...with Love

As I have shared, last summer I released a book called Impact with Love: Building Business for a Better World. The title - and specifically the reference to "love" - brought out a number of comments and questions. Many people shared appreciation for the idea of emphasizing love in the work place. And others were curious about it. The idea of love in the workplace still feels uncomfortable or just out of place for many. We're generally not use to the topic or the discussion.

With Valentine's Day this past week and the beginning of Easter season (which for Christians represents the ultimate act of love) I thought I'd share a few reflections on why I chose the title and more importantly why love matters in our work.

First a little background. For those who don't know me personally, I'm not a real emotional or sentimental person (frankly to a fault -- I wish I was more so). My degrees are in MIS and Strategy and Finance. I'm an operator and a manager, a systems thinker, and very quantitative by nature. So for some my emphasis on love is surprising and may even feel inconsistent with what they know of me. But I'm also deeply passionate about humanity and the way we affect each other. And I believe at our core most of us are. And I've come to realize through my career that there is no strategy, no system, no framework, no cascading goal, no product or service, no metric, and no outcome that comes close to being as important as the impact we have on each other in life.

I don’t think I know anything more core to the human condition than the desire to love and be loved.? But what does that look like in work? In work we're clearly not talking about a romantic notion of love or even an emotional notion of it. What we are talking about is love as a choice.

And the choice to love in work is the choice to care about people independent of what we get in return. It is the choice to be concerned about human beings in a way that goes beyond the transaction.

In a world where business is largely about exchanges and transactions, this can feel like a source of tension or conflict. But we need to be clear about it and we need to commit to it and we need to understand how it fits in a for-profit, capitalist, work world.

Love recognizes that organizations - including all businesses -? by their very nature are a source of relationships. And that through those relationships we have a chance to positively or negatively affect others. How we choose to engage in our daily work directly impacts those around us and cascades it's affect to others. To be clear though, the choice to love does not at all imply some type of unconditional employment. Jobs appropriately have responsibilities and outcomes and work is only sustainable when it fits in a system that creates value ongoing. Love does not imply free services or products or unsustainable benefits or a lack of discipline. Love doesn't imply soft and it certainly doesn't imply easy.

But love does imply putting people first; and it does imply compassion and authentic concern for their well-being.

The sheer nature of all these dynamics places tension on love in our work. We won't always get it right. Even when we are trying to act out of love, it may not be evident. That doesn't meant it's not worth trying. It doesn't mean it's not worthy of our attention. For all of us, the starting place of love is in the heart, not the head. If we show up with a loving heart, authentically concerned about the wellbeing of those around us, and motivated by creating teams and groups and organizations that are committed to making life better for others, we will have better lives and we will be better leaders. Even if we don't always get it right.

So why the book title? I think if we want a better world, a better society, we have to think differently - perhaps radically differently - about our organizations and how we build them. It isn't enough to simply continuously improve; or to have better strategies or stronger value propositions; it's not even enough to simply be purpose-driven or to be more conscious as leaders. If we want to live in a better world, we have to have organizations where each individual chooses to show up differently. We are all leaders, we all have influence. And so we have to have clarity about our role as individuals and our role as leaders. We have to recognize that we need to create teams and organizations that put people first, that care about people and that help people liver better lives. And when we do all of that, we will make an impact….with love.

"Points of Impact" is a publication expressing thoughts on how we might approach our work differently to have a better impact on others and the world. For more related perspectives, check out the book Impact with Love: Building Business for a Better World - now available on Audible!