The Passion Economy

A Contrarian View

Tue, 02 Aug 2011 07:20:00 -0400

Strategy Consultant Dorie Clark writes a thought-provoking article for the Harvard Business Review arguing against turning a passion into a career. As detailed in her article “Don’t Do What You Love,” Clark posits four reasons to think twice before doing what you love, specifically:
- You love it — but you’re not great at it.
- You’re skilled at your passion — but hate the work that surrounds it.
- You’re too emotionally attached.
- No one will pay you for it.

You can read the full article at the HBR website (link above).

The Value of Loving Your Job: Finding the Right Measure

Fri, 25 Feb 2011 13:38:21 -0500

Finding a strong correlation between “job satisfaction” and “employee performance” has been called the Holy Grail of managerial psychology. While correlation does not necessarily establish causation, it’s a strong hint thereof and would help give credence to a mantra echoed by an industry of consultancies, authors, and career coaches, namely that the more you enjoy your work, the better you’ll do for yourself and for your employer. The road to proving this phenomenon, however, has been long and trying.

In his book The Social Psychology of Everyday Life, English researcher Michael Argyle offers a historical overview of efforts to find a strong correlation between job satisfaction and various aspects of employee performance. In the first major study – an analysis of the link between job satisfaction and employee productivity – researchers Brayfield and Crockett analyzed 26 experiments only to find a weak correlation of +0.15 (1955). A later meta-analysis of 74 studies found a similar correlation of +0.15 (Iaffaldano & Muchinsky, 1985). What about other metrics of employee performance such as absenteeism? A low -0.09 in one meta-analysis (Hackett & Guion, 1985) and -0.22 in another (McShane, 1983). Turnover? -0.23 according to Carsten & Spector (1987). So where does that leave us? Do these studies undermine the notion that if you like your job, success will follow?

Historical research has relied on a flawed measure, argues Marcus Buckingham, former Senior Researcher at Gallup and best-selling author of First, Break All the Rules. Not only is “job satisfaction” too high level a measure to be useful, but to observe a strong correlation with employee performance what’s far more important is to study an employee’s level of “engagement.” To measure employee engagement Marcus created Q12, a survey of twelve questions that he believes get to the root of this phenomenon. Within the Q12, three questions have been shown to have the strongest statistical significance: 1: Do I know what’s expected of me at work?; 2: At work, do I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day?; 3: Are my coworkers committed to doing quality work?

Marcus’ “employee engagement” measure has shown promising results. In a recent Gallup Study of 955,905 people working in 152 organizations across 44 industries, correlation between employee engagement and quality of work was found to be 0.6; safety on the job (say in a manufacturing environment) 0.49; and absenteeism -0.37. In short a more engaged employee produces higher quality work, is safer, and misses work less often. A smaller although statistically significant correlation is also seen with metrics such as productivity, the organization’s profitability, and employee turnover.

With Marcus’s new metric, perhaps the workplace consulting industry gains increased legitimacy or, more accurately, is refocused on the discrete and powerful levers that create better outcomes for employees and the organizations for which they work. And what does this all mean for people who are trying to find the perfect job or entrepreneurs who wish to create the optimal work environment? According to Marcus’ research, create an environment where you know what’s expected of you, do work that taps into your strengths, and surround yourself with people who are committed to the quality of their output. If you can put those in place for yourself or your employees, performance will follow. Here’s to more engaging - and inspired - careers.

As written for the MIT Entrepreneurship Review.

Profiles in Passion: Interviews Across America

Sat, 01 Jan 2011 15:26:21 -0500

This summer I drove across America in search of people have taken a risk to turn a passion into a career. From an export merchant turned baker in Chicago, to an electrical engineer turned pastor in Tulsa, I found stories that changed my perspective on both the benefits – and challenges – of entrusting in a motto I’ve long held dear, “behind every passion lies a business model.”

In a recent survey conducted by Manpower International, five out of six Americans intend to seek a new job in the coming year. If you are among those who’d like your new job to be rooted in a deep passion of yours, I hope the candid perspectives captured in this mini documentary may help you to make a more informed – and inspired – choice.

Risk-Taking Through World-Making

Tue, 07 Dec 2010 15:56:00 -0500

One of my favorite movies is The Game. In this psychological thriller Michael Douglas plays a tightly-wound investment banker whose success in business is matched only by his emotionless personal life. On his 48th birthday Michael’s brother (played by Sean Penn) gives him a voucher to a mysterious company called Consumer Recreation Services (CRS). Michael begrudgingly redeems the voucher and, in the weeks that follow, CRS proceeds to destroy his life. One day, after being blackmailed, chased by gunmen, and accidentally shooting (and killing) his own brother, Michael decides that life’s not worth living and jumps off a high rise. Michael freefalls towards the ground, crashes through a glass skylight but, rather than meeting his demise, lands safely onto a giant cushion to the applause of his close friends and brother. As he comes to himself, Michael begins to understand that the events that transpired since his birthday were an elaborately staged game. And, as he feels his body well up with a profound mix of emotion, he is reborn.

