Passion for work and anasakti

" People here are not passionate about their work. If you ask them to do something more, they start speaking about their deliverables, resource constraints and work-life balance. People should show passion for their work and they should be willing to work beyond office hours and on weekends to go beyond their job descriptions", said the senior HR professional. I did not know how to react to this immediately. There were many themes and assumptions (in addition to many emotions!) in his statement. I needed to think through this before I could come up with a reasonable response. So I just shook my head (in an ambivalent manner !) and tried to change the subject of the conversation.

Now, if you have been in the corporate world for some time, it is highly unlikely that you would have been able to avoid hearing these kinds of statements about 'passion for work'. While most of these statements are made in the context of 'motivational speeches' (without any concrete action points on this 'passion for work'), this is not just a 'philosophical' issue. It has been observed that while 'passion for work' might or might not have a significant impact on actual job performance, 'perceived passion for work' is an important factor in selection decisions. Of course, we have more fundamental issues here - like 'how exactly do we define passion for work' and 'what are the behavioral manifestations of this passion for work'. To begin with, I don't agree with the assumption made by our senior HR professional that 'passion for work can't be demonstrated during normal office hours'!

While the connection between 'passion for work' and job performance seems logical (though I am not sure how much empirical evidence is there to support this), I do wonder if one can do anything to develop/enhance 'passion for work' in oneself and/or in others. It appears that it is very difficult to train/'inject'/'program' this 'passion for work' into anyone (including oneself !)- especially on a sustainable basis. 'Passion for work' seems to be a byproduct of more fundamental things like meaning, purpose, talents, basic personality orientations etc. (Please see 'Employee engagement an the story of the Sky maiden' for a related discussion). So it appears that 'passion for work' is more like something that we can discover/re-discover and help others to discover/re-discover (as opposed to something that we can directly create).

While this seems promising, we might find it difficult to align the 'passion for work' that we have 'discovered' to the immediate job requirements/context - as passion for work might not be bothered about 'minor' things like job descriptions!. May be we should 'let our passions find work that meets them' rather than the other way around. Of course, this is not a simple task - either for the individuals (in terms of actually finding such work - over the span of an entire career) or for the organizations (in terms of developing/maintaining the flexibility required - in organization design and in talent management).

This could explain why our senior HR professional came to the conclusion (based on many years of experience in the corporate world) that passion for work requires working beyond normal office hours. However, the problem with this approach/conclusion is that it tries to work around (and even perpetuate) a problem rather than trying to solve it. From both 'organization effectiveness' and 'personal effectiveness at work' points of view it is worth trying to solve this problem - though it would involve significant amount of effort. By the way, it can also be argued that since passion for work is not easily trainable, using 'demonstrated passion for a particular type of work/job' as one of the selection criteria for that job is not a bad idea - especially if we can find a reliable way to define/ assess it (e.g. formulating a definition in terms of its behavioral indicators in the particular context and using targeted/behavioral interviews based on those indicators).

Another aspect that intrigues me is the possibility of 'undesirable side effects' of this 'passion for work'. For example, I do wonder if 'passion for work' comes as a package deal - along with complications such as too much attachment to the task/job/position, tendency to attempt for local optima (at the task/individual level results) that might not add up to global optima (at the team and organization level results) etc. On a more philosophical plane, this discussion has similarities with the discussion on the fundamental issue of 'whether happiness and sadness are a package deal' (i.e. "can one be 'emotionally open' to feeling happiness while being 'emotionally closed' to feeling sadness" or "can one reduce one's sensitivity to sadness without reducing one's sensitivity to happiness"- assuming that the person has no major psychological disorders !).

So is there a type of 'passion for work' that is does not involve attachment? There does exist such a concept (in yogic literature) - anasakti. While anasakti is sometimes translated as 'detachment', the true meaning of anasakti is closer to 'non-attachment'. Actually, there are three related terms here - asakti (attachment), vairagya (detachment) and anasakti (non-attachment). Non-attachment is acceptance of situations (and responding to them adequately) without getting emotionally affected by them. This is similar to the ideas of 'being in the world but not of it' and of 'engaging in tasks, yet not being concerned with rewards involved'. It is also interesting to note that anasakti has similarities with Scott Peck's definition of true love. A person high in anasakti carries out tasks (as a karma yogi) with a sense of responsibility and task enjoyment without any additional expectation (while this person does not refuse to enjoy the 'fruits of his labor', he/she does not get hooked on to these conveniences).

I must say that there is a huge difference between finding the concept of anasakti and implementing the same successfully in work-life (as a model of the ideal type of 'passion for work')! Finding a term that describes what we are trying to achieve, does not automatically enable us to achieve it. However, we can get some useful ideas from the thoughts/experience that have already been developed around the term (though in a slightly different context) and this in turn might help us avoid 'reinventing the wheel' in some aspects. So our quest for finding and implementing the ideal type of 'passion for work' continues.

