Sticky Management Issues

Firing Employees Who Do Not Get Fired Up

In Employees with No Creativity, I said that leaders all too often try to extract from their staff the next "great idea" that will send their companies or teams into stratospheric success without first getting them excited about their work... or the company's future... or the clients... or anything at all, really. We expect our staff to reach into the recesses of their brains or souls (or wherever good ideas come from), heartily pluck these rare jewels of innovation and hand them over to us on a silver "great ideas" platter. Not just once, but seemingly all the time and for as long as they want to keep their jobs. I think that this is unreasonable, ineffective and frankly, more greedy than leaderly. (By the way, if anyone knows how to register a new word with Merrium-Webster, please let me know.)

Most of you agreed with me, but a few leaders offered contrary opinions like these:

"I hire employees with a high level of self-motivation and energy because I don't have a lot of extra time to spend firing up my staff. They either want to work at [company] or they don't. If they do, they know that when I call a meeting to generate creative ideas, I better hear some." "I can't keep employees on my staff who need continuous reminders about the importance of their work. We don't pretend to have the most exciting jobs in the world, but we still manage to generate lots of innovative ideas."

In both of these comments and in a handful of others, I read the threat of job loss for employees who were not self-motivated enough to generate creative ideas. I completely agree with that assertion. I know that I just surprised some of you. Don't worry; I haven't lost my management marbles. What I agree with is that most employees should come to work with sufficient self-motivation, critical thinking skills and imagination to offer a slew of creative ideas. What I take issue with is the assumption that leaders have no responsibility to engage, stoke and direct employees' inherent curiosity and drive. As I discussed in "Employees with No Creativity," the spontaneous generation of GREAT creative ideas requires higher-than-average levels of passion and motivation. If leaders just need creative ideas from their staff, then by all means rely on the self-motivation that brought employees to the office this morning. If leaders need GREAT creative ideas that will produce the extraordinary results that these uncertain economic times demand, I would recommend that leaders start fanning the fire. Not firing the employees.

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