Can Passion be Bought?

March 17, 2010 By Adrian Bashford 10 Comments

Have you ever wanted to do a job so badly that you were willing to do it for free? Probably when you were young, and the realities of utility bills, mortgage payments and your child’s university tuition weren’t top of your mind.

I still would. I can think of a few people for whom I would work for without a salary: Steve Jobs, James Cameron, Warren Buffet, Louis Gerstner, Donald Clifton (if he wasn’t deceased) & Seth Godin to name a few (you listening guys?). The reason –of course– is that I am hoping some of their genius rubs off via osmosis, and that kind of genius is very rare (and valuable).

In a recent Globe & Mail article, Dave McGinn poses the question: Does low pay = high passion? Mr. McGinn covers both sides of the following debate: Can you screen out people that don’t have passion for a job by offering a low salary, or is this just a form of exploiting those that really need work?

I think if you have some star power, or you have your own great passion for the business, or you have a wildly successful company in a popular field, or all of the above, you will stand a good chance to attract people just for the desire to learn from you; but you won’t keep them that way.

People have a keen perception for fairness, and if it’s clear that someone is profiting greatly from your hard work, and you aren’t sharing in it, here are two of many negative outcomes:

Your best, brightest and most passionate will get hired by someone else trying to emulate your businesses’ success
They will go be passionate on their own and become your competitor, using all they learned from you

Don’t get me wrong, an apprenticeship is very valuable, and it may warrant lower salary and even result in attracting those with passion, but you just won’t keep the passionate employees that way.

How do you keep them? Pay them what they are worth AND give them all those other things that profitable companies can provide (benefits, flexible work hours, teleworking, gym, etc.). I suggest you read the article and form your own opinion on the ‘low salary’ option.

But lets flip this idea around: Does High Pay = Low Passion?

I think the answer here is a much easier yes. If you haven’t heard the term ‘golden hancuffs‘ before, you are about to: golden handcuffs include various means to lock in employees from leaving your organization. This can be in the form of pay unlikely to be matched at rival firms, or options that are going to vest over time.

But what if you stay at a job only because of how you are paid? Isn’t it likely that passion won’t be the main motivator in your work? Unfortunately a LOT of people identify their value by how big a salary they have, and their lifestyle grows to match their salary. They then need the salary for self validation AND lifestyle maintenance. Such a salary may even allow their husband or wife to take on a low-paying or high-financial risk job that they are passionate about (oh the irony), but that increases the reliance on the main-wage-earners large salary.

They then get stuck, they can’t leave, the risk of being the last-in at a rival firm is too high to make the jump, they rationalize their desire for the job based on the salary, and the passion (if it existed) dies. The motivator stops being the passion that got you to your role, but instead the fear of the high salary being taken away. It’s the passion that produces the salary, not the other way around.

I think the best option when it comes to salary is: pay a competitive wage, but look for alternatives to salary when fostering passion & engagement.

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Filed Under: Human Dynamics Engineering, Motivation, Renumeration, Strengths-based development, Strengths-based leadership

http://thereisnomap.wordpress.com mcshawn

Re: Golden Handcuffs – There’s a great quote from Po Bronson that Starbucks used in their “The Way I See It” seriess (#26 if you care):

Failure’s hard, but success is far more dangerous. If you’re successful at the wrong thing, the mix of praise and money and opportunity can lock you in forever.

A friend of mine was in exactly this situation and he picked up this cup one morning. It was like a wake-up call for him and he left in the next round of down-sizing to go do something different.

The trick to break out is to recognize that your lifestyle has changed (upwardly) and start cutting back while you have the money coming in so you can build a next egg to tide you over to the thing you really want to do. (Wait a minute, I think you told me that bit, although it’s also something Seth Godin has preached about).
http://thereisnomap.wordpress.com mcshawn

Re: Golden Handcuffs – There’s a great quote from Po Bronson that Starbucks used in their “The Way I See It” seriess (#26 if you care):

Failure’s hard, but success is far more dangerous. If you’re successful at the wrong thing, the mix of praise and money and opportunity can lock you in forever.

