Today’s guest blogger is Edward Caulfield, a Service Management Professional with over 20 years experience in customer service management for high tech companies.
A few weeks ago, our family was deciding what movie to watch on television for the night. The choice boiled down to Ice Age 2, which my children love, and The Princess Bride, one of my favourite flicks. I am sure it is no great surprise to say that, backed by the influences of their mother, the children won out and I will have to find some other way to satisfy my awakened “The Princess Bride” hunger. While I think the film as a whole was enjoyable, I don’t think that I am all that unique when I say that it is a certain scene that I enjoy which makes the film most worth watching.
Although only a few minutes in length, the scene I refer to is one in which Inigo Montoya finally meets up with the man who killed his father and after being wounded by his father’s murderer, he repeats the phrase “My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die”. He starts off with a weak and unsure voice, which with repetition of the phrase quickly increases in intensity and volume until it wakes a hidden strength in him and he vanquishes his opponent. While I don’t usually take my philosophical lead from Hollywood, I do subscribe to the notion that passion and intensity are two of the most important aspects of long term success in any endeavour.
Passion and intensity are two of the most important aspects of long term success in any endeavour.
Why? For me the equation is very simple. Although the list of Human Universals is over a hundred elements long, at the forefront is the fact that humans are emotional creatures at their very core. We may like to think that we follow logical paths in our lives, however research has repeatedly shown that even those who sit in the executive suite and have the most expensive leather chairs fundamentally take emotional decisions and then create rationalizations with which to justify their choice. While spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations may pretty things up, the emotions are choosing which spreadsheet data to consider most relevant and images are used to generate the appropriate emotional impact to sway the board of directors in the desired direction. Look behind most spreadsheets and you get business’ single most widely replicated gift to the world – SWAG, the Scientific Wild Ass Guess.
When it really boils down to it, the world’s most prominent examples of success, be it political or financial, don’t point to strategy and planning as the pivotal drivers. Those things that change the world, those that make life interesting and rewarding, are driven by passion.
Imagine, if you would, what Fred Astaire would have accomplished if he didn’t have a passion for dance, if Michael Jackson hadn’t loved his music, if Michael Jordan didn’t have a passion for basketball, if Babe Ruth had been unsure about his desire to hit home runs, if Einstein had only dabbled in physics, if Edison were to have had only a passing interest in electricity. Where would Apple be if Jobs didn’t have a passion for his vision of making a difference? Had Ghandi or Mother Theresa not been passionate in their beliefs, our global ethical landscape may have quite a different hue. I doubt that Google, Microsoft, SAP, Oracle or any number of other world leading organizations would have made it half way to where they currently stand had it not been for the passion of key players in the organization.
It is my opinion that the level of exceptional execution from your team is exponentially related to the depth and breadth of passion that your team embodies. Create a team of “ho-hum, get into the office by 9:00, head home by 5:00, you can’t have fun on the job, nobody really cares, it’s just a job anyways” kind of people, and the execution you will get pretty much falls into the category of poor to miserable. Create a team of individuals who enjoy their job, who feel empowered and appreciated, who actually come alive when they explain to others what they do, then you have passion and the opportunity to create outstanding value. Create an environment where people actually get a kick out of what they do, where they feel that they are making a meaningful difference in the world, and you’ll absolutely rock. The difference, I argue, has little to do with inherent skill, pay scales, educational background, implementation of technology, or a meaningful mission statement. The difference, I argue, is passion.
I don’t think one has to be much of a genius to figure this one out, but courageous as hell to put it into action. Passion doesn’t fit well into a balance sheet. It doesn’t lend itself well to ROI. It implicitly acknowledges that the value that individuals create is not because they follow someone else’s orders, rather because they follow their own conscience and inner drive, thus leadership is more a function of enabling teams and keeping paths clear, than being the great visionary. If you want to drive a passionate team, you have to face the gauntlet of non-believers when you push for your program funding, as well as deal with the unique challenges presented by passionate team. They won’t always agree with you, and sometimes vehemently so. The only gratitude you will receive is the growing momentum of accomplishment and success where lesser individuals feared to tread.#p#分页标题#e#
To live passionately, is to live at the edge of society’s accepted norms. Passionate people seldom fit into anyone’s pre-defined mold or role perception, except for that of the wild-eyed asocial genius with unkempt hair.
While it is possible to quickly and easily kill passion, it clearly does not lie within your control to make people passionate. What does lie within your control is the selection of the individuals in your team, ensuring that the personalities you bring on board are well aligned to the goals set and the work being done. Additionally, although you cannot motivate people, you can inspire them. It is fully within your control to set an example by the way you handle people, to treat your team with admiration and respect, not only listening to their ideas and concerns, but to creating an environment in which they feel compelled – if not obligated – to express their opinions. As a leader, bringing out the best in your team is your primary deliverable.
As odd as it may seem to some people, most passionate individuals do not work primarily for money. They work for the experience of creation, for the pleasure of making a difference. Sure, there are legions of people who work ungodly long hours, fingering out endless messages through their crackberry, and while it may seem that they are working for money, nobody works for pieces of paper with the faces of dead people printed on it. They are really working for what the money brings them – luxury, acknowledgment and recognition. Money is not the ends of their work, it is just the means by which what they really desire is obtained.
Sustained execution requires consistent focus. Trying focusing for an extended period of time on something you have no real interest in, and you will eventually become bored and sick. A consistent focus, year after year, requires more than just interest, passing or otherwise. It requires a passion that says that what you are doing is more than just a job, more than a means to pay off your oppressive mortgage. Most people who are truly passionate about their calling – forget the word job – would probably execute for far less than they are paid, if that is the way thing would have to be to allow them to keep doing what they love. These are the people who enjoy coming to work and have the most ideas about transforming how we perceive our world.
I believe that if you were to take a look at any organization which you feel is one of the best you’ve done business with, either as a consumer or corporation, you’ll find that passion is what drives them. The only open question is, what is driving you?
You’ll excuse me now, as I break off this piece so abruptly. I want to head out to the local video rental store and see if I can find Inigo Montoya doing his passionate thing.
Throughout his career, Edward Caulfield has executed on a variety of fronts from his leadership of pre and post sales service teams for globally dispersed high technology companies, to service model conversion from free of charge to revenue & profit based strategy, merger and acquisition management in the global high tech market of OEM management at Cisco Systems, Siemens, Alcatel-Lucent, Fujitsu, and others. He was involved in Partner Managemenet at IBM, Brocade, NEC, Sun Microsysems, EMC, and Client Management at Google, Morgan Stanley, IBM, Colt Telecom, British Telecom, to name a few. Although born and raised in America, Edward has been based in Munich for the last 15 years and speaks fluent German.To learn more about Edward Caulfield, visit http://seriousaboutservice.eu//
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