I think you’re getting at something here, but I’d frame it a little differetly, notably that the learning from the experience of low morale could be that continuing hard work for hard work sake is not the answer to improving your conditions.
I think many of us are conditioned to want to “do our part,” especially if you find yourself to be a particularly value-driven person. Unfortunately one only need a cursory understanding of game theory to know if your strategy (“work harder when times are tough to improve material conditions”) is predictable, it will be exploited or, to put it more generously, “priced in” to labor models.
There’s a halfway decent book on this called “Exit, Voice, or Loyalty,” and I think at its root, low morale is a signal that Loyalty and/or Voice are not being respected, and an Exit might be the necessary reframe to preserve correlation between effort and outcome.
I think you’re getting at something here, but I’d frame it a little differetly, notably that the learning from the experience of low morale could be that continuing hard work for hard work sake is not the answer to improving your conditions.
I think many of us are conditioned to want to “do our part,” especially if you find yourself to be a particularly value-driven person. Unfortunately one only need a cursory understanding of game theory to know if your strategy (“work harder when times are tough to improve material conditions”) is predictable, it will be exploited or, to put it more generously, “priced in” to labor models.
There’s a halfway decent book on this called “Exit, Voice, or Loyalty,” and I think at its root, low morale is a signal that Loyalty and/or Voice are not being respected, and an Exit might be the necessary reframe to preserve correlation between effort and outcome.