A few weeks ago I asked productivity guru and entrepreneur Stever Robbins: what are some methods for helping people to take bigger risks in their lives? Stever replied with an interesting thought: people have a very well defined threshold for risk. The strategy should not be to force or lure them across that threshold, but rather to reframe risk so that they become more risk-tolerant without even realizing it. While it would be super expensive (and probably illegal) to run a business like CRS, it does illustrate Stever’s point on the power of reframing risk, in this case by creating an alternate reality.

So, with The Game as an inspiration, I’m curious to explore what aspects of “risk-taking through world-making” are on offer today. Here are a few I’ve stumbled upon:
- Visualization consultancies: e.g. Otto Scharmer’s Theory U, in which individuals and organizations envision a future state and then move to embody it.
- Community-building off-sites: e.g. the Mankind Project, where participants are cut off from the world for several days and let down their guard as they adjust to an alternate reality (in this vein, Army Basic Training Boot Camps; Otherworld adventures; company off-sites).
- Location-based games: e.g. scvngr, where participants use GPS-enabled devices to solve puzzles by finding items strewn about a city, sometimes in inaccessible or risky locations.
- Location-based plays: e.g. an experimental play at the Philadelphia Fringe Festival, which the audience views inside different venues throughout the city. For example, in one scene actors have a scripted fight at a restaurant that is otherwise operating as usual.

Each one of these covers one aspect (or more) of risk-taking through world-making, and I’m looking forward to discovering what else is out there.

Profiles in Passion: Chuteless

Tue, 30 Nov 2010 15:37:00 -0500

Profiles in Passion: Chuteless:

I’ve found that many who take a risk to follow their passion express a deep faith in the tendency for the universe to recognize their intentions, and reward their risk-taking by showing them a way to make it work (financially, socially, etc).

One great expression of this idea is the great American Road trip. From Kerouac to Peter Fonda in Easy Rider, road trips are a form of expressing clear intent (to cross the country) while embracing a faith in the ability of the universe to guide the way (to find food, shelter, and transport).

One current example of this is Chuteless, an experiment in “‘temporarily removing something in life that’s taken for granted and seeing what happens” or, put differently, “The Chuteless equation is: ‘We are going to XXX without XXX in order to XXX’.

Follow the link to follow the adventures of Simon Bray, Matt Donovan and Ben Bray as they “TRAVEL FROM NY TO LA without MONEY FOR TRAVEL/ACCOMMODATION in order to GET TO KNOW AMERICA.”

MBA/student debt coming 'in the way' of your startup?

Mon, 29 Nov 2010 14:57:00 -0500

MBA/student debt coming 'in the way' of your startup?:

Nitin Rao sparks a conversation on how MBAs can follow their passion, in light of significant loan payments. Click through for more-

leverageddabbler:

Next steps: ~~Take a safe job till I eventually pay off debt.~~ Build a great company, and use entrepreneurial thought and action, starting with connections/resources at hard to find certain ways to cover monthly installments. Not to mention the much higher happiness and drive from being able to shape my experience!

What do Lucille Ball, the Beatles, Ulysses Grant, Michael...

Fri, 26 Nov 2010 21:41:38 -0500

What do Lucille Ball, the Beatles, Ulysses Grant, Michael Jordan, Thomas Edison, Walt Disney, and Abraham Lincoln have in common? A whole lot of failure. One of my favorite videos on the subject. Life = Risk. Are you willing to take it?

Atychiphobia

Fri, 26 Nov 2010 21:33:51 -0500

Atychiphobia:

Fear of Failure: Atychiphobia, as with all phobias, is an extreme, irrational fear.

For a full definition, follow the link.

The Simple Math of Passion

Sun, 14 Nov 2010 03:04:00 -0500

I’ve been curious to explore the link between passion and happiness and I’m starting to uncover a basic formula. Drawing only from my conversations (and very little research), here’s a rough proof:

To Be Passionate = To Be All-Consumed
When I’ve asked people how to find my passion, time and again the answer I’ve received is “any activity where time flies by.” Be it reading a book, working on a piece of art, or solving a tricky logic problem, it’s the experience of being so consumed in your work that the rest of the world fades away; the experience of one hour passing in five minutes.

