July 13, 1999

Dear Mark,

Here is Chapter 4. The subject of morale should occupy a lot of thoughtfulness by people who want to be successful leaders. I remember a true story that kind of makes a point.

The manager calls in and talks to his boss. His boss says that apparently there is dissension in the managers area of responsibility. The manager says, "Right boss, morale is really bad." The boss responds with, "And who, might I ask, is responsible for morale in your area?"

This is a seemingly good old war story that makes the point and obviously is a good put down of the manager who calls in. The boss used it as a device to send that manager back to his people with his tail between his legs. During the telling of this story, there were always a lot of nods and nudges in agreement with the bosses behavior. I suppose it has its place but I never really liked the story. It didn't solve an apparent growing problem with morale. The manager's plea for help was not heard. Obviously, the end of the story was that morale in that manager's area simply got worse. There is a sidebar. The storyteller purported that he was the manager who asked the responsibility question. Incidentally the storyteller was promoted to vice president and managed a very large area. He did some things right. He was tough but also tried to be buddy, buddy with his inner group. You were with him or against him. There was no middle ground. After a destructive tour of about two years, he was forced to leave in disgrace!

I remember, as a boy, we always had trouble getting good help to drive tractors on our farm. It seemed that other farmers had excellent help and retained them from season to season. It wasn't until I was older and long in the business world that the reason became apparent. We had the oldest, slowest, loudest, clunkiest tractors because Dad wouldn't update his machinery. I can remember only one new little Allis Chalmers tractor. Most of our equipment was used and out dated. This is not to criticize Grandpa. He was successful and provided for us very well. It is simply a realization of why we couldn't get and keep good help. The neighbors had new combines and tractors and the help was very proud to say, "I drive tractors (or combines) for Mr. So and So." Mr. So and So happened to have a reputation for excellence in all phases of farming. Can you see the morale factor at work? If we relate this to your world, you could give me similar examples. Maybe people like to brag that they work for Intel, or IBM, or another excellent company.

Mark, we all slip into a wrong attitude. We have to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, put on a big smile, stand tall, walk fast and greet the world. Sometimes, we can't spot our slippage by ourselves. That's when we need somebody to say something like, "What's eating on you?" Sometimes, they say, "Who put a burr under your saddle?" A mastermind group person is sometimes more blunt. If we don't show some enthusiasm and a positive attitude, we slip deeper and deeper into a blue funk. With Sales Reps we called it the "salesman's blues". He would come on a Friday, having sold little or having had some bad experiences. He would grab the newspaper and start looking in the Jobs column. By Monday, he was usually ready to take on the world again. One salesman, Ray Dodson in Oklahoma City did this. He would go up to a customer's store, smooth his hair, stand straight, start whistling and walk in the door. His customers would always ask, "What are you so happy about? He'd answer, "Because it's a great day and I get to see you!" If he made five calls a day, he did the same thing five times that day. He felt better and his customers felt better. I could tell you lots of these stories that come from the best salesmen and managers I have known. There are no good stories like that about the marginal performers. The same thing works in an office. Then the people will ask, "What's gotten into you?" You can answer, "I feel great! If things were any better, I don't think I could stand it." You'll feel better. They'll feel better.

Maybe it is hard for you to take my words for these things. You don't have to. Feel free to go to a person that you respect and admire and ask them how they keep their positive attitude. You'll be surprised at what they tell you. I'd love to have you tell me what they say.

Love,

Dad

Chapter 4
MORALE

While excellent managers assuredly have high morale, morale of their people is not clearly understood by many managers. Nevertheless, discovering the secret of great morale may the most important factor in the success of excellent managers. It follows that high morale is a necessity of excellent companies. Some employees use it as a threat to their managers. Some lower managers use it as a bludgeon to force concessions by upper managers. The chief manager doesn't want the blood of bad morale on his hands. Consequently, the threat often works. Some concessions are grudgingly made. People are supposed to be grateful, happy and their morale restored. Concessions do not of themselves create good morale. They sometimes try but companies, or even excellent managers cannot give morale to their organization. Conversely, excellent companies that are highly successful, year in and year out will have extremely high morale amongst the people of their organization.

