One way to enthuse people in your enterprise is to focus on the outcomes that you and your employees are creating or enabling for your customers.

If they share the value that this is worth doing, they will own it as if it were their own, and your role becomes focusing them and orchestrating their efforts in order to realize that purpose.

A goal of all business people in the free enterprise system is to make a profit.

That may be a goal of your business, but it will never be sufficient, by itself, to motivate people to give their best. You have to identify, for them, the outcomes of the enterprise that they can be proud of creating.

This means that you have to market the story of your business idea to the people who work for you, and excite their imaginations to capture their commitment.

The Destructiveness Of The Dual Purpose:

At this point, there must be some tough-minded, hard-bitten business leaders whose skepticism is starting to rise. Does this sound like pap? Don’t turn off to this section just yet.

American business is in crisis today. Many well-known companies are wrestling with a crisis of confidence in their leadership. CFO Magazine recognizes a CFO of the Year.

The past three winners are currently in disgrace, working in once high-flying companies that are now bankrupt, or under investigation for alleged illegal or inappropriate accounting practices.

These companies illustrate a deeper, more pervasive problem. They are companies that espoused a public purpose, while their real purpose, revealed in their performance, was about selfishness and greed.

Henry Mintzberg and others, ("Beyond Selfishness," MIT Sloan Management Review, Fall, 2002.), have recently written to comment on the epidemic of selfishness and greed and its effect on both businesses in particular, and society in general.

They discuss the impact on all involved when greed and cynicism are at the heart of the enterprise, or when the public face is insincere.

On a more local level, your personal degree of commitment to the goals that you espouse will be watched and calibrated by your people. Demanding more than you give engenders cynicism. Respecting their commitment fans its flames.

By the same token, there is nothing inherently noble about winning a sporting event. Yet, the frivolity of art or sports is transformed when it serves as a medium for actualization.

It is noble to struggle to be the best that you can be, both individually and as a member of a team or unit. . These are purposes that any owner can tap, in any enterprise, if there is the interest in doing so. To think less is to underestimate your people as well as your idea. There is nothing “sappy” about it.

Hitching Their Wagons To Your Star:

The second way to inspire that kind of passion is to select people who will find that creating success for your idea is a viable way for them to create success for their own agenda. You can recruit the kind of people who will find satisfaction in what you and your company are all about.

The more that you’re aware of these expectations in your workforce, and the more you tie the success of your employees to the success of the company’s business idea, the more commitment and enthusiasm you’ll engender. Once again, this requires an effort on your part to market the broad values inherent in your business idea.

Creating the stories about your business idea, and the vision that you have for how your people can collaborate with you to fulfill it, serves as an excellent vehicle for getting people to embrace your idea and make it their own.

3. Hiring People Who Fit The Values Inherent In Your Business Idea

Tool Preview: An interviewing process for screening, identifying and hiring people with the character, as well as the skills and experience, which are essential to power the execution of your business idea. Find and keep the people who will strengthen you in multiple ways. [Read Now]

The Driven By A Dream Story: Illustrates the importance of knowing what your vision is, and finding people whose skills and motivation match the requirements of your vision. This story was in the book, The Story Factor by Annette Simmons. [Read Now]

Telling The Story To Your Stakeholders:

Putting your business idea into words forces you to think it through.

This is particularly challenging when you are not the founder; when you are two or three transitions (generations) removed from the initial idea of the business, and you’re trying to explain it to people who have not been around as long as you.

Or, you can be one of the second generation of owners, and feel like you came in to the play after an intermission, without really knowing the plot.

It is amazing how often we human beings tend to avoid nagging inconsistencies or ignore untidy loose ends.

When an idea is not fully articulated, it is difficult to critique and almost impossible to truly share with allies or partners. As discussed above, if you want your people to deliver your business idea, fully executed, into the marketplace, you have to talk it through with them. But it doesn’t stop there.

Your people need to repeat your story out in the marketplace enthusiastically. On the one hand, they need to create alliances with your suppliers.

The greater the collaboration, the more opportunities there will be for these companies to help you execute your plan. They’ll be able to anticipate actions that can add value for you.

They’ll be able to imagine creative alternatives, if they are drawn into your story and see themselves as partners with you in delivering it.

On the other hand, you can play that same role for your customers, if you connect with them effectively. There are two components here.

First, you will need to take the story of your business idea into the marketplace as clearly, and crisply, as possible. If it is vague or fuzzy it will be less compelling. Well stated, it will attract an audience that resonates with its premise, or that finds its message meaningful.

Additionally, your people can become more valuable to your customers by understanding your business idea well enough to realize how it does or doesn’t fit within the business ideas of your customers.

This usually requires ongoing conversations led by you, between and among your people.

You can’t assume that because you tell your people how your business idea can work for your customers, that they’ll understand and appreciate the subtle ramifications, without ongoing dialogue.

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