SparkPilot blog

I arrived early at a restaurant for a meeting and overheard a discussion while waiting for the others to arrive.   Here is an excerpt from their conversation that resonated with me.

They don’t get it!  They are oblivious to the fact that no one trusts their team. I mean they claim to be transparent but when we need information from them, need have to search for it ourselves.  I think it is short sighted on their behalf when they watch me search, even if we ask them for help and they don’t help.  Then when we find the information that we need, they claim that they are being transparent with us.  Yeah right!!

I discussed this behavior with a colleague and he was familiar with the behavior that was being discussed above.  He labeled it as “discovery driven disclosure”.  He also mentioned that he had experience with behavior in the past and it had been really difficult to partner with that team because  their behavior undermined trust.  As a result, the teams spent a lot of time questioning each other and not so much time collaborating which impacted their ability to successfully deliver a solution.

The comments and followup discussion got me thinking about Trust.

Trust is the basis of all relationships, both personal and professional. We all establish trust with others in our own manner.  We also have our own starting expectations for others when it comes to us trusting them.  Some of us will trust others with little evidence, giving them the benefit and assuming positive intent. Others expect the trust to be earned and start off with a much lower level of trust.

Building on this starting point for trust, let’s look at some of the other elements that influence how we establish trust.  The first one, is how the role that we perform affects the trust level. We all tend to trust people that have “earned” a higher standing.   For example, we expect the chef at a fine restaurant will use fresh ingredients and work in a pristine kitchen when they prepare our food. If that chef is from a Michelin 3 star rated restaurant, then the expectations will be even higher.

The final and most important  element is the impact of our actions.  Therefore we need to be conscious of the impact of our actions or inactions on our trust level.   Be careful of disingenuous behavior, disrespecting others, selfish behavior and of course lack of disclosure or transparency because these behaviors will impact our trust level negatively..

Pulling it together

To help illustrate how all of these areas relate to each other and how they impact the level of trust, here is a formula to help quantify the trust level.

a – Starting Expectations

b – Role

c – Actions

To use the formula, each of these variables needs to be assigned a number of between 0 and 5, with 5 being the highest rating.  Now just rate each of the elements and then total up the numbers.  This will provide you with a qualitative trust rating.  Having some of your customers, partners or employees provide you with their ratings, can be an eye-opening experience.

Regarding the evaluation of the total value.  This will be unique to you and you will need to determine what numbers you are comfortable with.  For me personally, the number needs to be above 10.  I also use the formula by assuming positive intent and therefore if I have not seen any actions or behaviors, I assign either a 4 or 5 and then evaluate again when I have more data.  Using the graphic below, the red area is the high risk area while the green is the safer area, naturally with the ideal being a perfect score.

I finish this post with a quote a Robin Sharma book:  Leadership Wisdom from the Monk who sold his Ferrari.

Being open and truthful also means that you take care of the little issues and skirmishes that come up every day before they escalate into full-blown wars.

Careful, I am on my soapbox on this one!

I am still astounded by the number of people that are always looking for the silver bullet.  The magic pill that will make them lose weight, the one job that will make them rich and of the course the magic software that will solve this problem overnight.  Come on folks. after looking for the silver bullet for so many years, have you considered that it does not exist?

It seems that this behavior has been prevalent through the ages.  Vincent van Gogh gave us the following advice and he died in 1890.

Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of
small things brought together.

A quote from Conan O’Brien’s farewell speech.

“if you work really hard and you’re kind, amazing things will happen”

———–

Conan O’Brien

———–

The full transcrpt can be found here:  http://freedomeden.blogspot.com/2010/01/conan-obrien-last-tonight-show-january.html

The basic principle is simple: be conscious about what you do, or do not do.

To put it differently:  Think and be aware of what you are doing.  Do not just bumble along in an unconscious manner.  It is important to be aware (conscious) about the actions that you are currently performing.  If I know exactly what I am doing at this moment, then I am managing not only the present, but also my future.  It is important for my current actions to contribute to me meeting my goals.

