How Can We Create a Work Environment that fires people up?

It has been a few weeks, but Seth Godin had a great article called Fired up.
Who out there would not like there employees fired up. Seth related the experience of a couple colleagues reacting to his latest book Your Turn.

One person said, "After I finished it, I was all fired up, and I felt like quitting my job to go do something amazing."
The other one said, "That's funny. After I finished it, I was all fired up and I couldn't wait to come to work to do something amazing."

What people do at work and how enthusiastic they are about it is depends on several factors. Most are intrinsic right inside the person and you find these by doing a great job when hiring new people.

The other factor, of course, is leadership. It is possible to create a work environment, create an opportunity and depending on how you create a vision, and engage with people and provide quality feedback and all the qualities of great leadership, it is much more likely that people get fired up.

You can give people projects that allow creativity and tap peoples yearning to be significant and be a part of a common effort to create something special that has magic, that adds human dignity, that has a community and team component where people can engage and add energy and enthusiasm.

It just might nice to have something bigger to think and participate in that the role each employee plays in the daily industrial atmosphere of the standard work day.

Being part of a team that creates content that is useful to the community, that helps the community elude expensive problems, helps people understand how the company creates value, is a perfect project to get people fired up.

Of course, this is the example that comes to mind for me because this is what I really enjoy helping facilitate. There are many other worthy projects to undertake; creating a painstaking customer care loop where customers and prospects get timely care, is one.

Another is empowering your people to enjoy volunteering for community projects within your company's mission and purpose beyond just a branding or PR stunt; nothing has a greater impact on how your company sees itself that to show commitment and caring in the community and OBTW nothing creates better content that telling stories about your own team members doing and participating and playing...

Content creation as a team has so many ancillary dividends that enable wins all around.

• It can help clarify how your company creates value for team members. It works well to orient new team members. 
• It is something where you can exercise team building skills around collaboration.
• It helps to build an esprit de corp around which everyone can participate and be inspired. A great esprit de corp around a company is a great way to recruit great people who want to work with the best. 

Let's go back for one more pass at the comments from Seth Godin's original notes above. Your key people are critical to your success. They are not boundless sources of extra energy to fulfill your whims.

On occasion, managers fall back on the same key people in critical situations when extra effort is needed, and often take it for granted because key people get stuff done rather than complain- but but but Make sure you give them their due in authentic ways.

Make sure you give them the space they need to fulfill their intrinsic desires to excel and to set and achieve their goals, or great people can just get up and go...

We talk much more about personal motivation of employees elsewhere, but it is critical for leadership to be engaged in helping employees be an active participant in the success of growing the business. Each employee needs to be included in and feel a part of the core team responsible for success.

Fired up isn't something you can count on, but it's certainly possible to create a job, and create a work atmosphere, and treat people with respect and offer input and feedback and praise and trust that creates the atmosphere for firing people up.