How do you keep up energy and morale when things go wrong with your project?

Dear Anish Abraham,
Communicate with your team transparently and openly. Don't hide anything. Keep top players in hand but maintain hierarchy at the best possible. Give them time. Sit with them. Organize small parties. Engage them. And ofcourse in communication, tell them the CAUSE for their assembly. Organize psychosocial sesssions like yoga. Keep balance between work, sports and private lives. These and your own approach as you are on the ground with them.So you can tailor all the approaches my predecessors have explained. Cheers.

Good thread. Just today a team member suggested that she would like to see the Project Sponsor show genuine acknowledgement to the team. I agreed to her that this could be a good practice indeed, specially when the project is approaching critical milestones.

Love the question....

The best stories are rooted in conflict. The hero overcomes the villain or the impossible challenge.

I find some parallels of this in projects and in life. I love talking with people who have retired and ask them, "What are some of your accomplishments that you're most proud of?" To this day, not a single person has talked about the boring days when they were sitting around eating donuts with co-workers! Rather, they talk about the challenging projects, the impossible delivery dates, delivering despite constraints, etc.

As crazy as this may seem, I try to remember--when everything seems to be going wrong--that this is just a chapter in the story. This could be one of those projects we'll talk about someday, of how we delivered despite the challenges. It's a variation of what Kiron and others have said about getting a dose of perspective....