When people enjoy what they do and love their sense of achievement that comes from making a difference for someone, then work moves from being a chore to one of privilege and delight. When your day is driven by care for those around you and those who you are committed to serve, life becomes fun and each day brings results, confidence and meaning. This is so important for health and sustainability of staff and business and is something that can be achievable for all. The people at the top need to grasp this for it to happen, and if they don’t, perhaps they shouldn’t be at the top.
Sales must be about delivering value. The flow on result – rather than the purpose – will be a healthy, profitable business. Traditional accounting and financial reporting overlook the most important aspect of business, the loyalty between the business and its customers. This must drive decisions and focus – not provide a narrow assessment of revenue and expenditure. When things are done right and the workplace is humming, extraordinary results will flow. We need to see all we deal with as human beings, friends and customers, all three are equally important. No one thinks of themselves as a generic customer looking for generic product for generic applications. Treat all as the segment of one. One person, one heart, one individual with unique characteristics.
Love, which some may prefer to call passion in a business context, is the premier pillar of a happy life. We know emotions are key to how we feel as they drive the decisions we make. Love is the ultimate emotion. Thus, it is wise to examine how our activity, whether in business or otherwise, can be made to align with the concept of love. There is nothing airy-fairy about this; it’s a major component of success and service. And love is one of the most basic aspects of being a human. Love is life, and life without love isn’t worth contemplating. So, if business is a key part of life, the inference must be that any business worth its salt must also be built on love.
Love, like a rainbow, has several nuances which, when melded together, strikes us as being beautiful. If I were to find six components of love, like the major colours of the rainbow, I’d select these: care, humility, forbearance, generosity, friendship, and passion. This list is not exhaustive and can be expanded much further, but perhaps the core of it is warmth of heart and the desire to see every human encounter as an opportunity to show a degree of affection and care towards another person.
Empathy enters the equation as well, leading us to ask ourselves, ‘If I was on the receiving end of this message, whomever I am talking to, how would I want it to be expressed and conveyed to retain a good spirit of the relationship?”. Just as individuals have concluded that experiences in private life are more important than things, this is equally important in a corporate context. Someone who knows me and what my business is trying to do is more worthwhile than someone who can sell me a product.
To harness aspects of love in everyday life and interaction at work, we must show a commitment to help each other and make room for human aspects, duties and feelings. Anyone who thinks professional is at odds with being human needs to think again. It is paramount that when we recruit or promote, we examine people’s understanding of these issues.
Treating people with respect, care and affection will work wonders. Recognise people for their uniqueness. For passion to be meaningful and reach its fullest potential, it needs to relate to something positive like love, children, the community or delighting customers. With this interpretation, passion becomes akin to, and an integral part of love.
In the latest issue of Harvard Business Review (Oct 2022) there is a story about Illycaffe’ demonstrating love in action. The article suggests that their success is based on a purpose driven, collaborative spirit, making them one of the world’s fastest growing global coffee suppliers. By continually creating great value outside their business, ensuring better socioeconomic conditions for their farmers, doing their part to help protect the planet, and pushing other agriculture-based companies to do the same a culture of care and love has been created, underpinning loyalty, motivation and business success.