Pay does not generate high morale. Some of the highest paying organizations have significant morale problems. One of the lowest paying organizations, the U. S. Marine Corps, has the highest morale of almost any organization of any size in the United States, perhaps the world. By most organizational standards the introductory program is demeaning and abusive. The training conditions are terrible, yet the organization demands top performance throughout that period. After training, The work areas are often worse than in any other organization. Demands on the organization members are tough and relentless. The Marine Corp. is toughest of all the armed services. Nevertheless, they have the highest espirit de corps. They have the highest rate of response to recruitment and always fulfill their quotas. They stand tall, are proud of themselves and their organization. They are gung ho! Ask why?

The answer lies within the hearts and minds of the people of an organization. People must want to have a positive attitude. They must constantly avoid negative influences on their attitude. High morale begins with the attitude of the people. Unless this fact is analyzed and accepted, management will chase their tails looking for how to create morale and find it an impossible goal. Morale is a gift that employees give to their managers and their companies. It must be recognized for the precious gift that it is. It must be cherished and nurtured. To begin the cycle companies must hire highly skilled, positive minded, success oriented individuals. They must understand that these quality people want to show their families, their bosses, their peers and their organizations what they can do. They must give them the best products and the best tools with which to work. Then they must be given very high goals, requiring excellent effort but achievable by the best. For those who achieve these lofty goals, there must be a reward at the end. Those who want to grow with the company, should have that opportunity. Those who do not want management positions still want to show they can perform excellently. They should be given continuing challenges. This applies to all jobs within a company. Consider the lowest janitorial job, so called unskilled labor. Often they have a family to support. They are happy to have a job. They want to turn out good work. Janitorial services want to hire the very best that they can find. Anybody who has swept or mopped large areas knows that some skill is involved to do a first class job. If a company wants the cleanest floors and neatest work areas, why would they supply these people with cheap worn out brooms or filthy, worn out mops? This principle applies to every work area. Can you imagine a person who has achieved a Ph.D. in Physics, being supplied a worn out old hunk of junk computer and be asked to turn out excellent, timely, accurate data?

The basics of good morale are found within yourself. Individuals should not rely on a company to lift his or her spirits. First and foremost, you are totally responsible for your own morale. When you get up in the morning, you must decide how you are going to feel that day. You can't depend on the company to do that. They never have and never will. You have to tell yourself, "I look great and I feel great! I will have a great day! I will be up! I will have only positive thoughts! I do excellent work and I will be an excellent employee and manager! I control my own attitude and the way I feel! When I meet people today, I will be cheerful and helpful. I'm good at what I do and I know it! I will try to do even better, higher quality work. I will never owe my company! My company will always owe me! I'm that good!

As an excellent manager, you can only sow and cultivate the seeds of morale. Make sure that you hire only the best most positive people. Provide them with the best equipment. If the budget doesn't allow to provide everything, pick a significantly important need and provide it. If you have a whiner and a groaner, take them aside and level with them. Tell them that they are dragging you down and both of you need to get positive and stay positive. If you see somebody slipping, tell them soon and straightforward. There need be no back biting or beating around the bush. You can say that you have decided that you and your section will be the best in the building, or the area, or the company. You want them on the team and joined at your hip to make it happen. If your people aren't willing to perform at that level, they should look into doing something else for a living. Take charge of yourself and your area of responsibility. Make sure you have a goal or a series of goals. Let there be a reward at the end.

This may sound cruel and unfeeling. Unless you are in the rehabilitation career field, you are not in the business of rehabilitation. You do not have the time nor the skills to fix an unproductive, uncooperative subordinate, peer or boss. You have an obligation to yourself and your enthusiastic, productive subordinates and peers to argue your head off for what you know is right to allow you and your associates to be the best you can be for your organization. If the organization doesn't listen you have two choices. Run your department the way a department should be managed and hope the company follows. If the organization refuses to accept the truths of good management practices, then look for an organization of excellence. Don't look back because those unwilling to change will wallow in malpractice and neglect until they become a shadow of themselves. Examples abound. By their own admission Cadillac Division of General Motors went through a reawakening. Xerox is another company that admits they almost went out of business. The management of both companies conveyed a common description using almost the same phrasing, "When you sink to the depths of the gutter, you can go no lower and you have to make a decision. You do whatever it takes, spend as much as you have to spend, learn as much as you can learn and create a partnership with every employee." Both of these companies came back to win awards of excellence for customer service and quality of product. Cadillac has done a good job of getting back their reputation. Alas, while finding their way they let competitors take their customers. Xerox, as of last contact, had initiated one of the best customer guarantees available in their industry. They were back.

