Dear Dr. Larry

I notice that some of my co-workers are not very up beat or enthusiastic. I don't know if it has to do with their jobs. Or if it has more to do with themselves. Is the company responsible for high morale, or is the individual employee responsible for getting his own juices flowing?

Juiced on life

Dear Juiced

I take it from your letter that you are the kind of person that provides your own juice, no matter where you are. This is a good, but it is a rare thing to accomplish. Most of us look outside ourselves for the causes of our distress. It is so much easier to blame others, or our jobs, or our spouses when we are not happy. It takes a lot of maturity to accept responsibility for how you are feeling. I once read a book about a concentration camp survivor who was able to keep up his morale in the worst of circumstances. He did this by finding meaning in the smallest things.

That said, a company also has responsibility to keep up morale. Nothing kills staff morale like when an employee feels helpless to do anything, or is kept in the dark about his role in the company or where the company is heading. That is why a company has to communicate with their employees. Good communication combats a feeling of helplessness and promotes engagement and involvement, necessary conditions for keeping up morale.

Believe it or not, research shows that the happiest people are not those with the most money. Rather they are the ones who feel a sense of purpose - a sense that they are contributing to something that is bigger than themselves. People want to believe that they are part of something meaningful. It doesn't have to be grandiose or revolutionary, just credible and anchored in some values that the employee can identify with.

Companies with the highest morale are those that provide clear and reasonable goals for their employees and feedback as to how they are progressing. If the goals are too small, a certain amount of cynicism shows up. If the goals are too ambitious, they make people feel helpless. So the best thing is for the company to provide goals which are a bit of a stretch.

It's hard to feel a good about your job if you feel your fate is not in your hands. That is why it is important for you to align yourself with the goals of the company and focus on those areas where you can achieve tangible progress. Your spirits will lift, if you see yourself performing well in a position that you feel is important to the overall success of the company.

But you also have to believe that your own development is tied in to the success of the company. When your own personal journey and the journey of the company are part of the same story, morale has a way of increasing.

It is not possible for any company to maintain consistently high morale. Peaks and valleys in business are inevitable, and so is frustration, disappointment and anger. When you have these feelings, it is best to share them. When you let people know how you feel, you are in a better position to feel better. It is only natural to feel bad when business is down, or when more is expected than you can comfortably deliver.

Keeping up morale is like being on a diet. It requires consistent effort and is never over. When things get you down at work, you need to have a fall back position outside of work to keep yourself balanced. In other words, you need a life. You need interests and commitments that can keep you fresh, alert and aware. It's as important to take in new ideas and motivation from experiences outside of work as it is to find stimulation and meaning in your job.

So, the answer to your question is that both the employee and the company share responsibility for keeping up morale. Thanks for doing your part.

Dear Dr. Larry

A lot of the time I feel like I am doing most of the grunt work in my store, for very little credit. I'm beginning to feel like a bit player in a movie even though I've been here a long time. Do you think that I am appreciated even though I am not a star player?

Bit Player

Dear Bit Player

Too many companies underestimate the importance of the supporting players such as you with respect to long term performance. In our management meetings, we have learned to appreciate that the capable, steady performers in our company, are the best supporting actors in the business world. You act to keep the more charismatic or visible A players, the stars, grounded in reality. You do this without the need to call attention to yourself. In fact you are just the opposite of the squeaky wheel that needs to be greased. You make few demands on the company; just quietly do your job.

B Players tell the truth about things. Management can count on people like you to tell it like it is, honestly and without flinching. Because you are very interested in your work, you have the guts to ask the kinds of in-depth questions that need to be asked.

Another area that B Players excel is in developing an extraordinary feel for the organization. They become the go to people when something needs to be done, or some piece of information is required, or some difficult political terrain has to be navigated.

Assistant managers, office and warehouse workers and other employees who typically work hard every day to keep the business afloat, very often put their own careers on the back burner while they focus on servicing the customer and keeping the organization well oiled. The company simply could not exist without these selfless individuals.

People like you bring depth and stability to the company, slowly but surely improving corporate performance and resilience. You may never get the most revenue or the biggest clients, but you are also less likely to embarrass the company or to flunk out. You bring needed stability to the company because of your sure footing.

Your sure footing serves another purpose. During times of restructuring, or change, you don't get as rattled as people who have not been through as much as you have. Therefore you dampen the volatility that often comes with change, and you have the credibility with the rest of the organization when you share your sense of confidence.

Because you are most comfortable living in the middle of the organization, quietly doing your work, ignoring the political infighting as it crops up, you are the backbone of the organization.

None of this is lost upon upper management, even though management is too often busy with the squeaky wheels, or occasionally dazzled by the newest star to appear on the horizon. Perhaps your letter will reawaken this appreciation in the form of more public recognition of the critical role you play in this organization. After all, no matter how secure and grounded you are, it wouldn't hurt to receive a little nurturing and support from time to time. In our management meetings we have discussed the important role that positive feedback plays in making sure that solid performers such as you are never taken for granted.