In Search of Excellence

Sukumar’s latest blog entry asks “Can passion be taught?”  

Let’s start with a real life experience…

In one of my projects, the client manager raised a concern regarding communication skills of 2 of my team members. Both of them had similar education, family background and experience. Both were also ‘Excellent’ in their technical skills. They were falling behind their peers only because of their poor ‘English’ and poor written and oral communication.

Along with giving them the customer feedback I also offered to help.

After about one year one of them improved by leaps and bounds (from 1.5 to 4 on a scale of 1 to 5). The other showed very little improvement (may be moved from 1.5 to 2).

Why did one person turn things around completely and the other remained the more or less the same?

Well, it was simply because one person was more passionate about improving his communication skills than the other.

It was apparent in the things they did after the feedback was given to them. One person worked religiously on reading the suggested books/newspapers, presenting on different topics and seeking feedback. He even found the ‘Toastmasters’ organization on his own and became a participating member of the local chapter. He now mentors others in the area of communication skills and is constantly looking to get better himself.

Here are the things that set them apart:

1. Being honest to yourself (knowing and accepting where one stands)
2. Seeking help and creating a plan.
3. Putting in the hard work.
4. Seeking frequent feedback and keeping track of the effort and the progress.
5. Finding out new ways to get better.
6. Teaching and mentoring others.

In general when you want to improve on anything, these 6 things will be extremely useful. But these are not the steps to bring out the passion. These are things you do when you ‘passionately’ want to get better at something.

So why did one person become passionate about improving while the other did not? Was it possible for me to teach the second person to become ‘Passionate’ about improving his communication skills?

This brings us to the question posed by Sukumar: “Can passion be taught?”

Every person is passionate about something. But where does that passion come from is the question.

To try to answer it, I thought about some of the things that I am passionate about. Obviously I was not born with a passionate for these things. So why am I so now? What is my earliest memory of being mesmerized by it? What triggered it?

Let’s see…

Gazhal

My uncle, Appa Mama is a fan of Gazhals. He understands Urdu, appreciates the music and particularly likes the great Gulam Ali. I remember listening to Gulam Ali gazhals at his house. He always used to tell us what some of the Urdu words mean, what are different types of gazhals. I remember listening to the same gazhal recorded at different concerts with minor variations and my uncle rewinding and playing the pieces again and again to point the differences. I was hooked. Now I really love gazhals.

Golf

When I worked at Cendant, I used to report to Linda Mason. Linda is a golf fanatic. She always used to talk about golf and try to get me to learn the game and I was not really into it. So, one day after a resolving a critical problem, she gave me a starter golf set (100$) and 4 half hour golf lessons (150$) as a gift. So I had no choice but to go for my lessons.

I thought that golf is a boring game that does not need a lot of skills. I mean what does it take to whack a ball by a stick? Right? So I went to my first lesson. The instructor said, “Here is a golf club and here are some balls. For the next 5 minutes just hit the balls whichever way you can.” To my amazement, most of the times I could not even connect the club to the ball, forget about hitting it. Then my instructor started teaching me the fundamentals of the swing. By the end of the 4’th lesson I was completely hooked. I have went on to break a 100 (score less than 100) in one year (a big deal.. many people take 5-10 years) and now I routinely score around 90-95.

For all the things that I am passionate about; I realized that it always started with a trigger. Nobody taught me how to be ‘Passionate’ about Golf or Gazhals but there always was some trigger that ignited the passion.

Now, what will happen if I introduce someone to golf the same way Linda introduced me? The same trigger will not work for everyone.

So trigger is important but the same trigger may not work for everyone.

In my opinion, passion cannot be taught; but an environment that breeds passionate behavior can be created.

So when it comes to igniting passion at the workplace, the organization must create an environment that will provide the ‘Triggering’ mechanism. Here are some things that can be done to create such an environment:

1. Introduce the intricacies and nuances
   1. Help employees understand the bigger picture. Give them overview of other departments within the company and the industry as a whole. Provide them with opportunities to learn how well the competitors (internal and external) are doing.
   2. Example: Let a developer work in ‘Performance testing lab’ for a week testing the application code for stress test. As a result, she will definitely write more efficient code.
2. Provide opportunities to observe ‘Excellence’
   1. Create opportunities for employees to observe the best talent at work. Provide them with the reports that rank individual projects within the company on various parameters. Let them know where they stand on the ‘Bell Curve’.
   2. Example: Arrange on-campus Java coding competition and invite people from other companies.
3. Create positive feedback mechanism
   1. Reward ingenuity, innovation regardless of the magnitude.
   2. Example: Make ‘Innovation’ part of the annual ‘Goals and Objectives’ for every employee. Innovation in a minor part of the project life cycle can go a long way in increasing the team’s efficiency.
4. Promote healthy and open competition
   1. Make all project reviews easily available. Publish a list of best performers in all functions within the company.
   2. Example: Create standard ranking system for rating Java developers and publish the top 10 names every quarter.

Another question Sukumar asks is: “What is the connection between passion and one’s core strengths/capabilities? Can someone who is not good at a particular skill become passionate about it? For example, if I want to be a musician and I know I’m not good at it now, can I become a great musician by becoming passionate about it?  Or should I simply pick the things I am good at and become passionate about it? “

Passion can be as a performer or as an appreciator. Both have a scale and as a result both require effort. So let’s assume that being good at something need not mean being a good performer, it can also be as an appreciator.

Here are my questions that will provide the obvious answer:

Can you be passionate about something but not good at it?

Can you be good at something but not passionate about it?

I will leave the interpretation open and invite feedback/comments.

Milind Sathe