Purposeful Passion and Managing Engagement

[Steve Roesler]

No one I've ever met is actually against the idea of being passionate about one's work. But how passion is related to results, how it is channeled, and what keeps it going can generate a lot of buzz.

A good, hard look at passion shows that it is generated in great part by one's view of the value of that work, and not a mindless onslaught of emotional overload. As a result, the responsibility for channeling passion in organizations is the purview of managers and leaders.

Dr. Peter Vajda of SpiritHeart once noted that the soulful nature of a person's passion is "akin to an alchemic reaction that bubbles up from engaging activities."

Passion Purposeful Passion and Engagement

What we're seeing here is the truth coming to the surface. Although passion may be an individual experience, in the workplace it's the manager who is the mediator of passion.

Matching the right tasks with the right people breeds the kind of productive experience that offer satisfaction as a result of accomplishment. That kind of matching means that managers have to know their people well enough to know what their individual talents are--then use them accordingly. This does at least four things (you may want to add more):

1. It offers the opportunity for the company to benefit from the strengths that it supposedly hired.

2. It shows the employees that their talents are, indeed, recognized, and that they (the employees) aren't just "human" resources.

3. It shows the employees that their managers know "who they are and what they are all about."

4. It offers a genuine chance at a reality of "excellence" rather than "excellence" as a buzzword.

Maybe we should start referring to this as "guided passion": understanding the best of what people bring to the job and managing more deliberately to help people become productive in satisfying ways.

Note: Look, there are tasks that all of us have to do, regardless of the work we've chosen. We not only aren't passionate about them, we don't like them. It's part of life and being an adult. Managers aren't there to "make people happy." Happiness is a personal choice. But managers get paid to produce excellent results. They can't achieve that goal without bringing about excellence in their people. And I don't think I've ever heard anyone express disappointment at the opportunity to excel.

Management Engagement

That's what has to happen to make all of this a reality: management engagement. Employee engagement implies that there are vast numbers of workers malingering on the job--and we have to "get them engaged."

I would suggest that there are vast numbers of managers who don't know their people well enough to orchestrate work in ways that lift people's desire to engage. There are too many mismatches going on out there.

It ends up being, in great part, a relational issue.

Managing is not an easy job to do well. But it's impossible if a manager doesn't take the time to build relationships that allow insight into individuals' strengths and desires when they show up for work.

The employment agreement is a contract: We, the organization, need to accomplish this; and we're hiring you, the employee (regardless of level), because you bring this to the organization

The manager's job is to orchestrate all of this.

I like the idea of Purposeful Passion.

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I hope you'll join me at 1 p.m. Eastern Time on May 12th at Performance Management Practices that Boost Employee Engagement. HR Leader Kathy Anthony, of O’Sullivan Creel and I will tie together the software and people process elements of effective performance management and engagement. You can sign up here for free

The event is hosted by HR.COM and sponsored by Halogen Software.