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It seems no matter what she does, her employees just aren't responding to her. At the beginning of the year, her entire team agreed to go for the big goal. You know, one of those goals you would just love to hit if everything went exactly as planned. And Karen was jazzed about trying to achieve something so big. She believed they had a good chance of hitting the mark.

But this month she's facing a huge challenge. Her team has hit the wall. I know you're saying to yourself, So what? We all hit the wall from time to time. You're right. We do. But it's in those moments of breakdowns where real leadership shows up.

Karen was calling because nothing she was doing was working. She told me: “I try to motivate my people, and all they do is roll their eyes at me." That's the problem. Karen was trying to motivate her team to perform. A bad move.

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I often see leaders looking outside their staff to stimulate better results. You try to do anything that will get your staff to perform. So you offer a big reward if the goals are met. Play motivational tapes. Hold high-energy meetings. But nothing you do works.

Why doesn't it? Because motivating your people is the old way of operating. This is the New Economy. You need to inspire your people instead of motivating them.

There’s a big difference between motivation and inspiration. Motivation is an external force that pushes, kicks, and forces your team to get things done. As leader, you are the one who has to take on the continuous task of finding ways to get your team interested and focused on the task. In my world, that's way too much work for anyone to take on. It's exhausting, frustrating, and just plain annoying.

Inspiration, on the other hand, is an inner drive that keeps you moving. It’s passion on fire. Being inspired stirs your soul. It stimulates our thinking. When you’re inspired, you naturally do the things you need to do. You don’t need someone or something else to get you moving. You just do it because it’s what you want — not because you were forced into it.

Motivation carries with it a lot of pain. Inspiration is effortless. And as a leader, you want to inspire your team to perform, not be responsible for kicking them in the butt to get moving.

How do you shift from motivating your team to helping them tap into their own inspiration? Here's an idea to get you thinking in the right direction.

Find out what they really want.

One of the best ways to find inspiration is to spend time figuring out why your staff WANTS to perform their jobs. That doesn't mean you guess at their reasons or assume you know. (You're probably wrong anyway.) Find out about who your people really are. Sit down and talk to your team individually. Why are they working? What is it about the work that excites them? What accomplishments will make them feel amazingly successful at work? What buttons do they need pushed in order to really go for it?

Once you know what inspires your team individually, you can use that to inspire them — no, not by cattle prodding them but by reminding them how great they'll feel when they accomplish something big for the right reasons — their reasons.

The truth is motivation is all about the other person. Not too many people will work at 110 percent just to please the boss. Inspiration, on the other hand, is about them. Make sure you're helping them see what's in it for them.

It's time to stop being like Karen and beating your head against the wall. The next time you sigh and ask yourself, How on earth am I going to motivate these folks? step back and ask yourself a better question. Focus on inspiration. Your staff will thank you. And so will your bottom line.

Jennifer White is founder and president of The JWC Group, an executive coaching firm with 15 coaches on staff. She's the author of the bestseller, Work Less, Make More: Stop Working So Hard and Create The Life You Really Want (Wiley & Sons, 1999); her new book, Drive Your People Wild Without Driving Them Crazy, is due out in April 2001. You can reach Jennifer at jen@jwcgroup.com.

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