CONNECTING PASSIONS

by

Not just a slogan

Why talking about passion in a corporate blog?
And what does it mean “connecting passion”?

We do computer science, we work with machines, technology, software; in our imaginary we’ve got films such as Blade Runner, Matrixlike philosophies, tools and technologies that make us look like Tom Cruise in Minority Report – so to say. Worlds apparently far from the idea of passion.

In the workplaces, especially in the business contexts, the culture of profit and constant acceleration prevails more and more above all things, and forces us on a daily basis to face challenges against the time which are already lost before even thinking about them.

How can we survive, therefore, the irrepressible vortex of today’s work without being crushed, or rather experiencing pleasure and transport through it?

To explain this, first we must understand that by passion we mean that “state of grace” – which to some is given since childhood, while others chase for all their lives – that pervades you when you find something that involves you totally, that makes you feel alive, stimulates your creativity and animates every millimeter of your flesh, every cell in your brain. I’m talking about that very passion that comes from within as a vital flow and that leads to the creation of something new, no matter if it were a cake, a poem, an intuition or a software.

In the Japanese philosophy Ikigai this condition is called “state of flow”; a state in which we are so absorbed in what we are doing by not realizing the external stimuli, hunger, thirst, time running unstoppable…nothing, every other thing no longer exists; basically a love relationship with ourselves that happens to be a generator of new life, new creativity. The sensation you feel is totally gratifying and not by chance what we produce in 90% of cases works very well too!

In order to turn on this physical and mental state, however, we need at least a couple of fundamental prerequisites, without which it is unlikely to be able to get carried away completely. Sine qua non prerogatives are freedom of thought and action: we can hardly let ourselves go into a creative/productive flow if on our shoulders weigh, like two monkeys, fear of making mistakes or the ticking of an alarm clock to remind us that we’ve got an urgent deadline.

Secondly, but no less important, the courage to face the challenge with ourselves.

It really needs the courage to take responsibility, and therefore the consequences, to make choices firsthand without following a path already traced by others. What if our intuition were wrong? Or if that road weren’t the right one? We would never know without the courage to put ourselves out there! Sometimes we are mistaken, that’s true, but often mistakes make unexpected things happen and in most of the cases they do better than what came before.

The “state of flow” does not foresee the fear of making mistakes, the idea of profit or a “grand prize”; for this very reason, it is the ideal condition for an individual to feel gratified, fulfilled and through which they can give the best of themselves. So once again, the essential thing is not what you do but how you do it, and the more passion you put in the action, the more it will also be disruptive for the surrounding environment.

This is one of the challenges of Interlogica, one of our pillars. The company itself was born from the catch-up of some passionate people who turned a group of friends into a Group of companies. The very DNA of the company is steeped in passions!

It is no coincidence that the three pillars of our culture are: Ethical Hacking, Trinity of Management® and Agile approach. In very different ways, each of these strands of thought has to do very closely with the passions and with “Connecting passions”.

 

 

The adoption of a corporate culture such as Agile and methods such as Scrum allows each individual to feel part of the project and not a mere performer. Each of the professionals are involved in the construction of the production process; times and methods are established by mutual agreement in order to find the best possible solution.
Even where the customers themselves do not know exactly where to go, even where the goal is not defined or definable a priori, the journey is always traveled together, with the same freedom of thought, the same courage and the same passion that we put in what we do for ourselves.

Trinity of Management®, on the other hand, is a tool devised by our strategic consultant Ernesto Sirolli to help entrepreneurs manage their business. Sirolli identifies in the collaboration of three different “actors” (Market, Finance, Product) the foundation for proper business growth.
It happens that at the basis of everything there must be passionate people, who are instinctively carried towards the performance of one of these three functions. Our CEO, Alessandro Fossato, recently explained in a video: “I am one of those people who has found their passion from a young age and that at some point in life, rather soon, has decided to turn it into a business; without realizing that having a passion for something and even knowing how to do it well is not equivalent to being able to build and operate a company. I did not realize when I starting-up a company, I was overwhelmed by a whole series of activities that were not at all aligned with my passion. I was doing things that I actually hated. With Ernesto Sirolli I learned that no entrepreneur alone can make a company and that there are functions of Product, Market and Finance that must be carried out by different people. A single entrepreneur can’t do three things alone, and you can’t even do two of these three things on your own. The moment I was fortunate enough to meet Ernesto and begin to understand the dynamics of the Trinity of Management® to me there happened a radical change in how I was doing business and in the awareness, as an entrepreneur, of what was the way to follow.”

On the hacker culture, we could spend loads of words, many of which we put on video in our YouTube Playlist Ethical Hackerspace, where several hackers share their stories. From what they say – much better than we could do – it will be clear how much being a hacker has to do especially with an attitude of thought that is not limited to the pure field of computer science, but includes all the fields of human knowledge; Fundamental ingredients once again are curiosity and passion! But there’s more. Analyzing the evolution of civilization in relation to the development of digital technology – our bread and butter – clearly emerges as the greatest progress has been made just starting from the moment when the minds were able to connect through the web. It is no coincidence that hacker and open source philosophy hold each other hands! Here is a nice study on the subject:

 

 

So let’s go back to the initial question.
What’s the point of talking about passions in a business environment? What’s the meaning?
We should have understood at this point that it has a lot of meaning.

Incentivare le persone a cercare a sviluppare le proprie propensioni; stimolare la formazione, l’approfondimento, l’autodeterminazione ed il libero scambio di idee e proposte; fornire le condizioni necessarie perché ognuno si senta motivato a connettersi agli altri mettendosi in gioco appassionatamente. Un mix di ingredienti esplosivo e necessario se vogliamo un’impresa che abbia “una marcia in più”.

Encouraging people to seek and develop their own propensities; stimulating training opportunities, continuing education, the self-determination and the free exchange of ideas and proposals; provide the necessary conditions for everyone to feel motivated and connect to others by playing passionately. A mix of explosive ingredients is necessary if we want a cutting-edge company.

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