Misery Loves Company: Raise Morale to Prevent A Mutiny

  PM Network  

A bad economy can bring out some bad attitude.

Even as companies start talking recovery, traumatized teams aren’t likely to soon forget all the projects that got nixed and people who got sacked.

To say the effect on morale has been profound is to point out that black clouds lead to rain.

It’s often left to project managers to pick up the pieces of an anxious, deflated team. Is it possible to provide a captain’s leadership to weather this perfect storm of a stagnant economy and rising expectations? Or will mutinies by demoralized teams force more projects under?

Before project managers find themselves walking the plank, they should look at the underlying factors that contribute to a team’s mental malaise.

Desirée de Melo Oliveira, PMIRMP, PMP, likens poor spirit to a quick-moving virus that can spread through an organizational armada like an anti-motivational malaria, leaving disaster in its wake.

“In uncertain times, fear can run excessively and workers can panic,” says Ms. de Melo Oliveira, program integration manager at consultancy Capgemini, São Paulo, Brazil. “When the whole project environment gets contaminated by insecurity, the team morale gets hit. Fear masks our ability to see positive possibilities, and over time this can evolve into a negative atmosphere in the organization, poor …

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