To Be All-Consumed = To Be Happy
Case in point: yesterday Fast Company profiled a new study where participants’ iPhones pinged them several times a day to ask them what they’re up to and how happy they’re feeling. The scientists found that users who were most engaged in what they were doing reported the highest levels of happiness. Conversely those who weren’t engaged - whose minds wandered - reported a feeling of dissatisfaction. As stated in their report: “A wandering mind is an unhappy mind.”*

To Be Passionate = To Be Happy?
By the transitive property, if to be passionate is to be all-consumed, and to be all-consumed is to be happy, then does being passionate about your work lead to happiness? A logic that I’m continuing to explore, but I’m encouraged by what I’ve found so far.

* For those questioning cause and effect:

The Harvard psychologists compared each person’s moods and thoughts as the day went on. They found that if someone’s mind wandered at, say, 10 in the morning, then at 10:15 that person was likely to be less happy than at 10 , perhaps because of those stray thoughts. But if people were in a bad mood at 10, they weren’t more likely to be worrying or daydreaming at 10:15. “We see evidence for mind-wandering causing unhappiness, but no evidence for unhappiness causing mind-wandering,” Mr. Killingsworth says.

On a related note, last weekend I attended a talk by a Buddhist nun who touched on this very point. One of Buddha’s well-known statements is that “life is suffering.” As the nun explained, suffering as Buddha meant it is less about actual pain, and more about not being present in the moment. It’s that state of unease — some would call it stress — that comes from not being focused on the here and now.

Honda just launched a new site called “The Power of...

Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:37:00 -0500

Honda just launched a new site called “The Power of Dreams,” which contains a series of beautifully crafted short documentaries that capture the essence of what The Passion Economy is all about: inspiring people to take big risks to follow their passions, and celebrating their failures as the learning experiences that they are.

Writes Honda:

Honda is a company founded by a dreamer. And we are a company that believes in the Power of Dreams. In this spirit, we have created a series of short documentary films celebrating those who have the courage to turn failure into success, and to forge dreams into a better future. Empowered by their deeply held beliefs and guiding philosophies, these individuals make the impossible real.

For more videos, visit Honda - The Power of Dreams.

My friend Kiran sent me this cartoon. As you might notice, the...

Sat, 06 Nov 2010 01:32:00 -0400

My friend Kiran sent me this cartoon. As you might notice, the goat on the unicycle “Isn’t Afraid to Fail.” I was happy to see that, at least in the mind of a cartoonist, this characteristic is considered a positive trait ;)

Click through for a higher resolution version. As found on Virus Comix.

One of my intentions for this site is to explore how following...

Sat, 23 Oct 2010 17:41:00 -0400

One of my intentions for this site is to explore how following one’s passion can enable viable career opportunities for those living in cities that are struggling economically. I’m particularly excited about the impact that this could have in the Rust Belt communities of Buffalo and Detroit.

Today I listened to a brilliant interview with Martha Beck (best-selling author of Finding Your North Star) conducted by Stever Robbins, of Get-It-Done-Guy fame.

I thought this interview was valuable for two reasons: first, Martha described how to go about finding your passion (hint: it has a lot less to do with your intellect and a lot more to do with your body). Second, Martha ended with a thought that epitomizes the idea I hope to promote via the Passion Economy, and articulates it much better than I have so far. Namely,

The world is changing so rapidly that we are going to see things in the next five to ten years that you truly can not imagine. But your heart, the part that is not intellect, is aware of those things already. That’s where they’re going to come from. So do not try to stay with what is normative. It’s all going bye-bye. “Walking out with the word of God,” as one of my clients said, just going out with your own creativity, is the most secure thing you can do in today’s economic climate.

Thanks to Martha for sharing her wisdom and Stever for giving her the platform to do so. Click play (above) or download (below) to hear it for yourself. The interview is 24 minutes long.

The Rise of the Anti-Schools

Sat, 23 Oct 2010 00:28:00 -0400

Over the last few weeks I’ve heard a number of social entrepreneurs advocate for less linear approaches to education. Many of these arguments are based on the premise that academic institutions as we know them are not dynamic enough to serve our changing needs as students as we discover the world, our abilities, and our interests. As Sir Ken Robinson (author, speaker and advisor on education) put it in one of TED’s most widely emailed videos:

[There are a number of things that we’re enthralled to in education as it currently stands]. One of them is the idea of linearity, that it starts here, and you go through a track, and if you do everything right, you will end up set for the rest of your life. Everybody who’s spoken at TED has told us implicitly, or sometimes explicitly, a different story, that life is not linear, it’s organic. We create our lives symbiotically as we explore our talents in relation to the circumstances they help to create for us. But you know, we have become obsessed with this linear narrative. And probably the pinnacle for education is getting into college. I think we are obsessed with getting people to college, certain sorts of college. I don’t mean you shouldn’t go to college, but not everybody needs to go, and not everybody needs to go now. Maybe they go later, not right away.

