Page 116 - Forbes - USA (March 2020)
P. 116
THOUGHTS ON
Morale
“Keep buggering on.” “My expectations were
Winston Churchill reduced to zero when
I was 21. Everything since
114 then has been a bonus.”
“The term ‘morale’ is never Stephen Hawking
used except in reference
to soldiers or people in
analogous positions, such “Military power wins battles,
as employees of large but spiritual power wins wars.”
corporations or prison George C. Marshall
inmates. No one ever
talks about the morale of
participants in a passionate “We either make ourselves
love affair.” miserable, or we make
ourselves strong. The
P.J. O’Rourke
amount of work is the same.”
Carlos Castaneda
“The greater part of our
happiness or misery
depends upon our “No soldier outlives a
dispositions and not upon thousand chances. But
our circumstances.” every soldier believes in
Chance and trusts his luck.”
Martha Washington
Erich Maria Remarque
“About a third of my cases are
suffering from no clinically “Happiness in intelligent
definable neurosis, but people is just about the
from the senselessness and rarest thing I know.”
emptiness of their lives. This Ernest Hemingway
can be defined as the general
neurosis of our times.” “A cheerful heart is good
Carl Jung medicine, but a crushed
spirit dries up the bones.”
“The best morale exists Proverbs 17:22
when you never hear the Gimbel’s Gambit
word mentioned. When you January 1, 1948
hear a lot of talk about it,
it’s usually lousy.” FINAL THOUGHT
A people considerately to get maximum
Dwight Eisenhower GOOD BOSS has to know how to handle
“Phrases like ‘the team results,” boomed Bernard F. Gimbel,
spirit’ are always employed 62, the 6-foot, 210-pound president of
to cut across individualism, Gimbel Bros. department stores. Gim-
love and personal loyalties.” bel, a former Penn fullback and wrestler, had guided
Muriel Spark his family’s chain from its humble roots in Philadelphia
to a preeminent spot in New York City retail, fighting
“If you are distressed by neighborhood rival Macy’s every step of the way. His
anything external, the pain management theory: “As Gimbel’s head man, it’s my job
is not due to the thing
itself but to your estimate to be a builder-upper, to strengthen the morale of my
of it; and this you have team, never to reprimand anyone in public, to give ev-
“Into which path shall
the power to revoke at any eryone a clearheaded, followable conception of what has workers be turned—the
moment.” to be done.” Gimbel would retire five years later with his one that leads to construc-
Marcus Aurelius stores’ sales having grown 40 times over, to $600 million tive effort, ambition
and contentment, or the
(nearly $6 billion in today’s money), during his tenure. one that leads to mental
“Morale is good; troops idleness, dissatisfaction
are confident; leaders SOURCES: GIVE WAR A CHANCE, BY P.J. O’ROURKE; MEDITATIONS, BY MARCUS and Bolshevism?”
are capable.” AURELIUS; THE SCIENCE OF SECOND GUESSING, NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE,
DECEMBER 12, 2004; THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE, BY MURIEL SPARK; ALL —B.C. Forbes
John Abizaid QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT, BY ERICH MARIA REMARQUE; THE GARDEN OF
EDEN, BY ERNEST HEMINGWAY.
F O R B E S . C O M M A R C H 2 0 2 0
