Cambridge Business Association
The Passionate Organization
Book

The Passionate Organization

Igniting the Fire of Employee Commitment

James R. Lucas
AMACOM, 1999
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Editorial Rating

7

Qualities

  • Concrete Examples
  • Engaging
  • Inspiring

Recommendation

A loyal employee will always show up bodily, but committed employees direct their minds and spirits to the organization’s goals. Therein lies the premise of James R. Lucas’ compelling and original book. To truly motivate a workforce, he proposes, you must appeal to something deeper than performance reviews, employee manuals and monetary rewards. You must harness the passion of your employees to the goals of your organization. In other words: Lead, don’t manage. While some experienced (dare we say cynical?) managers might grow impatient with the slightly fuzzy, optimistic tome of Lucas’ book, the bottom-line commandment that managers should consider the goals, devotions and beliefs of their employees when choosing tactics for motivating a workforce cannot be disputed. getAbstract recommends this outstanding treatment of the nature and nurture of employee motivation to anyone who stands higher than the first step in the reporting line.

Summary

Reason and Passion

In our drive to develop ever more intelligent organizations, we often forget that for human beings (the constituent parts of organizations), intelligence is not circumscribed by reason. Rather, emotional and spiritual intelligence, which derive from the realm of the non-rational, inform and enhance the exercise of reason. More importantly, individuals’ actions often are driven by our passions, not our reason. Although our rational faculty can guide the assessment and planning of a particular course of action, something must make us undertake it in the first place, and that something lies squarely in the camp of passion. Therefore, your organization must learn to harness your employees’ positive passions for achievement, competition, the truth and life as a whole.

As a first step, examine the contribution passion has to make to three critical, current management tools: strategic planning, the learning organization and organizational control:

  • Strategic planning - The purpose of strategy is to take your organization effectively into the future. At its most fundamental level, strategic planning is supposed to combine the development of overarching...

About the Author

James R. Lucas is author of several books, including Balance of Power: Authority or Empowerment? and Fatal Illusions: Shredding a Dozen Unrealities That Can Keep Your Organization from Success. He is a faculty member of the American Management Association and president of Luman Consultants, an individual and organizational development consulting firm.

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