A friend of mine was in exactly this situation and he picked up this cup one morning. It was like a wake-up call for him and he left in the next round of down-sizing to go do something different.

The trick to break out is to recognize that your lifestyle has changed (upwardly) and start cutting back while you have the money coming in so you can build a next egg to tide you over to the thing you really want to do. (Wait a minute, I think you told me that bit, although it’s also something Seth Godin has preached about).
http://www.bashford.ca Adrian Bashford

Thanks!

Is “The Brain that Changes Itself” on your reading list yet? If not, I highly recommend it.

It covers a lot of the material that Seth, Po and others we like from a more scientific perspective.

A nice complement to the more ‘anecdotal’ stuff.

A.
http://www.bashford.ca Adrian Bashford

Thanks!

Is “The Brain that Changes Itself” on your reading list yet? If not, I highly recommend it.

It covers a lot of the material that Seth, Po and others we like from a more scientific perspective.

A nice complement to the more ‘anecdotal’ stuff.

A.
http://thereisnomap.wordpress.com mcshawn

I will look that one up. I just finished “The Opposable Mind” which i need to summarize. It’s a pretty interesting read on integrative thinking.
http://thereisnomap.wordpress.com mcshawn

I will look that one up. I just finished “The Opposable Mind” which i need to summarize. It’s a pretty interesting read on integrative thinking.
Marcus

Well … this (i.e., Can Passion be Bought?) reminds me of a few intertwined quotes:

1) “Ability is what you’re capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it.”
2) “Only passions, great passions, can elevate the soul to great things.”
3) “Lack of money is no obstacle. Lack of an idea is an obstacle.”
4) “The real measure of your wealth is how much you’d be worth if you lost all your money.”

Since these quotes have deep meaning [to me], clearly you can’t buy passion!

That being said, the [working] man likes to keep score. We can use “money” or “title” to keep score. So, in a weird way, money can motive those that are more interested in achieving a high score, rather than achieving high quality and integrity output (which I believe is driven by passion).

In general, I think the 21th century executive, more often than not, falls in this category. It is no longer about integrity or performance or quality, but the “score”. That is what motivates many of them. However an organization that has that mentality from top down will invariably suffer and can not sustain itself. It becomes a type of Pyramid Scheme. It is not a sustainable organizational model.

Bottom line: IMO, Money is the wrong motivation tool, and certainly should not be the sole motivation tool. Especially if one wants to build a sustainable [organizational] model.

Marcus.
Marcus

Well … this (i.e., Can Passion be Bought?) reminds me of a few intertwined quotes:

1) “Ability is what you’re capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it.”
2) “Only passions, great passions, can elevate the soul to great things.”
3) “Lack of money is no obstacle. Lack of an idea is an obstacle.”
4) “The real measure of your wealth is how much you’d be worth if you lost all your money.”

Since these quotes have deep meaning [to me], clearly you can’t buy passion!

That being said, the [working] man likes to keep score. We can use “money” or “title” to keep score. So, in a weird way, money can motive those that are more interested in achieving a high score, rather than achieving high quality and integrity output (which I believe is driven by passion).

In general, I think the 21th century executive, more often than not, falls in this category. It is no longer about integrity or performance or quality, but the “score”. That is what motivates many of them. However an organization that has that mentality from top down will invariably suffer and can not sustain itself. It becomes a type of Pyramid Scheme. It is not a sustainable organizational model.

Bottom line: IMO, Money is the wrong motivation tool, and certainly should not be the sole motivation tool. Especially if one wants to build a sustainable [organizational] model.

Marcus.
http://bashford.ca Adrian Bashford

Thanks Marc,

Yes, the challenge is that some people ARE motivated by titles and money, but there are only so many titles and money to go around!

It’s good that some people are motivated by money, and its use to motivate some roles is very appropriate. Sales comes to mind, and with the time I did spend in sales, I can attest that commission can help create a razor-focus on what to prioritize. But even in such a ‘simple’ case, things can get quite complicated: I saw the regular back and forth in who should own the margin-side of the sales equation, since an increase in absolute revenue isn’t always what is best for a business. This is why companies often have specialists whose role is just look at sales compensation! Our view is a bit broader.

