Turning Into Organizational Performance - the role of passion in business management and leadership

Passion is not a privilege of the fortunate few; it is a right and competitive advantage that all organizations can leverage.

* A solid business plan and high-profit margin are critical to an organization's success, but passion can help turn good organizations into great ones.

* A number of private and public-sector organizations have incorporated passion as a key ingredient in their business strategies, such as Ben & Jerry's Homemade and Southwest Airlines.

* All approaches-- communication, education, environment, policies, and practices-contribute to building a passionate outlook within an organization.

What does your organization have that makes it better than the competition? How does it distinguish itself in an increasingly complex and competitive economy? Does it exude enthusiasm to clients and customers? Are your clients and customers excited about and loyal to your products and services? Does it attract and retain high-performing employees and strategic partners? If not, then it may be missing out on the greatest competitive advantage an organization can claim: passion.

Though skeptics will argue that a solid business plan and high-profit margin are of greater benefit, they are wrong. Certainly, both are critical to an organization's success. But while many companies have the technology and financial backing to succeed, few have the sheer emotional force to be the best. Essentially and fundamentally, passion is the competitive advantage that an organization can't buy. Passion can help turn good organizations into great ones.

Passion is the underlying force that fuels our strongest emotions. It is the intensity we feel when we engage in activities that interest us deeply. It fills us with energy and enables us to perform at our peak. Just as people can be guided and inspired by their personal passions, so can organizations be driven and defined by their collective passions. Organizations that are driven by the collective passion of their associates reap those same rewards.

A number of private and public-sector organizations that have incorporated passion as a key ingredient in their business strategy are featured in my new book, The Passion Plan at Work: Building a Passion-Driven Organization (Jossey-Bass: A Wiley Company, 2001). Consider the examples offered by Ben & Jerry's Homemade and Southwest Airlines. Both have achieved tremendous success because their businesses are passion driven. They acknowledge the importance of tried-and-true business principles, but they focus on the forces that truly motivate them rather than those that might seem more logical. These companies prioritize passion over protocol and are unwilling to compromise it to earn a quick buck or gain the approval of critics.

Passion in action

Ben & Jerry's Homemade. When Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield opened their first ice cream shop in 1977, they wanted to create something different. They hoped to establish a profitable business, but, more important, they wanted to make a difference in the world. They wanted to give something back to their community. They started small by throwing a local festival and giving away free ice cream cones. As their business grew, they expanded their efforts by donating an unparalleled percentage of profits to charity, forming partnerships with minority suppliers, and developing environment-friendly packaging.

Ben's and Jerry's unrelenting passion for social responsibility shaped all aspects of their business. From product development to marketing to human resources to operations, the company's leaders are guided in their decision making by the social impact of their efforts, even when doing that meant slimmer profit margins. The results were remarkable. The business that began in an old gas station in Vermont sold hundreds of millions of dollars worth of ice cream every year and was recently named by the Wall Street Journal as one of the most respected U.S. companies.

Southwest Airlines. This company's passion also defied conventional business wisdom. Founders Rollin King and Herb Kelleher agreed that the major airlines were charging far too much money for what was poor service. So, they decided to create an airline that would charge markedly lower fares and offer friendly, fast service. Despite an onslaught of legal battles from their larger, more powerful competitors, Southwest prevailed and opened up the skies to thousands, if not millions, of people who had previously considered air travel too expensive.

Employees of Southwest Airlines are united and driven by their passion for freedom. Not only do they provide it to customers, but they also nurture it within the company. Everyone from senior executives to baggage handlers has the freedom to make on-the-spot decisions. Employees are encouraged to be creative and "color outside the lines" in their work. They make improvements on their own initiative, serve customers in their own unique ways--singing, dancing, and cracking jokes--and shun the rigid formality of their competitors. Guided by its passion for freedom, Southwest turns a profit even when other airlines post huge losses.

Organizations like Ben & Jerry's and Southwest are just two examples of the spectacular results a passion-driven organization can achieve. When the members of an organization are united by a common passion-whether for technological innovation, unparalleled customer service, or creating the ultimate product-they perform at a heightened level, putting forth tremendous effort but enjoying themselves in the process. They exude an excitement that attracts customers and employees and wins their loyalty. Quite simply, they are great places that are accomplishing great things.

You might be surprised by the idea that emotion can be the driving force behind a solid business strategy. We often think of business-especially "big business"-as cold and heartless. But consider business from the human perspective. A business exists only when there are people to run it and purchase its products and services.

Employees and customers have feelings that compel them to act the way they do. People don't check their personalities at the office door and become organizational automatons; their performance is predicated on their feelings toward their work. Customers don't buy just anything; they often make purchasing decisions based on emotional responses to products and services, and to the organizations that provide them.

Seven steps to passion-driven success

Regardless of where your organization is, it can make the changes necessary to become passion driven. Here are seven steps toward that transformation. Many organizations have taken one or two of these steps but have failed to fully align their businesses around passion. Until they address each step, their efforts will be limited.