Any comments/thoughts/ideas ?

Note1: In this post, I haven't really tried to define 'passion for work'. There are essentially two reasons for this. 'Passion for work' is essentially an internal phenomenon (more like a feeling) and internal phenomena are 'better experienced than defined'. The exact nature of the feeling can also be highly individual-specific/personal. Hence any formal definition given in the post can create some sort of a 'disconnect' in the minds of some of the readers - as some parts of the definition might not match with their own tacit/intuitive personal definition. Hence by using the phrase 'passion for work' without defining it I was trying to prompt the readers to use their own personal/intuitive definitions of 'passion for work'. Now let us look at the second reason. This post was focusing mainly on the implications of 'passion for work'. Hence I was concerned that dwelling too much on the technicalities of a formal definition could shift attention away from the main focus of the post. Of course, this approach would work best when there is quite a bit of 'common ground' among the personal/intuitive definitions and when we are concerned more about the implications of 'passion for work' (especially for particular individuals) as compared to 'passion for work' itself.

Now that we have got the reasons and rationalizations out of the way, let us look at some of the common themes/terms/phrases/definitions associated with 'passion for work'. One of my favorites is 'spark in the mind' - that a person brings to work (and that makes him/her look forward to coming to work!) - that encourages him/her to care deeply about the work and to put in his/her best - and even to approach work as an act of love . We can also try to define 'passion for work' in terms of its typical behavioral manifestations - increased energy, creativity, commitment etc. This bring us to another term related to passion for work - enthusiasm - to be inspired . If we look at the original roots of the word enthusiasm (en + theos = 'in god' or enthousiazein = 'to be inspired by a god'), it is not difficult to arrive at the 'work as an act of worship' idea associated with 'passion for work'. Another related dimension is 'finding/ experiencing deep meaning in the work that one is doing ' - in the work itself and/or in terms of one's work contributing to a worthwhile objective (in the 'laying bricks - building the cathedral' sense). Since we are also speaking about anasakti and non-attachment, it is important to avoid any undue attachment to these objectives/goals - even while being inspired by them!.

Hence, 'being inspired, caring deeply and feeling an intense connection (or even 'oneness') with what one is doing - without developing any undue attachment' is the closest that I can come at this point to a definition of the kind of 'passion for work' that I am talking about here. Quite a tall order, I must say!

Note2: As I have commented here, I feel that 'passion’ is closely related to meaning and purpose. Yes, if one is passionate about something, one will be willing to stretch/extend one self (‘suffer’) for it. Interestingly, this again takes us very close to another aspect of Scott Peck's definition of 'true love' that was mentioned earlier in this post(Etymologically speaking, the origins of the word passion can be traced back to the Latin words pati (to suffer/endure; the word 'patience' also has similar roots) and passus(suffering). But it is ‘meaning’ and ‘purpose’ that take ‘suffering’ into the realm of ‘passion’ (as in 'Passion of the Christ'). After all, there is a lot of meaningless (neurotic) suffering in the world, in addition to meaningful (passionate) suffering.

Paradox of 'potential assessment'

Most organizations have some sort a process for assessing the 'potential' of its employees. This is very much required as the 'fallacy of promoting an employee to a new job based on high performance in the current job' is well known. There won't be many HR professionals (or even business managers) who haven't heard about the 'tragic story' of the 'star salesman who was promoted to the sales manager position and failed miserably'. So the business case for 'potential appraisal' is quite strong.

The problem begins when one asks questions like

a. How exactly should organizations go about assessing potential?

b. Can potential assessment be done (within the organizational constraints) in a reasonably valid manner?

c. If there are serious doubts regarding the validity of potential appraisal in a particular organization context, is it worth the trouble and effort to put in place a potential appraisal process in that organization?

There are different points of view when it comes to the answers to these questions and that is what makes potential assessment paradoxical. A paradox occurs when there are multiple perspectives/opinions (doxa) that exist alongside (para)- each of which is true - but they appear to contradict/to be in conflict with one another.

The common methods used for 'potential appraisal' include managerial judgment, 360 degree appraisal, psychometric testing, assessment centres etc. Sometimes, a combination of these methods are also used. In most cases the choice of method(s) is driven mainly by the amount of time and resources that the organization is willing to invest in the process and the 'cultural readiness' of the organization. Sometimes the choice could also be driven by things like 'casual benchmarking', latest seminar attended by the HR Head, pet methodology of the consulting firm hired etc.

I feel that the basic issue in potential assessment (which sometimes does not get enough attention) is 'potential for what?'. Many answers are possible here. They include

1. potential to be effective in a particular position
2. potential to be effective in a particular job family
3. potential to be effective at a particular level
4. potential to take up leadership positions in the company
5. potential to move up the organization ladder/levels in an accelerated timeframe etc.

