They shut up when they saw Joe coming. “Hi, Joe. How’s your golf game?” Joe smiled and replied, “Great.” But all he was thinking was, Where has the passion gone? We used to ask “how” not “why.” He looked closely at the many faces of doubt. Many were new faces, people who had come to Joe’s in recent years during the company’s rapid growth. They didn’t understand what it used to be like: the heartache, the sacri昀椀ce and, yes, the joy of the struggling years. They have no sense of history—all they see is a big company that’s stagnating. Joe’s eyes searched and found more familiar territory—the veterans who had been through the “war” with him. These faces were sullen; they looked de昀氀ated, confused and unsure of themselves. The company they knew and were comfortable with was long gone. Joe could feel their tentativeness, their sense of loss. Later that day, he was thinking about the loss of passion as he endured a discussion between his teams—marketing was 昀椀ghting with sales, and they were both ganging up on engineering. Joe felt like a ping-pong ball as he watched them duke it out. “We need to go upscale—luxury umbrellas—that’s where the pro昀椀t is.” “No, you’re wrong; we have to maintain our quality and pricing to protect our position.” “You’re both wrong. Think mass—we need to be the mass marketer of umbrellas—lower our price, increase volume, dominate the market.” Joe was dizzy from the pinging and ponging and interjected, “Look, it’s obvious we’re in total disagreement here. I don’t know the answer, but I do know that our employees are showing no enthusiasm or passion. Whatever we do will not work unless that changes.” 5