Passion At Work
Is expanding our understanding of passion at work the answer?
Recently, I decided to catch-up on the “Women at Work” podcast series from Harvard Business Review (it’s a must-listen for all leaders). One of the three hosts mentioned that many people leave/quit their jobs much sooner than they need to when they’re unhappy at work. As I reflected on her statement, I wondered how much of the experienced unhappiness is rooted in our difficulty to find passion in our work.
As we close out our book this month, Great at Work, I was pleased to find its author offered several approaches on this issue. Hansen recommends expanding our sources of passion at work beyond “loving what we do” in six areas: “joy doing the tasks, excitement at succeeding, the thrill from unleashing one’s creative energy, enthusiasm from being with people at work, delight from learning and growing, and elation from doing one’s job well.” Additionally, based on research conducted by Hansen and his colleagues, they discovered other sources of passion at work: achievement passion (“relish achieving results and success), creative passion (“energized around creative aspects of work”), people passion (“adore working and socializing with colleagues”), learning passion (“opportunity to learn and grow”), and competence passion (“opportunity to do what I do best every day”). The book does a great job of exploring passion and how to match it to your purpose, which they call ‘P-squared’ (passion and purpose).
Leaders - the pandemic has provided all of us an opportunity to pause and reflect on our practices, relationships, and perspectives about our work and those of our teams. Have you noticed a loss of passion at work from your teams? Have you noticed your passion waning? Consider using this time to explore the various areas of passion during your one-on-one meetings to signal that you are both interested in how they are feeling about their work and if they feel connected/inspired/motivated by their work, projects, and colleagues. Let’s not miss this opportunity to gauge where our teams stand, as we may lose high performers and high potentials when expanding their understanding of passion could be the answer to retention and productivity.
Quote for Growth
“Many people assume that finding the “right” role is the only way to find passion or purpose or both on the job. They neglect (sic) the possibility that they [can] develop their passion in their current job.”
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