People work for some reason, most often it's to make money to fulfill some mission of their own, buy a new car, pay the rent, go to the bar, whatever.  Over time this becomes repetitious, boring, and actually demotivating because their reasons lack meaning and value.  What if we define our vision and mission in such a way that they address the greater good and meaningfulness that we actually accomplish?  People buy our products and use our services to fulfill a need in their life, in most cases we fail to think about what that need is.  We are actually making peoples' lives better, making the world better, because of what we do here.  Our people need meaning and value in what they do if we expect them to become interested, engaged, and excited about their job.  Leadership must define and help them understand where the meaning and purpose is and to reinforce their role in doing good things.  Everybody wants to be a part of something good.  Be that leader.

Excellent organizations all share certain basic characteristics.  The benefits of being excellent are many, I discuss just a few in this podcast.  I've found that all excellent and well led organizations share certain foundational characteristics.  I identify 5 of these in this episode.