Regardless of the outcome today, it was fascinating what a little passion did for the European Ryder Cup team yesterday: 5 and a half points to a half against the USA in the golf after Captain Monty said there wasn’t enough passion in the play and he wanted more. Whether that’s the whole story we’ll see after the event, but it got me to thinking about the role of passion in a business.
Those of you who have seen me speak at conferences will know it’s one of my pet subjects. Starting with people’s passions out of work and getting them to share what they feel passionate about – it’s a great way of bridging people to life and learning a little about the person beyond the suit at work.
Finding people’s passions at work can sometimes be more difficult. They want to develop their people, they want to do the right things – but what are they passionate about?
Well that’s what leadership is for. Does your business change the world for a better place? If it doesn’t then you’d better start thinking. I love the saying “Change the world or go home!”
You don’t have to stop world poverty. It can be in little ways such as a Facebook or eBay. Or the way a Mac changes the way you work – darn, there I go again advocating. Yesterday I used my girlfriend’s laptop – it was like going back to the steam age. Waiting whilst it opened, didn’t open, rebooted. Restarting after explorer crashed. And that was all before I started to order anything online. I’m used to opening the lid and starting, closing the lid to finish and rebooting about once a quarter. Sod’s law says I just crashed Mail whilst writing this – but it was because I tried to attach all 27 gig of my photos by mistake! But heh even that took 10 seconds to recover.
Passion is when people talk about “their business” and about other people’s businesses. When they get cross and angry if you mess with “their brand”. Sometimes what causes it is almost a mystery – such as first direct. Sometimes it’s just simplicity such as Amazon. Mainly it’s clear leadership towards something worth fighting for - and tons of hard, consistent and detailed work towards that goal.
So here’s two things to do this morning – assuming you don’t bunk off to watch the golf!
1) Sit yourself down and work out why your business is worth being passionate about. If it isn’t then change it.
2) Get your team to talk about their passions out of work to warm them up. Then get them to talk about their passions in work. Find the “passion gap”.
3) Fill the gap – change the world or go home!
Remember, no one got out of bed in the morning thinking “Whoopee, I’m going to save 20% of my budgets today!” or “Great day – I’m going to make the shareholders richer!’.
Tell me about your passions in work ( careful tiger….) and how your colleague discussions go
Read more about “100 things you can learn from Amazon” and “100 things you can learn from first direct” in our library at http://www.budd.uk.com/articles-listing.php
