Team Morale Is Elusive

You may have heard me talk about the leadership myth that “happy workers are productive workers”… 

… conventional wisdom says that, if you want a team to perform, just keep your people happy! This, in turn will increase their engagement… which in turn will motivate them to perform.

Bulls!t… Let’s look at this from the perspective of team morale.

Years ago, I had a comment on a blog post from a leader with a background in the military. 

He wrote, “Soldiers with high morale aren’t ‘happy’: they’re confident, secure, and enabled to perform. They’re not well-fed, rested, and kept out of harm’s way.” 

This… is so instructive. 

You don’t build morale by being overly protective, or by mollycoddling your people. You build it by giving them an environment where they’re expected to stretch, grow, and achieve.

This is what builds individual self esteem… it’s also the foundation of high team morale.

The conventional “happy workers are productive workers” wisdom depends somewhat on our perspective on what “happy” actually means…

Are we talking about short-term, or long-term happiness?

As humans, we’re pretty poor at prioritizing long-term outcomes… if we were actually good at it, we would eat, sleep, socialize, exercise, and spend our time quite differently.

This isn’t because we’re bad or lazy — it’s because that’s the way we’re programmed

So, instead of driving towards the deep, long-term satisfaction that really embeds peak performance…  

… most leaders focus on delivering short-term sugar hits of happiness to their people.

Short-term happiness can be created by providing more flexibility in working hours or location… higher pay… and perks like free cookies, coffee, and pizza

But long-term happiness comes from helping your people to stretch, grow, and have an impact… from being able to see the difference their contribution makes… to feel the deep sense of self esteem that comes from achieving difficult things.

The short-term stuff is very attractive for leaders to adopt, because it’s easy, and people are happy when you do it… it’s a panacea for reducing conflict in the team.

… the long-term stuff, on the other hand, takes real work! You have to build your people’s confidence, security, and ability to perform.

Confidence comes from knowing you can handle any situation that presents itself… it requires resilience, and experience, and resourcefulness

… it’s the deep knowledge that you are prepared for anything

Security comes from knowing that the people around you have your back… you trust that they’ll be there to support you if you need it, and you’ll be there for them…

You also rely on your leader’s willingness to set and maintain a high standard of performance… for everyone!

The ability to perform comes from repetition, discipline, and experience… you constantly work on your craft, and seek excellence in every area of performance.