Is “Passion” the best driver at work?

After my series about Negotiation I am going to change the topic dramatically and talk about Passion at Work. But don’t get me wrong, this is not a “tabloid” so I’m not going to talk about “love affairs” at work, though offices are still one of the preferred places to find your partner in life. I am going to approach this topic as a tool for leaders to motivate your team. Steve Jobs (RIP) used to say: “without Passion, any rational person would give up”.

When I was a kid I always remember my father, a prestigious neurologist, studying at home, in addition to his large hours at the hospital. I think I was around 12 when I saw him working at home on some books; I then asked him why he was working in spite we were on holidays. His answer still marks me: “I’m not working, son, I am enjoying my leisure time!” This is when I understood that, if you are passionate about what you do, then you have found “Paradise in Earth”. Sure, Motivation comes first and therefore it’s important to make the good choices in life when choosing your studies and your job. However, in addition to Motivation it is a as well a question of Discipline, because you will never be always motivated, and this is where Passion plays an important role.

Working on something that brings Purpose to your life is a blessing, and no matter what the topic is. Sure, if you work in professions with some kind of direct influence on other’s wellbeing, like Medicine, especially if you are motivated by your Vocation, it might be easier to find this Purpose in life. Nevertheless, whatever your job is, I am 100% sure that you can find the purpose of it and here is where Passion plays its major role because having passion at work affords people purpose. There is another interesting concept behind “Passion at Work”, and it is the fact that Passion has not to be necessarily linked directly to the job itself. I mean, in hard and difficult jobs (eg. Mining) we have to admit that it’s very difficult to motivate somebody to be passionate by their job. Though, this people might be passionate about their families, hobbies, etc. and therefore their job fulfills an indirect requirement to irrigate their passion. How do you then recognize what passionates your team members? Well, normally when people talk about a topic that passionate them, they will do it with a certain Tone of voice (higher) and Pace of words (faster) that make it easy to acknowledge it ... not to speak about their (expressive) Body Language!

So we can say that the role of a team manager is to create this “Passionate Environment” so people can blossom at their jobs. How can a manager make this happen? Well we can potentially define this approach as a mixture of Willingness and Ability to do the required job: the individual has to be willing and able at the same time if we wants his Passion to open up. If we draw a Matrix between Willingness and Ability, and use it as a Management Tool, we could find Four possible positions: Individuals who are Willing & Able, Unwilling & Unable, Willing & Unable and Unwilling & Able. In the first quadrant, the Willing & Able team members, our role as managers is to Stretch them even further: empowering them, putting them as head of project where they can influence others with their Passion and involving them in some of your decisions. For the Unwilling & Unable I will strongly recommend to use Empathy with them. Here the temptation is to either fall into sympathy and being condescending, either fall in antipathy and wanting to get rid of them. Try to help them to solve their problems on their own, but do not make the rest of the team feel that you are “supporting“ this group ...or Passion will drop dramatically in the whole team! Willing & Unable people reflects probably a lack of experience or knowledge. The best approach here is to use Coaching and Mentoring Tools: from a very direct Coaching (close guidance and follow-up), to indirect Coaching (briefing them and allowing them a “trial & error” system) and moving to Mentoring (asking them the right questions about the Objectives, Pros & Cons, Contingencies, etc. they have considered when given a project to lead). The last group, the Unwilling & Able, is probably the most difficult team to manage as it will be challenging to create the environment that fosters Passion. Putting besides behavioral issues, that should be treated apart, the key tool here is to use your Inspiration as a leader. We know that Inspiration is habitually in the higher levels of people’s personal drivers, so to inspire them we have to tap into some inner desire or inner value and understand what moves them in life. This might be probably linked to very personal values so you need to liaise with them on this basis, but avoiding whatever personal intrusion which is not your purpose as a manager. Sometimes Career vs. Values mismatches are the, cause of unwillingness. Using the “Five Whys” technique is a good tool to deepen in this mismatches.

Passion can not be taught but as a leader you can still provide the Environment in which those with passion thrive and those who are not passionate are given every opportunity to discover their passion. I have chosen to talk about Passion at Work because I reckon that personally Passion is my own gasoline. When passion is not anymore at whatever topic in life, I find it’s time to act. Speaking about work I call this “the Shower Test”: if in the morning, while taking your daily shower, you feel you don’t want to go to the office and you are not excited enough to go outside, then you have a problem of Passion and Motivation...and it’s time to change! This is my last article before the Summer break as I’m sure that many of you will go soon on holidays. I will come back after the holidays season with more topics to discuss, and interesting news. Have a good holidays and remember: the World has never learned as fast about anything, ever!