The climber Joe Simpson faced an apparently insurmountable challenge: getting down from Peru's Siula Grande, in ice and snow, with a smashed and useless leg. He lived to tell the tale -- in the best-selling Touching the Void (Harper & Row, 1988) and subsequent movie -- at least in part because of a mind game he played with himself. He broke the climb into small, achievable stages. Since each goal seemed relatively trivial, it was foolish not to try. And after each success, his morale was boosted enough to go on. Simpson overcame his sense of helplessness literally step by step.
In business, sometimes it feels as if you're trapped alone on top of a mountain. Every leader will tell you that in today's climate, most days are a tough climb, and that in order to succeed, every team must keep spirits high. In crisis situations, this definitely resembles being Joe Simpson. But there are plenty of employees at "good" companies who still feel disrespected and are unenthusiastic. And you're the one facing long-term issues of how to keep those people focused, driven, and optimistic, without burning out. How do you get people to keep going when everything looks so hard?
Nothing kills morale like a staff's feeling helpless. We all know that the business world changes constantly and that we have to adapt. But however well we understand this intellectually, random change throws us off kilter. This often plays itself out when there are rumors of a new strategic shift or a major personnel move, or worse, when the papers are littered with bad news about your company. A big part of boosting morale is about constructing a haven of logic that offers individuals shelter from any storm.
At its most basic, leaders have to communicate their awareness of business conditions and place their plans in that context. When a Boston design firm went through some tough times a few years ago, resentment between the management and the workforce grew. At a board meeting, executives expressed their frustration that no one was staying late and making that extra effort to do projects better, faster, cheaper.
But management had never spelled out the peril the company was in or revealed a plan for dealing with it. They didn't want to frighten employees. In the absence of information, employees thought either that their managers couldn't see the writing on the wall (so they were stupid) or that they did see it and were making secret plans for dealing with it (so they were sinister). Another mutually assured stalemate.
By contrast, the CEO of a furniture company successfully steered his employees through the trauma of being acquired with weekly, sometimes even twice weekly, updates. He'd gather everyone in the lunchroom and simply explain, this is where we are in the negotiations and this is where we're going. Why was he so successful? Because what he said would happen did happen. Each time he outlined a future that came true, he demonstrated his own competence and reinforced trust.
Recent research into happiness demonstrates that the happiest people aren't those with the most money but those with a sense of purpose -- a sense that they are contributing to something bigger than themselves. At least some of this has to derive from work. The purpose of a business, then, must be explicit and go beyond boosting the share price or fulfilling some bland mission statement. People want to believe that they're part of something meaningful. At WebCT, an e-learning provider based in Lynnfield, Massachusetts, CEO and president Carol Vallone involves employees by tying her business to the larger goal of making university education more accessible to more students. The sense of purpose doesn't have to be grandiose or revolutionary, merely credible and anchored in values.
Purpose is achieved through goals, and the acid test for any leader is defining the appropriate ones. Too small, and celebrations soon ring hollow. That's why celebrating the 100th successful call at a call center feels so silly. The 100th call was going to be reached someday, no matter what. Nobody's fooled into thinking it's a big deal. Small goals breed cynicism.
But then too-big goals produce helplessness. Although it can be temporarily thrilling to rally around a big corporate slogan like "Kill the competition," the reality is that employees can't do it alone and they can't do it quickly.
The best goals are those that are a bit of a stretch. When one of my former companies, ZineZone, repositioned itself, we had to redesign our products and processes in just 90 days. Everyone involved knew they'd set themselves up for a tough challenge and that reaching it was a real coup. And everyone knew that with each process they rethought, we were closer to the goal. We created energy and optimism rather than quashing it.
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