Passion At Workplace

Rajesh Kumar, rajeshkmr7@gmail.com

Passion is a very dangerous word to put to print! Its akin to morality, the definition is personal. Passion for you is
not passion for me. Acknowledging this as a fact, I would first attempt to define my definition of Passion at work
place.

In my decade old association with people at work, I have seen several types of passion at work. I will broadly
classify these into the following types:

1. Love for work!

2. Found My Calling!
3. I Love My Boss!
4. I set my own benchmarks!

The above four categories will broadly include almost all genres of passion I have come across at workplace.
This includes the blue collared folks, the BPO crowd and the modern knowledge workers. Organizations need all
categories to keep the engines running. To quote an English poet, “They too serve, who stand and stare…”
Passion at workplace does not know of designations grades or nature of work, it is boundary-less, like love. You
might find it in your that special security guard who would salute your CEO but still frisk him, and you will find it
absent in your CEO who finds it insulting to be frisked!!

To make the characteristics of each type more clear, let me describe each one of these categories through
stories from people I have met.

Love To Work-I See Hear And Know Nothing Else

Mr.K.P.Renjit Kumar, Field Officer, Harrisons Malayalam Limited

In 1999, I was posted on one of the priced rubber properties of Harrisons Malayalam (an RPG group company)
as Assistant Manager. I was in-charge of No.2 division of the property. In the plantation hierarchy, the Assistant
Manager is second to the Manager who is the custodian of the property, its operations and the safety and well
being of its inhabitants. For the sake of administrative convenience, large properties (spanning 100s of acres)
would be divided into manageable divisions under the administration of Assistant Managers.

The number 2 division was generally perceived as the second wife. Predominantly because No.1 division has the
Manager’s office, the rubber factory, the estate Hospital, the estate library, and the Manager’s bungalow. No.2
division was just a lot of rubber fields, replantings, workmen residences (100 times smaller than a Manager’s
bungalow) and a comparatively run down Assistant Manager’s (me) Bungalow, The No.2 workmen had no love
lost for the Manager/Management. They will be the first to strike work, were known for assaults on executives
and powerful collective bargaining initiatives, They were also known throughout the Harrisons properties (at that
time) of being tough to handle. When Mr.David, the then serving Field Officer (reports to an Assistant Manager)
retired after 35 years in Harrisons, the replacement was Mr.Renjit Kumar. When I first saw Mr.Renjit Kumar, I
knew that God had broken the mould after making him, he was absolutely not normal. I was so right.
Renjit Kumar was someone who lived to work. He would wake up at 5.30am; walk 11 kilometers to the outer
perimeters of our division boundaries to check if the night watchers have slowly abandoned post! For the 18
months, I worked with him; I never felt that I could completely connect with him. Renjit Kumar will do what was
prescribed in the books and what was supposed to be done, no force of authority, threat of trade unions or plea
of tact from me would make him change his mind. This man had no fear, no qualms and did not feel a lot of
things other members of his cadre feel when working closely with blue-collar workmen. Numerous flash strikes,
petitions from trade unions and at times, alienation from the staff cadre failed to lessen an ounce of this man’s
resolve.

Renjit Kumar was a passionate employee, but that was the way he was, I had no role to play in this. Renjit would
tend to his motorbike with the same passion with which he would tend to a new rubber sapling. His sense of
order and discipline was so strong that his Assistants had a tough time surviving. During my tenure with him,
several senior management executives visited my division and each one of them appreciated the way the
property had turned out. They could see the change in the fire boundaries, the increased productivity and lower
cost per hectare. All thanks to Renjit Kumar. Renjit loved to work; he drew his life force at work. His sense of
identity was derived from his work. His relationship with everything he did was intense and at times unnerving.
For Renjit Kumar, a good team is just a bonus, a fair supervisor, a jackpot; he does not require either to keep his
happy and connected to his work. I salute his passion.

I Have Found My Calling-This Is What Defines Me

Sreenivas Rao B, MIS Executive, TMI

I came across Sreeni at TMI when we hired him to manage large volume data flowing into our mailboxes every
day from one of our staffing project involving sale of mobile handsets. Before Sreeni, they were two others who
graced his position temporarily, but could not survive me.