Step 1: Start from the heart. For passion to be effective, it must be the foundation of the organization. It's not a technique for improvement but the starting point from which all else emanates. Purpose, vision, culture, strategy, policies, and practices must all reflect the underlying passion of the organization.

Step 2: Discover core passions. Once the organization has acknowledged the importance of passion, it must identify the ideas and activities that inspire its performance. Those forces, which matter most to the organization and give it life, are its core passions.

Step 3: Clarify purpose. Many organizations have identified one or more purposes for existing. Often, however, those purposes don't reflect the underlying passions of the organization. Leaders and associates must have a clear definition of where the core passions will lead the organization. If they don't share the same sense of purpose, their passion may lead them in divergent directions and compromise the stability of the organization.

Step 4: Define actions. To ensure that being passion driven will be productive, organizations must create strategies and plans that target passion as the catalyst for change and the source of future excellence. The action plan the organization creates should outline strategies for capitalizing on existing passions and nurturing new ones.

Step 5: Perform with passion. Once a plan is in place, the organization can begin acting on its passions. That will be liberating for leaders and associates alike. People who are aligned around the passions and purpose of the organization and excited about them will begin to perform at a higher level as passion enters their work. The organization will become self-motivated and increasingly capable, with little need for outside guidance or inspiration.

Step 6: Spread excitement. The organization that acts with passion gains notice from the outside world, spreading its excitement to customers, colleagues, potential employees, and even critics. Internal learning and development programs can help employees identify personal passions and put them to work on the job. External communication programs and marketing efforts can expose customers and colleagues to the organization's core passions and give those people an opportunity to build personal enthusiasm around the organization's efforts.

Step 7: Stay the course. Passion based change is exhilarating. Once the organization has cleared the initial hurdles of fear and caution, it discovers that passion-based change is energizing. However, passion-driven organizations also take measures to ensure that they don't lose sight of the passions that made them great. They recognize that if their enthusiasm went unchecked, it might lead them in counterproductive directions.

Passion in the workplace and marketplace

Passion must start with leadership. Surely it can emanate from other sources, but in building a passion-driven organization, it has to come from the top. The leaders must live and breathe the passions they profess. Could Southwest's employees embrace freedom if they weren't allowed to make decisions without the permission of supervisors? Obviously not. If leaders don't exude their organization's core passions, associates will have no reason to believe the passions are real or worth embracing.

Although passion in leaders is essential, it's meaningless if not shared by associates at all levels. Without their support, the goals established in the action plan are mere wishes. Associates' energy and commitment are the foundation of the organization's performance and the key to its progress. To ensure the achievement of desired organizational performance results, leaders must immediately and systematically seek to align associates with the core organizational passions they've identified.

One of the most important and effective practices leaders can adopt in aligning the organization around passion is to establish clear and constant communication. Associates can't be expected to share a passion they aren't aware of or don't understand. Beyond the basic forms of communication, organizations can create programs for the express purpose of educating associates about their core passions. As efforts are made to increase employees' awareness of their organization's core passions, there will be some people who won't share them. In such cases, the people not on board with the organization's passions will usually choose to leave.

The leaders of McLeodUSA realized that the greatest enabler, but also the greatest obstacle, to their success was people. Its growth in terms of technology and opportunity was limitless, but McLeodUSA knew it couldn't achieve its goals if it couldn't find the appropriate people to fuel progress. The company needs people who can support its core values--growth, integrity, relationships, and passion--and truly appreciate the opportunities the company wants to offer them. To accomplish that, McLeodUSA's recruiting and interviewing efforts immediately convey the company's core passions, and candidates are screened on their perceived ability and dedication to uphold those passions.

Ben & Jerry's has found that because it's so vocal about its passions outside the bounds of the company, it attracts people who already share its passions. Recognizing the critical importance of shared passion in employees, Southwest's CEO Herb Kelleher has been quoted as saying, "We can teach the job; we can't teach the attitude."

Another critical part of deploying passion in an organization is creating the conditions in which passion can thrive. Not surprisingly, that includes the physical environment. Businesses that hinge on creativity aren't the only ones that can capitalize on passion by creating stimulating work environments. Manufacturing plants are spaces that must meet strict safety requirements and traditionally aren't viewed as horbeds of innovation. Wainwright Industries, a past Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award winner in the Small Business category, discovered that there's emotional value in the seeming limitations of a manufacturing environment. Its facility reflects the firm's passion for safety and serves as a constant reminder to employees of their shared commitment to safety. All employees, including the CEO, wear the same white uniforms. Floors and machines are spotless. Workspaces are clearly delineated and well lit, in contrast to the cave-like atmosphere that characterizes many factories. Clearly, as demons trated through Wainwright's successes, passion as a strategy for achieving organizational performance isn't limited by an organization's size, scope, or revenues.

