Creating passion and purpose in the workplace is the essence of great leadership and the hallmark of a best-in-class organization. Passion in the workplace fundamentally comes from the EQ component, motivation.
Let’s look a little more closely at the factors that lead to passion for our work.
The Right Match
The tricky thing about passion is that we are all motivated by different things. This is why one can be satisfied with a career in accounting while others are driven toward more creative pursuits.
A Sense of Purpose
As humans, we have a need to do important work. Often this takes the form of personal or leisure activities — becoming a parent, coaching a local youth team, volunteering. But when we are able to make a difference in our place of employment, we can fulfill our search for meaning while earning our living.
Challenging, Yet Attainable
Anyone who has ever manually entered data or even hand washed dishes knows that simple, redundant work is not intrinsically motivating. Interestingly, overly challenging work can put a damper on our passion as well. After all, most of us do not enjoy failing. We do our best work when we have confidence in our ability to succeed.
Feedback
Last, but certainly not least, we need feedback about our performance. Frequent, timely, positive feedback stimulates our intrinsic motivation for a task, even if the task itself doesn’t meet the aforementioned criteria. Negative feedback is helpful if it teaches us something new about how to attain positive feedback next time.
Quick Tips
Match people’s skills, talents, and interests with jobs and projects that let them shine.
Connect the dots – how does the work of the individual, the team, or the company affect the bigger picture?
Small quick wins at the start of a project provide momentum and the confidence needed for continued success.
Provide as many feedback channels as possible – from different sources and via various modalities.
Words of Wisdom
“Be passionate about what you do. If you aren’t passionate about your job and career, there is a line of people standing behind you who would love to have your job.”
~Jeannene H. Allen, Human Resources Director, CVS Caremark
“Engage people’s hearts and create communities. Otherwise, you’ll have peoplerenting jobs rather than owning jobs.”
~Anne Feller, Organizational Development, Cox Communications
“Be willing to develop and inspire others. Lighting one’s candle doesn’t diminish your own fire.”
~Debra Gmelin, Corporate Director Leadership Institute, Humana
Quotes are from Chapter 10 of EPowerment
Is Your Company Prepared?
- What is your plan for creating passion and purpose in 2011?
- Does every employee know the bigger picture of how their role fits with the mission of the company?
- How do you evaluate if work is challenging enough?
- How is passion a part of your culture?
- What is more important – enthusiasm or raw talent?
Photo thanks to Camera Slayer
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