Logically, the first four answers should lead to the creation of a capability framework that details the requirements to be effective in the job/job family/level/leadership positions that we are taking about. Similarly, the fifth answer should lead to identification of attributes/capabilities that enable an employee to quickly climb up the organization ladder.

It is interesting to note that since these capability requirements can be different for different organizations a person who is rated as 'high potential' in one organization might not necessarily be rated so in another organization (and vice versa) - even if we rule out any errors in measurement. However, the capability frameworks (especially the 'behavioral competency frameworks') tend to be quite similar across organizations (for a variety of reasons including the generic nature of the frameworks, attempt to include all possible 'good' behaviors in the framework, casual benchmarking of competency frameworks, hiring the same consultant to develop the framework etc.). Hence, assuming reasonable consistency of measurement, the potential ratings for the same person might not vary too much across organizations - unless the underlying definitions of potential (i.e. answer to the question - 'potential for what?' mentioned above) are different across the organizations.

The potential assessment has to be done with respect to the requisite capabilities mentioned above. Depending on the nature of the particular capability, the method for assessing it can be chosen keeping in mind the organization constraints/context specific factors. In many cases the employees might not have had an opportunity to demonstrate the requisite capabilities (for the future/target job) in their current/previous jobs. This would call for some sort of simulation, similar to those used in assessment centres. For some aspects of particular capabilities that are close to work styles/ personality attributes some sort of psychometric testing could also be useful. Psychometric testing also becomes useful if the fit between ‘certain dimensions of the organization culture and the employee’s personality’ gets identified as a key factor for potential. Managerial judgment (especially if it is calibrated through an in-depth discussion by a group of managers who have had significant amount work related interaction with the employee) and 360 degree feedback are useful to supplement the data from assessment centres/from other assessment tools - particularly from a data interpretation/'reality testing' point of view.

In the choice of methods/process, it is very important to strike the right balance between accuracy of the assessment (from a validity point of view) and the time/resource investment required (from a sustainability point of view). Some capabilities are easier to develop through training/experience in a short period of time while it is not the case for some other capabilities. So if the time/resource constraints do not allow the potential assessment to cover all the capabilities, the capabilities that are difficult to develop through training/experience in a short period of time should get priority. Of course, we need to look at the relative importance of various capabilities for enabling effectiveness on the job. Thus, to achieve a reasonable amount of validity, 'potential assessment' requires a significant amount effort and if the organization is not willing to use anything other than 'judgment of the immediate manager' for assessing potential, the usefulness of the assessment becomes doubtful.

This brings us to the issue of how would the organization use the results of the potential assessment. Most common practice is to combine the potential assessment with the performance assessment in order to arrive at some sort of 'talent classification' that segments the employees into various categories and to define particular courses of action for each category (e.g. promote, invest, retain, develop, move out etc.). It has to be kept in mind that even if the performance assessment has been done in an objective manner, if the validity of the potential assessment is doubtful, the talent classification and the consequent actions become debatable.

There are also other interesting dimensions here such as whether the organization would disclose the results of the potential assessment and talent classification to the employee in question. Not disclosing this could create issues related to transparency and even those related to data privacy/data protection. Disclosing the information might lead to a situation where the employee questions the results/methods, forcing the manager/organization to explain how exactly were the results arrived at and also the steps taken to ensure the validity of the process/ results.

There is also the issue of employees who were assessed to be 'low potential' feeling discouraged/demotivated. Sometimes, these negative reactions are even worse than those to a 'low' rating on performance. In many organizations, the results of potential assessment for a particular employee tend to remain the same across years (especially for assessment of 'leadership potential'). Thus once employees get a 'low rating' on potential, they might feel that they will never get an opportunity to take up leadership positions. Many employees also feel that they have a better chance of influencing their performance rating as compared to influencing their potential rating, especially when the potential appraisal process is not very transparent.

I have also come across situations where the potential assessment has been misused. Sometimes potential assessment is positioned/communicated to the employees as 'purely for capability development' though the potential ratings get used for making key decisions that impact the employee's career advancement. Of course, there could be much worse scenarios. Many years ago, when I was doing a diagnostic study of the HR systems of a company, I was told that though the performance planning and review system of the company provides an option to the employees to disagree with the manager on the performance rating, no one exercises that option. When I tried to investigate the reason for this, I found that the process provides for a 'potential rating' in addition to the performance rating and that the 'potential rating' is not even shared with the employee. It was common practice among the managers in that company to give a 'low' rating on potential for any employee who disagrees with manager on the performance rating. Since a 'low' rating on potential would have ruined the career of an employee in that company, no one wanted to take the risk of disagreeing with the manager on the performance rating. I hope that this scenario is a rare one. However, the point is that potential assessment can be misused and this could have serious adverse effects on employee engagement and retention.

