I was coming back from the supermarket at lunchtime and overhead the following conversation between a young dad and his grizzling toddler daughter: "What's wrong? We're supposed to be having fun, man, what are you crying for? Why can't we just have fun?" The joys of having uncommunicative off-spring with unfathomable agendas. I knew exactly how he felt in more ways than one. I have young boys myself and I've always been amazed at how fragile their mood is, but it started me thinking about team morale and his exasperated questions sounded very familiar in the work sense too. Team morale is as fragile as a three-year-old's, but unlike my sons, team morale cannot be fixed through the application of a strawberry ice-cream.
"Why can't we just enjoy what we're doing?" will be a phrase often thought, if not expressed out loud by many a leader struggling to understand why morale is low. Unfortunately it's not usually one thing or another that is afflicting the whole team, but a whole spectrum of little issues associated with individuals that manifests themselves across the whole team killing off morale.
Individual morale issues can be addressed, but one sure-fire way to kill off morale across the team is to keep people in the dark about change. In today's environment where change is the norm and job security is at an all time low people really want to know what's going to happen and yet it may be impossible to provide the detail that satisfies the craving for knowledge. Unfortunately whilst it is understandable that leaders want to only convey finalised decisions the rumour mill will mean that those kept in the dark will have already made 2 and 2 equal 5 and their conclusions will be spreading like wild-fire through the organisation. This is not good. So, why not treat people like adults and tell people about on-going decision-making?
Giving people the opportunity to know about incomplete decisions sounds risky, but surely it must be a positive thing in the long run. Most people like to know what's going to happen or may happen and will grab any passing snippet of information they can in an attempt to rationalise their future. By involving them in the change process, rumour and conjecture will be removed and whether the messages are positive or negative at least people know where they stand.
Recently I witnessed this working when a new senior manager bluntly told a team what they already knew, but hadn't been officially told. Everyone was releaved, everyone felt better, even though the message was not very positive at least they now knew. They could then get on with their work knowing their future even though in 12 months time the system they were working on would be no more the communication gave them an opportunity to make sound decisions for themselves on their own future. On this occasion it worked. On another occasion it didn't - promises were made about a new office which never came to fruitition, but it only didn't work because no-one was brave enough to stand up and give an adequate explanation of why the promises never came to fruititon - leadership were scared to get up in front of people and say "we screwed up".
If leaders communicate on-going change, then the teams need to get on board too. There needs to be acknowledgement that communicating decisions or strategy prior to being finalised means they are at risk of changing. The leaders need to be prepared to stand up and explain reasons for change and the teams themselves need to be prepared to hear these changes in direction and cope, to do anything else will ensure morale will be as bad as ever.
At a senior leadership level, ambiguity and uncertainty are ever present and it's a world we're all familiar with and yet at the grass roots level, there is a preference for a black and white world with no ambiguity. It's the leaders job to ensure that the amibiguity s/he lives with every day is translated in to something that the teams themselves can cope with and understand. Treating people like mushrooms is not an option so somehow we need to communicate these ambiguities in ways that people will feel comfortable with. As yet, I don't think I have a complete answer, it's a work in progress, but I have found that more communication is better than less and listening carefully to what the teams have to say is also important.
Oh, and one last thing: Never, ever view the budget line-item that provides pizza to the team once a month as optional, maybe the morale re-boot with food does still work as well on adults as with children!
