We Believe in Serving with Passion to the Best of Our Ability

When I set out to write this blog, I went online to look up the exact definition of “passion”. There were links to normal dictionary definitions that included phrases like “uncontrolled emotion” that didn’t really resonate with me and then something else caught my eye. Under the link to the Merriam-Webster definition was a link to an article that said: “Passion is when you put more energy into something than you are required to do”.  YES! That’s what I want Passion to mean in this context for the team at MSN.

I think so often “passion” has become synonymous with “excited” or “enthusiastic”, or that dictionary “uncontrolled emotion” idea, and that just sets the bar for unsustainable results. As a leader, it is unrealistic for me to expect every team member at MSN to be over-the-top excited about every task they have to do. There are projects and tasks that people are bound to like better than others and there are moments on frustrating days when it’s hard to be enthusiastic. I don’t want, nor should I expect, a culture where everyone is kid-in-a-candy-store happy about what they are doing all the time. It would be fake and people would get tired of that very quickly.

What I do expect is for all of our team to put in the energy to do more or the energy to go the extra mile. To me, serving with passion means that I am going to go the extra mile, hustle harder, and do whatever I can to take care of our clients and our team instead of settling for status quo. For our agents on the phone, serving with passion translates into looking at every call as a way to serve our clients by representing them well instead of just going through the motions. For our digital marketing team, that means taking the initiative to stay on top of trends and go back to clients with strategy recommendations instead of coasting on what worked last year. It’s all the little steps we do each and every day to serve our clients and each other with that “more energy that is required” mindset.

I’ll admit it… When we started off with our We Believe statements at the beginning of the year, I was concerned that “passion” was too much of a buzzword and that it would come across as cheesy or like a platitude. But this shift of mindset to the idea of passion being the energy we put into serving has turned this one into one of my favorite We Believe statements and I am excited to help our team continue to embrace that passion for serving!