Without passion, nothing happens. Passion as a lighter for reason. Passion as the sum of commitment and enthusiasm. Passion breaks the inertia that spills. Passion allows us to give meaning to effort and tenacity. Passion, purpose and results form a good triangle. I am writing to you about passion after rereading Jim Whitehurst’s book The open organization , which tells the story of the Red Hat company. The book dedicates an entire chapter to passion as a fundamental catalyst that does not normally appear in books that mark the canons of management. Without passion nothing significant happens. Olivetti’s passion for design on its typewriters and for a fairer company and society. Steve Jobs’s passion for calligraphy and design on his Mac, his love of detail as the last frontier of quality. The passion for technology and people that allowed Mateo Valero to create the Barcelona Supercomputing Center. The passion for the customer that changed the way the online shoe sales platform Zappos served customers and that ended up being the emblem of a company. Thanks to passion, a contact center can become the heart of a company. The passion that beats in Hiberus to grow, the passion that I notice in Ferrer with an unusual social logic, the non-strident passion, like a diesel engine, that I see in long-lived companies that remain consistent. Balanced passion, we do not have to become junkies, but enough passion for surprising and sometimes extraordinary things to happen in our organizations. By the way, machines do not exhibit passion, they do not give off emotion, they provide data and functionality.
I’m not talking about a crazy passion. It is not an amour fou. It’s something else. And the sensible thing is to be passionate. It is that passion that provides a patina that changes the way we work. It is about operationalizing passion to achieve impact. It is not the platonic passion that invaded some Renaissance artists as if just the sketch of their painting or sculpture was enough to intuit the power of the idea that nested behind it. No. It is about the passion for the culminated work. I continue with some examples that are close to me. ONCE and its foundation decided to consolidate their business division, in November 2014 the creation of Ilunion was decided and today this company is among the top five that offer more employability in Spain, employing a very high number of people with disabilities. I have never seen so much passion for work in people who often cannot see. In Ilunion I have simply felt emotion. The passion that, visiting Lanzadera, the start-up center promoted with the support of Mercadona, the entrepreneurs gave off when recounting their project or the passion of the Lanzadera team itself in exhibiting the 8,000 jobs created by the entrepreneurs they have had there housed. Passion is sometimes declined in learning, sometimes in innovation, sometimes in the creation of a community, and always in effort and perseverance. Passion must be built, it does not fall from the sky.
In organizations there are people who work through inertia, people who work to achieve impact and people who work with a sense of legacy. People who work from inertia deserve all respect, sometimes they simply have a hard time adapting to a world of changes that constantly challenge their inertia. People who work for impact are people who work to deliver more results than excuses. Achieving results is a way of serving those who want to serve and, in the process, guarantee the continuity of the organization. And then there are the people who work by legacy, many of them capable of sustaining a calm, constant passion for long periods, in order to leave something worthwhile, something that is not anecdotal, circumstantial, something that allows others grow, something that better combines the goal of achieving results with the dignity of people.
It is that passion that I feel listening to Joan Plaza, the great basketball coach, when he tells me that he is an insatiable hunter of new inspirations that allow him to improve his work as a coach, his mission to turn an egosystem into an ecosystem to deliver results. We need more passion and less nonsense. Let’s get away from becoming officials from nothing, soldiers of inertia, militants of the complaint, stewards of mediocrity. Passion is lived attached to purpose.
Organizations need three things: results, passion and compassion. Delivering results is essential. Without results, companies do not survive. Purposes unfold into results or perish. We can only define a humanistic management if we guarantee the results. To have humanistic companies, we first need to have healthy companies. The results cannot be obtained in any way, but they are not negotiable. Second, passion. Without passion, inertia defeats us, without authenticity, mediocrity engulfs us. And third, compassion. Not compassion as passive pity towards others. Compassion understood as the sum of empathy and action. I really liked the book on compassionate leadership by consultants Hougaard and Carter: “Compassion is the intention to benefit others. Compassion is not about pleasing others and giving them what they want.” In short, “having wisdom means having judgment on how to lead others and how to manage companies with purpose and sustainability”. In organizations we need results to survive, passion that accompanies our reason and compassion that accompanies people.
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