Aug 13 2008

Meet Me at the Intersection of Passion and Process

Published by Ken Stewart at 11:00 pm under Business, Change, Culture

Walking a tightrope over a pit of hungry alligators while juggling flaming torches.

I work in a high-touch, sales-driven, customer-centric industry, company and position. This is the image that sums up my day on average.

How do you deal with a change of direction?

  • Are you the type who quickly loses their temper when the “plan” quickly jumps the tracks, or do you find yourself knuckling down and rowing the rapids?

  • Are you the kind of person who enjoys systems and processes, seeking order in the chaos?

  • Do you look for the edges of the puzzle first and work your way in?

The job is not for everyone, that is for sure. It almost wasn’t for me; Let me tell you, it almost got me.

Who moved my cheese?I spent the formative years of my career in very large organizations - the United States Marine Corps and a manufacturing division of a worldwide company with offices in the US and UK. So one of my employers was the 911 force of the world; I supported a 2000-Marine air group. The other was publicly traded company focused more on providing a 25 cent dividend to its shareholders each quarter than trying to increase revenue. Both were large, impersonal, and riddled with systems and processes just for their own sake.

The owner of my current company hired me some 5 years ago to bring focus to a group in  a company that had been successful “doing it the old school way”. My job was to seed in new ways of doing business while trying to work within the boundaries of almighty “culture”.

My job was to seed in systems and process in a company that ran by the seat of its pants: very little formalized process with lots of gusto and bravado.

I began by trying to hit the wall full-steam-ahead, and got one nasty concussion after another. After 2 years Confusion standing at the cross steetsof hitting my head against the wall, and gaining inches not yards, I sat down. I opened my eyes, ears, and mind to some key mentors and learned how to work within the system.

It began working so well that something odd happened - the fire started to go out. The process began to take over and - where was the passion? Where was the fire in the belly I had loved about the company when I first started? In those years, I discovered that systems and process have their place, but not without passion and commitment to the people around you. In the Marine Corps, we had a saying,

It’s not the Corps that takes care of Marines, it’s the Marine standing next to you that takes care of you - and you that takes care of him.

And then it all began to click…

  • Process is to bring sanity to the confusion, and offer consistency to your customers.

  • Passion is to connect you with each other, and breeds loyalty from customers.

… and it is there where the magic is found - for me - for my company. Each of you may have your own recipe for success, but success for me is at the intersection of passion and process.

Ken Stewart’s blog, ChangeForge.com, focuses on the collision between the constantly changing worlds of business and technology. Ken is also the Director of Technology at Kearns Business Solutions.

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    Viewing 9 Comments

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      Tēnā koe Ken!

      I have twice worked in large organisations, once as a computer trainer in a corporation of 1600 employees and in my present employment where the staff, though varying in numbers, has tipped 600, but with a total student number around 20,000.

      Passion tends to spread a long way in large organisations. I have a lot of passion for what I do and through one indicator or another I have discovered that my passion spread through both the large organisations I mention here and for a variety of reasons. One of the indicators is that everyone got to know me and by first name.

      But the main reason that passion spread is the one-on-one relationships I develop with people, certainly not the realtionship I might have with a body of them. The same applies to the students I teach. As a classroom teacher I had more success at making a difference with students when I eye-balled them than when I interacted with them in a class.

      Ka kite
      from Middle-earth
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      OMG...you need to seek out someone, anyone at IKON.

      ...on second thought, I like you too much to even recommend the challenge...

      Belay that last thought....
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      allow me to clearify -

      I like IKON.

      I worked there for 3 years.

      IKON is huge company with many good people in it.

      The Processes have extinguished many of Passions...and I do not believe changes can be made without major internal and external forces - and as complicated as it is...it still works...
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      Ken, I'm sorry to say that in my experience passion in large organizations often falls upon deaf ears - especially within US government agencies. There are most certainly superstars and go-to people, but that passion rarely spreads to the organizational blood stream.

      I'm glad you could make such a difference, and as an educator you are most certainly in a great position to impact lives in such a personal way. That is awesome!

      Greg, thanks for clearing that up...
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      Kia ora Ken!

      I wonder at what you mean by "made such a difference". I also wonder, now, what you mean when you talk about passion spreading. Am I detecting a modicum of cynicism in both your and Greg's comments?

