One Step Short of Crazy

A friend who is a part-time photographer in addition to his full time gig, describes sitting at his computer late at night, editing photos of a wedding and literally laughing out loud as he captures a bride and her parents from just the right angle.

Another lifelong runner friend limps across the finish line of a 26.2 mile marathon with pure elation after having been sidelined for years by an injury that had kept him from racing.

A woman business traveler boards her third international flight in a week, jet lagged and exhausted and calls her partner squealing about the success of her trip.  She barely needs the plane to fly home.

What do all these folks have in common? Passion!  Some people will describe a passion as a hobby or confuse some personal strength as passion, but passion really is a different animal.  True "organic passion" draws on a very core level emotional commitment,  that cannot be denied.   When we chase a passion, we are drawn to it, it has a pull that we cannot resist.

In the 2004 movie, National Treasure, treasure hunter, Benjamin Gates asks his sidekick, Riley, this simple question: "We don’t need someone crazy. But one step short of crazy, what do you get?" His sidekick says "Obsessed" but Benjamin corrects him with "Passionate."

Passion is best described as an unyielding emotional commitment to a task.  This emotional commitment allows us to hang in there when the going gets tough. To continue to chase the emotional rewards despite hardship, set-backs and discouragement.  It gives us fortitude.  In my examples above, my photographer friend will stay up all hours of the night to get that bride’s album edited and can’t stop until he has created the most beautiful representation of her day.  The runner pushes through the necessary excruciating physical rehabilitation in order to get back to that which he loves, the traveler chases new orders that will take her on even more exhausting trips more often.  True Passion is both binding and abiding…

Clearly, as a leader, we should want our team to have passion.  That ingredient that keeps them engaged and excited bringing magical results. It would be unrealistic to suggest that we can create passion for our employees.  But what we can do as leaders,  is encourage our teams to have an emotional connection to the work.  

In an article on Inc.com titled 3 Ways to Spark Employee Passion.  Lee Colan outlines the emotional needs that must be met for a leader to inspire passion.  I think he has it right…

Need #1:  Purpose

The need to contribute to something bigger than ourselves is a basic psychological need.  So, leaders must build a bridge between today’s tasks and a brighter tomorrow. In essence, you need to create a compelling cause for your team to fight for. If your team’s “why” is strong enough, the “how” will take care of itself.

Need #2:  Intimacy

Nothing we achieve in this world is achieved alone. It is always achieved with others helping us along the way. We all want to-and need to-belong. As the leader, you can create connections with rituals.  Rituals create intimacy by making us feel special and unique from other teams. Ensure your rituals are natural to your leadership style and 100 percent reliable, whether it’s a Monday morning huddle up, a Friday birthday lunch, a quarterly community service day, or monthly performance recognition. The key is for them to be natural and reliable.

Need #3:  Appreciation

People do more for those who appreciate them. Although leaders widely recognize the need for appreciation, it tends to be a blind spot. That is, they generally believe they are much more appreciative of their teams than their teams think they are. The reason is that they do not convert their invisible thoughts of appreciation into visible acts of appreciation. With all of today’s technology options, it’s easy to find ourselves too busy for face-to-face interaction, but that’s one of the best ways to charge up our teams. Showing appreciation is not a matter of time and intention; rather, it’s a matter of priority and action.

Passion is illusive. For most of us we can only know it when we trip into a space where that emotional currency is tangible for us.  T.S. Elliot said:  "It is obvious that we can no more explain passion to a person who has never experienced it than we can explain light to the blind."

But with that said, leaders can cultivate the markings of passion;  specifically, loyalty, engagement and interest. And at the same time we can help our staff members to explore the gifts and talents that are uniquely their own……and with a little luck,we can keep them in a space just short of crazy!

image credit: hdweweb4.com