The best way to achieve a top performing team is to drug them.
In a good way, of course.
The drug of choice is oxytocin, “a brain peptide known to promote positive intersocial relations” previously relegated to intimate relationships, but, based on new research by Dr. Gert-Jan Pepping, a researcher at the Center for Human Movement Sciences at the University of Groningen in The Netherlands, one that seems to play a significant role in team sports.
“In any social setting that requires some form of social interaction, be it cooperation, trust or competition, we require social information to guide our behavior and a nervous system and associated brain chemicals that are sensitive to this social information.”
While the good doctor is focused on athletic teams what hit me was the applicability to the teams found in businesses of all kinds and at all levels.
Think about it, people tend to separate the personal and professional with language, but call them what you will all human contact revolves around relationships
We’ve all seen or heard about brilliant managers who created teams that went above and beyond and in doing so creamed their competition.
Looking at the companies and teams of managers known for the passion they instill (think Steve Jobs), the high productivity, creativity, drive and fanatical loyalty, both to the company and each other, can you doubt the presence of high levels of oxytocin?
The good news is that oxytocin production is catching, so by being a good boss you can increase the feelings and reactions that produce oxytocin—even among the more lackadaisical members of your team.
“Even when you don’t much like sports, watching others high-five and leap about the living room after their favored team scores will lead “your body to release oxytocin.”
Cheering your team on, recognizing efforts, celebrating accomplishments, both large and small, and other similar actions creates an environment conducive to the production of oxytocin.
But be warned; your people aren’t stupid and will know if you’re faking, so be sure both your attitude and actions are authentic.
T. Alan Armstrong said, “If there is no passion in your life, then have you really lived? Find your passion, whatever it may be. Become it, and let it become you and you will find great things happen FOR you, TO you and BECAUSE of you.”
A good description of why an entrepreneur becomes an entrepreneur and why people join startups.
But it’s your passion that matters, not what the media or your friends/colleagues say your passion ought to be.
Your passion may lean to a more corporate setting, to a more socially responsible effort or to something else.
Living another person’s passion is far worse than living with no passion—because it is a sham and a sham can not sustain your effort, nor will it drive your success.
What faux passion will do is feast on your energy, suck you dry and leave behind a hollow ghost.
So whatever your passion, just be sure it really is yours.
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Since the mid-80s when Semler arrived on the scene, that has meant an ever-evolving experiment in upending the organizational status quo: no organizational chart, no fixed offices or working hours, no fixed CEO, no HR department, no five-year plan (or two- or one-year-plan), no job descriptions or permanent positions, no approvals necessary—and an endless array of clever practices and initiatives to increase individual autonomy and agency, participation at every level, trust, and informality.
The result? Market success—Semco is private but Semler reports average annual revenue growth at 40% and profitability. (…)
“We constantly talk about passion—serving customers passionately, filling in forms passionately—but what if we created the conditions for people to feel exhilaration, to get involved to the point they shout ‘yes!’ and give each other high fives because they did it their way and it worked?”
Would your people thrive in a going concern that functions more like a startup than most startups?
If yes, why? If not, why not?
Knowing why it would/does work is useful because you can share the knowledge and lessons learned with others.
If you don’t believe similar actions, tweaked for your organization, would work you need to ask why not.
You can ask your peers or, better yet your people, but first ask the mirror.
A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read allIf the Shoe Fits posts here
Who do you want to hire?
The person who passionately wants to work for a startup or the person who passionately wants to work for your startup?
Think about it.
Who will contribute more?
The person who always wanted to work in a startup; whose passion is engaged by the mere thought of working in the startup environment; or
the person who craves the solution your startup proposes even if she never recognized the problem; whose passion is engaged specifically by the idea of contributing to that particular solution no matter where it is done.
Some experts will tell you that it is the drive to work in a startup—any startup—that is most important.
I disagree.
Just as the person who joins a company for money will leave for more money the person who joins because it’s a startup will leave for a sexier startup.
But the person who joins because of a deep, driving passion to be part of that specific solution will stay and fight the good fight long past the time that Hell freezes over.
Option Sanity™ engages the deeply driven.
Come visit Option Sanity for an easy-to-understand, simple-to-implement stock allocation system. It’s so easy a CEO can do it.
Warning Do not attempt to use Option Sanity™ without a strong commitment to business planning, financial controls, honesty, ethics, and “doing the right thing.” Use only as directed.
Users of Option Sanity may experience sudden increases in team cohesion and worker satisfaction. In cases where team productivity, retention and company success is greater than typical, expect media interest and invitations as keynote speaker.
You did everything right, but no matter how great the product, food, heat and a roof overhead come first.
Disclaimer: I realize this post will come over as partisan and liberal to some of you and I sincerely hope you will share your disagreement in the name of healthy discussion.
Last spring I wrote that passion sustains me and keeps my writing, but that even passion needs a day off now and then.
But what happens with there is no day off; when passion is continually cranked up?
When passion runs wild it can lose touch with reality.
You can see the aftermath of unchecked passion in companies whose positional leaders were so focused on their vision that they allowed nothing to stand in the way and the political leaders who are more focused on spreading their ideology than fixing their country.
