October 22nd, 2009
Sometimes we do not leave room for the truth. We get wrapped up in being specific and efficient and accurate and professional…and we lose sight of what matters.
A friend of mine recently asked why “love” is not a topic category on my blog (it will be now). Interesting question, especially since I have written about the importance of love and about love as a critical component of a way of leadership relevant to our time.
But I had for some reason not made it a topic category…hmmm.
It reminds me of how we talk about work and the people that we work with. We come up with these psuedo-scientific labels that we can measure and manage and metric to our hearts content…engagement, retention, satisfaction, alignment, etc., etc.
What about love?
At the end of the day things like engagement and retention and satisfaction and alignment do not mean anything, because they can mean a million different things to a million different people. I think that they can be useful tools when properly used, but we almost always take these things that just contain a fraction of the true story and we treat them like they are the truth, the whole truth and nothing but.
What about love?
Why do we not ask people if they love their work? Why are business leaders not asking how many of their employees love the work they are a part of? Are we afraid of the word? Are we afraid of the answer? I have a shocking insight for business leaders…ability to measure something is in no way shape or form indicative of its actual value. Just because you cannot put love on a scale and measure it does not mean that it is not important.
I think that we are currently locked in a 20th century model of business that is about to take us off the cliff and for some reason we are afraid to take our eyes off of the speedometer and look at what really matters.
Do we really think that employees go home at night and talk and think about engagement and alignment? They do not. Most of our employees would probably define those things differently, but they do know if they have love for their work.
If we fail to name what truly matters and make it part of how we come to work, we will spend all of our time focusing on stuff other than what truly matters.
What about love? Who is advocating for love at work? Who is making space for love? Who is making decisions based on love?
Be good to each other.