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    Love at Work: Why Passion Drives Performance in the Feelings Economy
    Love at Work: Why Passion Drives Performance in the Feelings Economy
    Love at Work: Why Passion Drives Performance in the Feelings Economy
    Ebook213 pages1 hour

    Love at Work: Why Passion Drives Performance in the Feelings Economy

    By Brady G. Wilson

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    About this ebook

    Love at Work foments a revolution for workplaces of every description and in every industry: a revolution in which leaders understand that engaging people's heart trumps engaging their mind.

    Wilson shows how leaders who love:
    • Believe in their people
    • Pull out their highest good
    • Serve their success
    • Care for their worth
    • Challenge them to stretch
    When people's felt needs are met, says author Brady Wilson, they release the energy that triggers discretionary effort -- 400% more effort, according to the Corporate Leadership Council. The principles in this cutting-edge book are sure to change the face of the workplace for years to come.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBPS Books
    Release dateMay 21, 2010
    ISBN9781926645278
    Love at Work: Why Passion Drives Performance in the Feelings Economy
    Author

    Brady G. Wilson

    Brady G. Wilson is, undisputedly, the embodiment of focused energy. As co-founder of Juice Inc., Brady’s vision is to create a world where businesses pulsate with creative energy. For 20+ years, he has inspired and energized leaders, managers, and frontline workers in many of North America’s Fortune 500 companies. His passion for creating breakthroughs for companies has spawned such innovative tools and programs as The Power of Conversation™, Beyond Engagement™, and The Energy Check™. Brady lives in Guelph, Ontario. He is also the author of three other books dedicated to improving employee performance and business results: JUICE: The Power of Conversation – The Secret to Releasing Your People’s Brilliance and Expanding Your Leadership, FINDING THE STICKING POINT: Increase Sales by Transforming Customer Resistance into Customer Engagement, and LOVE AT WORK: Why Passion Drives Performance in the Feelings Economy.

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      Book preview

      Love at Work - Brady G. Wilson

      BRADY G. WILSON is the co-founder of Juice Inc., an organization committed to transforming people, teams, and organizations. Juice exists to energize work environments where employees feel engaged, human energy flourishes, and potential is released. Brady has energized leaders, managers, and frontline workers in many of North America’s Fortune 500 companies. His passion for creating breakthroughs for companies has spawned such innovative tools and programs as Pull Conversations™, The Five Drivers of Engagement™, and The Juice Check™. Also the author of the books Finding the Sticking Point and Juice: The Power of Conversation, Brady lives in Guelph, Ontario.

      LOVE AT WORK

      ALSO BY BRADY G. WILSON

      Juice: The Power of Conversation

      Finding the Sticking Point: Increase Sales by Transforming Customer Resistance into Customer Engagement

      LOVE AT

      WORK

      Why Passion Drives

      Performance in the

      Feelings Economy

      BRADY G. WILSON

      Copyright © 2010 Brady G. Wilson

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

      Published in 2010 by

      BPS Books

      Toronto and New York

      bpsbooks.com

      A division of

      Bastian Publishing Services Ltd.

      ISBN 978-1-926645-16-2 (softcover)

      ISBN 978-1-926645-25-4 (hardcover)

      Cataloguing-in-Publication Data available from Library and Archives Canada.

      Cover design: Gnibel

      Text design and typesetting: Casey Hooper Design

      Dedicated to my Mother,

      Violet Wilson,

      my model of love at work

      CONTENTS

      Introduction

        1    Love Energizes Results

        2    Leadership in the Feelings Economy

        3    Why Love at Work?

        4    Love Makes You Grow

        5    What Love Does

        6    Love Believes in People

        7    Love Pulls Out the Highest Good

        8    Love Serves People’s Success

        9    Love Cares for People’s Worth

      10    Love Challenges People to Stretch

      11    Love Your Self

      12    What’s Your Source?

      13    Build a Better World

      Bibliography

      Index

      INTRODUCTION

      You want to love people. You probably wouldn’t be reading this book if you didn’t. But love in the workplace feels subversive. God help your reputation if you blow your cover and people find out you’re a loving person. You’ll be silenced and sidelined.

      A vicious dogma is at loose in the workplace and it has suffocated people’s spirits and dehumanized their days.

      This dogma is fed by fear and a need for control. It focuses all of its energy on the eradication of one particularly incendiary word. You know this word, but you must pretend not to. The dogma declares, Love is not allowed at work. Do not speak it. Do not display it.

      The word love is stigmatized, cheapened, and plundered of its noblest meanings.

      Psychoanalysts consider love to be the pinnacle of human self-actualization. It is the developmental yardstick of every great spiritual tradition. Its attainment is our one sure mark of maturity, the antidote to our psychoses. How curious, then, that we permit the practice of love in every sphere of our lives except the one in which we spend the greatest number of our waking hours: the workplace.

      Through Love at Work I hope to enflame you with a rebel’s passion: a rebellion that will embolden you to throw off tradition and love your people. My goal is simple: i want to build a better world. I believe that loving organizations led by loving leaders are the most effective means to achieving that end. My purpose is to energize such organizations: the ones that do good things in the world. But I know that positive change will happen only if leaders build cultures where managers can learn to extend themselves, investing in the highest good of their people, their communities, and their planet.

      Throughout this book I’m going to tell you real stories about real leaders and managers who have learned to love their people. My goal is to show you how love trumps logic: how engaging people’s hearts trumps engaging their minds when it comes to sparking discretionary effort.

      In this book you will look at a straightforward definition of love from different angles: Love is extending yourself to invest in another’s highest good.

