Hack:
Inspire Passion for Sustainable Long Term Capitalism : Dream-Desire-Aspiration-Passion (DDAP cycle) Adding a New Dimension to the Hiring Approach

Role of Work-Life in Building Long Term Capitalism

Capitalism is complex and multi dimensional. One of the important dimensions is Passion in an Organization to build the future. And the passion flows from employees, their involvement in the work-life.

In today's fast paced world, Work Life Space is continuously expanding. There is ever growing pressure to compete and perform. There is ever increasing ambition to achieve and acquire. As a result, employees are spending more and more time at work. The virtual work place has only added impetus to this phenomenon. Personal Life is merging into Work life. Personal Life is adjusted to accommodate Work Life Requirement. Work Life Commitments are re-defining the Personal Life priorities. Today Work Life is increasingly influencing the social behavior of employees.

We are living in a time, where Work life in the organization has the strength and capacity to influence and change the social culture and behavior. Organizations are growing and they may redefine societies and social fabric in future. Hence its time Work Life was reinvented and redefined to provide leadership to human values, culture and the long term future.

Capitalism has empowered individuals and private organizations to create opportunities. These opportunities have manifested as a consequence of some of the path breaking innovations that have challenged the existing fundamentals and have forced humanity to look beyond the obvious. These have been acts par excellence and been given shape by some passionate minds who have believed in their pursuit, who have focused hard and have delivered. These innovations have created huge economic opportunities and employment. Today, Organizations have been trapped into the battle of seizing existing opportunity, rather than creating new opportunity. Innovation has been left to a chosen few. Operational success is increasingly getting branded as excellent performance. We are stepping into a Capitalism Bubble that might burst unless organizations change and focus on innovation. And for innovation, organizations must learn to distinguish between success and excellence. Passion breeds excellence and organizations must learn to inspire passion in the Work-Life. Work-Life can no longer be just subservient to profit making objectives, it has to stand for higher ethos, creating energy in the work place and inspiring passion in employees.

Passionate Employees hold the key to the thriving Long Term Capitalism. This Hack suggests Dream-Desire-Aspiration-Passion (DDAP) Cycle to nurture passion in the organizations. This approach can be applied to new hires as well as existing employees. This cycle doesn’t suggest replacing skills, rather it emphasizes on the true assessment of the employee's involvement in the Work-Life so that success can transform into excellence.

HOW DDAP Cycle relates to Long Term Capitalism?

CAPITALISM = Existence of Opportunity + Utilization of Opportunity

LONG TERM CAPITALISM = Existence of Opportunity + Utilization of Opportunity + DESIRE to Innovate and Create New Opportunity

What drives Capitalism into a Long Term Future is the DESIRE to innovate and create new Opportunity. DESIRE ultimately transforms opportunity into viable business proposition. When Genuine DESIRE (in Employees) is discovered by chance or calculation, it becomes proprietary and leads to isolated Capitalism. When genuine DESIRE (in Employees) is nurtured, it manifests into distributed Capitalism and builds a long term future 

Performance can be achieved through Rewards. But seeds of Innovation are sown in DESIRE (of Employees) that grows into PASSION when nurtured through DDAP cycle.

What is Dream – Desire – Aspiration – Passion (DDAP) Cycle?

DDAP Cycle brings out the distinction between success and excellence.

In a typical analysis, an employee is successful when there is a true combination of the required work elements such as Skill, Hard Work and Commitment. Success breeds more Success and encourages others to be successful. However it’s important to understand that success is a positive entrapment. It’s difficult to jump out of the orbit of success and reach the sphere of innovation and excellence.

DDAP cycle explains different stages of Involvement of an employee in the Work-Life. Employee has to graduate through one stage to another by focusing on the required work elements. DDAP cycle is a path of evolution. The different stages in this cycle are:

Dream: State of Inspiration by examples of opportunity or outcome

Desire: Dream is nurtured through knowledge

Aspiration: Desire is nurtured through acquisition of appropriate skills

Passion: Aspiration is nurtured through self belief and belief in the value of the desired opportunity / outcome

When Passion is nurtured through Hard Work and Commitment and supported by the environment, results in Innovation and Excellence.

