In days of old a wandering youth happened upon a group of men working in a quarry. Stopping by the first man he said: “What are you doing?” The worker grimaced and groaned as he replied, “I am trying to shape this stone, and it is backbreaking work.” Moving to the next man, the youth repeated the question. This man showed little emotion as he answered, “I am shaping a stone for a building.”  Moving to the third man, our traveler heard him singing as he worked. “What are you doing?” asked the youth. “I am helping to build a cathedral,” the man proudly replied.

Sheila

Sheila was a teacher but retrained a few years ago as a fitness instructor. She runs classes every evening and on weekends and also trains in the gym most days. She is highly committed to exercise and sees it as the centre point of her lifestyle: “For years, working as a teacher, I used to exercise as much as I possibly could but never felt I was doing enough. So that’s why I gave up teaching and got into this new career. I know what you’re thinking, but it’s definitely not that I am addicted to exercise or obsessive about it or anything like that. It’s just that, well, it’s hard to explain, but being an exerciser, being a fit person, is a big part of who I am, if you see what I mean. If I had to stop tomorrow, it wouldn’t exactly be the end of the world but it would mean that I’d have to do some serious thinking about my life and I’d find it difficult to readjust. It sounds silly, but it’d be a bit like losing my name or something. I wouldn’t know who I was any more.” 

Lenin

Lenin is a construction worker. He loves physical activity of all sorts. He usually plays basketball or racquetball once a week, runs often, taking part in his city’s annual 10 km fun run every year. “I’ve always been into sport and exercise,” he says. “It’s not as if I’m really all that good at it. I mean, I never had any illusions about playing professionally or anything like that. It’s just great to go out and kick a ball around or run in the park or whatever, have a laugh with your friends, and just forget about work and everything for a bit. I love it.” When asked if he thinks exercising is good for your health, he says: “Well, yeah, I suppose it must be. But that’s not what it’s all about for me, to be honest. I don’t worry too much about the future and all that, you know. I just like having a good time. I mean, if I started thinking like, ‘Oh, this’ll stop me from getting a heart attack,’ or whatever, I think it would end up being just like work. I’d hate to get all obsessed about it like some people. It wouldn’t be any fun then, would it?”

Imagine you are the manager of a successful graphic design business with a staff of 20 employees. Productivity and employee morale seem to be at an all-time high. Employees seem to be quite happy with their work, and they are always working hard to meet deadlines and produce exceptional work.  

Your company’s workload is heavy and you have many large and important clients.

Your objective is to keep this high level of productivity and morale with your staff.  Describe what you would do to encourage your staff to continue to work hard and stay as productive as possible. You also want to make sure your staff members are happy and are always in good spirits, but also don’t want them to be too social and wasting company time. How do you ensure that a good healthy balance is achieved?

As the manager what do you do to keep this group happy, productive, and motivated?