passion

You can lead without a title

Leadership is no longer about your position, it’s more about your passion for excellence and making a difference. It’s the execution that takes focus, effort, discipline and patience. In business, if you take care of the relationship the money will follow. If you obsess about giving customers 10 times the value they expect, they will beat a path to your door. That’s what this rule you mention is all about; remembering to wow customers, and teammates, every time you have the privilege to encounter them.

“To have the results that very few have, we must be willing to start doing the things that very few are willing to do.”
— Robin Sharma

An important subject for leaders to study is rationality, I mean being able to correctly conclude a rational, sensible course based on information. As a leader it’s also important to let everybody around you be helpful, but then put that through your own mental computer and make sure what you do is the product of what you’ve concluded based on all the input. I think developing rationality based on all the input is a true sense of leadership.

There is magic in the air

We should focus our gratitude exercise on the meaningful things in our lives of which we are certain, such as our friendships, passions, or family, thereby reminding ourselves that while uncertainty exists in some aspects of our lives, certainty still prevails in many others. I think that there is magic when organisations can inspire people to align their own personal passion, self-understanding, and desire for growth with the common organisational ambitions.

“No one cares how much you know, until they know how much you care.”
— Theodore Roosevelt

The Great Resignation

The Great Resignation is an ongoing economic trend in which employees have voluntarily resigned from their jobs in droves since the beginning of 2021. Without passion for the work, you are doing and the work of the organisation, your success will be limited. There has been a rise in over-50s with just enough money saved up to rethink their lives in the wake of the pandemic. 

 

The “inactivity rate” is defined as people neither in a job nor trying to find one, and apparently this figure currently stands at 21.3% in the UK. I think companies perceiving talent shortages in their local market must rethink their workforce models and their talent acquisition strategies. As a Londoner, I have always found pleasure in communicating to people from very diverse backgrounds. Perhaps it’s time for local businesses to start hiring people from diverse backgrounds. 

Wisdom on Wednesday

I think motivation is the driver of productivity, and empowerment is the fuel of motivation. It’s far more motivating to work in an organisation that is passionate about innovation than one that is sterile and stuck in, “We have always done it that way.”

“Many people take action as a result of their passion, instead of being passionate as a result of their actions. Using passion (an emotional and subjective foundation) as the impetus for action can often bring disappointment when the desired result is not achieved. However, taking decisive action using empirical data, can increase the possibility of success and therefore feed your passion.”
— Safi A. Thomas
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I travel light

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I don’t think that complete objectivity is possible! That’s a massive statement, but in reality If I led a media channel, for example, even if I didn’t mean for it to, it would naturally reflect some of my passions. So, when you have similarly educated people with similar backgrounds running all of the main media institutions, even if they don’t intend it, the outcome will obviously be biased. This week’s UEFA EURO 2020 Semi-Final between England and Denmark showed the problems with nationalism and how it makes people delusional and ugly. It’s hard to get better until you become humble.


I think the beauty of an action comes not only from when it becomes a habit, but also from its sensitivity, consciousness, clarity of perception and accuracy of response. The older I get, the more I realise that I am not compelled by any conditioning or programming from my past experiences or from my culture. Jamaican parent, British societal values and Danish awakening has stamped everything on me, fortunately, I am now in a position where I no longer react on the basis of my upbringing. I have learned how to experience things fully, both good and bad experiences. How to learn from them and then drop them, and move on to the next moment, uninfluenced by the previous ones. I travel light as I am uninfluenced by labels and titles, I just treat people with respect. 

Passion vs. purpose

Morten Hansen’s book, “Great at Work”, talks about the ways you can be more productive at work. It brings data from a 5 year research project that reveals why some people in a variety of industries are more productive. I think when you have a strong sense of purpose and a passion about the contributions you make to the world is when you are most dedicated. You will work better, you will pay more attention to what you are doing and everything you do is just better, and this will subsequently lead to great performances.

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“Purpose and passion are not the same. Passion is “do what you love,” while purpose is “do what contributes. Purpose asks, “What can I give the world?” Passion asks, “What can the world give me?””
— Morten Hansen
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Love Is A Dirty Word In Business

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For many, love is a dirty word in business. Bringing love into the workplace, it’s platonic, but it’s there. I love these people and I am going to support them doing great work and we are going to do this together. According to Richard Branson, “Customers should not be first, employees should be first because if you take care of your employees, your employees will take care of your customers.”

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Almost every successful person begins with two beliefs: the future can be better than the present, and I have the power to make it so!

Having a deep purpose to the why we do things, it’s not just a job, it’s not just a salary. I understand that these things are so important and people get caught up in working for organizations because they have obligations - but there is a choice about picking something that you are passionate about. And then the human connection, recognizing your own humility - I think Brené Brown’s The Power of Vulnerability Ted Talk from 2010 sums it up quite nicely.