If you want to switch off and relax, go do that. However if you are not relaxing, be conscious about what you are doing, what you are meant to be doing and what others are expecting you to be doing.  When you do things with a purpose, it bring a level focus that otherwise might not be there.

So let’s look at some examples of how to implement this behavior.

• When you have a list full of tasks.  Be conscious of what tasks will help meet your goals and that not all the tasks are equal.  Some of them demand a higher level of diligence while others just need to be good enough.
• Do you approach your important meetings with a purpose and an agenda?  Be conscious about what you need to get from the meeting.  Now with remember these goals, be clear about how you are communicating your points and how they are being received.  Be conscious about what the other peoples needs are.  Soliciting feedback and input from the other person is always a good tactic.
• Now let’s look at soft skills and being conscious of the other people’s behaviors and reactions in various situations.  Being conscious of other people and your environment starts with being conscious of yourself first.  When you sit down in a chair, be aware of how your back feels against the back of the chair.  It sounds crazy but this awareness of your body and the chair will help.
• For those of us that attend a lot of meetings:  Evaluate each meeting to determine why you need to attend that specific meeting.  Although I am cognizant that I might be fighting the culture of some companies, I believe that meetings are not the place for status updates.  A far more efficient mechanism is to use a simple, concise and clear emails.  If you have a good reason to attend meeting, define what you are going to achieve at that meeting.  If you are running the meeting, then define an agenda that ensures that the goals are met and finish the meeting early by keeping people on topic.

Key points of this post:

• Whatever you do, perform the action with purpose and be conscious about your actions.
• Ensure that your actions contribute to your goals.
• Be conscious of the expectations of others.

I was born and raised in Africa and like most places in the developing world (politically correct term for 3rd world) , culturally, we looked to the 1st world countries for leadership and guidance. As a teenager, I was fortunate enough to be exposed to a number of visitors from various 1st world countries. This exposure allowed me to see, firsthand, some of the cultural generalizations.

Working with American, the first thing I noticed was how they increased the volume of their voice when they perceived that someone did not understand them.

The second thing I noticed was their optimistic mindset.  They were always willing to give someone the benefit of the doubt and listened to their input, ideas and feedback in a non-judgmental manner. I watched in amazement how these people responded very well to this behavior. They changed from being interested parties to involved participants. It was awesome to see how the energy levels increased and how the folks cooperated together.  Needless to say, the goals were achieved quickly and with little fanfare.

I believe that one of the biggest advantages that the Americans have, is their optimistic mindset.

Over time, I have come to realize that the behavior that I was exposed to as a teenager was a combination of the optimistic mindset and also an ability to listen.  Listening is a skill that all managers should have in their arsenal and constantly practice.  For some of us, this does not come easily, but for the sake of your people please continue to work on it.

Here are some well known folks that Through the ages there have been numerous instances of this rule.

• Abraham Lincoln suffered a nervous breakdown and was defeated numerous times in his political career.
• Henry Ford’s first automobile company was a failure.
• Thomas Edison failed with his phonograph company.
• Albert Einstein suffered from speech difficulties as a young child.
• Babe Ruth held the #1 spot as the best slugger from 1918 to 1928.  during this period, he was either in either the #1 or #2 position for strikeouts during these years too.

Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up. – Thomas Edison

Never give in, never give in, never; never; never; never – in nothing, great or small, large or petty – never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense – Winston Churchill

Press Release title:  Hewitt Associates, The RBL Group and FORTUNE Announce Global Top Companies for Leaders

Here are some excerpts from the press release that caught my eye:

“even during the economic downturn, Global Top Companies remained committed to building leadership capability within their organizations. In other words, tighter budgets and fewer resources forced these organizations to think and act smarter and more creatively about what really mattered when it came to leadership — but they didn’t lose focus.”

