Follow Your Passions

Like a boat moving through the water, each of us creates a wake. In the organizations that form the communities of our lives, our wakes have important consequences. In our businesses, on our teams, with our associates, in our communities and homes, we want a positive wake—one that lifts others but does not capsize them.

A positive wake is critical to our success, to our relationships, to our leadership. But there is only one way to determine the impact our wake has on others. They must tell us. That’s why feedback is a gift.
- Stephen C. Lundin, Ph.D. and Marshall Goldsmith, Ph.D.

Two of the greatest skills you can build to enhance your communication skills with others are related to the concept that feedback is one of the most precious gifts another human being can give us.

I worked for a company for five years once, and during that time I received one review from my manager. He never gave more because money was tight and people tended to associate reviews with monetary increases, but I genuinely just wanted to know if I was doing a good job or not, what I could work on to improve the company, etc. Nuthin’. I didn’t leave that job, I escaped. Psychologically, the lack of knowing whether the work I did made a bit of good was surprisingly important to me. At the next company I worked for, my manager was always there with answers to questions, and gave me constant praise and constructive criticism in the time I was there. Receiving the occasional pat on the back, or assistance in steering my work so it provided the most value, was as important to my job satisfaction as getting a paycheck every two weeks.

I’ve since become a feedback junkie. Sometimes the constructive criticism sort of feedback can be difficult (both to give and receive), but I’ve learned that in many cases it is also the most valuable. I’ve learned to identify those rare individuals that I can count on to poke holes in any theory, project, or idea I run by them - and once I identify them I make sure it’s a relationship I hold dearly, because it is unfortunately rare.

I should add one caveat to the concept that feedback is a gift. The type of feedback that is not particularly helpful is the opposite of constructive criticism, destructive criticism. If the intent of the person providing the feedback is to attack and harm rather than to be helpful, their words are generally valueless and can be quite poisonous if taken to heart.

So seek out opportunities to provide praise or assistance to your fellow coworkers or friends, and do so with a helpful heart. Like many things that are of a rare nature, your words can be of significant and lasting value to others. By providing others feedback, you are working to build empathy for others, a skill that will be of often unsung but still significant value to you in your life and career. And by listening to, and truly considering, what constructive advice people have for you without immediately going into defensive mode, you can increase your capacity for patience and humility. I am convinced that a consistent trait of a great leader, in virtually any situation, is the ability to simultaneously exhibit unwaiveringly confidence and unquestionable humility.

The more intensely we feel about an idea or a goal, the more assuredly the idea, buried deep in our subconscious, will direct us along the path to its fulfillment.
- Earl Nightingale

For anyone who might be interested in a sort of off-the-cuff, condensed version of the sorts of things discussed on Follow Your Passions, I also post quite regularly on FYP’s sister-blog, Hacking Your Passions. HYP’s stated mission is “to improve productivity, personal organization, work processes or any other areas that can be enhanced through harnessing an individual’s talents, joy, work ethic, strengths, skills, and above all - passions.” Hope ya like it.

Job satisfaction levels, however, tend to rise as hours worked per week increase, but begin to recede at 60 or more hours.
- The Conference Board, on US Job Satisfaction

I came across an article detailing findings by The Conference Board about U.S. Job Satisfaction declining. It provided a less than inspirational overview of the current situation in the workforce of the United States. But that piece of it above, about job satisfaction increasing as hours per week increased, has me curious to know more. Is it because people are making more money through working more hours? Are the people working more hours closer to retirement? Or, is it the reason that I find myself happier when I work more hours - I enjoy what I’m doing in my job?

More from the article - “Consumers rated bonus plans and promotion policies as the least satisfactory benefits of employment, with less than 23 percent claiming they are satisfied with their company’s policies. Satisfaction is also low for performance review processes, workload, work/life balance, communication channels and potential for future growth. Says Franco: ‘Perhaps, this is why two out of every ten employees does not see himself in his current job a year from now.’”

There are more obstacles than this between you and being happy in your work. If you let them become insurmountable, they absolutely will take you up on the offer. But all of these things are difficult if not impossible to control. There is, however, one particularly effective way at avoiding dissatisfaction in your work because of this mountain of reasons to be disgruntled.

Do what you are passionate about.

You can do this by finding a job you can be passionate about, or by taking the job you have today and unlocking how to be happy in it, but if you don’t figure out how to do one or the other, you run the risk of ending up a statistic.

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.
- Margaret Meade

Life’s creative solutions require alonetime. Solitude is required for the unconscious to process and unravel problems. Others inspire us, information feeds us, practice improves our performance, but we need quiet time to figure things out, to emerge with new discoveries, to unearth original answers.
- Ester Buchholz

The message today is a simple one, but important. In many common environments we find ourselves in - families, school, work, etc - there are times when the situation calls for you to be a dedicated team player, and others where strong independent contributions are needed. Leaders, for example, rely on their teams to realize success in whatever they are trying to accomplish. However, it is the decisive actions of that leader, the choices made when that leader is called upon, which are looked upon to provide direction and guidance. As much as that leader may take in advice and feedback from team members into consideration when making those tough calls, the gut instinct of that leader plays a factor important enough that they “own” the decision more than any other individual in the team.

When Michael Jordan played for the Chicago Bulls, winning the NBA Finals many times over, he was a phenomenal individual contributor. Without him, his team would have been hard pressed to be as successful. However, visualize a basketball game in which the opposing team had to only play Michael Jordan. Five against one, a very different story would likely be told.

The fact is, successful teams are filled with strong individual contributors. The more you enhance yourself as an individual, the more the team can benefit from having you as a part of it.