Love & Domestication at Work

The views contained in this article are entirely my own, and do not reflect the views and opinions of Hummingbird Healthcare except for the good stuff that you liked reading.

Aspects of Love

In my role at work, I have been thinking about how we create a program for new hires focused on the concept of unconditional love in the workplace. I started talking about this idea with several of my co-workers. I had taken it for granted that folks would just go along with this idea. I mean, who can object to love, right?!

Wrong!

I have never gotten as immediate of a reaction from the people I work with than when I spring the word “love,” on them. Jaws slacken. Eyes narrow. Then, those jaws pick themselves up long enough to say the words, “I don’t know how I feel about that.” This was especially funny because I have never worked with so many people with such a deep capacity for love at work!

This was going to be harder than I thought.

So, what’s the problem with love? Well, it starts with the fact that everybody has a different definition because everybody is bringing their own story to you when you discuss it. One co-worker might have been punished or manipulated by a parent who wrapped the abuse in the idea of “I’m doing this out of love.” Another co-worker might have worked at a deeply toxic company where the dreaded word “family” was used.

Oh, what? You thought just because I’m the big love-at-work guy that I’d also go along with your literally insane idea that “our workplace is like a family?” We’ll get to that later!

The best places to work - and I count Hummingbird Healthcare among them - thrive on love (even if they don't call it that).

In my definition, love in the workplace is a modification of a formula created by Steve Farber in his underrated classic Love Is Just Damn Good Business. In his book, Farber writes that “kindness + high standards = love at work.” This was the right place for me to start in my own journey, and I’d like to suggest a slightly more complex formula:

((Respect + Compassion + Service + Your Best) – Conditions) = Love

When you boil it down like that, there really aren’t any particularly hot takes. So, why is it so damn hard sometimes?

Domestication as a Concept: Good Boy

I first learned about the concept of domestication in humans while reading don Miguel Ruiz’s seminal book The Four Agreements . In The Four Agreements, Ruiz – whose family I have had the honor of learning from over the past few years in various workshops, retreats, and apprenticeship programs and whose teachings heavily inform this article – draws from the generational teachings of his family to describe how individuals in our lives have consciously or unconsciously created complex and self-perpetuating systems of control that, if left unchecked, lead to automatic behaviors.

That’s a lot. Let’s break it down.

If you want to train a dog not to do their business in the house, how do you go about it? One school would say smack the nose of the puppy with a newspaper every time the dog goes potty in the house (this school is made up of psychopaths).

The other school would use a clicker and treats. Click the clicker and give a treat every time the dog pees outside. Eventually they associate being “good” with going to the bathroom outside and they get the reward. If they don’t, then the reward is withheld, or they are punished. This is domestication in the words of don Miguel's son don Miguel Ruiz, Jr. – a “system of reward and punishment” designed to produce a desired result in others.

Domestication in Life

Domestication isn’t necessarily inherently good or bad. We are domesticated from our earliest days to look both ways when we cross the road, to say “please,” and “thank you,” and to not get in a car with strangers. Our families do this to keep us safe, or to teach us the value of respect.

I open doors for people. My mom used to sit in the car when she was on dates and wait for the date to open her door. She used a similar system with us. My mother was raised to understand that if a man respects a woman, they will open doors for her. She made sure we understood that too. My domestication didn't stop at opening the door, however, it extended to door-holding generally.

To this day, when I’m walking in a store and see someone walking in as well, I go out of my way to hold the door for them. I do this to the point that when I see someone a quarter mile away in a neighboring parking lot and there’s even a remote chance they’re planning to enter the same building as me, I will wait and wait and wait. I will watch them jog that hilarious little jog we all do up to the door. Once they reach the door (held brilliantly by me) and they are huffing and puffing their way into the store I am allowed to ascend to Peak Midwest Man status and walk in after them.

This domestication sounds silly, but it’s powerful. If someone doesn’t hold the door open for me, I can become indignant. Don’t they know they’re supposed to let me jog my quarter mile while they wait?! Didn’t their mother teach them anything?

I am holding this person in judgment for violating an expectation they didn’t even know they were being held to and to which they did not agree.

I might even become frustrated and raise my meaty hands to the sky and shake them in righteous indignation for all the motherless jackanapes who never learned to hold a door!

I might even express my frustration to that person! “You are so disrespectful! Don’t you know you’re supposed to hold the door open for people? I can’t believe this treatment!” Not only has my day been impacted, but now I’m impacting this person’s day too.

The thing is my mom isn’t even around while I’m cursing this (likely) East Coast Lunatic. My feelings of having been disrespected - and the expectation that I’ve placed on this person -are not because of my mom anymore. I am domesticating myself.

The Ruiz family is fond of saying that the human being is the only animal that self-domesticates.

