Intrapreneurship: Leadership Defined For The Third Millennium

The secret to powerful leadership is understanding that there is a clear distinction between inspiration and motivation.

And what is that distinction?

For your business it is the difference between profit and loss and success and failure.
Does this describe your business?
You know that your organization is not operating at peak potential. Morale is low. Stress levels are high. You continuously receive demands to produce more with less. Professional relationships are strained and there is a lack of cooperation and support between teams. Absenteeism, tardiness and turn-over rates are on the rise as employees take on an indifference to the mission and goals of the organization.

Recognizing that action is necessary to infuse positive energy into your work climate you hire motivational speakers and trainers. The speakers provide a tremendous boost for your teams; employees leave the training infused with positive energy and a go-get-em attitude. For awhile you may experience a positive change in the work environment. But does it last? Chances are high that the rah-rah spirit was just a moment, unable to sustain any real change in the work energy climate.

What you have experienced is the difference between inspiration and motivation. Inspiration awakens people. Motivation moves people. Few people really understand what motivates people. It is this lack of knowledge of what really motivates each of us that keeps firms from achieving higher levels of success. To affect meaningful, permanent change you must change the way people think— you must change the way you think.

Most speakers and trainers are adept at providing inspiration— but inspiration is short-lived and certainly not the best use of your training dollars. To create permanent change you must accept that people are the ultimate source of energy and therefore the Power of your business. This Power is responsible for all the thinking, planning, designing and implementation that occur. They deal with each other and interface with customers. They are responsible for the results you achieve— negative or positive.

Your business is a complex energy system, where each employee is the basic unit of energy. In order to produce the positive results that you desire your employees must be operating in positive energy. It is impossible to improve the organizational energy systems as long as the basic units of Power, your employees, are generating negative energy.

The way to create this change is by understanding the ultimate motivation of everyone in your organization: to achieve higher and higher experiences of positive energy and less and less negative energy. Personal power is defined as the ability to produce the results you desire in life. Organizations have the unique opportunity to increase the personal power (positive energy) of their employees while increasing organizational results and objectives simultaneously. Eliminating negative energy is the most important factor in improving the human energy climate (and therefore the productivity) of your organization. You cannot maintain and increase positive energy while negative energy leaks exist in the system. The term “human energy climate” defines the net combination of all the human mental, emotional, and behavioral energies, both positive and negative, of an organization (business energy system).

Positive human energy, which includes commitment, intelligence, initiative, creativity, and good relationships with others, is the basis of smooth operations and high productivity of any organization. Negative human energy, which includes anger, resentment, hate, indifference, irresponsibility, and personal aversions, among others, is the root cause of interpersonal frictions, problems, and errors that interfere with operations and therefore diminish both quality and quantity in production.”

You’ve identified the problems, now you need the solution. You can continue in the status quo and hope for the best or you can make the decision to reach heightened levels of personal, professional, and organizational success. To remain focused, competitive and innovative you must create Intrapreneurship in your teams by:

• Teaching others by your example
• Looking for opportunities to empower others
• Fostering an organizational culture where employees are driven by passion and dreams
• Understanding that intrapreneurs are motivated by independence and the opportunity to contribute to the overall success of the organization by showcasing individual talents
• Giving employees responsibility and let them soar
• Providing employees with the personal and professional satisfaction that comes from a sense of accomplishment
• Embracing change and the opportunity it brings to the organization
• Cultivating a work climate that is risk tolerant, open to new ideas, and rewards individual initiative.

Positive emotional energy is what grows your organization. Negative emotional energy is what harms your organization. A person’s experience of positive energy is what motivates them to perform well and contribute their best. Negative energy motivates people to resistance, conflicts and sabotage. The positive energy of enthusiasm, passion, interest, commitment, determination, initiative, and resourcefulness in your teams is what powers your organization to success. For optimal performance— managers and leaders of the third millennium will understand how to improve the energy system of the organization. This is achieved by understanding that personal empowerment (necessary for happiness) is the ultimate motivation of all effort and behavior.

Victoria C. DePaul,
Author, “Creating the Intrapreneur: The Search for Leadership Excellence”
www.GalileoConsultants.comn