The tale of two gardeners - A Story of Passion

'Passion' is a topic on which I have written earlier also, but then whenever I see an example , which reinforces my belief I am forced to reflect back on the issue. I get straight to the example which I came across recently.

We use to have a gardener for the last two years who was like any typical gardener working for more than a dozen houses in the vicinity and would do as little as possible to get his monthly payment out of us. It use to be a struggle getting any meaningful work out of him. Then one fine day we said enough is enough and threw him out....

We struggled for a few weeks and then got a new guy for the job. From day one we could see that this guy was different and the results could be seen in a matter of the first two weeks itself. The upkeep and look of the garden improved and he started sharing tips with us on how the garden should be maintained. By the end of the first month the garden was transformed and we could see the difference for ourself.

This made me think what was different in the two gardener. The difference boiled down to 'Passion' that one had for the job. The first gardener was a person who had picked up the skills of gardening overtime for an evening job. Versus the second gardener who was full-time involved in maintaining a mango orchard, and thus loved his job and when he saw the condition of our garden we did not have to tell what to do, but he himself decided on the course of action and took the task upon him to improve the garden. This urge was something which was there in him because of his inherent interest in gardening , which was missing in our earlier gardener....

The example shows us that if one gets an employee who is passionate about his work then the job of motivating him is very easy, but life becomes difficult the other way round..

This reinforces my belief that one needs to find a match between passion and job, and once that is achieved then the results would flow....