Roles where there is a lot less linear relationship (relatively speaking) between effort and dollars acquired for the company get even tougher.

The ‘strengths-based’ model that we are proponents of here at Psyche actually can handle both the scenario of people motivated by dollars/promotions, as well as those that have other motivators.

For example, there is a theme (of Strengthsfinder’s 34) called ‘Competition’. People with this theme really like to measure their progress against others (many of us do this, but for some this is their prime motivator and how they motivate others) and you see this theme a lot in executive-types. This competition drives everyone around them to compete as well, which can often be a good thing (esp. if you can direct it against the ACTUAL competition!).

These people are often motivated by things that you can measure (titles, money, # of patents, sales competitions) so the assessment can identify the people likely to be motivated by this. Alternatively, the other 33 themes can help devise ways to motivate other types of people using other (or sometimes the same) methods.

One personal example of alternatives to motivation (which was actually in sales!) was when my boss identified that a great reward for me would be to send me on training (‘learner’ is one of my top themes). I had just made my biggest sale for that company, and it was for a piece of equipment that none of us at the VAR actually knew how to use. He knew that I had a strong sense of responsibility (another one of my themes) and if I was going to deliver the system, and support it, I was going to be a lot happier if I learned about it and became an expert on it. So part of my reward was to spend a week in Florida with the manufacturer, learning how to set up the system to run different tests, and getting to know some of the people I could pull on for challenging questions I might have in the field. Some people might have looked at this as a penalty (why isn’t our tech doing this training instead of me?!) but for me, it was actually an awesome and motivating reward that led to lots more sales opportunities because of my greater confidence and knowledge.

Thanks for your comment, I really enjoyed it! If you want to explore your own themes/motivators more, drop me a line!
http://bashford.ca Adrian Bashford

Thanks Marc,

Yes, the challenge is that some people ARE motivated by titles and money, but there are only so many titles and money to go around!

It’s good that some people are motivated by money, and its use to motivate some roles is very appropriate. Sales comes to mind, and with the time I did spend in sales, I can attest that commission can help create a razor-focus on what to prioritize. But even in such a ‘simple’ case, things can get quite complicated: I saw the regular back and forth in who should own the margin-side of the sales equation, since an increase in absolute revenue isn’t always what is best for a business. This is why companies often have specialists whose role is just look at sales compensation! Our view is a bit broader.

Roles where there is a lot less linear relationship (relatively speaking) between effort and dollars acquired for the company get even tougher.

The ‘strengths-based’ model that we are proponents of here at Psyche actually can handle both the scenario of people motivated by dollars/promotions, as well as those that have other motivators.

For example, there is a theme (of Strengthsfinder’s 34) called ‘Competition’. People with this theme really like to measure their progress against others (many of us do this, but for some this is their prime motivator and how they motivate others) and you see this theme a lot in executive-types. This competition drives everyone around them to compete as well, which can often be a good thing (esp. if you can direct it against the ACTUAL competition!).

These people are often motivated by things that you can measure (titles, money, # of patents, sales competitions) so the assessment can identify the people likely to be motivated by this. Alternatively, the other 33 themes can help devise ways to motivate other types of people using other (or sometimes the same) methods.

One personal example of alternatives to motivation (which was actually in sales!) was when my boss identified that a great reward for me would be to send me on training (‘learner’ is one of my top themes). I had just made my biggest sale for that company, and it was for a piece of equipment that none of us at the VAR actually knew how to use. He knew that I had a strong sense of responsibility (another one of my themes) and if I was going to deliver the system, and support it, I was going to be a lot happier if I learned about it and became an expert on it. So part of my reward was to spend a week in Florida with the manufacturer, learning how to set up the system to run different tests, and getting to know some of the people I could pull on for challenging questions I might have in the field. Some people might have looked at this as a penalty (why isn’t our tech doing this training instead of me?!) but for me, it was actually an awesome and motivating reward that led to lots more sales opportunities because of my greater confidence and knowledge.

Thanks for your comment, I really enjoyed it! If you want to explore your own themes/motivators more, drop me a line!