How - Dov Seidman [156]
Be Passionate and Optimistic
LRN is headquartered a few miles from the Pacific Ocean in Los Angeles, and since I started the company in 1994, I have worked hard to personally recruit the most talented people I could find. Inevitably, when I identify and pursue a potential recruit who lives in another city, we end up in a pros-and-cons-type debate about the relative merits of wherever they live and Los Angeles. Each time I have this discussion, it sounds eerily the same. Their city has great culture, my city has great culture; their city has great restaurants, my city has great restaurants; and back and forth we go in this ledger of pluses and minuses. But in the end, when all has been tallied, I play my trump card. “Both cities are great,” I say, “but all else being equal, my city gets an extra boost, because in Los Angeles we have the sun, and the sun is that one thing that shines through all the other qualities, making them that much better.” In business, that is what passion does. Passion is like the sun shining through everything; it makes it that much better.
Passion is the difference between a morning wake-me-up and a global corporation. Starbucks chairman Howard Schultz makes a good cup of coffee, but he is passionate about creating a workplace full of dignity and respect for his employees, customers, and suppliers. Schultz’s passion wafts through the company and its many shops like the scent of roasting coffee beans, inspiring everyone who catches a whiff. And that makes all the difference in the world.
“You either have a tremendous love for what you do, and passion for it, or you don’t,” Schultz told BusinessWeek. “So whether I’m talking to a barista, a customer, or an investor, I really communicate how I feel about our company, our mission, and our values. It’s our collective passion that provides a competitive advantage in the marketplace because we love what we do and we’re inspired to do it better. When you’re around people who share a collective passion around a common purpose, there’s no telling what you can do.”17
You need passion to start a Wave. You’ve got to turn to the person to your right and have real conviction that if we make this Wave we can help our team win. If you’re not passionate about that, then it will never happen. Without passion, you grow complacent, and complacency leads nowhere. “Passion is everything,” Steve Wynn told me. “It springs from strange places in the human psyche, from a kind of introspective, deep, and penetrating consideration of what you do, and it unleashes a phenomenal amount of energy that leads to higher insights and a deeper understanding of your customers or your employees. And it strikes a happy, deep, self-satisfying chord. It resonates. And when it does, you’re off on a hunt. You don’t think that you’re tired or even working. You’re just consumed with the notion that if you can get this done, it’s significant; it’s wonderful, and off you go. That’s the thing we call passion.”
You can express your passion in any way you want. You can write an e-mail with passion, you can speak with passion, or you can create a spreadsheet with passion. Passion is the spice that enhances all other ingredients with greatness. Some people express their passion by just showing up, every day, on time, steady as a rock. Passion fuels enlistment and alignment and communication. Have you ever been truly persuaded by an argument that wasn’t put forward passionately? Passion is the sun, and leaders are passionate. “You take two runners,” Massimo Ferragamo told me, “one with an incredible physique and the other who runs with passion, and the second one you know will win even if it kills him. Working with passion is an engine that is unbelievable. A person with drive and passion does three times the job of another person. But it is not so much the quantity of the job; that is