A Parable to Illustrate the Passion Test for Business

A man was walking by a work site where there were a number of bricklayers building a wall.  He was there in the initial stages of the project so it was not clear exactly what they were building.  He was curious and so he walked up to one worker and asked, “Excuse me sir, what is it that you are doing?”  He replied, “I’m taking this brick and I’m piling one on top of the other and I’m putting this cement in between them to hold them together” and grumbling went back to his task of stacking one brick on top of the other.

The man moved on, not really sure what was happening and so he asked the next man he saw, another brick layer “I see, you are working with bricks here. What are you doing?”  The second bricklayer replied, “I’m building a wall.  We are building a huge structure here and my job is to build this wall which is going to form the outside border of this huge building.  So I am stacking these bricks, one on top of the other and by the end of the day, I expect to have this wall finished.”  He replied “Oh, okay, great.  Well, thank you.”  And moved on.

Then he saw a third brick layer and asked this gentleman, “Sir, I see you are putting bricks together here, what are you doing?”  “Oh, we are just getting started.” he replied.  “We are building the brand new science building for a university that is expanding over across the street.  This is a leading university and it is doing the greatest science and research in the field of nuclear medicine.  So, I am helping build this great resource facility.”

From three different workers this gentleman heard three different perspectives.  Each one of the bricklayers saw his task in a different framework.  One was focused on the task, the immediate details of the task at hand, putting one brick on top of the other.  The second saw how he was contributing to something more, he was building an important wall that was going to form the outside of something larger.  The third one had a real sense of how his task of putting one brick on top of the other, which could be considered menial work, was contributing to something much larger, much more meaningful.

Now, of those three brick layers, which one do you think felt that his work had the greatest meaning?

This is an example of tapping into what a person’s core passions are to see why they love what they are doing, what they find most meaningful about the particular thing they are doing and how their best contribution can be made.  These core passions can be incredibly helpful, not only in igniting the passion of that individual and how they see how they contribute to the whole, but also how that person’s talents and passions might be applied to contribute in a multitude of different ways.  This can lead to employees who are much more versatile and a lot more adaptable.  As a result it is very important for an organization to realize what drives their employees at the deepest level.

The point of course of this story is to see the relevance of each of the bricklayer’s perspectives in your own life.  For an employer or a manager hearing that story, if they can have that conversation with their employees and get the employee to that third bricklayer perspective, they can harness the versatility within the workforce, even if dealing with a shrinking headcount.