“Strong leadership is a critical element in helping global companies successfully compete, yet many organizations lack the know-how and infrastructure to create a robust pipeline of leaders for future success. Simply put, they lack the discipline to build leaders”

Here are some of the key elements of the companies that leverage Leadership:

• Leadership remains a critical priority — in good or bad economic times
• Succession planning is deliberate and consistent
• Leaders clearly understand what is expected of them as leaders
• Developing the next generation of leaders is a priority (formal program in place)

According to the panel, the Top Companies for Leaders are:

1. IBM
2. The Procter & Gamble Company
3. General Mills, Inc.
4. McKinsey & Company
5. ICICI Bank Ltd.
6. McDonald’s Corporation
7. General Electric Company
8. Titan Cement Company S.A.
9. China Mobile Communications Corporation – Shanghai Ltd.
10. Hindustan Unilever
11. Natura Cosmeticos S.A.
12. Colgate Palmolive
13. TNT N.V.
14. Deere & Company
15. Whirlpool Corporation
16. 3M Company
17. Cargill, Incorporated
18. Olam International
19. Eli Lilly and Company
20. PepsiCo, Inc.
21. American Express Company
22. Lockheed Martin Corporation
23. Intel Corporation
24. Infosys Technology
25. FedEx Corporation

The full press release can be found here:  http://www.hewittassociates.com/Intl/NA/en-US/AboutHewitt/Newsroom/PressReleaseDetail.aspx?cid=7609

There are no short-cuts, it takes a life time of hard work, preparation, and continuous learning!

- Warren Buffet -

In an effort to utilize some of the time that goes to waste everyday, I decided to download some non-fiction books for my iPhone.  My plan was to put the various time slots that are normally spent not being used productively in a more constructive manner.  And so my search started and found some free applications.  I approached with caution because I was not expecting much from free stuff.

I found a number of applications created by the folks at Tapstack where they have taken a number of non-fiction books and converted some of the core content into flash cards that are easily viewable on the iPhone.  Here are some of the books that I downloaded from the AppStore.

The application provides selected content specifically formatted for the iPhone screen.  Here are some screen shots of the applications.

There are a number of books available and I found the best way to find them was to search for “tapstack” using the search function in the appstore.

Now, you can continue your personal growth whenever you have some exra time that would normally have been wasted.

I recently came across a post regarding 10 reasons why people fail.  For the folks that know me, I prefer to focus on the positive but in this case I do believe that there are some great points raised. I have taken the liberty of changing the ranking sequence listed in the original post slightly.  I also inserted a number of  items of items of my own in the list.  Please refer to the original blog post for details on the reasons that are from the original post that can be found here:  10 Reasons Why You’re Probably Going to Fail

And the 13 Reasons…..

• It’s not your passion
• You don’t have a plan.
• You’re waiting for it to be perfect
• You’re afraid of failure
• You’re not willing to work hard
• You don’t have the skills or knowledge
  • Not knowing what to do becomes  tends to cause more paralysis the longer the challenge stays without a solution.  Here are some tips that can help:
    • Break the problem into smaller pieces
      • Large problems generally consist of lots of smaller issues/challenges.  Think of the problem as Thanks Giving dinner – eat it one mouthful at a time with a smile
    • Separate the problem from the solution
      • Define and understand the problem first.  When the problem is defined and clear, then work on the solution for each problem.
    • Put your ego away and ask for help
      • To soften the blow on the ego, you can do brainstorming sessions to elicit help from others.
      • Discuss the situation with your mentors and get their input.
      • Enlist help from team mates, when part of a team, it is less about asking for help and more about collaborative teamwork.  Remember, your baby is never ugly, so get people to help you make the baby.
    • Fill in the skills Gap
      • Attend a class
      • Do research and Read – books, blogs, Internet searches
      • Ask for help
• You don’t trust yourself
  • Or put differently, I don’t have the self confidence
    • The first thing here is to stop stabbing yourself with the butter knife!!!  Come on, putting yourself down like this is no different from stabbing yourself with a butter knife.  Your get to stab but no one knows that you are stabbing yourself because it is not life threatening.
    • Build yourself up through supportive statements
    • Trust in your instincts / gut, afterall in most case, your manager would not have hired you if you could not deliver the goods
    • Start small and build up slowly and regularly.  Succeed at least once a day!
• You do not have the support
  • We cannot succeed alone and we all need support.
    • Start by supporting yourself!!!  When others see that you are supporting yourself, they will follow your lead and support you too.
    • Support generates support other in a genuine manner because then they will support you
    • Ensure that you goals align with your manager’s because then they are incented to support in return
    • Teamwork and collaboration is the best source of support
    • Get a mentor(s) and/or a coach
• It’ll outgrow you
• You’ve had success in the past
• You’re unwilling to stop doing something else
• You won’t build a team of friends
• You won’t have the tough conversations

