Last night I attended the Party for Mercedes-Benz USA. It was a beautiful event, on their beautiful corporate campus. It was attended by some 700 staffers. Near the start of the event, the head of North America, was on a stage addressing the staff. After some general pleasantries, he started to share with them the accomplishments of MBUSA.
He recounted a number of mind-numbing set of numbers. Sales, were higher. Productivity was higher. It went on and on… for about 4 minutes, when he reported… Passion was higher!
PASSION? Mercedes-Benz measures passion? WOW.
I was floored. I have spoken about many companies and their metrics. To imagine that a large behemoth like MBUSA measures passion was just too much. This is a company with an entire corporate culture that is hell-bent on succeeding. They created and measure the passion that their clients have for their product.
Which got me to thinking. How many companies out there are measuring the Passion of their Clients? I would bet that you could maybe count them on one hand [Apple, and maybe Google]. Yet, it seems to me, the the new light of day, that passion SHOULD BE a metric for EVERY company. The new world we live in causes us to be extraordinary or extinct. Any company that seeks to be extraordinary would want to measure their raving fan-base. They would seek from them the future of the company and would rely on their feedback with religious zeal.
It has caused me to consider how I would measure ‘passion’ for myself.
