What's love got to do with it?

[First published on LinkedIn 09Nov2016]

My dog died today. It's devastating. That’s the end of 14 years of wagging and wiggling welcomes, long runs and short walks, devotion and pain-in-the-assery, optimism and quiet nobility. If you have or had a dog (or cat or other beloved pet) you know how I feel and what I mean, though the words may be different. 

What’s love got to do with it? Everything, of course.

Dogs allow us to give love openly, freely, profusely. Dogs compel us to be caring and feel cared for, perhaps to be reflective. Dogs get us to play, to go outside, to engage with the world around us. Dogs help us to be human. That’s why we have them. That’s why we need them.  

In so much of our daily lives, we’re very much discouraged from being human. It’s inappropriate, uncouth, and certainly unprofessional. At the 2016 Net Impact conference, Aaron Hurst asked our session what it meant to be “professional”. Note that this was in a room full of mostly undergrad business students and MBAs desperate to find a job to pay off their growing-by-the-minute student debt. They’re all dressed, speaking, and behaving very professionally for fear that if they don’t, they won’t make the right impression, won’t get the right business cards, won’t make the right connections. I’m sure his question scrambled their brains (which are very well trained to give the right answer) because they were pretty sure the answer that came to mind was not the one he was looking for, not the right one. What’s the answer? Aaron suggested "professional" meant robotic, easily controlled, not showing up as a human being, and thus not able to form meaningful relationships, at least not at work. 

What’s love got to do with it? Nothing, of course. 

Can you imagine giving love openly, freely, profusely at work? How many office cultures compel us to be caring and feel cared for, perhaps to be reflective? When, between 9 and 5, do we get to play, to go outside, to engage with the world around us? When we’re at work, when do we get to be human? We don’t. That’s why we have dogs. That’s why we need dogs.

Maybe you don’t have a dog, but hopefully you have had a chance to fall wildly no-hold-barred in love. Remember how that felt? Did you feel utterly selfless yet fully yourself? Did you feel fully engaged and engaging? Did you deeply and authentically listen and feel deeply, authentically listened to? Were you feeling generous, magnanimous, open-minded, and forgiving? Being in love (with a person or a dog) is wonderful. You feel like you can do anything – and want to. You want to share and to bring others along for the ride. It’s what “really good” feels like.

Okay, enough of dogs and daydreaming! You’ve got to switch gears back into work mode. You’ve got to attend meetings and meet budgets. You’ve got deadlines and you’re dead tired. You just read that 70% of employees are not engaged at work, but you didn’t need a survey to tell you that. Your team is supposed to be collaborating and innovating, but instead you’re stuck in a quagmire of office politics and office drama. 

What’s love got to do with it? Everything, of course. 

If there’s no love, no caring or engaging, no reflection or play, how can you possibly collaborate or innovate? You can’t. Even if you do, in bursts or isolated pockets, someone on another team or up the org chart will resist or reject your fantastic ideas. Conventional work cultures are about scarcity and competition, time and money, fear and greed. Conventional work cultures resist change, reject out-there ideas. Conventional work cultures want answers and proof, not wild ideas and wouldn’t-it-be-great-if scenarios. Conventional work cultures have nothing to do with love – but they should. 

Collaboration requires connecting and caring. Innovation requires inspiration and imagination. Viable, actionable, radical solutions – the kind we so desperately need -- require curiosity and inquiry, emergent thinking and systems thinking, ideation and action. They require participation with our hearts as well as our heads and our hands. We have to understand the ‘why’ as well as the ‘what’ and the ‘how’. Otherwise, our innovations will be incremental.  Otherwise, our solutions will not be designed for humans, human nature, or nature. Otherwise, our solutions will not reflect or reinforce love, or life, or love of life and living. They will not be suitable for our dogs.
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What’s love got to do with it?  Everything, I hope.