We often associate passion with entrepreneurship and talk about it as a distinguishing characteristic of entrepreneurs. Yet we rarely go deeper to try to define what we mean by passion in this context. We treat it as a self-defining term of art. Yet I know from conversations that I've had with students and business-people that not everyone understands the concept.
Apparently John Hagel has found the same thing since he published his manifesto for passionate creatives a while back. So Hagel has taken a first crack at defining passion in the sense we use it for entrepreneurs in this post titled Pursuing Passion. There is a lot of great material here and I highly recommend you read the whole thing. While Hagel is not focusing solely on entrepreneurs, I think his post does a great job defining passion in the context of entrepreneurship as well as in explaining why passionate people are often driven to leave an organizational job and start their own company.
Hagel identifies 10 to 12 (depends on how you count the points he raises) characteristics of personal passion. There are a couple of the characteristics that I need to think a bit more about, but here are a couple of the ones that really resonated strongly with me:
Passion, in the sense I am using it, orients us; it provides us with focus and direction. From this perspective, passion is long-lived. It may be ignited quickly but, once ignited, it endures and even grows as we discover how much potential there really is. Passionate people are rarely distracted for long; their passion keeps them on track and calls them inexorably back to the quest ahead. Passion is about perseverance.
Passion is also about pursuit. It is not passive. People with passion are driven to pursue and create. They may read books and observe others, but they are not content being bystanders. They feel an overwhelming urge to engage, to experience for themselves and to test their own capabilities. Passion compels us to act.
In this context, there are two kinds of passion – the passion of the true believer and the passion of the explorer. [snip]
I am focused on the other kind of passion – the passion of explorers. These are people who see a domain, but not the path. The fact that the paths are not clearly defined is what excites them and motivates them to move into the domain. It also makes them alert to a variety of inputs that can help them to better understand the domain and discover more promising paths through the unexplored terrain. They are constantly balancing the need to move forward with the need to be present in the moment and reflect on the experiences and inputs they are encountering.
Hagel points out that the "passion of the true believer" can also create entrepreneurs - he uses the example of the single-minded technology true believer entrepreneur. I think that type of passionate entrepreneur is important but not representative of the great majority of successful entrepreneurs.
Here's more:
Passion is about progression – passionate people constantly seek new challenges and opportunities to drive their performance to new levels. For passionate people, achieving their full potential has little meaning. They see that their potential is constantly being expanded by new possibilities. Explorers are very adept at discovering new ways to test themselves and discovering new possibilities along the journey. In fact, passion brings with it a willingness to fail repeatedly in the quest for performance improvement, compellingly illustrated by any extreme sports participant. Passionate people see that progression demands failure – if we are not failing, we are not taking enough risk and learning fast enough.
Also:
Passion is about risk-taking. Passion diminishes perceptions of risk and amplifies perceptions of reward. In a curious way, risk becomes reward for passionate people. They see that risk is the only way to discover new things and explore new territories. For this reason, passionate people thrive in times of high uncertainty and disruption. It is also why passionate people tend to come together on various edges of our society and business environment – peripheries that are rich in unmet needs and unexploited opportunities. Passionate people embrace the edge in order to get an edge on their performance.
Hagel also identifies a number of open questions and invites comments and discussion on his position and the open questions. I think this is both an interesting topic but also an important topic for reasons that Hagel does a good job outlining. Worth reading and thinking about.
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