Focus or Passion – for Business Success?

I recently read a business book where the author indicated that at an international seminar participants overwhelming indicated that the reason for their success in business is attributable to being focused.  I immediately thought that they are wrong and that it should rather be to have passion, and then started debating the two concepts of success in my own mind. Soon I realized that the major difference between focus and passion is that focus can be learnt, drilled into a person, be enforced through practices but passion is a gift – a gift normally portrayed by leaders. To drill focus into people can be artificial but passionate people are naturally focused.

What is the ideal then for our business - a passionate leader that would naturally be focused! Yes, we have them in our business and they are the achievers and highflyers and they are easy to be motivated to stay focused and to apply focused rules.  

One must be careful not to lose the passionate leaders or have declined passion – when do you lose them or is passion declining? When there are no more challenges, when the leader is neglected, when he is not stimulated anymore but most importantly when he reaches his sell by date – then focus normally drop and there is no intention to focus anymore.  Forced focus is a dangerous business principle if it could rather have been achieved naturally through passion. 

Stimulation is possibly the best treatment for a “sell by date” or declined passion – do we stimulate our leaders enough, do we know what stimulate our leaders and do we know what “makes our leaders tick” – those things that would make our leaders excel and give them renewed energy - restructuring, additional training, keeping to our promises, renewed open and honest communication, new products or services, added responsibility,  a new adventure, new business ventures, recognition – these are amongst others drivers to “dust off the leader who is about to lose passion” that would give meaning and interest to him. 

Let us rethink our passion and focus attitudes in business – who is passionate, who is focused, how do we maintain passion and how do we increase focus?

 

Christmas in the private security industry

Yet another Christmas has passed. Security officers worked their full 12 hours shifts at extra time and managers made sure that contracts are covered with the correct number and levels of staff. In our company, Thorburn Security Solutions, we care on this day by handingmas parcels - this year again food parcels.

There is a saying that “nothing has changed except for the date”. Christmas day and night 2012 was typical of the saying as almost 900 Christmas parcels were handed out to our Thorburn staff by managers on Christmas day and eve.

Preparing and distributing the parcels to staff as far as 600 km from Pretoria is a mission on its own. The procurement, transportation and packing of the pre-printed Thorburn shopping bags require a lot of planning and many “hands” to work. What started off in 2005 in the residence of Dolf Scheepers for 80 people has grown to 890 parcels in 2012. There were times when it was a “family logistics issue” involving my wife and kids, but it has now grown too big. Managers and office administrative staff are all involved in packing the bags.

The idea is to give the officer who works on Christmas day or night something to take home in the form of food whilst the durable Thorburn bag can always be used for shopping in future.