Dilbert vs. Warren Buffett

Being from the home of Warren Buffett, I get to hear a lot of business wisdom from "The Oracle of Omaha" in many interviews over the years.  One of the themes has always been the importance of having passion for what you do.  Warren's viewpoint is that if you have passion for your work, you will work that much harder towards success.

Along comes the creator of Dilbert (Scott Adams) who disagrees and states that passion is probably the opposite of what you want to have and is why a banker will never loan money for a business start-up that was full of passion.  "You're in business for the wrong reasons, and if things start turning unhappy, you're going to bail or start making irrational decisions."

In Adam's view, to be successful in business requires the desire to build a profitable business....having a passion for what you do is irrelevant.  In fact, being very passionate about what you do is often a mistake that destroys the success of a business.


Which school do you fall into?  Are you running a business to become successful or have you been operating your business out of passion for what you do?

I will admit that I started this business because I really enjoyed what I do compared to sitting behind a desk.  I don't have a strong desire to build the next biggest cleaning company in the nation.  In fact, I tend to make a lot of dumb business decisions out of passion and Mr. Adams is correct, it has hurt my business health.

Is being passionate for what you do a plus or a minus to success?

I think it goes both ways. Passion can give you drive and motivation to succeed.

But too much passion can result in way over thinking a simple business like carpet cleaning and that can really de rail you from the things that really lead to success.

like worrying too much about different tools or ways of cleaning carpet. none of this matters, if you clean with a toothbrush and customers love it while your profiting then thats all that matters.

I spent way too much time and energy worrying about different products, tools, etc etc now we just stream line what we got and maximize what we can do with it.


I would say that I have passion for my business and passion for succeeding in this business but Im not looking to travel the world showing people how to better clean carpet

or getting into big discussions with other cleaners about what method is best and trying to present scientific evidence that shows one method is better than another etc all that is a waste of time.

Let's put it another way. If you find yourself bored with cleaning to the point that you have no passion for it anymore, would you keep going or fold up the tent?

When I started working for the power plant, I received advice from a guy who was retiring after 40 years. He looked me in the eye and told me that the secret to surviving is understanding that every employee's job was that of a material handler. Forget the job titles, we were all just material handlers.

He went on to explain that each person's job was to go to the big pile of money that the company had and move some of it over to your pile...aka material handling. It didn't matter if they told you to stare at a spot on the wall for the entire shift, you just focus on moving the piles of money.

That was his wisdom of 40 years and there are many who think that exact way. It doesn't work for me (sometimes I wish it did), but I think many in this world follow that advice on a daily bases.

Can you really operate a business without passion? Is it even possible?

The way I see it, if you have passion about your business; when times get tough or slow, you reevaluate things. Think of new ideas and improve on what your doing. Look for an unfair advantage in competing in your market. In other words, find something no one else is doing and do it BIG. Makes you the top dog; whether is pet odor, volumes of upholstery, dying, area rugs, repairs. And who says you have to be the only one doing it? Just make sure you let the public know you are the man.
What's the question??