Joe Gerstandt | keynote speaker, freedom fighter, freak-flag flier

So…love proves to be an interesting topic here. I have gotten some pretty passionate e-mails after my posts What About Love and Why Love.  I have heard from people both passionately agreeing with me and passionately disagreeing with me.  Interesting.

Since it seems to be interesting, I think I should babble on…

I think that love (and most all uniquely human characteristics and intangible assets) was pushed out of the workplace during our time as a production economy.  Mass production changed everything and it was during this time that we started to worship hard at the altar of scientific management.  Everything was about productivity, conformity, uniformity and efficiency…these were very real opportunities for competitive advantage during the 20^th century. 

Thoughts, feelings, ideas and aspirations did not have a place on the assembly line and workers were asked to leave their hearts and souls at home.

This is not to say that you cannot or should not engage your heart or soul in production work or physical labor.  My father is a successful farmer and has farmed for nearly all of his adult life.  He is smart and he is hard-working, but it is his love for what he does more than anything else that has driven his success.  I think that you can engage your heart and soul l in any form of work, but from a scientific management perspective It can be easier to manage production work (especially in the short-term) if you do not make room for any of that “non work related” stuff. 

It was not the nature of the work involved that pushed the heart and soul out of the workplace while we were a production economy…it was the form of management that was in place.

When you are driven to crank out as many Model Ts as possible, as quickly and cheaply as possible, it is hard to see the value of self-expression, curiosity, healthy relationships, etc.  Workers were not valued for the unique contributions that they could make, but rather as the replaceable commodity of physical labor.  Scientific management did help drive efficiency; it is just not a framework that appreciates living, feeling human beings.  Scientific management is probably a more appropriate approach for workforces comprised of robots.

Hearts and souls were locked out of the workplace, and that was justified with quantifiable progress in the areas of productivity and efficiency.  The costs of this were much more difficult to actually measure (so obviously they do not matter!).  And on top of this foundation grew an ideology of management that was much more about managing things than it was about managing people.  This ideology remains largely intact today.

But.

Nearly everything else about business has changed.

I believe that one of the most significant changes for business (especially in this country) is that we are now becoming a Human Economy.  People are the new natural resource.  People (and their creativity, curiosity, empathy, relationships, hopes, fears, and other intangible assets) are becoming the actual source of value.

Organizations (and communities) that want to continue to prosper and evolve must invite the whole human being back to work.  They must be able to talk about things like love and freedom and self-expression.  Certainty, measurement and conformity must be subordinated to ambiguity, story and diversity.  We must do much better with things like openness, honest, trust, transparency and authenticity. 

I am never going to love every single aspect of any job, but if you want my unique and whole contribution you have to help ensure that I am able to love my work.  Maybe I will never love the organization, but I need to have love for my work.  If I do not love the work that I am doing, then you and I should be ready to figure out how to change that.  That may mean that I should go back to school, or that I should apply for a job elsewhere.  That may mean that I need to resolve some conflict with a co-worker or that we need to develop a new job description for me.

It does not mean that everything is a free for all and that I get everything that I want.  I love my wife madly, but our house is not a free for all.  That is not love.  Love means that we take some responsibility for each other.  Love means that I take responsibility for my relationships and our culture.  Love means that change always starts with me and that I always have an opportunity to take more responsibility and establish more trust.

Contrary to what you have heard, love is very work related.

Want to see some evidence of the value of love?  Look at the busy, crazy, noisy world of social media.  We have built the world largest encyclopedia in our spare time.  Not for fortune or fame.  There are mountains and valleys and oceans of pictures, songs, videos, comments, thoughts, ideas and poetry created and shared online every single day.  Not for fortune or fame.  Not because of superior strategy or smart tactics, not because of synergy or strong leadership.  Because of love.  Because social media gives people powerful tools and platforms to create and share what they love…and connect to other people who love some of the same things.  Love has infinite potential.  Get out of peoples way and let them follow their heart.

Love cannot be measure and it cannot be purchased.  But if you unleash the power of love in your organization, you will have no competition.

Love makes the world go ‘round.

Be good to each other.