Passion and Purpose

Passion and Purpose.

Two things that are very aligned.

We talked about vision where you create a sense of direction very much around the same thinking around purpose.
A sense of purpose. Something that’s important to us that we can activate in our workplace.

Bring your heart to work.

As leaders, sometimes we think we need to be cold and stoic and just functional. It’s dog eat dog. And yet, you know, bring your heart.

Get emotionally involved in what you’re doing. It’s genuine. It’s authentic. Get excited about what’s happening around you. And other people will catch up on that and it does create a sense of momentum when there’s passion and people have a sense of direction and purpose.

So bring your heart to work.

Daniel Pink, who I really like, he used to be a lawyer but we’ve forgiven him for that. He talks about 3 areas that will create motivation, that will create passion and sense of purpose in your organisation.

One of that is the clear articulation of purpose. We all want to be a part of something that’s bigger than ourselves. So a purpose. A clear direction. A sense of empowerment.

Creating an environment where people are able to do things in the way that they want to do it. There’s a certain amount of empowerment.

What would you like to do? How would you like to do it? Off you go. Sense of empowerment.

And the third thing is we all have talents and abilities. We want to activate those and Daniel Pink talks about a sense of mastery.

So as a leader, if you can create purpose, you can create empowerment for people, and if you can create a sense of mastery helping people be the best they can be, those 3 things go a long way to creating passion and creating purpose.

So momentum is really what this is all about. Passion creates momentum and momentum is very important to organisations.

Maxwell talks about the metaphor of having a train in a station. When it’s sitting in a station, you can put a log of wood in front of it and it literally spin its wheels and not get anywhere. A small obstacle. No momentum. That thing just stops. You can put a house in front of it and that train, if it’s doing 40 miles an hour through, 60 miles an hour through a station, will go right through a whole house. Big obstacle. No problem.

Organisations are the same. If they have momentum, then small issues just kind of get dealt with. People just deal with them. They sort them out on the way. You know, you’ve trusted them, then small things get dealt with. If you’re stagnant and it’s stable, people aren’t empowered, they don’t feel like you’re developing them, there’s no sense of direction, no sense of purpose, small things become, “Argh, it’s very difficult. I’m not sure we can, argh.” There are a lot of hand-wringing and “uhm”-ing and “argh”-ing. If you’re seeing that, stop.

Think about how can we create a sense of direction, a sense of purpose. Clearly articulate, “This is where we’re going. This is what’s important to us, as a business”.

People own what they help to create.

So the more you can bring people around a table, clearly articulate their direction, get them involved, empower them, give them a sense of mastery, help them be the best that they can be, they’re much more likely to have passion and your organisation to have momentum. Simon Sinek wrote a great book around finding your “why“. Made a fortune out of putting 3 circles on a wall. But his sense of “why”, it’s so important to organisations.

Organisations, they often know what they do and how they do it but rarely do they know why they do it. And articulating that, taking the time to make sure it’s a sense of direction and a sense of purpose that’s bigger than the organisation itself, goes a long way to creating passion and purpose and direction and momentum. All things that’ll help you be a successful leader.