Passion is the prime mover of human affairs, the passion we put into our connection with others to bring about change, to convert ideas into action. Technically we should be talking about feelings and emotions. According to neurologistcum philosopher Antonio Damasio, emotions vitiate the body and feelings play out in the theatre of the mind. Feelings, like pride for instance, are often intellectualised emotions. Love, for example, is a hormonalemotion at the level of sexual attraction, very much a physical phenomenon. But obviously more Platonic relationships like friends and family are love objects focussed in the mind. Passion has the power to bring emotions and feelings together to drive the corporate vision, motivating a team united by values. Your stakeholders come to the business with their own skillset, values, beliefs and worldview identities. The tribal bond of loyalty uniting them at work is their passion for the business vision and its guiding values.

1. 1.

   See Damasio (1999, p. 36). Damasio’s treatment of emotions in the body and feelings in the mind is controversial in philosophy. It highlights a version of dualism that has haunted philosophy since Plato and came into sharp focus in the seventeenth century as Rene Descartes’ ‘mind body’ problem. (Descartes was also a brilliant mathematician well known for the Cartesian coordinates used to illustrate algebraic functions.) Descartes says the mind and body are different ‘substances’ and therefore communication between them is incommensurable. But obviously there is communication between them, so how does it happen? Materialist philosophers say this is a non-issue because the mind is just a language ‘construct’, like a category mistake. For them there is only a brain, part of the body, with synapses firing between neurons causing thoughts, desires and so on. Dualists say the mind is not the brain and the connection between mapped synapses firings and thoughts are not consistent when we scan thought patterns. In other words, we can’t trigger synapse firings in the brain to create aspecific thought repeatedly. When you’ve got it figured out you will be famous. For the moment don’t worry about it. Life can still be meaningful.

2. 2.

   See Immanuel Kant’s 1784 essay: “An Answer to the Question: What is the Enlightenment” inWhat is Enlightenment?, translated and edited by Schmidt, James (University of California Press, California, 1996), p. 58. The notion of ‘daring to know’ comes from Horace’sEpistles 1.20.40. Horace was a first Century BCE Roman poet/philosopher.

3. 3.

   Self-consciousness reinforces the ego or the ‘I’ of personality, or the self, the advent of which during human evolution is called individuation.

4. 4.

   Anthropologists theorise about cannibalism on various levels: the alleviation of hunger, celebration of conquests and attaining the good parts of the slayed enemy’s spirit, like his courage for example.

5. 5.

   This is a brief precis of Hegel’s magus opus:Phenomenology of Spirit. Translated by J. N. Findlay, edited by Arnold V. Miller (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977). Now, mercifully, you don’t need to read it!

6. 6.

   What follows has been lifted from my doctoral thesis suitably de-jargoned for expanded accessibility. See Dawson (2006, pp. 126–31).

7. 7.

   Arendt (1958, p. 36).

8. 8.

   Argyle (1989, p. 16).

9. 9.

   Ibid, p. 18.

10. 10.

    Thompson (1967).

11. 11.

    Joseph Townsend in Polanyi (2001, p. 118). See other related themes in Argyle, p. 24 and Thompson, “Time, Work-Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism,” p. 84.

12. 12.

    See Smith (2001). Stoicism is a third century BCE Greek philosophy prevailing today when people simply acquiesce to life’s setbacks despite their best efforts.

13. 13.

    See the commentary on De Toqueville’s bookDemocracy in America in Zetterbaum (1987, pp. 761–83).

14. 14.

    Weber (1985, p. 109). Weber influenced sociology after Marx at the turn of the twentieth century. Emile Durkheim is acknowledged as the third most influential sociologist who followed Marx and Weber in the twentieth Century.

15. 15.

    Whyte (1960, p. 20).

16. 16.

    Tawney (1985, p. 10–11). Tawney was usually referred to as ‘R. H.’ or Harry, a derivative of his second name Henry.

17. 17.

    See Furnham (1984) for a similar theme.

18. 18.

    Ibid., p. 92.

19. 19.

    Taylor (1972, pp. 19, 33). This view of human nature is what management theorist Douglas McGregor calls ‘Theory X’. See McGregor,The Human Side of Enterprise, pp. 33–34.

20. 20.

    Taylor, p. 85. Some will recognise this trend as the start of ‘time and motion’ factory floor analyses, still conducted today.

21. 21.

    Braverman (1975).

22. 22.

    The roots of this influence go back to St. Benedict’s valuation of intellectual work over manual work. It also mirrors the separation between ‘theory’ and ‘practice’ Hegel seeks to unite.

23. 23.

    Weber (1964).

24. 24.

    Drucker,The Concept of the Corporation, pp. 13–15, 36–37.

25. 25.

    Ibid, pp. 176, 187, 192.

26. 26.

    Ibid, pp. 241, 244.

27. 27.

    Drucker (1993, p. 226).

28. 28.

    Williamson (1990, p. 245).

29. 29.

    Paraphrasing a quote by Williamson in Fukuyama,Trust, p. 200.

30. 30.

    See Whyte,The Organization Man, pp. 9, 11, 20, 22, 38, 39, 50.

31. 31.

    Ibid, pp. 61, 116. Mayo’s views here have an obvious Hegelian emphasis.

32. 32.

    McGregor, pp. 9, 47–48.

33. 33.

    Ibid, pp. 47–48.

34. 34.

    Maslow, Heil, and Stephens,Maslow on Management, p. 13.

35. 35.

    Ouchi,Theory Z: How American Business Can Meet the Japanese Challenge, p. 13.

36. 36.

    Ibid, pp. 75, 79–80.

37. 37.

    Ibid, p. 85. See also Weber,Theory of Social and Economic Organization, p. 340.

38. 38.

    Ouchi, p. 82. For a similar theme see McGregor,The Human Side of Enterprise, pp. 47–48.

39. 39.

    See for example: Elsey and Fujiwara (2000, p. 89).

40. 40.

    Drucker,2002, pp. 124–126.

41. 41.

    March (1999, pp. 3, 5).

42. 42.

    Weick (1995, pp. 8, 75).

43. 43.

    I was lucky enough to work in a Ford assembly plant for a few years while line employee involvement in Quality Teams was being established, a program passionately supported by workers. They could see managers were taking their opinions seriously and putting their suggestions into effect—the desire for recognition in action!

44. 44.

    My use of the term ‘life-work’ is a deliberate reversal of ‘work-life.’ The latter is used from the workplace perspective and naturally preferences ‘work.’ The former recognises that ‘work’ is part of life.

45. 45.

    Ambrose and Schminke (2001, pp. 231, 33) and, Sabel and Zeitlin (1997, pp. 20–21).

46. 46.

    Lewis and Ong (2001, p. 13).

47. 47.

    Ibid., p. 14; Ambrose and Schminke, p. 233; Kelly and Lewis (2003, p. 13).

Authors and Affiliations

1. Highton, VIC, Australia

   Lindsay Dawson

Reprints and permissions

© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

Policies and ethics