind their backs. As it contains a lower element of risk than persecuting the boss, staff will tend to prefer it to persecuting you. Persecution can soon be turned into resentment. And from there, they are no longer resenting you so much, as they will have transferred a part of their quotient of resentment on to their alternative victims. It requires a little practice to get this right, since it can’t be overdone without becoming illegal or bullying. Make sure you try it out before you really need it, since the last thing you want at a difficult moment persuading people to take on tasks against their will is the distraction of a harassment case.

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Management, leadership or morale?

So, you need to find a way of causing your team to produce some minimum basic output?
 

The two styles of achieving this are known as management and leadership. The latter is usually considered to be better, but for entirely the wrong reasons. Leadership is a better style because it takes less time. Remember all this is mostly about getting unproductive necessities, such as work, done. You do not want to invest your precious time in it.

Consider for a moment. Management requires you to proactively monitor people and their progress, coach them, appraise them, hold regular review meetings of various kinds, track statistics, write reports etc etc etc. Time-consuming. Tedious. Missing the point (namely you). Leadership ensures that your people will do all this for you. If there is any management needed, that’s what Extension staff are for.

Large tomes have been written on the subject of leadership. They all boil down to the same thing: leadership means getting people to do what they want to do anyway. Unsurprisingly this is not too difficult.

Most people have an expectation that in the workplace they do not have complete freedom of choice about their activities. They can see a number of possible activities which they might be required to carry out. Some of them are clearly productive and sensible, occasionally even desirable. Many others are obviously pointless or unpleasant. Your task as a leader is simply to sell the ones you want carried out as productive, sensible or desirable, whilst painting all others as unattractive.  Then you place your staff in a position where they can select their work. Wonder of wonders, they will shy away from the unattractive tasks. If they should stray too far, and start inventing attractive tasks of their own which do not fit in with your plans, you can fall back on their expectation of not having complete freedom of choice. Naturally they then revert to the most attractive of those left, which is what you wanted them to do in the first place.

Some tasks are naturally attractive. Others may need a little spinning first. Tasks become attractive if they are “responsible”, “important to the wider business”, “strategic”, “developing”, “a logical career development step”, “only you have the range of capabilities necessary to carry this through”, “have high visibility with the Board”, “will increase your profile”, “major” and so on. Choose a suitable line, and remember to stick consistently with it. As before, avoid measurable targets in these areas so that the individuals strive to exceed their own expectations, since no one else’s are available.

Occasionally, you will come across a necessary task which is not susceptible to such spin. These are of course more difficult. Happily you still do not have to resort to management, you can still get by with just leadership, but the process is more complex.

There is little choice in this situation but to resort to telling people what to do, at least at a high level. They will inevitably resent this, since they are no longer choosing their activity through free will. This in turn will project itself into resentment against you. Once you are resented, you are no longer a leader. You become a mere manager. At this point, you need team morale to see you through.

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