Thus, the organization needs to think through the entire gamut of issues related to potential assessment in its context (objective, methodology/process, validity, initial investment/effort required to put the process in place, time/effort required for each cycle, sustainability, use of the results, employee communication, cost benefit analysis etc.) before a potential appraisal system is put in place. While perfect solutions may not be feasible/required, it does require thinking though multiple scenarios, options and implications and making informed decisions/trade offs. This would enable the organization to maximize the implementation effectiveness and to minimize/mange the possible adverse side effects of implementation. This is the requirement for being able to give a positive answer to the question that we started off with (Is it worth the trouble and effort to put in place a potential appraisal process in the organization?)!!!

Employee engagement and the story of the Sky Maiden

"Employee engagement" is one of the popular concepts in HR these days. Many organizations have launched new initiatives to improve levels of 'employee engagement'. Some of them have dedicated HR staff to 'handle' this important dimension. I fully agree that 'employee engagement' is very important. There is a lot of research that links higher levels of 'employee engagement' with positive outcomes like improved productivity and reduced attrition rates.

What concerns me is the tendency in some organizations to view 'employee engagement' initiatives mainly as a series of employee communication programmes. Here the term 'employee engagement' gets used in the sense of leaders 'engaging with' or 'speaking to' the employees. Now, this is an important part of employee engagement. The problem is that true 'employee engagement' requires much more than this. Another troubling trend is to equate 'employee engagement' with 'fun and games' activities. 'Fun and games' initiatives are also useful. They provide a temporary distraction from work (especially when they are held during office hours, which sadly is not always the case !). They also provide an opportunity to interact with other employees. But all these do not make any significant change in the basic nature of work or in the work context.

The defining feature of employee engagement is 'discretionary effort' put in by the employees. If employees have to get motivated to put in the 'discretionary effort', just speaking to them and telling them what is happening in the organization (and even just listening to them) won't be sufficient. To get discretionary effort, both the hearts and minds of the employees have to be engaged. Often this calls for interventions to improve the person-job fit, the performance management/rewards system and the organization culture. Of course, it is much easier to hold communication meetings than to ensure that employees are in those jobs that leverage and celebrate their key talents/abilities/interests! But if the objective is to have the type of 'employee engagement' that motivates employees to stay on and to put in discretionary effort, peripheral interventions (like communication meetings, 'fun & games HR' etc.) might not be sufficient.

This brings to mind the 'story of the Sky Maiden'. There are many versions of this story. It goes something like this: Once there lived a young farmer. He used to get up early in the morning every day to milk his cows. This went on for quite some time. Then he felt that something strange was happening. The cows seemed to be giving less milk than they used to. He tried many methods to improve this situation. But they did not work. Slowly he became convinced that someone was stealing the milk. So he decided to stay up all night to catch the thief. So he hid behind a bush and waited. For many hours nothing happened and he was feeling very sleepy. Suddenly he noticed something that left him spellbound. A very beautiful woman came down from the sky and started milking the cows. Initially our young farmer was too dazed to react. Then his anger took over and he managed to catch the thief before she could escape. He asked her who she was and why was she stealing the milk. She told him that she was the Sky Maiden, that she belonged to a tribe that lived in the sky, and that the milk was their only food. She pleaded with him to let her go. Our young farmer told her "I will let you go only if you promise to marry me". She said "I will marry you. But you need to give me a few days so that I can go back home and prepare for the marriage". He agreed. So the Sky Maiden left and as promised she returned after a few days. She brought a large box along with her. She said to him "I will be your wife. But you must promise me one thing. You should never open this box. If you open this box, I will have to leave you". He agreed and they got married.

Many months passed. Then one day, while his wife was not in the house, our young farmer could not contain his curiosity anymore and he opened the box. He was surprised to find that he could not see anything in the box. When the Sky Maiden came back she could sense something was wrong. She asked him "Did you open the box?". He said " I am sorry. I opened the box. But there was nothing in it". The Sky Maiden became very sad. She said "I am leaving. I can't live with you any more". He said "Why are you making such a big issue out of this. I told you that the box was empty". She said "I am not leaving you because you opened the box. I knew that you are likely to open it sooner or later. I am leaving you because you said that there was nothing in the box. Actually, the box was not empty. It was full of sky. Before I came to you I had filled the box with sky which is the most precious thing for me. Sky is the core of my real self. It is what makes me special. It is what makes me who I am. How can I stay with you if you can't even see the thing that is the essence of my Self and that makes me special?"

Now there are many important points here. No deep relationship can thrive unless it recognises and celebrates the factors that define the essential nature of the parties involved and that makes them special. Of course, this is more true for personal relationships and the use of this in a work context is an exaggeration to some extent. But I think that the central point remains valid even in a work context.

Any comments?