Bring Love to Your Work

If there is one place that we really need more love, it’s the workplace.

Love has an incredibly strong influence on business outcomes. I’ve seen it time and time again, especially with my corporate clients. The more love your co-workers feel at work, the more engaged they become — and the more they will perform at their best, too.

Whatever the Question, Love Is the Answer
During this month of hearts and flowers and valentines, I thought it would be lovely to encourage you to begin a new practice.

One of the best ways is to start asking more positive questions in all your communications.

You’ve probably heard these kinds of questions bantered about in your meetings:

“How did we get to this place, surely you knew about the
deadline long before this, didn’t you?”

or …

“Why are you in this role and why do you think you deserve it?”

When I hear these questions, they just about scream “gotcha” to me. Why not just tell the other person straight up, “You are (very, very) wrong”?

Spoiler alert—nobody wants to be wrong. To be told (or inferred to) publicly will surely result in them being triggered or feeling like they’re being attacked. And they will be compelled to either defend or launch a counter-attack (yup, the usual flight or fight stuff).

There is a simple way to allow the other person to save face, amp up productivity, and create the kind of culture you’d actually prefer.

Please Ask Some Happier Questions!
Crafting nicer questions is the easy part. You can easily imagine reconstructing the first sentence example to, “Hey, can we talk about this new deadline—it seems really tight to me?” Or the second one to, “What do you like most about your role, and what is the most challenging? I’d really like to be more helpful to you.”

The hard part is wanting to ask happier questions (you knew that).

Just like you easily would with a child who was trying to get away with something. Or a dear friend who had a blind spot. Or it was your company, and you cared about each and every person in it. You’d have only their best interests at heart.

More Simply, Just Be LOVE.
Go ahead, make your valentine’s gift to your colleagues in the form of more compassionate questions. Believe me, it will shift your brand and your impact one question at a time.

You’ll experience way more awesome meetings and conversations, too.

That’s a special gift that makes a huge difference. For them. For you. And for all of us.