Without getting into more examples, if a manager or a company does the reverse of seed sowing and nurturing, morale will not get better. It will get worse. That is a fact but should not be used as a self serving excuse. Remember, you can control yourself, your life and your attitude. Upon taking charge of yourself you may be amazed to find a group of disciples following your lead.

  1. In your employment agreement, does your company promise to keep your morale high?
  2. When you get up in the morning, ask yourself, "How am I going to feel today?"
  3. Keep a positive and enthusiastic attitude. Smile and the world will smile back.
  4. Remind yourself how good you are and replay your best accomplishments to yourself.
  5. If you slip and get down, get back up and cheer yourself up.
  6. Watch your people and begin to sow the seeds of good morale.
  7. Your great attitude will begin to have a positive effect of those in your immediate area.

Recommended Reading

Morale
by William D. Kinsell

(Sales meeting speech just prior to his retirement.)
Edited by Fred Senko

The single most important element in the development of a leadership company is the living organization. Not the structural organization but the living organization. People working together as a team rather than as a collection of individual efforts, or departmental activity. Now this quality or character of a company is somewhat elusive and it's not easily defined. But it is just as essential to success as are the factories, the product lines, the financial and strategic business plans and all of the other trappings of modern business. What I'm really talking about, as trite as it might seem to some, is the factor of morale which is just as important in business as it is in athletics, or the military, or religion, or politics, or any place else where you bring together a body of people working for a common cause. But as important as morale is to the business organization and to business success, I find it rather surprising and somewhat disappointing that so little attention is devoted to this quality of organization in business theory or education. Business schools and seminars from the American Management Association right up to Harvard Business School place great weight in academic emphasis on strategic business planning, capital planning, marketing, manufacturing, R & D Planning, corporate structure, employee relations, motivation and the lot. But rarely do they deal with that single ingredient that provides the lubricant to make all of the rest of the machinery work: the morale of the business unit. I believe the reason for this is the fact that it's rather intangible. You can't grasp it. You can't bold it up to the light to examine it. You can't even define it. You either got it, or you ain't got it! And I have never ever known of a company which has achieved a high level of success and maintained that success year, after year, after year, which didn't have it. But conversely, I've known of a number of companies who had leadership positions in whatever field they were in and then subsequently lost their morale within the organization and their business effectiveness leading to a decline in their operating results and irreparable loss of their leadership position.

Many companies try to buy morale through exceptionally generous remuneration policies or liberal fringe benefits. Some seek to instill a spirit of morale by creation of a country club atmosphere and environment. And others believe that a policy of permissiveness in which the employee is encouraged to do his or her own thing will lead to high morale. Let me tell you. None of these things, in and of themselves, will work. No, morale is not something that management bestows upon the company. Morale is granted to the company by the individuals within the organization, working in their respective fields. And it must be earned by management! It is developed within the collective elements of the business. Sales, manufacturing, R & D, distribution, and administration by the creation of an environment in which the individual is offered both the challenge and the opportunity to fulfill his or her ambition and business interest by being able to fully capitalize on the skills and talents which he or she may have. Such an environment however is not a one way street. It must be accompanied by the disciplines, the objectives, the tough assignments and the goals which challenge that individual to do his or her very best; to get a hundred and ten per cent of his or her ability in the interest of the individual person but more important, the team as a whole. The company must also be responsive to those in the organization who have the ability and the ambition and the ability to fulfill that ambition through advancement to higher levels of responsibility. Conversely, it must also be recognized that advancement is by no means the universal motivator. Not everyone wants to be boss. To be successful therefore a company must also attract and retain a corps of highly skilled, highly professional salesmen and saleswomen, retailers, administrators, technicians, production people and provide for them an environment in which they can seek to do the very best possible job for themselves and their company. For example, the highly professional sales person really wants nothing more nor less than to be given the products and the support to be able to prove that he or she is very best. To be able to prove it to customers, to prospects, to the peer group, to bosses, to the company to his or her self and to their family. And be able to enjoy the recognition that goes with that both monetarily and emotionally. And that's usually why the organization with the highest morale is the one which is the most vocal. One of the characteristics of a high morale company is the fact that the sales force pushes management for the very best, just as hard as it pushes its competitors in the marketplace. When something isn't right, it lets management know it isn't right. When it finds there is a problem with a product, it lets management know that. If the programs aren't what they think they should be, to be fully competitive in the marketplace, it bitches its head off. Yes, the high morale organization is demanding of the very best. And believe me, management better damn well listen!

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