Why are certain people successful and others equally gifted, not? Why are supposedly average teams beating star-studded favourite teams? Why are certain companies always the first choice for customers? That’s what Jan Hommen, CEO of ING Group, asked in a recent presentation.

His answer? “Passion for execution.” The discipline and desire to make things happen – to consistently deliver excellence. While I fully support Jan’s statement, I will also add, that without a clear common purpose, passion can be irrelevant.

What I am referring to is the cultural mindset of an organization. Connected individuals, not companies, are the ones harnessing the power of influence. If you look at the current state of the world, we are in an amazing time of change. Technology is altering our digital infrastructure and how we interact with one another; and organizations are challenged to meet the new transparency demands of both customers and employees. Much more is expected from businesses today. To lose sight or discount these strong factors of long-term change is detrimental.

And so, the concept of ‘passion’ becomes an important part of the mix. At ING DIRECT, passion holds a great deal of value. But if you were to ask our head of HR, she would be specific in clarifying the assumption that some people make about passion. It goes beyond enthusiasm and big personalities. Passion, we believe, is most effective when two areas are combined. Of course, an individual with a positive aura, a natural go-getter attitude, likeable personality, energetic, and driven, would be a preferred candidate for any organization, but use those attributes in the wrong context and you might ignite a conflict.

For passion to be most effective, it needs to tap into a belief system, a purpose for why we do what we do, and it has to match the purpose and values of the organizations we are part of. That is what defines engagement. Are your personal values being encouraged? Is your ‘why’ aligned with that of the organization you are part of? Too much of a misalignment will cause conflict – conflict within yourself or within your team. Either way draining valuable energy that should never be wasted. This alignment simply can’t be fabricated or trained. Either you believe or you don’t. Either you are truly engaged or you’re not.

That is what we look for at ING DIRECT. We established a process called ‘Hire for Orange’ to help us identify that passion that is integral to our culture. At the final stage of an interview, the successful candidate is met by an ‘Orange’ peer – someone whose objective is not only to detect a go-getter and positive demeanor, but to genuinely believe and be inspired by a conviction to make a difference, to affect change.

It’s about creating genuine engagement – whether with employees or customers. That is our measure for passion at ING DIRECT. We continuously gage the level of commitment employees and customers have towards the brand. What is the mood of our organization? How are our customers and communities feeling? Do they believe in us? What do they say about us? Even if we don’t ask the questions, the answers are there, in the passionate points of views Canadians and our employees have of ING DIRECT.

I said it earlier, connected individuals are the ones harnessing the power of influence – we simply can’t ignore the human element in business. So whether we can measure passion is neither here nor there. What’s important is that we can’t dismiss passion, particularly when it is aligned with a cultural mindset. It has a substantial impact on the bottom line. With passion, with alignment nearly anything can be achieved in life and in business. Harnessing this energy is difficult but certainly worth pursuing.