Cultivating Employee Work Passion

Today I spent an hour watching one of the assigned webinars entitled, "Cultivating Employee Work Passion" that originally took place on November 16, 2011 and was hosted by Ken Blanchard. In all honesty, I do not feel I learned anything about cultivating work passion, except that I need to recognize that I have to encourage positive feelings in my employees. Now, I'm not saying that I don't care about people's feelings, but I cannot help but to feel that if I actually spent as much time as these people say I should worrying about all my employee's feelings, I'd never get anything else done. Yes, I agree with the webinar in that having a safe working environment where people know they are valued is very important. But, he seems to suggest that I should micromanage how everyone interacts together and how that affects all their feelings so that I can be sure that everyone is totally happy at all times----who has time for that? I think in theory all these things sound like great ideas, but in reality (in our business) there just isn't time for all that. I tend to think that people who choose to work in libraries know they are working in a particular kind of public service that has its own rewards and difficulties and I am not sure it should be my job to constantly make them feel better about themselves. I did find his theories about the types of employees found in all businesses: engaged, disengaged, and actively disengaged to be useful and I think he is right about these emotional states are heavily reliant on employee relationships with management. But, I have always felt that at least some disconnect should exist between management and employees. If we all become best friends and too heavily involved in one another's feelings and lives, many people will take advantage of that relationship and it makes it all the harder when we as managers have to enact disciplinary measures.