KELLEY HOLLAND
ESSAY


Are there any disaster-related words left to describe 2008, or have we used them up? Catastrophe, cataclysm, tsunami - all sound trite after months of economic trauma.

It would hardly be surprising, then, if many of the workers left standing at the end of this long, long year were depressed, stressed or both. But because dejection is not a viable business plan, managers need to find ways to give their employees a lift.

That’s where team-building exercises and other morale boosters can come into play. The theory is that a trust-building game, a paintball session, a wilderness adventure, a cooking class or even fullcontact chocolate bingo - yes, it exists - will help promote teamwork, inject cheer and thereby encourage everyone to work harder and better together.

“The activity is a metaphor, and when you talk about the activity you start bringing that back into the workplace,”said Jeffrey Backal, chief executive of Team Builders Plus, which runs team-building programs nationwide.“You’re going to have a more cohesive unit, and people are going to get along better and communicate more effectively.”

But, too often, formal team-building programs generate only minor, short-lived improvements in morale or performance, according to Manfred Kets de Vries, a clinical professor of leadership development at Insead, the French business school, and the director of the global leadership center there.

“You can have all the morale-building exercises you want, but without leadership it won’t go anywhere,”he said.“Those rah-rah exercises will just be window dressing.”

And then there is the cringe factor. Not everyone wants to share private thoughts or play trust games with Joe from accounting.

Gretl Claggett, a former account executive in the employee incentive and motivation industry, described a flaw inherent in some team-building exercises.“If you asked employees,‘Do you really want to do this?’chances are they’d say no. They’re doing it because the company says we’re going to do this,”she said.

The good news is that what works is often fairly simple and inexpensive. The key to improving morale, several experts said, is understanding what matters to your workers.

Jon R.Katzenbach, a co-founder of the consulting firm Katzenbach Partners, has written about instilling pride in employees. He has found that the most motivational managers“make a personal connection to the worker, and that personal connection is used to make them feel good about the work they do.”

“That gives them pride in the work,”he added,“and if they feel proud of their work, they do a better job.”

Curbing executive perks and salaries can also go a long way toward building morale, according to Professor Kets de Vries.

“If you get paid 500 times what the average worker is paid, that is ridiculous,”Professor Kets de Vries said.“Don’t be greedy. Great organizations are team-based.”