A Loving Workplace Isn't All Sweetness And Light

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Five of us sat around the table in Ebony and Ivory Coffee Studio … with green tea, an everything bagel with cream cheese in one of my favorite monthly gatherings: a circle of people who connect, encourage each other, and share answers to host Brian's question, “What's emerging for you right now?” 

Some work in organizations; others are entrepreneurs and independent consultants. All want work to be more human.

I shared the recent publication of The Loving Workplace Principles through the Center for a Loving Workplace, where I serve as CEO, and how we are building tools to understand their value across the stages of a team's development. In other words: how can a team form, storm, norm, perform, and adjourn with more love and humanity in the process? 

Tom asked, “How did you develop the Principles? What did that look like?”

I described the journey from Human Workplace Gatherings I hosted in the Governor's Office, to a pandemic-era private community exploring Love as a core workplace value, to working with a team of 14 on consulting projects, and finally to forming the non-profit and its Board. 

One of our team members, Rick Gage, named it clearly: before we could teach love in the workplace, “we had to BE it.” We had to embody and experience what we were teaching.

We embraced that. But it didn't look like what you might think. 

When the CLW Board began expressing and refining the Principles, we ran smack into the issues that teams always do, especially under pressure. Differing styles. Wounds from past experiences. Assumptions. Communication gaps. Cultural differences. We were in the deep, murky waters we were trying to write about, living the very challenges we wanted to address. 

Triggered by past traumas in other workplaces, one team member said, “Maybe I don't want to do this anymore. Maybe it's time for me to step away.” In truth, several felt this.

But here was the turning point: No one walked away. We stayed in it - committed to each other and to the work. We had hard conversations, deepened our relationships, and used the Loving Workplace Principles to find our way through. That process deepened the Principles themselves. 

Later, a volunteer team expanded the Principles from seven to ten - and navigated their own conflict, triggered trauma, and power dynamics along the way. They, too, used the Principles to move through it together and then to guide a group of community members to share insights and build tools for Loving team development. 

Back at Ebony and Ivory, Andy observed: “When I picture a loving workplace, I'd assume everything would be sweetness and light. But from what you're saying, it wasn't.” 

“That's right,” I said. "A loving workplace does not avoid the hard stuff. It goes through all the same challenges as any other workplace - change, conflict, misunderstanding, confusion, struggle, failure, success, celebration, endings. All of it.

“The difference is how we move through those things: always trying to put love at the center.”

Love in action, reflected in the Principles, serves as a north star. It re-orients us when we get off course and helps us find our way back to each other. Sometimes it helps us let each other go, too.

None of us is perfect. Least of all me. I am haunted by my own failures, the ways I've let people down, poorly communicated, and dropped the ball. But these aren't the end of the story. They are chances to learn, to grow, to heal - to apologize, forgive, and start again, re-centered on love. 

That's the principled thing to do.

Here's what I'd invite you to consider: A loving workplace isn't a conflict-free workplace. It's one where people choose to lean into the hard conversations to learn and grow, rather than ignore them or walk away. Where have you seen that kind of commitment on your team - or where might it still be needed?

The Loving Workplace Principles are now available - forged as you've just read in real experiences. Download them for free at the Center for a Loving Workplace and consider: Which Principle does your team need most right now?