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ARTICLES & REPORTS

8 Ways Managers Can Improve Morale - Part One

By David Lee

Reprinted from The Employment Times · April 19, 2004

In the first article of this series, Are You Really Serious About Improving Morale?, we explored why saying “We need to improve morale. What program would you recommend that doesn’t cost much (or anything)?” reveals a fundamental flaw in one’s understanding of morale, and a questionable level of sincerity about addressing this critical issue.

In the first article, we looked at four overarching principles to guide morale-building efforts:

	1.	Remember That Goodies, Gimmicks, and Gala Events Are The Frosting, Not The Cake

	2.	Make Sure All Managers Understand “It’s the Little Things, and Every Little Thing Matters

	3.	Most of the Answers Are Within You and Your Workforce… So Ask

	4.	Be Willing To Look In The Mirror – Especially If You’re At The Top

In this two-part article, we will identify what supervisors and managers can do to improve morale. Except for the few comments referring to front line supervisors or lower level managers, every point in this article holds true for senior executives up to the CEO, president, or owner. Future articles will focus specifically on what only the CEO, president, or owner can do to improve morale; and on what HR managers can do.

The recommendations outlined in Part One are straightforward, practical steps you can begin taking immediately. In Part Two, we will cover recommendations of the “sharpening your saw” variety. To use Stephen Covey’s analogy of the exhausted woodcutter who would be wise to stop and sharpen his saw, if you take the time to do the recommendations in Part Two, it will be time well spent. These recommendations include questions designed to help you examine how you impact your people, and suggestions for ongoing professional development.

By increasing your awareness of how you impact your staff’s morale, and taking the time to learn more about the factors that impact morale, you will dramatically improve your effectiveness. You will dramatically increase your ability to not only cultivate high morale, but also high productivity and high employee engagement.

Focus On What You Can Control, Not On What You Can’t

Your first step in examining how to improve morale is to get clear on this point. Often when I’m working with supervisors or middle managers, I hear “You should be talking with senior management. They’re the ones who need to hear this.” Although they may be right, Gallup’s landmark research has shown that an employee’s supervisor affects their performance and loyalty far more than does the CEO or the overall organizational climate. Thus, even if your senior management team doesn’t seem interested in improving morale, research shows that you can make a huge difference. The key to both your effectiveness and job satisfaction is to focus on the things you can control and influence, and practice letting go of those things totally out of your control.

You have control over whether you take the time to learn what factors and practices affect morale. You have control over whether you make a conscious effort to do the things that make a difference, and whether you engage in professional development to improve your supervisory skills. You also have control over whether you study how to become more influential, so that you can increase the odds that others will do their part to improve morale.

Do “The Big Three”

If you were to do only the following three things, and nothing else recommended in this article, you would still make a significant improvement in morale. These three action steps are based on research revealing what factors make the biggest difference in morale and engagement. They are also the antidotes to three of the most comment complaints I hear in employee focus groups and in seminars.

#1 Practice noticing when your people do something well. Then tell them about it. Unfortunately, noticing good things doesn’t come naturally. Noticing what’s wrong is actually hard-wired into the human brain. Our survival was more closely linked to noticing what’s wrong – i.e. potential danger (“Avoid that poisonous snake”), than to noticing what is right (“Oh, look at that pretty bird.”). Thus, it takes conscious attention and discipline to offset this hard-wired tendency.

#2 Don’t’ just talk at employees; listen to them. Listen to their ideas about process improvements. Listen to their concerns. Listen to their opinions. This doesn’t mean you agree, nor does it mean you have to act on every recommendation you hear. It does mean that you respect them as intelligent adults. Few things damage morale – and an employee’s respect for management - more effectively than a know-it-all boss who doesn’t value the ideas of the people in the trenches. Not listening to concerns also creates a “Why should I care about you, if you don’t care about me?” attitude in employees.

Conversely, managers who listen engender engagement and loyalty. Listening also cultivates respect, because front line employees know that it’s just commonsense that the people doing the job might have a few good ideas about how to do that job better. Managers who don’t get this, lose the respect of their people.

