“I think we are all kind of feeling down right now.  It was good for my spirits to put it together.”
Dolly Parton, about Better Day, Parton’s new country-pop CD.  (read full profile/interview, Talking with Dolly Parton is like chugging an all-natural energy drink, here).

“Advance or Decadence are the only choices offered to mankind.”
Alfred North Whitehead (quoted by Charles Mylander, Secrets for Growing Churches)

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I think many of us are pretty down right now.  The economy has rebounded – but it is mostly a jobless rebound, and it is a fragile rebound, and it may be a short-lived rebound.

Everybody I know is, in one way or another, somewhere on a spectrum between worried and scared – to panicky.

Our morale is low.

I thought back to a speaker I heard back in my ministry days.  This would have been around 1977, or so – 34 years ago!  I was learning about church growth, and the Institute for American Church Growth put on some seminars  (I think I heard this at one of these seminars).  I head Charles Mylander speak on “Building Your Church Morale.”  I adapted his material, expanded on it, and went around the country for The Center for Church Growth, speaking on the same subject.  I gave Mylander full credit, but our denomination was pretty in-house/exclusive/closed (one of the reasons I left), and so I was the “build your morale” speaker for “our group.”

In this current era of such low morale, I thought of that material from so long ago.  My notes, my files, my handouts are long since lost.  So I tracked down Charles Mylander (he goes by Chuck), had a great conversation, ordered his long out-of-print book, used, through Amazon, and just finished re-reading his chapter entitled “Build Your Church Morale.”  Re-reading, after a 30+ years ago first-read.  (By the way, I still own a copy, but it is buried in storage.  Amazon is much easier).

His intended audience members for this presentation were especially the folks who were in established churches (you know, the old, churches – like downtown, instead of in the new booming suburbs).  It is tough to maintain high morale when your church is losing members to the new, more “with-it” suburban churches.  The chapter in his book sounds like it could have been written for today’s economic climate.  We are something of a down bunch.

So, what do we do?  Here’s some highlights from Mylander’s chapter (I have adapted the material to the work world instead of the church world):

With low morale, tedium replaces freshness, and employees pretty much just go through the motions.  What remains is the appearance of vitality, of success.  But little actual success is experienced in such a circumstance, and effectiveness almost disappears.

So, how do you build high morale?  How do you turn around the morale in your company in such a time of low morale?

Here are Mylander’s two key findings:

1)     Morale builds through a contagious sense of expectancy.  When there is a contagious sense of expectancy, high expectations flow back and forth between the company’s leader(s), and the employees in the company.  And the interactions between the leader(s) and the people are positive, helpful, supportive.

2)     Morale builds through a series of good experiences.  You find any victories, any small “wins,” and you celebrate them.  Every little win is communicated, celebrated, broadcast far and wide, and then such good experiences spread and multiply, and they become even more expected — thus feeding the contagious sense of expectancy

Mylander, of course, weaves the role of God and God’s grace and leadership throughout his material.  But, the principles are transferable to any struggling organization.

And then, one asks – does high morale produce more success in the company, or does success in the company produce high morale?…

Yes.

So, here is your challenge.  If you have low morale in your company or organization, then you need to work really hard to create a contagious sense of expectancy, and create some good experiences, and capitalize on each one of these good experiences, and then… create some more.

As Dolly Parton put it, we need something good for our spirits.