Passion's all the rage for motivator

By VICKI JAYNE

Try talking passion with a bunch of business suits in the early 1990s and you would probably earn some odd looks.

"Eight years ago, passion meant sex. Now it means much more," says Australian author Charles Kovess. "Throughout the world, there's a heightened awareness of the power of passion in business."

It's a change for which Kovess takes some responsibility. He has been pushing the power of passion since leaving his law practice in 1993 to become Australia's self-styled passion provocateur.

His first book on the subject, Passionate People Produce, was published that year, his second, Passionate Performance, last year.

Kovess, based in Melbourne, is working with 15 of Australia's top 50 companies. His message is straightforward. Passion generates energy and energy generates productivity.

"But the majority of business leaders still don't understand the concept, don't know how to harness it and are personally not passionate."

He blames 2000 years of Western thinking that has put mind and body into separate compartments and praised the rational man.

Emotion was something to be controlled, suppressed or left to the indulgence of women and children.

"We live in an environment of mental domination. And we're suffering for that spiritually and physically. What we need is a better balance between heart and mind."

That balance is what people need to aim for in their personal lives and what business leaders need to nurture in the workplace, he says.

It ranks as number three in his seven strategies for fomenting passionate performance.

First up is the need to create some kind of emotional rallying point - an inspirational corporate purpose and vision. Next: decide the values of the organisation and live by them. Then comes the balance of mind, body and spirit in the workplace.

Fourth is the adoption of clear rules to handle mistakes. Few companies have a clear philosophy in this area, says Kovess.

"Can you think of any skill you have learned that didn't involve mistakes? In sport we allow ourselves time to improve, but most business leaders don't allow employees to make mistakes."

Swift & Co, a company he has been working with in Australia and which has a branch in New Zealand, adopts such a philosophy. It believes mistakes are valuable learning experiences, but that "attitude" mistakes must not be repeated.

"There are two types of mistakes: skill and attitude," explains Kovess. "The first comes into the riding a bike, hitting a golf ball category - you would expect not to get it right straight away. The second is lack of commitment, lack of attention to detail, turning up late to meetings. It's a lack of passion for the task."

Strategies five, six and seven are: accept and encourage each person's uniqueness; invest in learning, growth and development; and give loyalty to employees.

Kovess agrees that good intentions towards employees tend to turn to mush when profits start to dip or the economy goes into recession.

The pressure on CEOs is short-term profit performance. Knowledge resides in the workers.

"Yet the short-term approach sees people as a cost that can be cut. So they get rid of their people, lose that knowledge advantage and when the recession is over, suddenly they are scrambling for good people, along with everyone else, and the price of getting them goes up.

"It is now generally accepted that the cost of replacing a top employee is around 150 per cent of their annual salary.

"So imagine the cost for companies which cut their people for the sake of short-term profit performance."

That's the kind of "madness" Kovess would like to see executives shun. His shining example is Herb Kelleher, chief executive of Southwest Airlines in the United States. He guaranteed his people that he would never lay them off and he never has.

In the 29 years he has led the company it has consistently turned in top performances.

That, says Kovess, is why courage is a key ingredient in a business leader.

"They need it to stand up against conventional wisdom. I believe courage is the number one capability of great leaders and that it is fuelled by passion for the vision they want to achieve. So they are passionate about creating a result and that gives them the courage to be different.

"I want to suggest to you that if you slavishly adhere to conventional wisdom, you will get only average results. And company results in New Zealand and Australia are, on average, pretty pathetic."

One of the prices paid for a too-narrow focus on the mind is that it is a breeding ground for fear.

"Given the challenges of the 21st century, we have to overcome our fears, and passion helps us to do that."

For Kovess, fun and profits are not mutually exclusive.

So chase out the fear and bring on the fun.