Passion for Work is a Delusion

Raymond Thomas Dalio, the American hedge fund billionaire, famously and often, has said, “Make your passion and your work one and the same, and do it with people you want to be with.”  That is good advice.  It only works when you are the boss.  People who are not founders, shareholder directors, or owners of businesses, the general staff of a company, should not be invested in the business as their major passion.  It is illogical.  No matter how much they work, it is not as if they will be compensated a substantial stake in the company, and partake in its profits.  Staff must be compensated well, but businesses must recognise that they do not own their soul. 

When companies and organisations insist that their people have a passion for the entity, they will eventually lose their best and brightest, the people who have viable options elsewhere, and will be stuck with deadwood who pay lip service to this false god.  This is to the detriment to the business and to the people.  Just as we need to motivate staff, we must also manage their energy by allowing them an outlet.  Humans are not machines.  They need to dream, to believe they are heroes of their story, to achieve something to feed their esteem.  It cannot always come in a career, since we need dirt movers as much as we need people who bathe in the clouds.  Staff need to be encouraged to have interests and hobbies outside of the company, so that there is an outlet for their frustrations, and perceived inadequacies of the hierarchy. 

People find fulfillment in socialising, building relationships, hobbies, activities, achievements elsewhere, outside the corporate sphere.  This is not escapism.  This is work life balance.  It is also important for mental health, and physical health.  People in areas which require some form of artistic expression, some semblance of inspiration, some manner of paradigm shift, often find that removed from the corporate environment, and that is how some of our best designs, most important inventions, our fortuitous accidents, came from. 

People pursuing activities outside work, work off excess stress, find meaning in the things they, and acquire a sense of accomplishment.  They bring that refreshed outlook back to the office.  Vacations and leave are not an indulgence.  They are an integral aspect of a business’s competitive advantage.  This works for all levels of the company, even founders. 

Even in the rare cases where the sole passion of an employee is the work, this must be discouraged.  That dedicated, hardworking employee who has given up everything is a long-term liability to the company.  This is because they have no option other than to tie their self-esteem to work accomplishments, identify their worth with their career, mistake this as their life.  This makes them mentally fragile, and mentally less resilient.  Any adverse work event may be a trigger point, whether it is a missed earnings call, failed promotion bid, or even a redundancy.  We are looking at a possible violent reaction, loss of inhibitions through substance abuse to cope, even possible suicide. 

Being married to a career is not a status symbol.  It has wider implications on society, from class fractures, lowered fertility rates, absent parenting, youth delinquency, and failed marriages.  The policy remedies are far more expensive on society than merely addressing work life balance. 

From a management perspective, we need to lead by example.  We should take that vacation, and encourage it.  We should attend events, and push our team to do so.  We should have hobbies, and make it a distinct part of our identity.  We should disabuse ourselves of this ridiculous Randian notion that our job must be our primary passion.  It is a delusion we sell to the masses, and it will never work.  Your job will compensate you enough to stay, but they will never pay you enough to simply leave it all.