In the field of socially minded enterprises (my new term for the commonly abused term “Social enterprise”), there is a lot of passion.

Some in the field come preloaded with massive does of passion and are fixated on their cause from day one, while others have found themselves full of consumed items and looking for passion.   Either way, passion permeates many of the people and organizations who are fighting the good fight, and that is why it is important to recognize that passion, left alone, is not enough, and that organizations who are driven on passion alone ar going to fall flat should that be their only fuel.

Which is where passion can become a destructive force.

So, when reading Dave Smith’s article How to Avoid the Passion Trap, I found myself nodding along the entire time, particularly when he writes:

The passion trap is a cycle: A pattern of beliefs, choices, and behaviors that are linked to each other. It’s a self-reinforcing pattern. Each of us has probably been a true believer in some great idea, some big idea. If I have an idea that I believe in strongly, that’s a core belief I have, so I make decisions and choices based on those beliefs. I also interpret data from the environment that tends to support my beliefs, and then I take actions, and those actions create some kind of results that can be evaluated.

That, in my experience, a healthy organization has to (over time) replace passion as its primary source of fuel with capacity if it wanted to growth in depth and impact, and that passion’s role transitioned from the primary fuel, the organization would find new uses for it. In other words, a healthy organization uses passion for the burst of fuel to get off the pad only.

In making this transition, and keeping in mind this is more art than science, I have always looked at a process that includes the following:

1. Move the passion that founded the organization from the back office, and keep it contained to the front office.  Focus on developing an organization that externally oozes passion, but internally executes
2. Hire the best.  People who themselves have true passion for the issue on a long term, but more than that are fully capable of getting the job done.  Avoid those who only have passion as they will fad/ move on within 18 months and the investment in them will be lost.
3. Invest in your people to ensure that they are increasing the strength in skills, but also maintaining their passion for the job and organization. By investing in them as people, they will work harder, work longer, and work smarter.  By failing to invest in people, YOU will work longer, work harder, and will be forced to move away from high value work towards low value work.. not very smart.
4. Move away from micromanaging people and trust them to get the job done.  Micromanagers are in my mind toxic to the organization for many reasons, but two of the most important are that they sap any passion that one has for the “job” and the other being that they inhibit organizational growth and stability. Trust your people to get the job done, and or hire people that you can trust.  Either way, build an organization that builds itself
5. Take breaks and recharge.  It is very easy to devote every waking moment (and then some) the cause.. to the organization.. but without a break burn out will set in.. the passion will fade… and the organization will suffer.