Passion vs. Professionalism At Work: QMN037

Martial Mental Models: The Quartermaster, Friday, 14 June

(Today’s Quartermaster is a 6 minute read)

BLUF: Passion isn’t a necessary component to doing a good job. In some cases, it’s a hindrance. More important than passion is professionalism, which, in many cases, demands a certain dispassion.

KSA here. I have observed that, at some point in the last 20 or so years, interviewers started asking candidates about what they’re passionate about. It’s become, in my experience, one of the go-to questions from potential employers and, to a lesser degree (and my chagrin), clients.

It’s a tiresome inquiry, often intended to gauge one’s interest in the employer’s field and how little money a job-hunter will take in the name of pursuing one’s passions. It has nothing to do with assessing a candidate’s competency, skill sets, professional potential, or anything else that actually has an effect on their ability to do a job well.

There are, mind you, a few professions where passion is an aid. Writers and other artists working for themselves, should be willing to endure a certain amount of suffering, keeping in sight a larger goal, a bigger picture. Having enough confidence in your work is invaluable when it comes to navigating the muddy waters of freelancing and contracting. Armed professionals   might also find that the day-to-day shitshow is made more tolerable by an adherence to a larger set of values: love of country, love of comrades and community, love of the profession of arms itself.

You’ll notice the operative words in the above are “suffering” and “love.” Indeed, the Oxford English Dictionary gives the original meaning of passion as Christ-like suffering. It wasn’t used as a synonym for enthusiasm until the 16th century, but I highly doubt anyone was asking the local blacksmith’s apprentice if he was passionate about standing over a forge all day. So why the sudden interest in “passion?”

There may be valid reasons for asking this question, though I doubt anyone has them in mind when they’re asking it. It could be an inquiry into whether or not a candidate will fit in with the “company culture,” in which case you need only mimic the flattery of those around you in order to survive. It may be another ham-fisted way of attempting to analyze your thought process: how you answer the question, rather than what your answer is. It may be an attempt to ascertain your level of commitment to something you actually care about: an awkward way of seeing how hard you’ll work. It may be something that the interviewer read in a mass market paperback of interview questions.

I tend to think that the actual reason for asking this question is that companies believe that a passionate employee will endure whatever agonies an organization throws at them: that they will suffer for the sake of the corporation, becoming martyrs for the greater cause of the company and smiling as they’re spoon-fed corporate bullshit. If nothing else, the candidate will give an indication of how willing they are to play these tedious games by how sincere-sounding their answer is. I’m not interested in those games. I don’t play them. I don’t ask others to play them.

Moreover, I don’t take my passions to work with me. As a writer and editor who has worked for both extremely right-wing and extremely liberal media sites, I’ve had to leave as much of my political point of view as possible at home. As a business writer, I need to be able to see things as clearly as possible. As a branded content creator, I need to be able to understand both my client and my client’s audience, remembering that they are not necessarily the same thing. As a strategist, I have to be able to sift intelligence from data and change tactics when my strategies don’t accomplish my objectives. As a contractor, I need to be able to say “no,” negotiate pay, and respect my skills, my work, and my education as part and parcel of a profession: not a hobby, not a passion.

I am a professional, not a hobbyist.

Writing is my passion, yes. But when it comes to making money, that passion has to take a back seat to professionalism. It’s not about loving what I write about. It’s about delivering a product on-time that meets the demands of my clients and employers.

You know what has been my primary motivation for working? The same one that has motivated humans since the beginning of time: survival.

I’m passionate about not starving to death in New York City. I’m passionate about not being reduced to working for sub-minimum wage at “content farms.” I’m passionate about being left alone to do my job with as little interference as possible. I’m passionate about being better than I was yesterday. 

I’m passionate about moving away from meaningless conversations, useless meetings, corporate newspeak, and strategies that don’t work. I’m passionate about ripping the heart of bullshit out of the American workplace. The more time we spend bullshitting each other, the less work we get done. If we’re going to continue this nonsense about “passion,” then let’s make professionalism — efficiency, efficacy, accountability, and transparency — the most virtuous passion in the workplace and be done with it. (KSA)

More on the folly of passion as a career guide from Cal Newport and Mike Rowe. (BJM)

WAR OF ART: This World War II Hero’s Art Said What Words Couldn’t (5 min) “At the end of the war, Montlaur was awarded seven medals for valor, in addition to France’s highest honor, the Légion d’Honneur. An undisputed hero, he left military service and rarely spoke about it. But it emerged in his work. He moved to Manhattan to paint, and he lived there for two years before returning to France. For decades Montlaur painted and repainted scenes from combat. They cover the walls of the museum exhibit with expressions of confusion and horror. One, titled “One June Early Morning,” features a canvas slapped with heavy black strokes of paint that battle with fiery smears of red and orange, which together overwhelm delicate blues and whites.” (BJM)

REAL TALK ABOUT MILITARY AUTOMATION: More than Killer Robots: Artificial Intelligence Will Displace More Soldiers than It Kills (10 min) Too much truth: “It is perhaps predictable that military leaders are focusing on killer robots and missing the big picture. The last eighteen years of war, conducted on a rotational model that constantly cycles units in and out of combat zones, seem to have only reinforced an emphasis on a near horizon line and undercut interest in the specific types of critical thinking, imagination, or modernization needed to conceptualize, as an organization, the full range of new technologies’ applications. Moreover, there are dynamics related to the nature of bureaucracies at play. Digital automation requires digital information and the military has struggled to adapt modern best practices that would enable much of this transformation—from software systems that do not connect with each other to the use of paper or other manual processes. It is no surprise that there are significant barriers to overcome before an institution that struggles to have a user-friendly system for processing official travel can field a lethal autonomous robot.”(BJM)

Remarks Complete. Nothing Follows.

KS Anthony (KSA), Chris Papasadero (CPP) & Brady Moore (BJM)