A Workplace that Works
We go to work each day, whether in-person or virtually, to earn a living so we can make a life for ourselves and our loved ones. But we don’t sign up to be humiliated, to be ignored, to be betrayed. We sign up for the workforce at 18 or maybe 21 to contribute, to do something we enjoy, or at least don’t mind, to make a difference in some way.
We all come to our jobs, no matter how humble or lofty, believing that if we show up and do what we are hired to do, if we work hard and perform well, then we will make a difference, we will provide value to our customers, to our community, maybe even to the world. We don’t, as my colleague put it, show up trying to wreck the place. We show up to contribute.
Each of us in the workforce will be fortunate if at some point we work with a leader and a team who are human-focused. Supportive and affirming leaders who care about us as people, who let us know we belong and that our contributions matter, are too rare. When we experience this, we are both physically and psychologically safe to be ourselves, to speak up, to bring our best, to share ideas, to tell the truth about how the work is going. In essence, we are loved, a strangely radical, but accurate word. And when this happens, we tend to do amazing work. We are committed. We go the extra mile. We are creative and innovative. We serve customers well.
When we are loved, we can fully live into and up to our commitment to our team and customers. We aren’t obligated; our feet aren’t held to the proverbial fire. They don’t have to be. Our commitment in the context of love creates a powerful sense of mutual responsibility that delivers value for customers and has the back of our team members. When that happens, exceptional results are possible. How do I know this? I’ve seen it again and again and been fortunate to experience it too. And I've been hearing this as I interview people, 70 formal interviews so far, and in hundreds of other examples shared in workshops. All their stories bear this out. When people feel loved and safe rather than threatened and afraid, they make their best and highest contributions.
But.
But if we are not so fortunate to have a workplace grounded in love and committed to rooting out fear, then we all lose. Individuals lose confidence, clarity, and commitment. Teams lose shared understanding, engagement, and trust. And organizations lose ideas, productivity, and loyalty. Customers lose value, service, and quality. Rather than loving, mutual responsibility, we are obligated by intimidation-based compliance and the most negative kind of accountability.
You know what I mean. You are made to “account for yourself” and if something goes wrong, be it an honest mistake or inadequate system, you are blamed and shamed. Accountability is punitive and fear-focused. Everyone retreats to self-protection withholding our grandest and best. When fear is the norm, we all lose.
The stories shared with me demonstrate these two extremes of love and fear. These stories are so compelling, and their insights so crucial to building human-centered workplaces, that since 2017 I’ve committed myself to their telling. I committed to interrupting our regularly scheduled workplace habits and to introducing a more loving way of working. I committed to hosting a global conversation to discover the true impacts of love and fear in the workplace, and to foster a community to advance a more loving, human-centered approach to work.
This means bold and provoking new ideas. It means asking hard questions about both fear AND love. It means ongoing dialogue to better understand exactly how to make work more loving and human for people in many different fields and cultures. It means exploring what love actually looks like in practice day-to-day as a leader and a team. That more human workplace results in value for customers and meaningful work, and ripples to more loving and human families and communities too, and that is a workplace that truly works for all.
