Esprit de Corps – Principles of CAD Management

Have you ever worked somewhere or with some team that just clicked?  Most of us have had this experience at some point.

A group of people just hit it off. They are firing on all cylinders. They know what needs to be done, who is doing what,what can be expected from each member and they hum like a fine tuned machine.  When this happens it is a wonderful thing.

The french termed this Esprit de corps.  Dictionary.com defines A feeling of pride, fellowship, and common loyalty shared by the members of a particular group.

Fayol defined this as happening when the right people are on the team.  Good to Great defines it as the right people on the bus and in the right seat.

He encouraged the development of teamwork, proper interpersonal skills and harmony among the workforce.

One specific thing that Fayol addressed was the writing of memos. He felt that direct person contact was needed at all levels.  Conversation is preferred over  hardcopy.  He went so far as thinking that writing memos to communicate instructions, directions, refinements and adjustments in workers processes without direct conversation was divisive and divided the workers rather than uniting them.

Esprit de corps promotes team spirit and will build harmony and unity within an organization.

Today we call it morale.  Morale is a touchy thing – several things can happen to kill it.

Here is a link to a great post by Calvin Sun on TechRepublic – 10 surefire ways to kill morale – he does a great job and mentions several things that I have discussed before

Takeaway: It’s easy to demotivate your staff without realizing you’re doing it. Calvin Sun highlights a few morale-busting behaviors to watch out for.

The sad thing about killing morale is that you can do it without even trying. In the words of a George Strait song, “It just comes natural.” But if you damage morale, you will lower the productivity of your group and create problems for yourself. Look at this list and see whether you recognize yourself in any of these morale-killers.

Go here to read his list