Every company desires to be better than their competitors. We spend money on researching our clients, competitors, and industry trends. We look at business analytics, costs of conversion, marketing impacts. We implement best practices, SOP’s, and spend countless resources on training people to be proficient in their roles.
While this may seem like a solid route to a well planned company, you can do all these things and still have a very mediocre business.
Too often we focus on the tangible business items that generate revenue and we neglect the one thing that would truly set our organizations apart…
Passion!
There is no greater way to differentiate your company than by having impassioned team members. When our employees are excited to be in their roles and committed to success, extraordinary results follow.
Passionate employees will spread their enthusiasm to their colleagues and raise the level at which your team performs. It is a widely accepted fact that passionate employees will work harder, be more productive, and have great job satisfaction.
Is your team passionate? Well, by the numbers, probably not. In the U.S. it is estimated that 87.7% of employees are not able to contribute their full potential in their roles because they are not passionate. This means that at any given time, only 12.3% of your team members are working with passion.
Only 12.3%? These are abysmal numbers when we reflect on the amount of money spent on team building, training, and professional development every year.
Imagine how productive your company could be if 25% of it’s employees were passionate? or 50%! Think for a minute, what would that mean to your bottom line?
Maybe we should begin focusing on passion instead of efficiencies, on enthusiasm instead of SOP’s?
What do you spend on professional development every year per employee? $1,000? $20,000? One of the wisest things to invest in would be your team members’ emotional engagement. When they are emotionally engaged in their work, they are much more committed to the success of your company. People with passion are never content to just ‘picking up a check’. Aren’t those the people you want to cultivate in your business?
There is a huge chasm between impassioned team members and complacent employees. So why don’t more companies invest in this sort of training?
Because Passion and Enthusiasm are soft skills/attributes.
Soft skills are very difficult to train, implement, and measure. How can a company ensure that their employees are becoming more passionate? It is easier measure the use of a CRM or the implementation of a new reporting system. These are measurable and finite aspects for people to judged upon.
Passion is a rare thing in business, but only because we accept complacency. ‘Good enough’ has become the marginal mantra of managers and executives in every industry. What happened to inciting passion in our teams? How can we instill enthusiasm in our organization? These are great questions.
We must make employee passion and engagement a priority! This will allow us to build a company culture that is peerless. If you truly want to be better than your competition, you can gain the most ground by impassioning your team. Look for opportunities to build engagement, increase commitment, and harbor enthusiasm.
Focus on creating passionate employees, otherwise you will be stuck with a mediocre business.
Strive for passion and always retain your enthusiasm!