I’ve observed it to be true!

Long after our active domesticators – parents, friends, lovers, managers – are out of our lives, we still carry the lessons and scars with us.

Domestication at Work

Now, let’s make this about work. About ten years ago I worked for a consulting company as a consultant. I just finished nearly three years working for Epic Systems in Verona. Epic is one of those companies where you make your bones – you serve your time and by the time they’re done with you, you have learned to be truly exceptional.

I never thought I would have the opportunity to work at a place like Epic. My calling, my first love, was theatre. I adored acting and directing – the applause, the play, the collaboration. It activated something deep inside of me that said, “this is amazing!” And I was good at it right away! So, I went to college for it! I received my degree in Acting & Directing from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. I was going to set the theatrical world ablaze! I moved to New York City!

Then, I ran out of money after four months.

I came back home and did some soul searching. Theatre was a passion, but it would never be my career. I loved the girls and the attention, and that wasn’t going to be enough for me. So, I applied for every possible job. This was winter of 2009 and nobody was hiring. Nobody, that is, except an amazing company that had turned down some of my much smarter friends a year earlier when they had applied. What chance did a failed theatre major have?

A good chance, it turns out! Epic recognized my performance talent and translated it into training large groups of students on their software. That turned into implementing that same software. After three years I had won a Capstone Award – an award voted on by my peers – for my multi-year efforts stabilizing and further rolling out Epic to SSM Health across the Midwest. I left Epic a highly-prized, highly sought-after resource.

On the first day of my new job after leaving Epic I put on my beautiful new suit and it felt like armor. My manager - a great dude in his own right - picked me up in a chariot (rental car) and on the way to the client site let me know that I would be meeting the executive sponsor of the project.

My manager wanted to make sure I only did one thing:

“Don’t mention your degree.”

He knew I wouldn’t like it and he was right. The shame that washed over me was profound. I might be an award-winning implementer of the most complex electronic medical record in the world and that client might be lucky to be the beneficiary of my talent – but if they found out I was a theatre major that would cause problems.

Now, that guy was a great, purposeful manager. That client was a world-class healthcare organization and the sponsor a great guy (whose name has appeared on dustcovers of other major business books). None of this has anything to do with them. It has everything to do with me.

I didn’t last a year at that company. In that moment in the car, I began domesticating myself.

Theatre was a part of my identity. It was who I was. It was a superpower. I looked again at the suit I was wearing. What felt like armor, now felt like camouflage. What if they found out who I really was?

I am a Grade A weirdo non-conformist. I am also one of the hardest working people and most creative thinkers you will ever have working for your company.

However, I was self-domesticating. If I revealed this part of myself, I understood that something bad could happen. In the year I stayed at that job I never felt comfortable sharing my authentic self. I was othered, and I didn’t do my best work.

By the time I left, my domestication was automatic. It lasted until I found my next company which had a corporate identity better suited to my own, where I could start fresh.

My old manager was absolutely doing his best. If he knew I felt this way it would have bothered him deeply, I’m sure. Again, it had nothing to do with him.

The Reality of Domestication

The attempt to domesticate each other in the workplace is simply a reality. Human beings try to do this to each other all the time. The key, however, is choice.

When we sign an employment agreement, we are agreeing to fulfill the duties described therein – that is not domestication. In that instance, we are choosing to accept the terms of the agreement. If we break our agreement, we can respect ourselves enough to accept the consequences.

Domestication truly happens when we give our power away.

Domestication happens when we allow others to make our choices for us. When this happens, and self-domestication becomes automatic it creates toxic cultures. This will happen in every single company where coercion and domestication are the modus operandi.

This leads to organizations where team members don’t understand why they are choosing what they are choosing.

It leads to team members obsessed with being right, being perfect, and especially with being found out and they are neither.

You find people defending beliefs that aren’t even their own.

You see executive teams who rule by reward and punishment instead of by mutual respect, trust, kindness, service, and accountability.

Viral, corrosive fear manifests in our interactions with others, and maybe even more importantly, it compounds over time as we abuse ourselves.

It doesn’t have to be this way. We can switch from the track of fear back to the track of love. It begins with becoming aware of our own domestication and our domesticators. From there, it’s the process of remaking our domestication through new choices (“agreements” in the Ruiz Family vernacular).

We might choose to do the same thing we’ve always done – for example, despite my domestication I will still choose to look both ways before crossing the road. The difference is that now, it’s my choice and I am accountable for the outcomes of that choice in a way I wasn’t before.

If reading this can do anything for you, I hope it will lead you to WAKE. UP!

Through this work, you will change your life and be a light for others on your team to do the same. Through that example, you could be the catalyst for changing an entire corporate culture because it turns out people love working

with people who love working

with people

who

love.