Keeping Morale (and Productivity) High in Difficult Times

Respect and empathy in the relationship dimension, transparency in decision processes, and acknowledgment and recognition for results achieved — consistent practice of these behaviors will help create and reinforce trust between team members in the workplace.

Kelley Holland’s recent article, Improve Morale by Knowing your Employees [4], (Under New Management, New York Times, 12/26/08) explores techniques for building teamwork as a means of improving morale in tough times. The article explores both "feel good" techniques typical of traditional teambuilding exercises and Jon Katzenbach's recent work on employee pride.

It's inevitable that traditional teambuilding exercises yield only short-term gains — because transitory interventions can have only a transitory effect. Katzenbach's contributions to our understanding of the dynamics of pride in the workplace point to the importance of sustaining efforts over time, rather than looking for a quick fix. At the heart of his work is a recognition of the need to "make a personal connection to the worker."

This personal connection is one of three Dimensions of Success [5] that Interaction Associates has explored for the past 40 years. Along with assessing the strength of the relationships among team members, we also focus on the results the team produces, and the quality of the process used to produce those results. All three elements — results, process, and relationship — are critical, and need to be balanced to ensure long-term success.

What we think of as "morale" is intimately linked to the level of trust in the organization. Respect and empathy in the relationship dimension, transparency in decision processes, and acknowledgement and recognition for results achieved — consistent practice of these behaviors will help create and reinforce trust among team members in the workplace.