How many of us make a living out of what we are passionate about?
I know there has been a lot written about doing what you love to do, and there are people and businesses that help you uncover your passions (think Gallup’s StrengthsFinder).
But how many of us are actually doing these things?
There are only a few people I know and work with who are living their life’s passion through their work. Honestly, I’m not sure I’m even one of them.
Don’t get me wrong; I love working with leaders and managers who want to make their places of work better places to work. What still sticks in the back of my mind (or the depths of my heart) is how to move beyond the environment and into the personal growth. You see, I’m kind of an analytical guy. And what I do is approach a business challenge from the perspective of how can we make the organization more effective, and make it run more smoothly, and ultimately make it more profitable.
What has always driven me in this, though, is the underlying belief that every person has a unique contribution to make. And how do we create the organization that allows that unique contribution to come out.
I remember a time when I was working with a large group of very diverse people. The facility had a number of different groups with about 2,500 people in sales, customer support, engineering, finance (and probably some groups I can’t think of off the top of my head). People all across the facility were concerned with the issue of diversity – specifically sexual orientation and religion.
As our team put together a program to raise awareness and educate people, I kept thinking – and saying – “we can’t expect people to leave half of their life at the front door.” Have you ever felt that way, that you needed to leave a part of who you were at the front door to your building because it ‘didn’t fit’ with what the organization wanted. As I talked with people, I realized they had so much potential that was going untapped because of this:
- “You’re an accountant”
- “You’re a sales rep”
- “You’re an engineer”
And no where was there ’space’ for the accountant to put his artistic talent into the job; no where was there space for the sales rep to apply her love of building things (like houses!); and there was no space for the engineer to bring his love of beauty into the job (so he started a business with his wife selling flowers!)
Why couldn’t they be John, working in accounting, who is very artistic; or Mary, in sales and loves to build things; or Jeff, in engineering who can tell you where to get the best bouquet of flowers for your anniversary.
One of my biggest frustrations in the corporate world was that there was always someone who supposedly believed they knew what I could contribute better than I did. I love solving problems, but I don’t always do it the same way as everyone else. I do believe in using tried and true methods, but I also think unique problems need unique solutions. Every situation I went into, was something that has been a problem somewhere, sometime before. But it was still a problem because the situation was unique; so I tried to follow Einstein’s theory that to get out of a problem you had to do something different.
And my corporate leaders didn’t always like that. They wanted it done a certain way; well, sorry, I’m not “just like every other HR leader!”
So I wonder how many other people experience that, and what you would rather do; or how you would like to add your uniqueness to your workplace.
And I wonder how many leaders would like to have that kind of person on their team – the person who loves what they do because they bring “all of themselves” to the job, the person who can’t wait to get to work because they are full of ideas and energy, and the work environment lets them do it!
Which side of the “work coin” are you on: Are you giving a half-a**ed effort because it’s a paycheck? Or would you do it even if you didn’t paid?
Managers, which environment are you creating: One where people feel they have to hide part of themselves? Or an environment where the uniqueness of the people is a core strength of your business?
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