      You will discover the elemental rule of the feelings economy: When you meet felt needs, you release the energy that triggers discretionary effort.

      You’ll find out that love is how you grow and expand your orbit of contribution as a human being.

      You will see that love is just as much about justice as it is about compassion.

      You will learn that love is not a talent that you’re born with. Love is a skill—and therefore, like any skill, it can be learned and practiced.

      You will discover that you already are a loving person. You love in all sorts of ways. The question is: Are you loving in ways that will build a better world?

      I will tell you practical stories of what love does: how it believes, pulls, serves, cares, and challenges.

      You not only will witness fellow leaders modeling love, you also will learn how to extract what is important from each of their stories. You will see how you can transform what you learn into your own voice, your own style, and your own way of expressing love at work.

      My objective in writing this first edition of Love at Work is simple and straightforward: to invite you to share your love at work stories with me and the world. As you read each chapter, ask yourself, Have I witnessed a leader who does this? do I have a story that would benefit the business community? if your answer is yes, send the story to me at [email protected]. Please let me know whether you wish me to use the real names of the people in your stories.

      My hope is that you will find Love at Work both enjoyable and beneficial.

      With love and respect,

      Brady G. Wilson

      Juice Inc.

      Love is the energy source

      that fuels spectacular performance.

      Picture yourself in your late sixties as the CEO of a family-run facility that produces high-end polar fleece for companies like North Face, L.L. Bean, and Patagonia. It’s the mid-nineties and your plant employs three thousand highly paid North American workers. Your competitors, in search of cheaper labor, have moved offshore or down south.

      You wake up one morning to find your factory burned to the ground. You stand to receive a $300-million insurance settlement in compensation for your losses. What would you do? Take the money and retire? Take the opportunity to move offshore to reduce your labor costs and increase your profits?

      THE MENSCH OF MALDEN MILLS

      Aaron Feuerstein faced precisely this dilemma in the days that followed a severe body blow to his business. He got up on the morning of December 11, 1995, to discover that his Malden Mills plant had succumbed to the worst fire Massachusetts had seen in a century. The small town of Lawrence was devastated. Malden Mills was one of the largest employers in an area that was already in a state of desperation.

      What did Feuerstein do? And how did his behavior compare with that of other corporate executives in the mid-nineties? seen in the context of CEOs paying themselves obscene bonuses before filing for bankruptcy and leaving employees’ retirement funds in ruins, his behavior was heartening. Seen in the context of CEOs making $50 million a year through aggressive downsizing, cost-cutting, and bailing out in search of cheaper labor, his behavior was astonishing.

      Here’s how the Website of CBS TV chronicles Feuerstein’s actions:

      The only thing that went through my mind was, how can I possibly recreate it, says owner Aaron Feuerstein, the third generation of his family to run the mill.

      I was proud of the family business and I wanted to keep that alive, and I wanted that to survive. But I also felt the responsibility for all my employees, to take care of them, to give them jobs.

      He made a decision—one that others in the textile industry found hard to believe. Feuerstein decided to rebuild right there in Lawrence—not to move south or overseas as much of the industry had done in search of cheap labor.

      He also made another shocking decision. For the next sixty days, all employees would be paid their full salaries.

      I’m wondering why a business leader would do something like this. I’m also wondering what I would have done in the same situation. What would you have done? Says Feuerstein, I think it was a wise business decision, but that isn’t why I did it. I did it because it was the right thing to do.

      Who keeps their employees on the payroll for what ended up being three months to the tune of $25 million? When the CBS journalist suggested to Feuerstein that some would see cashing in the $300 million and cashing out the business as the smartest business decision, Feuerstein replied: And what would I do with it? Eat more? Buy another suit? Retire and die? … No, that did not go into my mind.

      Feuerstein kept his promises. Workers picked up their checks for months. He became known as the Mensch of Malden Mills, a businessman who cared more about his workers than his net worth.

      Do corporations really have a responsibility to care for their communities? Art Boulay quotes Feuerstein’s answer to this question:

      I have a responsibility to the worker, both blue-collar and white-collar … I have an equal responsibility to the community. It would have been unconscionable to put 3,000 people on the streets and deliver a death blow to the cities of Lawrence and Methuen.*

      Here’s a crucial question: If you do the right thing, do you get great results? Note this comment by Feuerstein:

      Before the fire, that plant produced 130,000 yards a week … A few weeks after the fire, it was up to 230,000 yards. Our people became very creative. They were willing to work 25 hours a day.

      How many corporate CEOs in today’s downsize-crazed companies could ask their employees to double production in a few weeks given no changes in the current plant, much less in temporary plants set up in old warehouses? How many of your employees would come through for you if your company needed their help?

      What did you notice about Feuerstein’s story? Here are a few thoughts that come to my mind. We all know it’s important to love our partner. To love our kids is vital. So is loving our parents, our siblings, and our friends. Some leaders even dare to bring love into their careers: loving their customers, loving results, and loving their jobs. But a very select few have ventured into the arena of loving their people.

      I think Feuerstein operates in this realm. And I believe his story also suggests this working definition of the word love: Love is extending yourself to invest in another’s highest good. That’s what this book is about.

      EXTENDING YOURSELF

      There’s something powerful about a love that really costs you something. In Feuerstein’s case, the fiscal and emotional sacrifice was substantial. As you’ll see in more detail in the next chapter, love is the process of extending yourself. It makes you big.

      INVESTING IN OTHERS

      Investing in another person is what makes the sacrifice relational. Love at work is not an indiscriminate, arm’s-length generosity that scatters goodwill at random; it’s a strategic,

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