All approaches-communication, education, environment, policies, and practices-contribute to building a passionate outlook within an organization. When passion permeates all aspects of the organization, associates at all levels become excited about core passions and perform in accordance with them. They develop faith in leadership and enthusiasm for performance goals. They stop finding excuses and start looking for effective solutions.

The Brazosport Independent School District in Texas is a powerful example. In 1991, there was a wide disparity in student performance (a key indicator of success for K-12 educational institutions) between ethnic and economic groups. One set of test scores indicated that minority and economically disadvantaged children were achieving at much lower levels than white, middleclass students at BISD. That may not be a big surprise, but many educators (and businesspeople) are willing to accept the status quo as the best that can be done. They accept problems and performance limitations as the way things are and try to make the best of them.

BISD turned things around by defining a new organizational core passion to teach and empower all children in its care and by identifying a purpose that every student can learn. From 1991 to 1998, the proportion of economically disadvantaged students who passed the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills in reading rose from 60 percent to 91 percent, in math from 54 to 93 percent, and in writing from 57 to 90 percent. The results for minority groups are equally impressive. The numbers aren't just data; they're a reflection of the shared passion that resulted from a change of heart of the district's leaders and associates-a passion that ultimately produced improved organizational performance.

Passion alignment through HRD efforts

When employees are passionate about their work, their organizations thrive. Once passion is present and reinforced throughout an organization, it becomes contagious. All organizational stakeholders-employees, partners, and customers-sense it and respond to it. Passion wins support, inspires loyalty, and gains invaluable energy as associates from each stakeholder group share in the excitement passion creates.

Given the current challenges that organizations face in the economy worldwide, it's vital that they harness the power of their people's vitality, creativity, and energy-in a nutshell, their passions. According to the human resources champion of development at Clarke American, "The key to our success, now and in the future, is our-people. Our competitors can duplicate our technology, they can duplicate our products, and they can duplicate our processes. But they cant clone our people."

To truly benefit from passion, organizations must help employees grow in their passion. That includes helping them more fully understand and experience the organization's core passions and find ways to incorporate their personal passions into their work. The bottom line is that if organizations want associates to be passionate about their work, they must be passionate about helping them. Each of the organizations profiled in The Passion Plan at Work have either established internal universities or specific training programs to promote and strengthen passion in their employees.

At the Disney Institute, the training organization of Walt Disney World, leaders go to extreme lengths to make sure employees (who are called Cast Members) gain experience from the perspective of a Guest (as Disney World visitors are called). For example, new reservationists are invited to stay at the resort as a Guest so they understand what they're selling to customers. One institute leader explains the motivation behind that practice: "It would be a false expectation to think that people could stay passionate about something but then not let them try it themselves.... We just think it's really important that our Cast Members stay connected to who we are and what we do so they can communicate that passion to our Guests."

Training can help employees develop skills and discover the emotional forces they need to perform at their peak and derive fulfillment from their work. At Southwest's University for People, employees can take classes in leadership, customer service, career development, team performance, and personal development. The leadership classes focus on the company's history, its values, and its passions, but they also help employees identify their own strengths and potential areas for growth.

PSS/World Medical also operates an internal university, with curriculums on job-related skills and assessments that help people gain a window into themselves. For example, an occasional sales recruit may realize that selling isn't a core personal passion and decide to pursue a different career path. Similarly, someone who enters the university's leadership school may find that despite the initial appeal, a leadership role doesn't tap into his or her core passions or may even be passion draining. Yet, PSS/World Medical doesn't give up on those people. It subscribes instead to right-fit placement, putting people in jobs that best match their passions and abilities. From a passion-management perspective, that's a critical and necessary practice. Sharing or believing in an organization's core passions doesn't guarantee employees' performance success. To excel, they must also be passionate about the roles they fulfill.

When people are excited about their organization and passionate about what they do, the benefits are tremendous. Because they're invested emotionally, they're also loyal. Their relationship goes beyond the transactional to a deeper level of organizational commitment.

Given the right desire and commitment, almost any organization can be transformed into a passion-driven one. Minor adjustments can bring improvement, but major changes aimed at aligning the organization around passion can bring phenomenal success. That success may be measured in dollars, but it can also be measured in more significant terms--in fulfillment of potential and in the value and quality of experience. Passion-driven organizations, and the people that form them, are raising the standard by which we judge goods, services, and employment. Simply put, passion makes things better. Doesn't your organization deserve to enjoy the many benefits of being driven by passion?

Richard Chang is CEO of Richard Chang Associates, a performance improvement consulting, training, and publishing firm headquartered in Irvine, California. He has written more than 20 books on business and personal development, including The Passion Plan at Work, The Passion Plan, and Performance Scorecards;

Richard Chang says that by age 8, he knew he had to create and run his own business. His first entrepreneurial effort was a lemonade stand with multiple locations; he recruited the franchisees and expanded the product line to include candies and snacks.

COPYRIGHT 2001 American Society for Training & Development, Inc.
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