When I Say the "L" Word

Unpacking The L-Word

Wherever I go, I can’t help but talk about the “L” word. I bring up the “L” word during informal conversations when I randomly meet people at the grocery store or in an Uber or visiting a friend's bar-b-q. When people ask what I do, I tell them it’s my job to bring more of the “L” word to work; to foster teams that grapple with what the “L” word means to them; to coach leaders to embody the “L” word, to explore what this means for them, for their team, and for what they are trying to achieve in the world.

When I share this one-on-one, people usually respond with a little surprise but usually immediately a mixture of warmth, happiness, identification, and gratitude. Most people seem to universally recognize we need more of the “L” word. They are drawn to it. They long for it. They are sometimes skeptical if they will ever be able to see it in their current workplace, but if they did they would be happier and relieved to have their trauma and pain end. They sometimes speculate that in their workplace they’d use another term for the “L” word because they think it would go over better. Some even share how they have a great place to work because of the “L” word.

To a person, there is nearly universal agreement that the “L” word and its derivatives are what we all need and that it would make a huge difference in our work, lives, and world today.

When I speak to groups, the response to the “L” word is also universal.

Silence.

No one moves.

No one even looks around the room. This is especially noticeable in person, where it can feel like the air is being sucked out of the room. And if we are virtual, faces on the screen vary from frozen faces trying to hold a neutral expression to outright shocked expressions with the occasional truth-teller typing in the chat, “WHAT???!!!” or a sarcastic, “Yeah right!”

I can almost hear people asking themselves, “Did she really just say the ‘L’ Word?” and “Uh oh.”

I let the silence hold for a long, juicy moment before simply observing that it got very quiet in the room.

Nervous chuckles break the tension. People squirm a little and take deep breaths.

And I tell them that yes, in fact, we are going to talk about the “L” Word.

We are going to talk about Love.

And we do. We talk about how important love is to human beings, how we need it to create a safe and human-centered workplace that works for team members, for customers, for our communities. We talk about love being good for organizations and business outcomes too. We talk about what love looks like at work, the qualities and experiences that invoke a sense of belonging for people as their true selves rather than a shadow of themselves. We talk about the impact of that love now, when we are struggling to adapt to more change, to remember how to “be” with each other, to figure out what it means to lead now in this strange new reality, to deal with the overwhelming workload as people leave and there is no one to take their place but expectations stay the same.

Love that comes up today begins with love for ourselves, with the struggle to function, to think clearly, to feel like ourselves, and to be ourselves. Love that is needed today offers the space and grace to each other to work through this process as well as the support to heal from multiple traumas of recent years. So much love is needed.

Individuals reach out to thank me for saying and advocating for the "L" Word. Both men and women quietly let me know how much they appreciate love being brought into their organization. They tell me they need more love, desperately, and that they are tired of fear and indifference. They want relief from dehumanization and suffering. They want a more human workplace.

But in the collective conversation, people can be more hesitant to speak up for love. We have been conditioned to be afraid of love. We sense the embedded norms of prior generations, their inherited sensibilities, and the real risks associated with speaking up for the “L” word. This conditioned reaction maintains the status quo, safe, comfortable, and familiar though clearly no longer serving us. As a society, we are frozen out of the possibility of love at work by an outdated type of “professionalism” that keeps us as shadows not fully human.

Yet, we are afraid to bring the very thing we need most as individuals and as teams. We are afraid of love, rather than being afraid of fear.

What will it take to turn this around?

Part of the answer for many leaders and teams for shifting these norms is presenting and experiencing a clear business case for love.

The Business Case for Love.

If you’ve followed this work for long you know that I am a broken record talking about the proof from science and my own research demonstrating that when we feel loved, when our leaders care about us, when we have a sense of belonging and acceptance on our teams, when we are supported in the tough moments of life, when we are psychologically safe, then we do our best work. We take risks and share ideas. We tap into our empathy to design better products and offer better service. We point out problems and help solve them too. We discuss failures and learn from them. And we enjoy work more so that we are happier, kinder, and more generous when we go home and out into the community. We do this because we are not hurting from what happens to us at work. And frankly we have to stop traumatizing people at work so that we can be more whole and well to bring healing to our communities and families.

We overcome resistance to the “L” word on our teams and in organizations by learning and making the business case for love. Read the research and get clear for yourself. Bring us in to share if it would help.

It’s time to thaw out our workplaces from their frozen, fearful state and warm up to love. It’s time to welcome love not just in quiet one-on-one conversations, but to collectively welcome love as a normal practice and a core value in our organizations, our teams, and our daily work lives.

It’s time to explore and discover each for ourselves and with our teams how to put humanity at the center of OUR kind of work.

It starts with the “L” Word: Love.

How do you make the business case for love? How does love figure into your workplace? How does love impact you and your team? Does it feel risky to introduce love at work? Why or why not? What would it take to lower the risk? Have you tested your assumptions lately?