Are you a Purpose Maximizer or Profit Maximizer?

RSA Animate - Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us - StumbleUpon. In light of the increased chatter on Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, and traditional business rags, I am sharing this very creative and engaging video regarding employee motivation. You may have heard of The Energy Project, well this is right up that same alley.

How do you create engagement with your employees? As a manager, how do you engage your teammates? As a leader, how do you engage your teammates?

The concept of a purpose maximizer over a profit maximizer resonates with me. If you had to pick one of these as a descriptor of your leadership style or intention, which one would you pick? What do you do to engage teammates on the purpose of your team's goals? Do you think of your job as a manager, leader, or teammate in this fashion? Its pretty powerful.

It has been a long time since we as a society have been as challenged as we are with respect to profit maximization, as a whole. Making a dollar hasn't been this challenging since the late 70s or early 80s by most of my instinctive perceptions. It can become very easy to be a profit maximizer, and that may pay off in the short-term, but what about the long-term?

All the buzz about engagement is at the center of this question. The key is knowing how to walk the line between being a profit maximizer and a purpose maximizer. It's impractical to choose one over the other permanently. I see the magic as being more of a balance between the two. We will always have that challenge, but my sense is that we have a heightened degree of that challenge these days given the current state of affairs in business and the economy.

Give this video 10 minutes of your time, and see if your personal and professional engagement is impacted.