You’ve asked a lot of deep questions, and I don’t have time to answer now (nor do I know what my answers are). But a few quick notes:

I’ve seen enthusiasm throughout a company of 40,000 employees, at Sun from early 1999 to late 2000. It was exhilarating and chaotic. Lots of self-initiated drive from everyone to improve everything. Lots of overlapping, redundant improvement projects. So lots of enthusiasm, managed and coordinated haphazardly.

As the tech bubble burst, that enthusiasm waned rapidly. My part of the organization became increasingly overmanaged in command-and-control style. I know I was less enthusiastic to the point of being often discouraged. I had to actively, deliberately manage my enthusiasm. At that time, Jim Batterson reminded me to work with people who have the energy to work with me, and that greatly helped me maintain my enthusiasm during my final months. Ultimately, I was very enthusiastic about being laid off.

That’s all for now. I’d love to hear more of what you and others have to say about enthusiasm.

I assume that you believe we share a definition for the term “enthusiasm.” But I think it’s always smart to test assumptions. Let’s test whether my definition matches yours:

Do you mean enthusiasm as passion — emotional energy — to produce some end product that is desired by people in the organization whose opinion count?

Do you mean the enthusiastic person can be calm and clear purposed with an awareness of challenges that they confront rather than a pumped up, overly optimistic, bubbling idiot who doesn’t have a clue about the situation?

If these meanings don’t fit for you, what do you mean by enthusiasm? Have you experienced this kind of enthusiasm in an organization? What’s the difference between this experience in sub organization versus the whole organization? Have you experienced on a large scale? What did it feel like? What did it look like? What’s your experience with gaining and losing enthusiasm?

I’ve worked in sub organizations that have had enthusiasm. It was the best feeling in my career. And it was the best work product I’ve ever been involved in. But I have never experienced it at a large scale. It believe it’s possible, but there seem to be severe impediments that seem to make it difficult to scale up the concept. Finally, in my experience emotional buy-in is powerful energy that can amplify results positively and negatively. The more people emotionally believe in what they are doing and the direction they are going, the more disappointed, for some, devastated, they become if executives make directional changes.

Thank you for sharing this ideas with me. I will be thinking about it constantly for a few days.