How “Passionate” is Your Firm?

As someone who has worked for several companies who regularly operated on the mantra: “The beatings will not stop until morale improves,” I often admired those organizations who manage instill motivation and passion in their employees particularly in today’s high octane and performance-driven workplace culture.

I’m sure we all can cite examples of companies on the opposite end of the workplace spectrum of my former employers – Southwest Airlines to pick one - where a former divorce attorney named Herb Kelleher brazenly went head to head against the established air carriers while building an employee culture and on-time performance that had consistently rated among the best in the country for decades.

Closer to home, what about the staff at your CPA practice – whether entry level or at the partner level? Are they passionate about challenges and their futures or do they simply wait until the 15^th and the 30^th of each month?

I bring up the subject of passion in the workplace on the heels of a recent study conducted by a Big Four firm which surveyed some 3,000 full-time workers in the U.S. from 15 industries and shockingly discovered that only 11 percent of U.S. workers in the report possess the attributes required that lead to accelerated learning and improved performance.

The study found that most top-down organizations place too hard a scrutiny on maintaining the line on costs and trying to instill motivation and passion in employees where those traits may not exist – or are in deep hibernation. Instead, it suggests something that I always viewed as a fairly basic tenet – begin by hiring passionate employees. I realize during the interview process it’s not always easy to discern someone’s level of passion but often you can gauge it by asking some ground level questions such as: What is it about this field (say accounting) that drives you? Or, where do you see yourself in our firm in five years? Contingent on their respective answers and degrees of enthusiasm I think you can pretty much tell if they’re going to like working with you or vice-versa.

I once interviewed someone who applied for an entry-level reporter’s job who, when I told her what the hours would be, replied with perfect aplomb: “I don’t like to get up before 8:30 am.”

That’s probably not someone who’s going to develop – or invest – a lot of passion for the job, no matter how well they can write. Needless to say I thanked her for coming in and sort of intimated that it was time to get on with her life’s work.

Conversely, one day I received a call from our receptionist who said there was a young man in the outer office, with no appointment who had asked to see me. Turns out he paid for a flight out of his own pocket from Ohio to New York City just for the opportunity to interview with us as he had thoroughly researched our company and decided he wanted to begin his career there. I was so taken aback by this gargantuan show of initiative that less than a week later he was on the payroll. He was in our employ for about three years before he was snatched away by a competitor who nearly doubled his salary.

To this day he remains one of the best hiring decisions I’ve ever made and one of the most passionate and motivated direct reports I’ve ever had.

See? Passion and motivation are really not all that hard to identify nor should you really need a stuffy report to tell you what it is. Trust me; you’ll know it when you see it.