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David
Lee
Consultant
Speaker
Author
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AR
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8
Ways Managers Can Improve Morale - Part One |
| By
David Lee |
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| Reprinted
from The Employment Times · April 19,
2004 |
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| 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.
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| In the first
article, we looked at four overarching
principles to guide morale-building efforts: |
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1. |
Remember That Goodies, Gimmicks,
and Gala Events Are The Frosting, Not The
Cake |
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| 2. |
Make Sure All Managers Understand “It’s
the Little Things, and Every Little Thing
Matters |
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| 3. |
Most of the Answers Are Within You and
Your Workforce… So Ask |
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| 4. |
Be Willing To Look In The Mirror – Especially
If You’re At The Top |
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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. |
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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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