In this issue:

• Ann Rhoades

This is our regular e-message to people who are interested in leading their lives with passion. We will send you a short note with information, stories, examples, and practical things you can do to lead your life, work, and organizations with passion. You are receiving this message because you have attended one of our presentations, expressed an interest in our work, asked to be put on our mailing list, purchased one of our books, or are one of our friends, colleagues, or associates! If you would like us to take you off our mailing list just reply to this e-mail and type 'unsubscribe’ in the subject field and we would be happy to do so. Leading With Passion We like the term 'leading with passion,’ because it has two very significant, but related meanings. The first suggests leading off with passion. That is, making the very first priority in your life to live, work, and play passionately, and to fully embrace every possible moment. Second, it means that we can lead our organizations, teams, and projects with passion - creating passionate work environments by transferring our own enthusiasm for the organization to all others who come into contact with it.

Ann Rhoades

You would be hard pressed to find someone more qualified to speak about creating passionate work environments than Ann Rhoades. She has been the Vice President of the People Department for Southwest Airlines, created JetBlue Airways' People Team in New York, and was Executive Vice President of Team Services for Promus/DoubleTree.

Nor would you have trouble guessing, just by talking with her, why she's been so successful. A never-ending bundle of energy, she exudes friendly confidence and lets loose a stream of stories about how the companies she worked for created highly productive, yet fun working environments.

She learned early in her career about taking chances. A new and young leader at First Interstate Bank in New Mexico, she was asked by a senior corporate leader what was wrong with the bank. "I told him the truth. It was leadership. The President and CEO was a terrible leader," she says. She gave examples and described why. "I went home and told my husband that I had just lost my first senior job." The next day the company let the President/CEO go and the corporate leader told her that she was the only one who had told him the truth. "You know what it did? It reinforced to me that it is okay to be a risk-taker. A lot of people don't have that experience early in their careers. I am so thankful for that."

Since then she has taken strong stances. She has quit jobs at times and then been rehired by the CEOs. She told one CEO that she wasn't going to participate in an activity – not because it wasn't legal or ethical - but because it wouldn't work with the kind of culture they were trying to create. "So I would say ‘forget it' and I would walk out and go home and have a call waiting for me...I even had their wives calling to tell me I had to come back."

We asked her what it takes to create a passionate work environment.

It Starts at the Top
Creating passionate organizations requires leaders who love their business and show it to their employees.

"I have worked for three of the best leaders probably in the world," Ann says. Creating passionate organizations starts at the top. "Rick Kelleher at Doubletree would never take a limousine at the airport, even if it were waiting for him. He would always take a cab. He said that it would be a cold day before he would drive up in anything but a cab to our hotels. You have to act with integrity when you are asking employees to save money. You need to lead by example."

In one company where Ann worked, an employee was one of the best friends of the President but he was not living the organization's values. Every time that person walked through the company he sent a signal that the company didn't really believe in the values it had adopted. When the President realized this, the person had to go.

Are you the kind of leader who has lots of fun on the job, acts with integrity – even when your personal relationships are in conflict, and is sincerely committed to your employees?

Hire "A" Players
It doesn't matter the position, you have to have what Ann calls "A" players. "You can be at the front line at McDonald's and make a difference, because I will go back to that person who is great. I want someone who really cares about making a difference while he or she is there." JetBlue lost thousands and thousands of dollars one time because it wouldn't put new airplanes into the air until they could hire an "A" level player in a key maintenance position. "We said that it is better to wait for the "A" player. We didn't want to hear ourselves mentioned on Jay Leno as being anything but great."

Housekeepers in the hotel business may be the most important employees because the number one thing guests want are clean rooms. At the Doubletree, Ann decided that it was important not to just get warm bodies off the street but to put the time into hiring "A" players. "So we had our housekeepers hire housekeepers. What they wanted was as simple as somebody who really cleaned a toilet. "So part of the job interview was to see how they cleaned a toilet. The employees the housekeepers hired were exceptionally successful. "The ones they hired were passionate. They kept their own homes clean enough to eat off the floor and they wanted it to be the same way in the place they worked."

That not only cut their turnover but, because the housekeepers loved being a part of a great team, they wouldn't go across the street to a competitor that offered more pay. "We supported them. We let them pick their own brooms and their own mops. That was a big deal to them."

Do you hire "A" players or do you settle for "B" or even "C" players? "C" players tend to have other "C" players surround them. You can't afford that.

You Can't Hire "A" Players and Not Care About Them
"A" players have to play in an environment of "A" players. "'A" leaders have to be willing to spend the time and effort to develop and retain these people because they will move if they aren't happy, being developed, and aren't being challenged," she says. You have to really take care of your "A" people because it is difficult to find them. "Oddly enough it isn't about money. Never has been and never will be." You have to pay enough to show your best employees that you value them, but you don't have to be the highest payer in the market.

"I have a very good friend who is a critical care nurse," she says. "People beg her to come work for them. She is fabulous." She is paid less now than where she was before, but she is staying with her current organization. They let her take a day off if she needs a day off to care for her children. The doctors understand the value she brings. "She said that everyplace she had worked, all they did was look down at her and the doctors never even talked to her in the hallways. She says that this is a different team environment and that she will stay even though she is paid less."

The head of JetBlue consistently writes memos, often as late as 2:00 in the morning, thanking everyone for the work they did during the horrible storms in New York and the Florida hurricane. "Everyone else took the easy way out and cancelled flights, she says. "Our people stayed through the night without being asked to and said ‘Let's get the flights out.'"

"I think it is so easy to hire "A" players and then assume they are okay. But you have to constantly have a discipline about telling them they are going a good job and defining what they need to do to improve, because "A" players never quit learning."

Do you spend the time to develop, challenge, reward, and show your very best employees that you value them?

Conclusion
Start with passionate leaders, follow up by hiring only the best employees and, finally, spend the time and effort to develop, challenge, value and reward them. These are the three critical steps Ann Rhoades has successfully used to create passionate work environments in some of the top companies in the world.

Leading with Passion is a regular communication from Michael Kroth and Patricia Boverie. Michael and Patricia have been researching passionate work since 1999, and their book, Transforming Work: The Five Keys to Achieving Trust, Commitment, and Passion in the Workplace, is about the indispensable necessity of passion for personal and organizational success in the workplace.

© Copyright 2004, All Rights Reserved Patricia Boverie and Michael Kroth