Motivating people is critical. People drive companies, promote products, save lives, eliminate disease and change the world. These things are done in small focused group efforts or by creating a movement. Movements have something efforts don’t have — ENERGY.

Movements happen when an idea grows bigger than the originator. Movements are more than an just an effort, they become viral and participants make them personal. Why not turn your important corporate efforts into movements?

The most important efforts in your company should be movements, why waste time in efforts, that have half the return?

Rather than having an expense reduction effort, create a cost savings movement. Pick a cost savings goal that can make a difference, like eliminating the need for lay-offs. Give people a compelling personal reason to cut costs. Movements are personal, people need to “feel” the benefit to them and their peers.

Once you have identified the effort and set a goal, market it and brand it. Give it a name, “Save a Dollar, Save a Job”. This makes it unique to your organization, it creates a sense of ownership. It’s a lot easier to get excited about saving money to save your job or your friends job, than it is to cut travel because you got an e-mail asking you to. To create a movement it has to be personal.

To turn the effort into a movement, promote it. Asking or mandating people cut expenses on a conference call, or via email isn’t going to get people behind it. You need to find the influencers in the organization. Introduce the effort to them personally. Explain why it is important. Share the organizations vision of avoiding layoffs. Have weekly or bi-weekly newsletters and calls to announce progress and share the numbers. Highlight the divisions, and individuals who saved the most money. Give recognition to the person and group that created a creative new way that cut costs. Share how they did it and how much it saved. Create contests and get peoples competitive juices flowing. Make it fun!

An effort to cut costs, increase revenue, reduce carbon footprint, or attack a competitor is good. A movement is a whole other story.

What is going on inside of your company? A whole lot of efforts, or is there a movement afoot?