On Knowledge, Passion, & "Romantic" Business

Stories are all around us. If only we could share them with one another more easily, our neighborhoods, communities, and organizations would be far more effective and welcoming, because there would be more compassion, and less fear and envy. And we all know that great stories told without passion are not stories at all. Today I want to talk about the passion at the core of every great story.

If passion makes the story, how can we get more passionate in our daily lives, or more specifically, how can we create work environments driven by passion?   

It kind of comes down to where the focus is placed by management. Do we value knowledge over passion? Clearly, organizations need both, but interestingly enough, like many valued qualities, the emphasis placed on this varies greatly from country to country. 

Growing up in the U.S., one is often told,
"You can do anything you want after college. Just get a degree. Then find a way to do what you love to do."

That's where the passion comes in. It is intended to compensate for any lack of official training. Just show someone that you love something enough, that you live and breathe for it, and you will get their attention. 

In Germany, on the other hand - the land of the "Meister" - they lay an enormous value on precise training, and considerably less value on passion. In fact, passion can sometimes be frowned upon here. Just do your job and do it well. But don't get loud about things. Don't stir up the pot. 

Unfortunately, the nature of passion is that you stand behind something, through thick and thin. Munich-based ad agency different, seems to get it. A boxing bag hanging mid-agency reads "To fight for something is beautiful." But is it?  

I'd like to propose that passion is what we are missing most in our organizations. Tim Lambrecht, author of Business-Romantiker: Von der Sehnsucht nach einem anderen Wirtschaftsleben (which roughly translated, would be, "The Business Romantic: Longing for another kind of economic life"), is quoted as saying,

„Das Spannende liegt für mich darin, die Romantik als wirtschaftliche Notwendigkeit zu begreifen, denn ohne Aura, ohne Mysterium, ohne unbedingte Emotionalität und ohne Transzendenz verkommt eine Marke, ein Unternehmen irgendwann zum Automatismus – und der lässt sich leicht kopieren und gegebenenfalls gegenüber Wettbewerbern optimieren“

For the English speakers among you, basically, what Tim said was, 
"For me, it's all about understanding romance as an economic necessity, because without that special aura, without that mysterious quality, without unconditional emotionality and taking a solid stand for something, a brand, a company at some point degenerates into automatism - and that can easily be copied and optimized by competitors."

And no one has done this better than Apple, the company selling a recorded 9 iPhones PER SECOND. Steve Jobs recognized the value of surrounding himself with people driven by passion early on. According to Jobs,

"We wanted people that were insanely great at what they did, but were not necessarily those seasoned professionals, but who had at the tips of their fingers and in their passion the latest understanding of where technology was and what they could do with that technology."

Want to read more? I strongly recommend the Inc. article on Jobs, as well as the website of Tim Albrecht, of the Business Romantic Society.