With the current Twilight craze going on, everyone is talking about Vampires and Wolves.  This got me thinking about the various “personalities” that we encounter at the office, more particularly High Performance Teams.  The three that came to mind, are the Vampires, Wolves and Zombies.

Vampires – there are different types of vampires.  The vampire that comes to mind is the blood sucker or the Sang Vampire or Sanguinarian Vampire as the smart people call them.  There are a number of other types but the one that I will touch on here is the Psychic Vampire or Psi Vampire.  These folks will either conscious or unconsciously feed on the life-energy of others.  In the majority of cases, they will feed from the energy from groups but the ones that we need to be aware of,  are the ones that suck the energy from us individually.  For me, the best way to handle these folks that come to drain our energy is just to say “No!”.   It does not make them bad people and often they do not realize what they are doing, they just find it energizing to be around you or in large groups.

Wolves – These guys & gals have their territories and search for food in those territories, they run in packs and will defend against anything that they perceive encroaches on their turf.  Because they are pack animals, the key is for them to see you as part of the pack and to achieve this, the key is to remind them that the enemy is not inside the company.  The enemy is outside the company and in most cases it requires management support to define the common enemy.  That is why they are called competitors.  Internally in the company we call the people that we work with colleagues.

Zombies – these are the folks that come to the office because they need the paycheck.  I am not judging this behavior, I am pointing out that the problem with this behavior is the impact on the rest of the High Performance Team who are busting their humps to solve the business need in the most expedient manner.  Therefore as managers, these folks are our biggest challenge because we need to help them with their self awareness, so that they can see the impact of their behavior on the rest of the team.  I have found that they tend to be blissfully unaware of the impact that their behavior is having on the on the team.  They tend to be horrified when they see how their lack of commitment is impacting the team. They are stunned when they see that their team mates are having to fill in for them not being fully engaged.  In certain cases, some of the team are putting in 110% to make up for them just cruising at 60%.

If the zombie chooses to make the transition back the land of the living, they will struggle with the change in priorities.  Often they are unprepared to handle the sacrifices that the changed priorities demand.  Managers need to be there for their folks to help them and coach them through these new challenges.  As the zombie reengage with the High Performance Team, often they will dedicate a significant amount of time and effort, they need to search for alternative techniques and skills that will allow them to meet the biz needs in a more efficient and sustainable manner.

Here is an extract from a recent conversation with one of my mentees, let’s call him Larry.  First off,  a little background:  I have been mentoring him for about 8 months and we work at the same company.  He is a manager of a team individual contributors that consists of engineers and project managers; the team is focused on solving various tactical business issues and therefore they tend to have 2 or 3 projects running in parallel with each project taking up to 90 days in duration.

Larry: “I never seem to have any time and I am working 60 hours weeks.”

Me: “Why, what are you spending your time on?”

Larry:  “I am super-busy ensuring that the projects that I am accountable for are getting done.” ………..he shared a lot of the details that I have removed from this post.

