The Third Key To A Remarkable Workplace - Passion

Tuesday 25 September, 2007

by Charles Kovess

You can achieve extraordinary results if you are passionate about your work. What's more, if you and your employees are passionate, then your business success will soar! Here's how you do it.

What is ‘passion'? It's an unlimited source of energy from the soul (or ‘spirit' or ‘heart') that enables a person to produce extraordinary results. The reason the results are ‘extraordinary' is because few people are passionate in their workplace. Passionate people have massive amounts of energy.
Why is energy relevant to profits? Because money is essentially a representation of human energy. The equation can be explained like this:

• Money was invented 1000s of years ago to replace barter
  
• Human beings bartered goods and services
  
• These goods and services were the direct result of human beings ‘doing things'
  
• The more things they did, the more they could barter
  
• The amount of human energy determined how much could be done: that is, each person's productivity
  
• Thus, the more energy you had, the wealthier you would become

Contemplate the times and places where you have spent your hard-earned money over the past month. For example, restaurants, car dealers, banks, convenience stores, theatres and movies, fashion, shoes, lawyers and accountants. On how many of these occasions were you consciously surprised by the high levels of passion evident in the behaviours of the employees or owners who took your money? It is clear from anecdotal evidence of thousands of my workshop attendees, that the number of occasions would be less than 10%, if at all.
And yet, when you experience the positive, high energy, uplifting behaviours of passionate employees, you surely would not choose to go to any of the competitors of such an organisation!
So, how do you create this energy source in your business? You create an environment where employees can ‘live with passion'. Here are seven key strategies:

1. The leaders must be passionate
   
   If the leaders at the various levels in the organisation are not passionate, then employees are unlikely to be passionate. We know when people are passionate, and the evidence shows not many employees feel this way. In my view, that's why almost 90 per cent of businesses in Australia do not last 10 years: energy levels simply dry up. The passionate leader engages the mind, body and soul of the people engaged in the business and powerfully inspires them.
   
   In Australia, most businesses focus on the mind, so if you want to change anything, begin to focus on the body and soul elements of your people. This means encouraging your people to be fit, to rest adequately, and to optimise nutrition.
   
   It means allowing a balance between career and family, and a recognition that most people are working to create a better life for their loved ones.
   
   It means investing in people to help them identify what they are passionate about, and what kills their passion in your environment. Often, it is very small issues or problems that are badly handled, that then fester and magnify negative feelings and attitudes.
   
2. Share the dream that started the business
   
   "All successful people, men and women, are big dreamers. They imagine what their future could be, ideal in every respect, and then they work every day toward their distant vision or purpose". - Brian Tracy
   
   Anything that has ever been created started with a dream. What was the dream that started your business? It rekindles passion when you share that dream with employees.
   
3. Share the vision for the future with the people
   
   Now that you've shared the dream, where is your business going? What is the vision for the future? Why should employees commit to that vision if they don't understand it or don't even know it?
   
   Are you one of the few organisations that has clarified and then published its Purpose (or Mission), Vision and Goals? When I ask employees about these fundamentals, the usual response is sceptical, even cynical, laughter. In fact, very few employees can remember them!
   
   If your organisation has published its Purpose and Vision, are they empowering and inspirational? Do the employees understand what the words mean? Can they share these fundamentals with new employees and with customers? Do they want to share them?
   
   Many leaders are unwilling to share their financial and business goals with their employees. If you keep employees in the dark, how can you expect them to throw their soul, their passion, into your business?
   
4. Build trust
   
   Without trust, there is no communication. Without communication, the real issues are shoved under the carpet. Building trust is like building a brick wall; it can take years to do it, but the wall can collapse overnight.
   
   Still, both the brick wall, and trust, is worth building! Understand the power of trust and how it unlocks the truth, and your employees will be more willing to access their souls and their passion, and, more importantly, to contribute them for the benefit of the business.
   
5. Build team work and team spirit
   
   Not many people are ‘loners'. Most of us want to be in relationships, we want friends, we want people to care about, and we want to be cared for. Team work supports this basic human need. If you value team work and the team spirit, you will create the environment that allows passion to be nurtured, to grow, and to be rekindled when it is accidentally squashed.
   
   The two key criteria that build team spirit are trust and a commitment by team members to each other. In other words, team members care about each other. If there is no caring between team members, how could there be enough caring about customers? Employees will only care for customers to the extent that they feel cared for within the organisation!
   
6. Reward mistakes
   
   This sounds a bit scary, but we live in fast-changing times. Human beings are designed to learn through trial and error. Unless you and your employees are learning new skills, new attitudes, new ideas, you will be left behind! People who are left behind soon lose their passion.
   
   The tragedy is that employees are often punished for making mistakes. They were punished in school, and they see colleagues get the sack for making mistakes. There are lots of reasons why we hide mistakes. Stay at the forefront of technology by sharing and rewarding mistakes: they are learning experiences.
   
7. Have some fun
   
   Your business is not a life or death matter! The illusion is that if we don't make enough money, then we will die. If you let go of this illusion, you can create more fun. It is just not true that profits and fun are mutually exclusive.
   
   Fun is not something that happens at 4:36 pm on Fridays; it is an ongoing process where the leader is constantly thinking of ways to create fun. Fun is a spiritual component of our humanity: the more fun you have, the more likely you are to find people who are passionate.

To sum up

Passion is a very powerful force, and when linked with our minds, helps to create an outstanding and unstoppable business. If you take the above steps, the passion levels in your employees will increase, your customers will be delighted, and you will create the results that you want.

Source:ceoonline.com