#3 Practice showing more appreciation. A number of landmark studies over the last several decades have shown that appreciation is the #1 motivator for employees. Managers who don’t express appreciation not only miss out on this powerful motivator, they also sow the seeds of discontent and disengagement. Few things alienate workers more than when hard work, going the extra mile, and showing initiative are taken for granted. Therefore, practice noticing when your workers do these things and then letting them know you appreciate their efforts.

Engage Your Staff In Ongoing Conversations About Improving Morale

Tell your staff you’re interested in improving morale and you want to get their thoughts about what you can do together to improve morale. I think it’s important to emphasize “together,” so it’s clear that this is a team effort, rather than a “wish list” that workers get to make and managers are supposed to satisfy. Everybody needs to look at how they can contribute. You will also want to be crystal clear that this isn’t a magical wish list. Not all ideas will be feasible, but will be discussed and assessed.

Most organizations with high morale engage employees in conversations about improving morale in a formal way, through employee focus groups and surveys. They make it a practice to keep “wired into the voice of their customer (their employees)”. Despite how useful such formal approaches are, they don’t take the place of one-to-one informal conversations that build strong manager/employee bonds. Often when only formal approaches are used, employees become skeptical of management’s sincerity. They’ve witnessed far too many new initiatives start with fanfare and end up fizzling.

Because of this, you might want to take a lower key approach, by casually engaging staff in conversations about how things are going for them and asking for their insights and suggestions. Besides showing sincere intent, it also helps make such important two-way communication a regular part of their work experience, which itself increases morale and engagement.

Ask For Feedback About Your Management Style, Especially After Difficult Interactions

When I became a manager, I told my staff “My job is to bring out the best in you. If I’m not doing that, I’m doing my job. So… if I do anything that gets in the way of your doing your job well, or if I inadvertently say something that hurts your feelings, please let me know….” Because they had been in the work world long enough to question whether their boss really meant that, they didn’t immediately offer feedback or tell me when I said something that disturbed them. I had to be mindful of checking in with them every now and then to make it clear that I really did want their feedback.

If I wondered about the impact of a difficult conversation we just had, or if I had been too heavy handed about something, I would check in. Doing that not only provided me with useful feedback about how to manage each person more effectively, it also kept hurt feelings from festering and getting in the way of their working enthusiastically. It also communicated to them that I cared about and respected them. As we all know from personal experience, and as Gallup’s research backs up, whether or not we believe our boss cares about and shows us respect has a huge impact on our morale and level of engagement.

If you tend to be confrontational or if you think your staff are intimidated by you, you’ll need to overcome their reluctance to give you honest feedback. If you truly want honest feedback, you’ll need to prove it. You do this by checking in with your people every once in awhile, rather than giving a one time speech. Through repeated exposures, your workers will begin to believe that you really do mean it. You’ll also demonstrate your sincerity by graciously receiving the feedback, rather than getting defensive. Doing so is a challenge for most of us. In fact, when the Franklin Covey organization compiled the results of 360° feedback surveys their clients had conducted over the past decade, the two items that received the lowest average score were “receives feedback without getting defensive” and “is open to constructive criticism.” Even the great managers, on average, have a lot of room for improvement in this area.

Because it’s hard for most of us to respond non-defensively to feedback, especially if we disagree with the perception, you might want to get some coaching on how to respond productively. This will increase the odds that you will eventually receive the kind of feedback you’ll need to improve your ability to cultivate high morale and productivity.

Conclusion

Regardless of where you are in your organization’s hierarchy, you have tremendous influence on your staff’s morale and productivity. If you engage in the above actions, you will improve both. To make these efforts more than just another “flavor of the month” fad in the eyes of your workers, they need to become an integral part of your managerial style and actions.

In Part Two of this article, we’ll explore four other actions you can take that will help you develop a deeper understanding of how to inspire your people to do their best.


	About the Author: David Lee is an internationally recognized authority on organizational and managerial practices that optimize employee performance. He is the author of Managing Employee Stress and Safety, as well as dozens of articles on employee and organizational performance that have been published in trade journals and books in North America, Asia, Europe, and Australia. For information on his programs and service, click here.

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