Me: “Humor me please, while he take a little detour into your past.  Can you remember when you learned to rides a bicycle?”

Larry:  “Yep”

Me:  “I assume that you rode a bicycle with training wheels for a while?”

Larry: “Yep and then my dad took them off.  He ran next to me a couple of times and I cannot remember when he let go.  I realized that he had let go when I started to turn around to ride back to the house and saw him standing in the street in front of me.” – he had a big smile on face while he shared this memory from his youth.

Me: “Did you fall?”

Larry: “Ouch, quite a few”

Me: “Was your dad there to pick you up when you fell?”

Larry: “Nope, but my Mom did provide the Band Aids”

Me: “So back to work:  Regarding your team, when are you going to let them go and allow them to ride by themselves?”

Larry, with a very started look on this face”  “But I cannot let them fail!”

Me: “Why not?”

Larry: “They might not recover”

Me: “Really?  Do you doubt their ability to learn from their mistakes?

Larry with a big smile on his face  “No!  But what happens when they fail?”

Me: “You give them a Band Aid and ask them how they are going fix things.  You just need to watch out for the cars to ensure that they do not get killed.”

Larry: “I get it!!  Thanks”

—————————————————————————-

Management is similar to teaching someone to ride a bicycle.  The trick is not to let go too soon because they will crash.  Too late and their learning will be stalled.  Once we have let go and they are off riding, we need to keep a look out for the cars to ensure that they are not hit by any cars.  In business terms, we need to give our people the room to make their own mistakes, and learn from them.  We must resist the urge to stifle them.  If they have the self awareness to stop and ask for feedback, then we need to be prepared to provide them with feedback on their behaviors to help them learn and grow.

I was asked recently what traits I look for to determine if someone is ready to move into a leadership role, either as a manager or as a thought leader.  This is easy if I have worked with the person because they will display the majority of these traits in their daily actions.

In addition to this post on Leadership, here are some of the traits that I looks for:

• Consistently demonstrates core values
  • Respect for others
  • Strong work ethic
  • Honesty & Integrity
  • Self motivation
• Discipline excellence
  • Deep discipline knowledge
  • Ability to mentor & coach others
  • Results focus
• Leadership
  • Desire to lead
  • Consistently demonstrates accountability
  • Mobilizes others to action
  • Credibility
• Soft skills
  • Communicates clearly and effectively
  • Self aware
  • Selfless
  • Responds well to feedback
  • Cares for others
    • Helps develops others
    • Demonstrates empathy

And the final item that I look for is:

Are others willing to follow that person’s lead?

I am always humbled by genius and talent; therefore when the writings of Guy Kawasaki are converted to wonderful imagery by Martha McGinnis, I just have to share.

The art above was created by Martha McGinnis – a hi-res version can be found here (7.4M)

Guy Kawasaki wrote this blog post on The Art of Innovation and provides a little insight to the visual artistry above.

I don’t know about you but I have run into the situation where a great employee  is not delivering the results that the business needs.  Here is the question that I ask myself:

If I put that person in a Life or Death situation where they face death if they are unable to deliver the results.  Are they able to deliver the results?

And the options are:

• if they are able to deliver the results: – then there is a motivation issue
• if they are still not able to deliver the results: -  then there is a skills issue

I do not recommend that you put any of your people in a Life or Death situation.  For me, the ideal approach is to have conversations with them to determine what the issue(s) are.  As long as you have already established a culture where they can share issues without any repercussions, they will share with you.

by Cherie Carter-Scott

1. You will receive a body. You may like it or hate it, but it’s yours to keep for the entire period.
2. You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called, “life.”
3. There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of trial, error, and experimentation. The “failed” experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiments that ultimately “work.”
4. Lessons are repeated until they are learned. A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it. When you have learned it, you can go on to the next lesson.
5. Learning lessons does not end. There’s no part of life that doesn’t contain its lessons. If you’re alive, that means there are still lessons to be learned.
6. There” is no better a place than “here.” When your “there” has become a “here”, you will simply obtain another “there” that will again look better than “here.
7. Other people are merely mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects to you something you love or hate about yourself.
8. What you make of your life is up to you. You have all the tools and resources you need. What you do with them is up to you. The choice is yours.
9. Your answers lie within you. The answers to life’s questions lie within you. All you need to do is look, listen, and trust.
10. You will forget all this.