It’s Sunday night and I’ve been staring at the screen trying to find something to write for you, but my mind is totally blank. This doesn’t happen very often, but when it does I tend to look back at years of posts for inspiration.
When I did that I came across something I wrote in 2006 when the same thing happened.
On low days (we all have them), as I sit here writing and sending these words into the ether, I wonder if the people who read my blog find it as useful as I mean it to be. I wonder how many people read MAPping Company Success, and, to be honest, I sometimes wonder if anybody would actually care if I stopped writing it.
Then, yesterday, I happened to read Brandstorming and was reminded that, when I get right down to it, I’m writing my own passion and, even without my clients’ comments, I know that it has value and works.
Now all I have to do on those odd blue days is remind myself that passion pays in many ways. (Hey! It rhymes—how ’bout that:)
What I wrote then is still true four years and more than a thousand posts later.
We all have days when we wonder why we do what we do; how we can keep going when we’re stale or find ourselves wondering if [whatever] really matters.
Now and then it’s good to take a step back and recognize that we’re going to have these days; that although our passion will sustain us in the long run it doesn’t always burn with uniform intensity. At times we may even feel like the flame has died, but if we keep going we’ll find it again and it will be stronger than ever.
In short, you need to trust your passion; if it’s real it will never desert you, but it might need a day off now and then.
Have you ever wondered what the perfect attitude is? Not just a top dog or the person out front, but for any entrepreneur who aspires to succeed and, for that matter, every person who lives and breaths.
I recognize it when I see it, know when I’m doing it, and can explain it when I’m coaching, but I’ve never seen it so perfectly boiled down to ten short words—all self-explanatory, nothing to look-up or study or requiring training.
I found those words in a friend’s description of how his daughter lives.
Like 3 year olds, be passionate, humble, impatient, grateful…daily.
Do it and change your life—and your world—guaranteed!
Remember the old line “those who can, do; those who can’t, teach; those who can’t teach, teach teachers.”
It’s not true. Most people who go into teaching do it because they have a true passion—at least when they start.
But passion is hard to sustain when all you hear is that
you are too easy/hard;
you give too much/not enough homework;
you too often receive little-to-no respect from parents, kids, administrators and even your colleagues;
more time is spent on politics than lesson plans;
you spend more time teaching basic manners than educating; and
your de facto hourly pay rate is around minimum wage in spite of a 9 month work year.
Some manage it and they are the ones who truly leave their mark.
Most of us remember the teacher(s) who really touched us, who opened our eyes and helped us see the world differently.
And we remember the worst we had, but the majority fall in-between and become a blur.
some of the best come to teaching from other successful careers.
One of the highest profile of these is Tom Bloch, who left H&R Block (the family business founded by his father) after 18 years, five as President, and a salary of nearly a million a year to teach math at an inner-city middle school in Kansas City, because he wanted to make a difference—and he has.
Listen to this interview and then read his story in Stand for the Best. Share it; maybe it will inspire others to apply their passion to teaching, but if nothing else, perhaps it will encourage them reconsider their own attitude towards teachers.
Yesterday I explained why I don’t like the term cult culture, although I agree that culture is the tao of (in today’s buzz words) employee engagement.
But I’ve always believed that if you reject an idea it’s your responsibility to offer up something else and I have just the thing.
Cultural Passion.
When you harness people’s passion you have a tiger by the tail. Passion drives creativity, innovation, productivity, retention and a host of other desired behaviors.
But you can’t request passion from your people nor wheedle or cajole and you certainly can’t order people to be passionate.
To enjoy the benefits of passion you must first build a culture that stimulates it; as people grow to trust the culture their passion will grow.
Creating a culture of passion where it doesn’t exist is a long-term project, not only do you need to identify and change various parts of the current culture you need to rebuild trust with a workforce that may have been badly burned previously.
Creating one in a startup is easier, because you start with a clean slate.
However, in both instances, it is imperative to make your culture a filter through which any new hire, especially managers, no matter how senior, must pass.
Whether a startup or giant enterprise, it is cultural passion that makes the impossible improbable and the improbable likely.
Entrepreneurs face difficulties that are hard for most people to imagine, let alone understand. You can find anonymous help and connections that do understand at 7 cups of tea.
Crises never end.
$10 really does make a difference and you’ll never miss it,
The best way to achieve a top performing team is to drug them.
T. Alan Armstrong said, “If there is no passion in your life, then have you really lived? Find your passion, whatever it may be. Become it, and let it become you and you will find great things happen FOR you, TO you and BECAUSE of you.” 
Who do you want to hire?
You started with nothing more than an idea.
It’s Sunday night and I’ve been staring at the screen trying to find something to write for you, but my mind is totally blank. This doesn’t happen very often, but when it does I tend to look back at years of posts for inspiration.
Have you ever wondered what the perfect attitude is? Not just a top dog or the person out front, but for any entrepreneur who aspires to succeed and, for that matter, every person who lives and breaths.
But I’ve always believed that if you reject an idea it’s your responsibility to offer up something else and I have just the thing.
