Like deciding which button to hit on the elevator, your morale doesn't have to be controlled by external circumstances. Kris Girrell of CPI firm Camden Consulting Group offers a practical approach for both managers and employees to "take control" and stay upbeat in spite of the economy. I recently read an article calling for President-elect Obama to be the “executive cheerleader” in these challenging times ahead. Well, rest assured, this is NOT an article on how to be a corporate cheerleader! Morale does not work like that. Morale, like motivation, is somewhat like an “internal combustion engine.” And while every one of us has one in our car, tuning them and fixing them is often beyond our expertise. If you think it might be hard to jump-start a stalled morale, it is even more futile to play the cheerleader role. So the question becomes: what governs morale? How can we do anything to affect morale either for ourselves or for our employees? Generally speaking, morale (one’s cumulative emotional state) is the result of three basic tendencies that we humans use to measure our experience of living: our expectations, our influence (or voice in it), and our movement through life. For us to understand our ability to rev up this engine, we need to look into these three functions a little more closely. Our Expectations Our minds have a curious habit of thinking and abstracting – it is what they are designed to do! As a result, the human mind is always creating a list of expectations - projections, if you will - about how this or that will turn out. For the most part, these expectations function below the radar and are mostly fulfilled by how the situations and projects in which we are involved play out. But when our expectations are unmet and, worse yet, when our expectations are outright violated, we become upset and dejected. Some upsets are huge and debilitating (do you remember that bright sunny morning in September of 2001?) while others are experienced as minor setbacks. In either case, we (and our employees) continually evaluate life through this lens of expectations. When dealing with the morale engine, the first place we should check is our expectations. How had we been expecting things to be, and what are we now seeing that differs from those expectations we had been holding? You might have been expecting life to flow smoothly, or held some naïve expectation of a “happily ever after.” Either way, getting a chance to talk about those expectations can be a freeing process, especially when one realizes that some were not immediately available or even anything that the world could fulfill. Help yourself or your troubled employees to re-set expectations, by asking what is reasonable, yet optimistic, to expect out of this current situation. Create a positive image of what can happen and start by being more “intentional” about your new expectations. Having a Voice The second area of frustration and negativity is whether we feel like we have any “say” in the way things should go for us. We all have a need to be heard and when that sense of having a voice in things is lost, it can be quite upsetting and disheartening. Certainly no one feels he or she had any input into how the economy capsized – and yet, there aren’t many out there who don’t have at least some little opinion on what might be done to right the situation. Surprisingly, neither Bernanke nor Paulson have called to solicit those opinions! Yet I am being only slightly facetious here. In truth, our egos think like that. When our lives are so radically affected by rising prices, major hits to our 401K’s, or on our abilities to make ends meet, in ways we had neither a say in nor even the possibility of influencing, anyone can feel pulled down. Taking care not to confuse this with a missed expectation, we need to find a place and role in which we might have a voice. However, railing against the wizards of Wall Street, or the evils of capitalism is not going to help. Instead, identify those issues and topics that you can or do have a say in. Come up with new and innovative ways to deal with work challenges, or to save money. Give voice to redesigning a work process. Speak up and volunteer ideas. Get your creative juices flowing, and watch the attitude change as well. Movement The third emotional drainpipe has to do with movement. All of us need to feel like we are getting somewhere, or at the very least, that we are not stagnating or trapped. Ranging from the little bit of upset we feel when being cut off in traffic to the deep funk of job loss, our reaction to having our movement stopped, shut down, thwarted or otherwise curtailed is often quite negative. In the same way changes in the economy can have the effect of feeling confining: “I am in a dead end job and now I will never get promoted.” “There are no other jobs out there.” Again, this is not the expectation of movement, but the need for real growth and development itself. The good news here is that the down economy is rife with opportunities for growth and development irrespective of the lack of other positions or potential for promotions. Take a moment to reflect on your career. Isn’t it true that your greatest skills were developed under duress, when someone said “Here take this and run with it – but you are on your own!” Heroes and generals are made on the battlefield not at the beach. If ever there is a time that calls for movement, it is one like we face today. Focusing on developing the depth and breadth of your skills can have a very heartening affect. The key here is to note where the greatest pressure is felt. That is most likely where you (or your employee) need to move forward. Perhaps, motivation is an internal combustion engine, but with the right questions and tools, that engine can not only start up again, it can be turbocharged. Essentially, a turbo makes more air available so the engine has more power. Likewise, overcoming these three sources of “down time” is like pumping more oxygen into the emotional engine. So while the role of cheerleader might not be a good fit, you can be somewhat of a mechanic and do several things that restart and even rev up a stalled out morale even in a down economy. By Kris Girrell CPI firm Camden Consulting Group