Today I am sharing a post I wrote on Alexis Neely's blog, part of a discussion she started in response to Les McKeown's article in the Huffington Post entitled "Stop Trying to Find Your Passion and Get to Work." You can read his original article here: http://huff.to/i1bkht and Alexis' response here: http://bit.ly/hKOCrJ.
For those who will skip reading the original writings, one of Les' main points is that passion is not sufficient - nor even necessary - for business success, and anyone who simplifies entrepreneurialism to that factor alone is not painting an accurate picture. Despite the fact that the title of his article disturbs me, I agree with that point.
Alexis' point is that competency without passion is ultimately a recipe for unsustainable business success. I believe that's true as well in a great many cases.
My contribution to the discussion is that Alexis and I and countless other passionate entrepreneurs have invested countless hours and large sums of money to continue to improve our knowledge and skills to be able to exemplify the highest possible level of competency (excellence, even?) in our fields. It's true that passion alone is not enough.
However, to me, passion is absolutely an essential ingredient for sustainable business success that is coupled with a sense of deep personal satisfaction, happiness and fulfillment on a relatively consistent basis.
In other words, by what are we measuring "success"? The bottom line? The profitability of the company, the satisfaction of the shareholders, the number of satisfied customers, the reputation of the company in the market among not only customers but even by competitors? How widely are proponents of "competency" including, among those more commonly-held measures of success, a regularly-experienced sense of personal fulfillment, meaning, well-being and happiness by the business owner as well as his or her team members?
Have there been entrepreneurs who have been successful in the long-run without that kind of passion, primarily built on "competency" without a deep sense of passion for what they are doing and why? Yes, there are.
But how physically and emotionally healthy are those people? How much buoyant energy do they have when they get out of bed in the morning and when they are in the last hours of their day? How enjoyable are they to work with? If they were truly honest with themselves, what would be their self-assessed level of happiness and fulfillment on a daily basis?
These are the kinds of measures that are, for me, sorely lacking from typical measures of business success and the "competency" of the people who run those businesses. The new paradigm of business engages the heart and a sense of individual and organizational well-being and not just intellect and standard measures of business competency. Both are important.
I would add that I recently got a new Mac computer after working on PC's all my life. Yes, no question, Steve Jobs and his merry band of geniuses are highly competent at what they do. But I paid more than double what I needed to for my machine (had I chosen to buy another PC instead) and have invested precious time to move through the learning curve involved in changing systems. Why? Functionally, I could have stayed with another "highly competent" PC, had the same basic functions I needed to do my work, and saved some money and a bunch of time and effort.
But the tangible passion that Steve Jobs has infused into that company and its culture is infectious, and it shows in every last detail of the product and service I have received, from the aesthetic beauty and functional brilliance of the hardware and software, to every phone call I've made to an Apple store, every online order made, the "Genius" technicians who transferred all my files, and every trainer who's taught me how to make the switch.
I (and we all) get to choose between countless competent product and service providers of all kinds every day, and I'll take that kind of competence infused with genuine and unquenchable passion any day, rather than plain old competence itself.
I'll shout from the rooftops to all entrepreneurs and would-be entrepreneurs to ABSOLUTELY ensure that passion is central to your business, alongside all the other things you need to learn and develop in terms of business know-how and skill to thrive in your field and make a difference to the people you serve.
For those who will skip reading the original writings, one of Les' main points is that passion is not sufficient - nor even necessary - for business success, and anyone who simplifies entrepreneurialism to that factor alone is not painting an accurate picture. Despite the fact that the title of his article disturbs me, I agree with that point.
Alexis' point is that competency without passion is ultimately a recipe for unsustainable business success. I believe that's true as well in a great many cases.
My contribution to the discussion is that Alexis and I and countless other passionate entrepreneurs have invested countless hours and large sums of money to continue to improve our knowledge and skills to be able to exemplify the highest possible level of competency (excellence, even?) in our fields. It's true that passion alone is not enough.
However, to me, passion is absolutely an essential ingredient for sustainable business success that is coupled with a sense of deep personal satisfaction, happiness and fulfillment on a relatively consistent basis.
In other words, by what are we measuring "success"? The bottom line? The profitability of the company, the satisfaction of the shareholders, the number of satisfied customers, the reputation of the company in the market among not only customers but even by competitors? How widely are proponents of "competency" including, among those more commonly-held measures of success, a regularly-experienced sense of personal fulfillment, meaning, well-being and happiness by the business owner as well as his or her team members?
Have there been entrepreneurs who have been successful in the long-run without that kind of passion, primarily built on "competency" without a deep sense of passion for what they are doing and why? Yes, there are.
But how physically and emotionally healthy are those people? How much buoyant energy do they have when they get out of bed in the morning and when they are in the last hours of their day? How enjoyable are they to work with? If they were truly honest with themselves, what would be their self-assessed level of happiness and fulfillment on a daily basis?
These are the kinds of measures that are, for me, sorely lacking from typical measures of business success and the "competency" of the people who run those businesses. The new paradigm of business engages the heart and a sense of individual and organizational well-being and not just intellect and standard measures of business competency. Both are important.
I would add that I recently got a new Mac computer after working on PC's all my life. Yes, no question, Steve Jobs and his merry band of geniuses are highly competent at what they do. But I paid more than double what I needed to for my machine (had I chosen to buy another PC instead) and have invested precious time to move through the learning curve involved in changing systems. Why? Functionally, I could have stayed with another "highly competent" PC, had the same basic functions I needed to do my work, and saved some money and a bunch of time and effort.
But the tangible passion that Steve Jobs has infused into that company and its culture is infectious, and it shows in every last detail of the product and service I have received, from the aesthetic beauty and functional brilliance of the hardware and software, to every phone call I've made to an Apple store, every online order made, the "Genius" technicians who transferred all my files, and every trainer who's taught me how to make the switch.
I (and we all) get to choose between countless competent product and service providers of all kinds every day, and I'll take that kind of competence infused with genuine and unquenchable passion any day, rather than plain old competence itself.
I'll shout from the rooftops to all entrepreneurs and would-be entrepreneurs to ABSOLUTELY ensure that passion is central to your business, alongside all the other things you need to learn and develop in terms of business know-how and skill to thrive in your field and make a difference to the people you serve.
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