Is your team morale in the gutter? Here’s what to do about it.
High team morale is extremely beneficial for businesses, but it can be a fickle issue given that it’s influenced by so many different factors.
However, if you want to revive your team morale, a good place to start is by looking at your standards.
Quite often, morale can be a reflection of our standards. If your standards as a leader are low, that’s a sign to your team that you don't particularly care (about your work and by association your team).
Simply, if you’re not committed to your work, you shouldn’t expect your team to be either.
Team morale: Two stark examples of standards
A good example of how standards can impact morale can be seen in the Netflix documentary Trainwreck: Woodstock ‘99, which recounts the disastrous revival of the Woodstock musical festival.
The original event in 1969 saw about 400,000 people descend on a picturesque dairy farm (complete with green rolling hills) in the US and treated to 3 days of arts, music and food.
The event was so successful it still remains widely renowned as one of the greatest music festivals ever.
Fast forward 30 years to the 1999 event where 250,000 were expecting a similar experience. However, what they got was completely different.
Attendees found themselves on a decommissioned air force base and had to endure polluted water, price gouging from onsite vendors, a lack of toilet facilities and a sea of litter as bins overflowed.
The Woodstock reboot in 1999 ended in widespread riots and has since gone down as one of the worst music festivals ever.
Standards set the tone
So why did the Woodstock reboot in 1999 end in disaster?
While there were a range of contributing factors, one commonly accepted issue was the poor standard of the event.
It was clear the standard of the event, as organisers focused on profits and cost cutting, was low, which set the tone for the festival goers’ behaviour and morale.
While this is an extreme example, the lesson can still be learned. Team morale is a reflection of the standards you set as a leader - both for yourself and for those affected by your efforts, be they customers, clients or your broader team.
If you prioritise profit over quality and care, it’s highly likely your team will too.
How are standards applied in the workplace?
Before explaining how to create higher standards, it’s important to understand the context of this in a professional environment.
When we talk about setting standards in your job, we refer to the quality at which you perform your daily habits, routines and tasks required as part of your role.
For example, when you’re in a meeting with a team member, do you give them your whole-hearted attention? Or do you become distracted, reply to emails on your laptop, or constantly check your phone/watch?
Your team will follow your example, and the standard with which you conduct yourself owns the lion’s share of that impact.
Creating higher standards for yourself
With the above example in mind, you can think about your standards in other aspects of your role.
For example, how do you spend the first and last 30 minutes of your work day?
Is this ‘dead time’ in which you make a morning coffee or clock-watch to go home? Or are you vigilant and make the most of your time during work hours (thereby setting the tone and standard with your team)?
A couple of other areas where you can set standards for yourself might be:
Stakeholder / sales meetings: Do you enter these meetings with a plan and specific outcome in mind, or do you take an ad-hoc approach and hope for the best?
Delegating tasks: Do you delegate tasks because you don’t want to do them? Or perhaps you’d never delegate a job that you wouldn’t do yourself. A good example of this is the New Zealand All Black ‘Sweep the Shed’ motto in which no individual is bigger than the team, and everyone is responsible for the smallest details - even cleaning out the locker rooms.
Setting team standards starts with setting your own standards. Take some time to think about the standards you currently hold yourself to as a leader, and how you’d like to improve these.
Creating higher standards for your team
A similar process to reviewing your standards can also be done with your team.
This can work well as part of a group activity by getting team members to list their main tasks and then thinking of suggestions as to how they could improve the standards to which these are executed.
This can be applied to many aspects of their roles, such as sales calls, project updates/presentations, client meetings, admin/record keeping and stakeholder engagement etc.
Keep it simple initially by giving your team members a goal of a simple 1% improvement. Overtime, as the team builds enthusiasm, seek to create bigger improvements by setting higher standards.
Lift your team’s standards (and morale)
If your team morale is waning, a good place to revive the sentiment is by reviewing the standards you set yourself as a leader, and those standards of the team.
Our specialist coaches perform as an extension of your team, and use researched, evidenced-based techniques to help create your own high-performing teams.
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