Working towards Success is the mere celebration of the benefits of capitalism. When organizations strive for excellence and innovation, they truly mean building long term capitalism. DDAP cycle suggests bringing the elemental change in the approach of current Work-Life and inspiring passion in the organization.

How to use DDAP Cycle to inspire passion and thus work towards Innovation and Excellence ?

Implementing DDAP Cycle can go a long way in the way organizations hire new talent and nurture internal talent. DDAP cycle can add a new dimension to the hiring approach of organizations. Lets understand where in the hiring process DDAP cycle can be deployed.

Fresher Hiring:  In case of hiring Fresher / Entry Level Employee, typically organizations look for education back ground and attitude of the candidate. These are more operational parameters. While these are important criteria to ensure success at work place, these do not ensure excellence. Organizations must also factor in where the candidate stands on DDAP cycle. Some candidates are driven by an inspiration during their education and have acquired relevant knowledge to shape up their dream and have built a desire to do well in a specific domain. These candidates apart from qualifying in the operations parameters such as good education and attitude are also aligned with the DDAP cycle and hence fall into the Must-Hire category. It is also pragmatic to hire a candidate who has good education and attitude, but has not started yet on the DDAP cycle. These are candidates who have flown with the wind and have done well. In such cases it becomes the onus on the organizations to get these candidates aware of different possibilities and opportunities available, once hired and get them initiated on the DDAP cycle.

For fresher hiring, it’s relatively easy for organizations to align the employee on the DDAP cycle and give them a direction and goal to work for. So the mantra in “Follow the DDAP Cycle”

Experienced Hiring:  Experienced Hiring is typically based on skill match, relevant experience and reference. Organizations look for candidates who have done well in the past and been successful in their previous organizations. In summary, success is hired to create success story. DDAP Cycle proposes to add a new dimension to experienced hiring. Organizations now should look for candidates who have been aligned with the DDAP cycle in their career. When successful candidates are aligned on DDAP cycle, the outcome is magical. And these are the employees who create positive energy and inspire passion. These are individuals who have built a career in the domain they have truly believed in and carefully worked towards achieving their goals. Organizations should look for candidates who are experienced and have aligned with the DDAP cycle till Aspiration Stage in their previous work-life. Now it becomes the Onus of the hiring organizations to guide and mentor these employees to reach the stage of passion in their work-life and ultimately achieve excellence.

Now let us discuss some unconventional use of DDAP cycle which may bring unbelievable result for organizations.

 Unconventional Experienced Hiring: As discussed earlier, in experienced hiring organizations typically look for skilled and successful candidates. This type of hiring has two possible outcomes. One, success in previous organization may translate into success in the new organization. Second, success may give way to saturation due to lack of motivation or success may fail to repeat itself due to cultural difference, Role expectation mismatch or complacency. Success is operational and hence gets easily influenced by operational parameters. DDAP cycle has the stages of evolution that are more robust and immune to external influence once developed. In the job market, there is always a population of experienced candidates who have pursued a certain career path due to various reasons but their own interest and belief in what they have been doing. They have been operationally successful but have rarely been able to make a big impact. They have nurtured their Dream behind the walls and have assiduously worked towards giving their dream a shape, silently building their DDAP cycle. They have not been able to build a career out of their passion, as job market only sees what is visible, the relevant experience. We may find a software professional who has immense desire to build a career in Learning and Development. We may have a Finance professional, who truly believes in business development and has developed the skills to become a great marketing proponent. These are people, difficult to hire (as they lack relevant experience), but when hired can create wonders as they have fought against odds to build their own DDAP cycle. They have the passion that is unique and rare to find in masses. Imagine an ad in the newspaper from an organization that doesn’t invite the typical CV, rather an unconventional story of dreamers who have worked towards shaping up their dreams and added relevant skills out of their own effort. An Ad that invites people who want to go off track and change their career into something they have always been passionate about. These candidates have already done the difficult task of aligning themselves on DDAP cycle, now with little effort in orientation, organizations can create excellent performers of them.

Unconventional Internal Job Change OR Redeployment: While creating the opportunity in adding a new dimension to the hiring approach, DDAP cycle can also contribute immensely to the philosophy of internal talent management. Organizations can keep the flame burning by encouraging employees to change jobs internally based on the DDAP cycle they are aligned to. This change will go a long way in inspiring passion within the organization and also retaining the true and bright talent.