What’s Love Got to Do With It? Exploring Love in Business

Or, said differently, how does love relate to business?

Love First

I didn’t want to look up the definition of love to write this blog. If you are a living, breathing human, love should be something you experience and can describe. Daily. Describing love shouldn’t need AI or ChatGPT.

But love can be hard to describe because it is a feeling, and everyone’s experience with love will be different. The love of a person, a child, a pet, a circumstance, an experience. They all fall on the spectrum of a love experience, at different frequencies.

For me love is connection. Not like “two links in a chain” connection. Like stars are born in pairs connection, or twins that start life from conception connection. It can become indescribable because it unites things in ways that are not always seen, but must be felt. Those outside the love triangle may not understand. And mostly, they don’t need to. They just need to trust the healthy and safe love that someone they care about is experiencing.

The most important love is the love of self. It is hard to live your value to the world when you are not fond of the person you are. But how you define that person matters. If your internal value is based solely on your external value, look deeper. You might be giving too much. If your external value is absent, but you see immense internal value, look deeper. You may be living a lost opportunity to share yourself with the world.

The second most important love will be that which you share. Openly, fully, completely, and unconditionally. Love that is safe for the other person to receive. It’s not possessive, controlling, or conditional. It’s unapologetically honest. This would be love you share with the people on your “A Team,” or those you are closest to.

As write this blog, I reflect on the love around me, including that fact that already today I have told 5 people I love them. And it isn’t yet noon. I had a loving walk with someone I care deeply about, and we shared excitement for our paths ahead. I received an email from my father showing love for a past family figure head, and he shared his reflections with all those included. He ended his email with “love.” The people in my life I “love” before noon on a Sunday are part of my deep inner world. Life would be darker without them.

Love and Business

What does all this love talk have to do with business you ask? Well, if love is connection? Everything.

According to Harvard Business Review, the most powerful force in business isn’t cash, it isn’t people, and it isn’t AI. It’s: L-O-V-E. Love.

If you ask people what they LOVE to do at work, they will tell you. I love doing “this” or when I have moments of “that.” I love working with “them” or love when I get more of that “thing.” If someone enjoys their job (at least a bit), they “love” something about it. They seek out opportunity after opportunity to do more of that which they “love.”

Interestingly, there is a significant difference between someone saying they “liked” or “enjoyed” something versus they “loved it.” Having a euphoric feeling of “love” for something becomes the stories you share with others, including that open and honest 5-star review. That’s what people want to buy. Something to “love.”

But what does it mean for someone to say they truly “love something?”

According to the article:

“Love is the deep and unwavering commitment to the flourishing of a human.”

The words I love in here: Deep. Unwavering. Commitment. Flourish. I don’t even think it needs the word “human,” as people can extend this type of love to animals, passions, concepts, and yes, WORK. They can love a vision, love the people that help them to achieve it, love the direction their business is heading.

When you love something, it touches you. It connects with you in places the things you “like” cannot.

Or, also from the article:

“When you say you “love” doing a certain activity…you commit to this word because when you’re doing the activity, you feel at one with yourself, at ease, in control, deeply absorbed in what you’re doing. You are flourishing.”

So, how can love make your business better?

First, you might need to skip those increasingly popular business short-cuts (sometimes masked as innovative). AI, while effective at some things, can not LOVE, or infuse LOVE into what it does for you. AI solutions will always be unloving, even if you “love” to use it. Automation will also have an “unloving” vibe because love is one thing we have, and will always have, over a machine.

But you also need to infuse love into your customer and employee experiences.

Importantly, the article suggests that “…the most discerning customers will become loyal to only those companies that have intentionally designed love into every touchpoint.”

How do you do that?

First, figure out your touchpoints. When do your customers touch your product or service, and how are those experiences for them? Will they “love” them? Do they “love” using your automated phone prompts, your website, your captcha of selecting bikes and buses, your “you must register to engage with us” approach, or the “hello” they get (or if they get) when they call?

Are your touchpoints loving or unloving for them? If you can’t define that difference for your business, neither can they, until of course they relay their experience and you find out which is which. But I would suggest that such a reactive approach is playing defense. In business, you want offence.

There are many great examples in the article of what loving and unloving is and does in business. Some I agree with, some I don’t. But I get to describe loving and unloving for my own business. So do you.

The crux though is this paragraph:

“Who doesn’t want to be recruited lovingly? Or checked into a hotel lovingly? Or offered financial services lovingly? Who wouldn’t want a loving meal out, a loving flying experience as a passenger, an insurance claim processed lovingly? We all would. And as the data show, we’d behave so much more productively if we were given a more loving set of experiences — employees show higher performance, customers show more loyalty, and both become advocates for your brand.”

How do you love your business? How do you show love for those helping you to be successful? How do you love your tasks? Use of time? Vision? How do you love your customers, your team, your supplies, your partners, your vendors?

If you don’t love your business or role, you should and you can. Coaching can help. Reach out.