The pitfalls of loving your job too much

B.Confirm with In the dim and distant past, job seekers had interests and hobbies. Reading books was a perfectly acceptable way to spend my spare time… no more. Today you will probably be asked if you have a “personal passion project”. And the more tired your answer sounds, the better. Go whitewater rafting, preferably with an orphan. Help build highway crosswalks for endangered animals. If you have to read, at least read the original.

Passion is becoming a key factor for success in the workplace. A new study by Jon Jachimowicz and Hannah Weisman of Harvard Business School includes an analysis of his 200 million job postings in the United States. The number of people who explicitly mention “passion” has increased from 2% in 2007 to 16% in 2019.

Career websites offer helpful advice on how to find yourself passionate about a very mundane pursuit. Here are some suggestions from one site on how to talk to prospective employers about putting things in the oven. I’ve been writing down my experiences…I’m very detail-oriented and love the scientific side of baking, but I’m also a very social person and use baking as an opportunity to get together with friends and family. .” Don’t say, “I really like cake.”

Once in an organization, a passion for work also seems like a good way to move forward. In another paper Jachimowicz did with Ke Wang of his Kennedy School at Harvard and Erica Bailey of his School of Columbia Business, employees perceived as more passionate than their peers were more positive I have found that I am getting great feedback and opportunities for promotion and training. Other studies have found that workers who cry at work are rated higher when they attribute these emotional displays to excessive caring.

On the surface, fashion for passion makes sense. Certainly, it’s better for employees to be enthusiastic than not. Most workers want to do what they love. Most companies are looking for dedicated and motivated employees. The claim of unlimited energy is especially prominent in certain types of companies. There’s a reason startups don’t embrace the cult of founders that sometimes interest them.

But passion can also skew judgment. An obvious pitfall for companies is rewarding commitment over competence. In the same way that note-taking and detail-oriented bakers churn out the world’s most disgusting profiteroles, highly dedicated employees who do it all volunteer work aren’t so good at their jobs. Maybe. A paper by Jachimowicz, Wang, and Bailey found that passion can actually blind managers. We found that even when the performance of passionate employees is downhill, they are more likely to be promoted than their reticent co-workers. .

Employees are also at risk. Even if the commitment is heartfelt, there are different kinds of passion, some better than others. Psychologists distinguish between harmonious passions, in which people engage in activities purely because they enjoy them, and compulsive passions, which are compulsive behaviors that actually make them feel like they are out of control. doing.

There is one obvious pitfall. There are many ways to convey passion. Wide-eyed nod: too strange. Jumping, whooping, sweating: even stranger. On the other hand, working longer hours is a pretty easy way to show that your commitment is beyond question.

Some evidence suggests that employers feel justified in exploiting that fact. A study by researchers at Duke University, the University of Oregon, and Oklahoma State University found that people were more legitimate to ask hard workers than to work for nothing and miss out on time they would otherwise spend with their families. I understand that you think there is. They are also more comfortable with the idea of ​​asking passionate employees to do completely unrelated tasks. People seem to believe that if they love their job, they will enjoy cleaning the toilets in the office more than those who are not so enthusiastic.

It’s great to feel the passion you have for your work. But if you’re waking up at 4 a.m. to meet with Asia, if you’re constantly working on your days off, or if your boss just handed you a bottle of bleach and a mop, it’s not entirely healthy. Not obsessed with something.

Read more from management and work columnist Bartleby:
Relationship between AI and humans (February 2)
The corporate headshot curse (January 26th)
Why Pointing Doesn’t Help (January 19th)

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