      Large organisations are not unlike small countries. There must also be a correlation between small countries and pockets (states?) in larger countries. People are people. In large numbers they tend to behave collectively even more like people than they do as groups or certainly as individuals. Yet there are some things that spread (yes with passion) through all of those.

      I think that we have an opinion of how people are (or how we think they should be) that doesn't necessarily match reality. We get these ideas confirmed from time to time when we come across individuals that match how we think people should be. But the reality is that few people are actually how we think people should be. So when we observe the behaviour (property?) of a large group of people we think that it has qualities that are inferior to those found in individuals. I challenge that point of view.

      I suggest that large groups of people can be as fickle and as capricious as the individuals themselves (and I'm not talking about specific individuals here, rather the variation in calibre as we might find going from one person to the next). And, sure, there are exceptions - this is only what is statistically expected. History has proved all that I've said here, which is why civilization appears not to learn from history. It doesn't learn from history because, in the main, people don't learn as much as we think they should - again this is perhaps our own misconception of how people are.

      One of the most capricious things about the way large groups of people behave is seen in the way passion can spread through them. This phenomenon, though observed, is almost unpredictable. No, I'd venture to say that it is unpredictable.

      Who would have thought that a device, such as a telephone would have taken so long to catch on after it was first invented and manufactured? For as wonderful as the telephone is today it had a slow start. Yet the invention, the cell phone, took off like a skyrocket with a short fuse. It spread quicker in as many years as it took decades for the telephone to catch on. And it spread with a passion! Web 2.0, if you are familiar with that term, has virtually exploded since it was first given the name only a few years ago. And it spread with a passion! So did the Internet before that, only to be eclipsed in the passionate way it was further spread by the advent of broadband, and that add on made it spread with a passion!

      I think that there is perhaps only one trait that spreads as passionately as those I've already mentioned (I may be wrong) and that is fashion in clothes in western civilisation. That sort of fashion can suddenly appear with its design characteristics that are so prominent and disappear as quickly. The hat is such a fashion device that did just that. So much so, that above all other fashion features, it dictated a fixed period that any photograph of people in a crowd taken during that period would depict.

      I'm not talking about passion in a group of six or twelve here. Or even a few thousand. These passions have spread through millions, nae hundreds of millions of people. But they are as capricious as the people themselves.

      ka kite
      from Middle-earth
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      :)
      Love the Him and Haw picture reference!
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      Ken Allan, I can indeed say I was not being sarcastic in the least - nor cynical. I was rather speaking from truth after beating my head against a wall so many times trying to make a difference and feeling the choke of a collar around my neck.

      Some of that may have been youth, although I am still fairly young, and some may be perception -as you point out.

      To my point, you are referring to cultural phenomena affecting the world at large. My post was reflective of my experiences within Corporate America. These behemoths of industry are controlled and turn like cruise liners, not speed boats. Surely their wake is much larger, and thus their impact is far reaching - but passion is not a hallmark of Corporate America.

      Indeed, there is a proportional relationship in studies I reviewed in college as well as real world experiences whereby the larger the organization the more processes were installed - under the auspice of helping to steer the ship with consistency.

      What is interesting is to observe that in this highly-process oriented environment - the mavericks and entrepreneurs are driven off often in disgust and the undesirable/non-producing lots are often executed as well. Thus remains those who are willing to tow a line - the corporate line - and work within a system built around maintaining conformity, uniformity and consistency.

      Afterall, the analysts on Wall Street pay for this. When a company underperforms or overperforms expectations it is often met with slumping stock prices. It is these companies that say what they are going to do and trend that line who excel in Corporate America.

      So, these are my observations. I no longer carry a cynical attitude - I am simply a realist who chooses to work in a company where I know everyone's names and faces - where I can use my talents to make a difference - as you say you do - 1 person at a time.

      Thank you for the very well thought out response. As an aside, Greg and I do share 1 thing in common with our industry: IKON. They are a legend in our industry as a company that came from a collection of very passionate individuals and started something brilliant that become a slow, impersonal giant it is today that purposefully churns its culture.
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      Kia ora Ken!

      "Slow impersonal giant".

      That brings a low, sombre feeling to my thoughts. I wish you well to make a difference in your organisation. And I mean that sincerely. I have an empathy.

      Ka kite
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      Ken, this is why I chose my present employer. I work with a 'family' of about 70 others whom I enjoy very much. We are an elite unit outfitted to take on the world - and I enjoy my job very much. For me, it took working for a small company where you know everyone - more than just saying "hi" in the hall as you pass.
     

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