In Sreeni I met a person in love with his job, that of working with data. Ask Sreeni to do anything else, lets say
write a letter, train a few younglings on Excel or even, take a break for tea, he would act like fish way out of
water. You could actually see him gasping for breath. For Sreeni, data was his Cocaine. He would roll in it, he
would play around with it, and he would predict trends and probabilities from it. In front of his PC, he would lose
sense of time, of days, of weeks; he would just go on and on. Every Parretto, every PIE, every BAR, every Line
was like a Michelangelo for him. He would move on to improve it. Sreeni’s sense of ownership for his work was
complete. People who worked with him were amazed with his clarity of thought, his single-minded passion to get
his data complete. I have worked with many young men, but Sreeni will probably rate the highest in terms of
single mindedness, he would call a Team Leader 11 times a day for the data, and then threaten to escalate the
matter to me! Sreeni brought order to chaos, logic to numbers.

Sreeni had found a hole that fit his shape, his work as an MIS executive, working with data, analyzing it and
making sense of it, connects him to his destiny.

It is a pleasure to work with a person as passionate as Sreeni.

I Love My Boss-I Do Everything For Him

Sebastian George, Supervisor, Harrisons Malayalam

I am sure quite a few eyebrows will be raised for this category, especially because such employee may be easily
mistaken for sycophants. This is not the case here. This category of personnel requires to be loved and to feel
wanted and important. Given the right doses of sunshine (in this case, time and recognition with boss), personnel
from this category will walk the moon, and document it too.
I had the fortune of working with Supervisor Sebastian from 1998 to 2000. Sebastian was a 6ft 2inches former
basketball player who had played with Jimmy George (now no more)- the famous basketball player from Kerala.
Supervisor Sebastian was not from a very well to do family and did not have resources to reach lofty positions in
the game. Sebastian was a rogue electron, his entire life until we happened, was spent avoid the estate
management. I am not sure what converted him to be my strongest anchor in troubled times, but it did happen.
All I did was believe that Sebastian was a little different from his reputation. For those interested in knowing more
about Sebastian, read my short story called “Searching for Sebastian.”

I have met many employees who would fit Sebastian’s category, people who work for single masters because
they have found the master befitting their effort.

I Am My Own Benchmarks!
Jijo Abraham, Planning Team Member, TMI Group

What would Jijo have been, if not a human being in flesh and blood? A computer! There are people who go about
their lives like automation. It seems that some clock keeps ticking within them and like a toy; it unwinds slowly
through a lifetime. There are seldom surprises here, only absolutely task orientation. These are organization
sustainers. They place a premium on quality, on timeliness and on incremental improvements.

When a programmer upsets his schedule, Jijo would start thinking of learning Dot Net, when graphical interface
to reports was becoming to costly, Jijo found a free software. His kind of people pushes the boundaries of human
performance everyday.

Sustaining Passion-What Should Supervisors Do?

The Human Machine, like every other earthly creation, requires maintenance. Passion cannot be created
when none exists. However, when and if you ever stumble upon passion in one of your employees, it might
augur well to remember a few thumb rules:

1. Passionate employees are 1 in 25 or so. This means that for every 100 employees, you will find 4 you
would never like to lose.
2. Walk the Talk … all the time: Passionate employees require supervisors without double speak,
organizations whose culture is aligned to the vision statement they put on the website.
3. Do not practice democracy… all the time. Being 4% of your population is reason enough for you to treat
these employees with greater affinity and love than others.
4. Watch out for those seemingly simple complaints: Passionate employees have a lot of work all the time.
And when they whisper in your ears about the possible issue with their paycheck or leave credit or
reimbursement, follow it through like mad. Passionate employees will not badger you with personal
challenges that they face. They will share this with you once, or maybe twice. And if things were not
sorted out, you would have lost them long before you would know.
5. Give them their rest: There exist a common folk saying in Kerala… the bull that is best is given the
neighbors land also to till! The bull will eventually wear out and search another master, be aware!

Rajesh Kumar