Where I’ve heard less discussion is on what a non-linear approach to education looks like. What are the values that it’s based on? What are the grounding principles? And how do you track your progress? Also, is it possible for an academic institution to be the purveyor of non-linear education?

A couple of recently founded alternative MBA programs would argue yes to that last question. Take the KaosPilot School, a Denmark-based alternative MBA program whose mission is “to create positive societal change through personal growth and enterprise.” Unlike traditional MBA programs, the KaosPilot School has no classes or subjects. Instead, the school year is divided into several phases where students focus on one subject for a period of time.

Another example is Johns Hopkins’s recently-founded Carey Business School. It takes the opposite approach of Kaos in that 80% of the curriculum is core, however its classes are pretty radical, such as a human expression module taught by a drama professor. Says, Dean Yash Gupta in an interview in Fortune: “I believe learning is not about looking alike,” Gupta says. “If you really want to believe in a new kind of program then all experiences must come to play.”

The long term success of alumni from alternative programs remains to be seen, however the conversation around the need for such programs seems to be getting louder and louder.

"Our greatest fears lie in anticipation."

Sun, 17 Oct 2010 13:53:50 -0400

“Our greatest fears lie in anticipation.”

- Honoré de Balzac

Started in the heat of the recession in 2009, brothers Mike and...

Thu, 14 Oct 2010 12:49:00 -0400

Started in the heat of the recession in 2009, brothers Mike and Dave left their full-time jobs to pursue their passion for a sustainable lifestyle through innovative design. Most famous for their Holstee Tee, made of 100% recycled material, their startup has also achieved notoriety for their clear, fun, hold-no-punches manifesto.

In one of my favorite speeches, Harry Potter author JK Rowling...

Thu, 14 Oct 2010 00:30:00 -0400

In one of my favorite speeches, Harry Potter author JK Rowling delivers an amazing address to the Harvard Alumni Association titled “The Fringe Benefits of Failure.” In this speech JK Rowling describes how her career hitting the skids made possible her turnaround as an author and eventual creation of the Harry Potter franchise.

She writes, “I was set free, because my greatest fear had been realized, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.”

In both her story and that of Erik Proulx (below) there’s a common theme about how failure enables people to take the risks that ultimately serve them best. It’s only after they’re forced to fail do they start truly risking failure. In a sense I find that counter-intuitive and I’m curious to explore the subject in more detail.

The text / transcript of the speech is found here.

Career Cadence: A Workshop on Passion

Wed, 13 Oct 2010 23:44:00 -0400

This week I had an inspiring chat with Alan and Paul, two Yale School of Management grads and founders of Career Cadence, an unusual startup focused on helping college students and young professionals to figure out their passions. Once the passion piece is figured out, they help their clients to find a job that fits this passion, and then help them market themselves effectively to potential employers. Oh, and they do this all, with great success, in five hours.

In my conversations with Paul and Alan I’ve been struck by how practically they frame the value of turning your passion into your career. They speak about the personal benefits of being a better performer at work (“Passion is a competitive advantage”). They also speak about the macroeconomic advantage of a society where people are more productive, where they come home with less stress and are thus more likely to take care of their families and their health.

Wonderful stuff and refreshing to see an education-focused startup in an era dominated by scalable technology. I’m curious to follow their journey. Here’s to their success.

"You know how the Eskimos have like 30 something words for snow? I keep thinking that we need a..."

Wed, 13 Oct 2010 13:25:29 -0400

“You know how the Eskimos have like 30 something words for snow? I keep thinking that we need a larger set of words for failure. Like there’s the good failure you learn from and then there’s the failure due to neglect or lack of drive. A new word…or maybe just a symbol like prince. A huge thumbs up next to a glass of spilled milk.”

- Lora Menter

Erik Proulx lost his job at one of the most well-respected ad...

Tue, 12 Oct 2010 18:49:00 -0400

Erik Proulx lost his job at one of the most well-respected ad agencies in the country. True to the saying “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade,” Erik instead made a movie about folks who use their being laid off as a new lease on life, an opportunity to follow the passions that they’ve always had.

Taking a risk is difficult, and it’s interesting how when the circumstance that some feared most (getting laid off) becomes reality, suddenly risk-taking seems more palatable and a whole new world of possibility opens up.

Malcom Gladwell: Why The Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted

Tue, 12 Oct 2010 18:43:00 -0400

Malcom Gladwell: Why The Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted:

With the dawn of social networks we have all sorts of new channels for taking risks. That said, is taking a risk online an equal emotional experience to taking one offline? Malcom Gladwell explores in this piece from the New Yorker.