I come from a software development background and this is an age old discussion.  When should we buy technology or product and when should we build it ourselves.  As engineers, we tend to believe that we can build it better than anyone else.  As a result of this mindset,we tend lean towards building it ourselves and then rationalizing the decision.  Therefore I use a number of evaluation criteria to help overcome this bias and to ensure that we make decisions that are beneficial to the company.  Some of the evaluation criteria that we use are: time to build, predictable costs of buying, risk of building, specific / customized requirements, discovery of unknown issue(s) during building, scope creep, and of course time to market.

Now, let’s go back to management and look at a similar decision that we have to make on how to staff our teams.  Do we bring in talent from outside (buy) or do we grow (build) someone that we know into the position?

some of the benefits of growing a known person into the position

• known entity – we know how they will fit in with the team and have existing relationships inside the company that they can leverage
• risk - Because they are a known entity, they are a known risk
• employee motivation – when the company is prepared to invest in people, it definitely helps boost the team morale which helps motivate people to grow
• integrated into culture – the person is already integrated into company culture and therefore there will be able to operate within the culture
• team player – because they are known, you know if they are a team player or not

some of the cons of growing a known person the position

• growth time – it takes time for a person to grow and acquire the skills needed
• training – not only is there the financial investment with training but there is also the question that the training investment will be able to be converted into results
• errors – mistakes are part of the learning experience
• risk – it is possible that the person will not be able to perform at the higher level
• company focused growth – as the person grows into the position, their growth can easily be customized or focused to meet the company / team needs
• personal investment – for the employee to grow, they will need to invest in themselves and often they underestimate the investment needed or are not willing to make the sacrifices needed to learn and grow

some of the benefits of bringing in new talent

• fresh perspective – new people bring their perspectives and experiences that can greatly contribute to the team diversity
• exact skills needed – because require skills are available immediately, the results are delivered with a shorter wait
• acclimatization only – because the new outside talent already has the skills needed, all that remains is for them to acclimatize

some of the cons of bringing in new talent

• unknown entity – we will still need to discover what the person’s weak point are
• integration into the team / company – how will the person mesh with the company culture / team climate
• resume inflation – does the person really have the skills that they claimed to have?

So, after looking at these Pro & Cons, is it better to build or buy your ideal employee?

Although, I have a preference to build.  It really depends on the business need.  Do we have the time  to invest in our people and still achieve the business results?

In the end, the decision really boils down to the person.  Here are some of the additional items that I take into consideration.

• drive / self motivation – Is the person a self starter?  Do they turn into a victim when the going gets tough or do they persevere through challenges?  This is so much easier to evaluate with a known entity.
• team work – are they a team player?  Again definitely easier with a known entity.
• work ethic – I am one of those that does not believe that it can be learned?
• feedback – How do they respond to feedback?
• mental horsepower – simply put, gotta have the mental capability and be able to use it to solve the business challenges on hand

you can’t just sit there and wait

for people to give you that golden dream;

you’ve get out there and make it happen for yourself

- Diana Ross -

OK, I know the image above is not visually clear and here is the paragraph again:

“I love mine.  It allows me to wake up refreshed every evening thereby enabling me to me be bright eyed and bushy tailed for the night shift.  The metallic retro design really goes with my cottage and I really like the squeaky springs and the new mattress just complements the whole package.”

Not much clearer, is it?

