A cynical staff group is more destructive than a demoralised one.It is not surprising that morale in the public sector is low, redundancies, another pay freeze and changes to pensions. The general view amongst professionals in health, education and social services is that their services are under attack and that many of them faced being replaced by unqualified staff. So they may well be advising their sons and daughters not to follow them into the profession, they may well consider industrial action but there is no evidence they will be any less professional in how they carry out their duties. They may feel undervalued by the government, the general public, even their own organisation but if they feel they can still make a difference to the lives of people then they will remain positive. Once staff start to question the integrity and motives of their leaders once they suspect the reasons for change are not the ones given then they become cynical. A cynical staff group is more destructive than a demoralised one One cynical member of staff in a team can bring the mood of the whole team down with their negativity. I have known managers reduce the frequency and length of team meetings and even stop having them altogether to avoid the impact of one cynical member of staff. Cynicism spreads, negativity can take hold of a meeting and suddenly the mood changes people focus on the barriers and very quickly people start adding to the reasons why it won’t work rather than how it can be made to work. Managers start to feel they are being asked to do something that can’t be done and that will be impossible to sell to their staff. The energy that should be used to find ways to make it work is used up in finding reasons why it won’t work.This is the risk we now face in the public sector not that staff will become demoralised, they already are, but that they will become cynical. The concern is that staff will come to believe that change is being introduced to give the impression of progress rather than any real improvement, that management restructuring is just an elaborate way to get rid of some awkward individuals, that efficiency is just a cover for cuts, that removing demarcation is really aimed at employing more unqualified and therefore cheaper staff.Countering negativity is a key leadership task for managers. Getting staff to focus on how they can make it work rather than list reasons why it won’t work involves taking responsibility and not simply saying, “Don’t blame me, take it up with the chief executive”. It requires managers to own the decisions not simple act as the messenger. But all too often managers feel they are not given enough help especially when they may have already anticipated the response of staff in their own questions to senior management and been made to feel disloyal or not on board. In the current climate where leaders are apt to say”we have no choice” the message that staff hear is JFDI where JDI stands for just do it.Blair McPherson author of Equipping managers for an uncertain future published by Russell House www.blairmcpherson.co.uk
