A half-baked idea: An important element of our humanity is that we adapt in several of these realms. We adapt culturally, socially, and communicatively. I’m not sure where that thought leads, but my gut says there’s something there.

I had just recently spent a few years working as a contract project manager for a major manufacturing company. The culture of this organization was unbelievably stifling to innovation. Projects that I had performed in the past for other companies took 3 to 4 times as long and were at least twice as expensive.

There I witnessed the factors of history, language, and society act as an anchor on my project teams. Never before had I found it necessary to work so hard to get people to share their ideas and to work as a team.

That organization did not value its employees or its customers. Management style was highly directive. Coming up with your own ideas was dangerous because if it failed the social sanction for it was extreme and reward for success was low.

This created an atmosphere of emotional and spiritual funk. Anytime an issue cropped up that needed attention people would ether ignore it or spend their time trying to find someone else to blame.

This place was certainly extreme but I learned a great deal about how to encourage a team to work together. I found that building a degree of moral awareness and self-efficacy was the most effective way to develop some ability for the team to innovate.

For me the essence of corporate culture can be measured by the degree of spirituality found in the organization.

Effective teams have a positive spiritual aspect that is not usually related to religion, but rather to the inherent strength of the human spirit.

The effective project manager must — must — tap into this source of strength in order to guide the team properly.

When a team is dispirited the result of their work is far less than what they are capable of.

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