This is From The Balance Beam
[TheBalanceBeam] - All You Need is Love
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THE BALANCE BEAM
Ideas and Inspiration for Creating a Life that Works
Vol. 4 No. 2, February 1, 2002
Published by Success Builders, Inc.
http://www.SuccessBuildersInc.com
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"He who knows others is wise; he who knows himself is enlightened."
Lao-tzu
In this issue: ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE
====================================================================== Dear Friends:
Happy February! This is the month when we celebrate love and matters of the heart. In this issue of The Balance Beam, we take a bit of a different twist on the topic, by considering the role of love in the workplace.If you are interested in reading earlier editions of The Balance Beam, you can easily retrieve them by clicking on http://www.successbuildersinc.com/newsletter.html and going to the Archives section. If you are not yet a regular subscriber to The Balance Beam, you can also enter your subscription information at this location.
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Today's Topic: ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE
There's an old song with the line, "What the world needs now is love, sweet love." With Valentine's Day fast approaching, it's pretty easy to sell this idea. And hordes of retailers are selling it fast and furiously, even as we speak. But suppose I asked you to consider the role of love in business, as in how we define, operate and work in our business environments.Now for some people, even the mere suggestion of love in the business arena would leave them with their heads shaking - there's simply no room for sappy sentimentality when it comes to hard-core, bottom line business considerations. And I imagine there are a lot of human resources folks out there who would get very nervous at the thought of love in their organizations. It sends chills of sexual harassment lawsuits shivering up their spines.
So just for the moment, I'm going to ask that you think about love in business in a different sort of way: Imagine that it's the fuel that has the power to convert a pretty good enterprise to a great one. One of Webster's definitions for love is, "warm attachment, enthusiasm, or devotion." If you take this one step further, love is about passion, and a depth of connection that inspires creativity, sparks of genius, and sheer joy. How could there not be room for love in business? In fact, how can a business hope to thrive without it?
Author Marianne Williamson has said that there are really only two emotions that are at the root of all that we experience as human beings: Love and Fear. When we are born, we have a clean slate and love predominates. In this natural state, we are creative, connected, in tune with our needs, and we express ourselves joyously, spontaneously and with great enthusiasm. As we get older, and become jaded by life experiences, we tend to shift unconsciously to a repertoire that includes a lot of fear-based emotions. We begin to think in terms of guilt, blame, scarcity, worry, jealousy and competition.
How does this shift show up in the workplace? Let me count the ways. It takes the form of corporate politics, conflicts between co-workers, class-action lawsuits and your plain old garden-variety apathy. It manifests in volatile markets and stress-related illnesses, and professional burnout and the TGIF syndrome.
So I ask you, how would things look different if we chose to inject a little more love into our business dealings and used it to displace the fear that so often predominates in our corporate settings? Just for starters, imagine a world where we put a little love in our hearts like this:
Love your employees - Suppose we quit referring to them as "resources" and started reminding ourselves that they're people? What if we were genuinely interested in who they are as human beings before becoming obsessed with how many widgets they can produce in a day? Do you know your employees' secret hopes, ambitions, what they care about, what makes them laugh, what they pride themselves on? Love them enough to find out.
Love your customers - What if conducting business was about more than a series of transactions devoted to maximizing gross revenues and EBITDA? Your customers are also living, breathing human beings who crave connection and want to know that their vendors, suppliers and consultants have a genuine interest in creating sustaining relationships, not just making the sale. Love them for who they are, not just for the value of the accounts they have with you.
Love your business' identity - The best indicator of the love people have for their organization is the degree of pride reflected in the way they speak about the business. It always puts a smile on my face when I overhear people on airplanes proudly telling the person in the seat next to them that they work for such and such a company. What creates this pride? It's about honor and fairness and integrity and the degree to which people can believe in the values of the organization they represent. Love the business enough to nurture its development, and be a responsible steward of the legacy it establishes for people.
This Valentine's Day, consider sending love to who and what shows up in the business you represent. And the next time somebody asks you, "What's love got to do with it?" you can confidently tell them, "Everything!"
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Words to live by:
"And can you feel the love tonight,
How it's laid to rest.
It's enough to make kings and vagabonds
Believe the very best"
- Tim Rice and Elton John"Carry on,
Love is coming.
Love is coming to us all."
- Stephen Stills"Come on people now,
Smile on your brother.
Everybody get together
Try to love one another right now."
- Jesse Colin Young