• What is she talking about?   The answer is – Her bed.
• What was she trying to say?  The answer is – She really likes her bed

Fortunately there are two simple things that can help you ensure that statements that you make, written or verbal, are easily to understand.  Let’s take a look at the following two areas:

• the number of points communicated  (Focus)
• how many sentences or words are used to convey the message (Fog Factor)

Focus

Let’s go back to the foggy statement above and see how many points were communicated?

“I love mine”, “night shift”, “wake up refreshed”, “metallic design”, “matches cottage design”, “squeaky springs”, and finally we can work out that the collection of these statements are talking about a bed – all of these totals up to 7 different points mentioned.  Which of these 7 points are the ones that really need to be communicated?

The statement should be clear and concise.  A clear version of the statement above could be: “I really like my bed”.

A good rule of thumb is to have no more than 3 points.

Fog Factor

There is much research on determining the understandability of a sentence or paragraph.  For the technically savy or those writing,  I covered how to use Microsoft Word in this post on Document Readability.

For the times when we do not want to use technology here is another way to determine the Fog Factor.

Determine the average number of words per sentence, add the number of  words with 3-or-more syllables and multiply by 0.4.

For the mathematically inclined or the detailed orientated folks, the formula is as follows:

1. a = the average number of words per sentence (total number of words divided by the number of sentences)
2. b =  the number of words that contain more than 3 or more syllables excluding proper nouns
3. c = a + b
4. Fog Factor = c * 0.4

I recently attended a talk by a famous professional photographer.  At one stage in his career he had grown his company to a point where he was hiring a lot of people, wearing a suit and no longer shooting photographs himself.  Therefore he was looking for and hiring talented photographers, to do the shooting, while he ran the business.  He started off basing his hiring decision on the normal criteria of skills, work ethic, interpersonal skills and sales ability.  Often he had numerous candidates that all had the same skill level and could all perform the job.

Over time he found that the folks that were passionate about photography, would go the extra mile needed to do a great job thereby ensuring a higher level of customer service and satisfaction.  Therefore he came to conclusion that passion should be his primary decision making point, followed by the rest of the criteria.  As a result of this change, he found that his pool of candidates was significantly smaller.  Surprisingly he also found that his pool of candidates had a slightly lower skill level but were more than willing to go that extra mile to ensure a great job.  So he took a chance with the lower skill level and moved ahead.  It was a successful gamble and he now attributes this change of hiring policy as one of the pivotal points that contributed to his business growth.

The image on the right, shows quite a gap between what is needed and the skills and and passion combination.  This gap (the visible red portion) is a massive opportunity that someone else can easily step into.

As I am writing this post, a rerun of Hells Kitchen was playing in the background.  Gordon Ramsey said the following to one of the contestants:   “I can teach a chef to cook but I cannot give you a heart.”

So is Passion a key element for success? I believe that passion can be a key differentiator.  It can be a great multiplier for your capabilities and can help close the gap between skills and the need.  (as shown in the image on the left)

I say that passion can be a great multiplier because passion is a blade that can cut both ways.  You need to channel your passion in a manner that complements your capabilities and not against your capabilities.  For example, throwing a temper tantrum when things do not work out your way is a good example of passion going against you.  Leverage your passion to complement your capabilities while being very aware of the possible price of passionate behavior.

So if passion is so important, what do I do if I am not passionate about what I am currently doing?  The answer is short and simple.  Do something that you can be passionate about.  Go and experiment and try different things.  A well known author only discovered her passion when she was her early 40’s.  It took her 8 years to write the book and it has since been reprinted 43 times.  Those culinary blood hounds will know that I am referring to Julia Childs.  So if you do not know what your passion is, go an experiment, learn from failures and try new things until you find your passion.  Until then be very passionate about what your current word provides you with.

When you do what you are passionate about what you are working on, it comes through in not only the results but also in how you go about your efforts.  Not only will your passion be evident to others but it also provide you with an additional level of energy.  When channeled appropriately it will provide yu with an additional 10% without you realizing it.