Passion?
An interesting topic that comes up on occassion is what kind of employees are we looking for? What separates a great employee from a good employee? How do you achieve great things as a company? Recently Josh Knowles floated a good posting from Kathy Sierra's blog on "Don't Ask Employees To Be Passionate About The Company". It got a fair amount of dialog started here at Integrum.
In fact, it kicked off losts of good discussion and brought out some great responses from many of our employees. Personally, I thought that something was missing from this post (as did many on the Integrum team). For me it was the lack of focus on the customer. While I agree that trying to get passionate about a "corporation" (that dirty "C" word) isn't where it is at. Being passionate about the craft only gets you so far. The true love of a professional craftsman is seeing the outcome of their labor being enjoyed by the customer. The tailor loves to see their perfect creation on the run way on a great model. The architect loves to see their building inhabitated and adored by its dwellers. So too should the programmer bask in the glory of having their application appreciated by it's users as something that helps and not hinders their task at hand.
I was very inspired by a different line of thought reading "How to be Remarkable" by Seth Godin. One of the lines there just struck home If you put it on a T-shirt, would people wear
it? No use being remarkable at something that people don't care about.
Not ALL people, mind you, just a few. A few people insanely focused on
what you do is far far better than thousands of people who might be
mildly interested, right? In fact, I asked Gist to start designing a T-Shirt because we are ready to become remarkable.
I kind of filed these things away in separate compartments and didn't really think to bridge the two. Then last night Josh asked me if I was ready to be a passionate employee? So my initial thought is hmmm an Integrum tattoo. I'm down. Then I read the comment on the bottom about Harley Davidson tattoos. A light clicked on! A really remarkable company/product doesn't inspire users to simply buy and wear a t-shirt. Remarkable is having your logo forever branded on your customers body!!!!
So I ask, what makes Harley Davidson the kind of company that people widly emboss their logo for ever on their being? What other companies have such a strong passionate base of users/customers that they emblazing their logo with pride on thier body? I have my opinions but will share them in a different posting.
