I sometimes hear people wanting to reproduce the good guys at work. 

“Can we bottle what she has and sprinkle it over the rest of our staff.”

You’re missing the point my friend! You can’t just replicate the inspired energetic individual. She was like that before she worked for you. Someone, somewhere created the environment where she was inspired, caught the big, learned to love life. She was probably given the opportunity to shine. But she is she. She’s not her or him. 

You’re solution is not bottling the magic, you’re solution is to create a nurturing, inspiring environment for the rest of your staff. 

If your organisation has a splattering of good guys and the majority are just mediocre, what are you doing to inspire and nurture the mediocre? 

Imagine that you had two kids, one was inspired, energetic, enthusiastic. The other was not so, they were more conservative, less energetic, less inspired. What would you do? 

You’d probably find yourself trying to expose the less inspired child to things that would intrigue them. Try and engage there curiosity. Help them to find things that they loved and enjoyed. 

We don’t tend to take this approach at work though. We’d rather sit back and just wonder at why. Watch the mediocre guy struggle and fail. Well, some do.