Story:
Restoring pride and meaning in the work that we do

That said, there is one of his interviews that I am not going to forget any time soon and you will understand why. He was interviewing a farmer growing cows in the french Pyrenees mountains. The farmer was obviously very proud of the work he was doing, he was also very proud of the quality of his animals and the care that he took to grow them in the mountain pasture. He was proud to say that he and his family were actually eating the meat that they were producing and then he shared with us a story. This farmer happened to meet with someone, who was running a plant to feed chicken. After some time, the guy recognized that he and his family were actually not eating their own production, it was obviously not good enough for them so they were purchasing their chickens from other smaller farmers, who were growing them outside with corns. I found this profoundly shocking, how can one run a business for a living and believe that the manufacturing conditions are actually so poor that you would actually never buy your own products? Your chicken would be so low quality that they are not good enough to feed your own children? If they are not good enough for my own children, why should they be any better for the children of others?!?!?
What was the meaning in what this guy was doing? How can someone do a job and not feel proud of talking about it to his children? And when that is the case, why continue?
I believe that we as managers have a critical task to show meaning and give pride to our employees for the work that they do. They must feel that they contribute to a greater whole and they must feel proud about it, no matter how big or small their contribution is. These are critical conditions to enable employee engagement, ignite the fire in each and everyone of them.  At the root of Communities of Passion are Passionate employees. The same way the Open source community developed and grew by itself from an open network of software developers, intra-company communities of passion will develop and grow by themselves as long as there is a foundation of passionate employees and a minimum layer of organizational tools and processes to sustain them. Then we as managers should just get out of the way and see the magic happen, communities of passion very often self-organize, you do not need to identify its leaders, they will emerge out of recognition from their peers and all the necessary community positions will be filled naturally by its members, who want it to grow. It is very much like farming, you plant the seed and then you learn patience while you watch it grow...