Kathy Sierra from Creating Passionate Users says don’t ask employees to be passionate about the company!
People ask me, "How can I get our employees to be passionate about the company?" Wrong question. Passion for our employer, manager, current job? Irrelevant. Passion for our profession and the kind of work we do? Crucial. If I own company FOO, I don’t need employees with a passion for FOO. I want those with a passion for the work they’re doing. The company should behave just like a good user interface — support people in doing what they’re trying to do, and stay the hell out of their way. Applying the employer-as-UI model, the best company is one in which the employees are so engaged in their work that the company fades into the background.
So very true and probably the best metaphor I’ve heard to date on what a company and it’s management should be. I remember even saying something similar to my boss at a web firm in town a while back. "Just get out of our way and we’ll take you farther and faster than you ever dreamed possible." Instead, however, most companies make their employee’s work extremely frustrating by impeding or hindering them and thus easily crushing any passion that might be welling up inside of them.