If we want to use personal goals to create enthusiasm, we have to invest a bit of our own time in communicating with the employee and ensuring that he still sees the alignment and that the alignment remains true. Fifteen minutes a week per employee makes a world of difference.
Responsibility for dedication
Dedication, the state of being set onto a course of action, is an elusive personality trait the military tries to build into soldiers by breaking them down psychologically and then rebuilding them using rigidly defined rules. In business, we lack the ability (although not necessarily the inclination) to inflict such brutal damage and to heal the resulting wound.
Instead, we have to rely on whatever the employee brings to the table in terms of personal focus and psychological commitment to work. In some people, we hit the employment jackpot: employees who just love to work 80 hours a week under impossible conditions. Most of the time, our employees display a much healthier attitude: They like what work brings them and will do what they have to do, but they also have outside priorities.
As with enthusiasm, the individual team member has more time to invest in the elements creating dedication. He is the only one who can, in a practical sense, enmesh himself into the company's social framework. As he attaches weight to the social (rather than business) roles of the people around him, he begins to want to help his peers for personal reasons. These reasons vary from employee to employee. Some want to maintain their social status, others like to help friends, and many like to show off a bit.
As managers, we can make efforts to create a friendly environment and a strong sense of social commitment. We can use our charisma (if we have it) to become the social leader so that our goals become the social group goals. We also can invest time in our employees' relationships with one another, so that they have friendship bonds to drive them forward when the enthusiasm finally runs out.
