Good evening Frank!
Hi Francois, how are you doing?
Well, you know, my life is a bit of a rollercoaster at the moment. One day I am on top of it all, inspired and getting somewhere, the next I am screaming my head off on the downhill.
*Laughter*
You know you can get off anytime.
Off what – life or the rollercoaster?
The roller coaster of course. Tell me about the downhill part.
I am tired of being told that I can’t do certain things. In my world Kannie is dood - Cannot is dead. I believe that I have or can create the resources I need to achieve what I want to. It rankles to hear that I am judged not to have the capability to do this thing and I am not given the opportunity to develop it.
And what are you doing about it?
I am creating an exit to an environment where people are believed in and cherished to grow their strengths.
Great! This is very pertinent – I promised we will chat about love – you’ll see in a moment what I am talking about.
Where I’m standing now it does not look like love and business is compatible…
Perhaps. How would you define love?
There are so many ways! Friendship is a kind of love, platonic love… There is romantic love… I don’t know if lust is a kind of love (I sometimes get the idea that most people’s idea of love is the sexual kind)… and there is the love amongst family members. There is also the higher Love. And perhaps materialistic love – I love my car!
So there are many different kinds of love. What is love?
You are asking me to define something poets and philosophers refuse to define.
Give it a try.
OK, I’d say love is a more or less deep, unconditional emotional attachment to a wide range of objects – from mundane material objects to abstract objects – ideas and ideologies. I would have loved to say that love is the source of psychological pleasure, but Khalil Gibran had a point when he said that even as it enfolds you in its wings, the sword hidden in the pinions wounds you.
Why do you say unconditional?
If the attraction, attention, loyalty and attachment are not unconditional, it is not love – it is something else. The Apostle Paul had lots to say about love being unconditional – love does not brag, does not keep track of mistakes, and is not conceited, jealous or touchy. Love does not chase self-interest and is never glad about injustice. Love is patient, friendly, gentle, hopeful, forgiving…
Now that you are quoting so freely from the Bible, what did Jesus say about love?
He said that we should love God, and love one another like we love ourselves – Love is the only law. Some say the meaning of life is to experience, but it may just be that the meaning of life is to love.
Yes, but what does that mean?
Well, to start off with, we should love ourselves and not love ourselves more or less than others. I think we forget that our ‘neighbour’ is not only our friends or the people of our church, mosque, religion, country or time. Looking after the earth means loving future generations. Christ also said: “Love your enemies.” And if you want to know about the Love of God, chat to Rumi.
Now here comes my trick question. What does a business look like that runs on love?
I doubt that something like that exists! Business is all about conditions: you do stuff for me and fit this mould and then I give you money, status, belonging, satisfaction, possessions… You know even Jesus had little hope for rich folk. The rich young man did not follow him. I guess they became rich because they were business people so perhaps even today camels pass through the eye of the needle easier than business people…
At least today we have a monk that sold his Ferrari. OK, it looks to me you are convinced that love and business is mutually exclusive. Are you?
Convince me otherwise if you can.
To change your mind about this is up to you. What I will do is share the insights of don Miguel Ruiz in the Mastery of Love that made me think that there may just be businesses that actually follow another track. He writes about relationships… I saw wider applications.
OK, I’ll listen with both my ears and the ear in my chest.
He starts off at the same place we started with: respect for someone else’s map of the world. It looks like love is blind to our own maps of the world! Well at least at times it is… when we behold the beloved we pay attention with our whole being to that person’s life world. This goes hand in hand with love not having obligations or expectations. Love makes us want to, not feel that we have to. And it we don’t expect anything in return. We don’t have an expectation of how things should be – we accept it as it comes.
Ah, yes. Expectation can be disappointed and we blame our disillusionments and disappointments on the other person or circumstance – never on our expectations. And if I feel obliged to do or be something I become resentful after a while and try to escape the obligation I forgot I imposed on myself, blaming the other or the situation once again.
Yep, those are the consequences of obligation and expectation. Something else don Miguel says is that love is ruthless – it does not feel sorry and has no pity, but it does have compassion.
I can see why he says that. Compassion is grounded in empathy and rapport – respecting the other’s map of life. Pity comes from having judged someone to be hopeless, helpless or worthless and that is the ultimate disrespect. Ah! Self pity must then be a sign of disrespecting self.
Sure. What I like what he says is that compassion lets us say: “You are strong and intelligent enough to make it. I know you can do it. If you fall, I’ll give you a hand. Go ahead, go for it!”
Amazing! So different from the patronising: “You can do it!” with no belief in the person’s abundance, resources and capabilities to back it up. Or even worse: “You can’t do it, try something easier.”
That’s enough for now. I’ll share the rest when we chat again.
OK, so just let me see if I got it so far… I can add to my list description of love that it has no obligations and no expectations and that it is ruthless. I can see how this is true for relationships. I still have some difficulty about love at the workplace.
Alright. Think for a moment about the times and places where you loved what you did at work. I bet you felt you wanted to do what you did; you did not feel obliged.
Sure.
Did you have a clear expectation of how it should be, or did it happen naturally, organically?
It just flowed.
Did you have a fixed expectation of what the outcome would be?
We had clear goals that we worked towards.
Great. You aimed for specific results. What else did those results bring you?
Ah, I see what you mean - the consequences of what we achieved… We were acknowledged for the effort. And we got paid more than expected!
Nice! Who are we?
The team. The achievement I am talking about was a project a whole bunch of different people worked together on.
I hazard a guess and that is that the team members supported each other, believed in each other, but never wallowed in pity if someone slipped up or had a bad day. Am I right?
How did you know!?
Well, the lack of expectations and obligations is a very strong indicator for respect being present. Respect means you will get compassion, not pity. No-one needs to beat around the bush.
Sure. And no-one beats you with the bush either.
*Laughter*
Yes, feeling the need to put someone in their place, cut them to size or hurt their feelings so that they comply with your expectations come from a position of weakness and fear. Can you have compassion with that?
Ruthlessly.
So now, what do you think – can these ‘principles’ of love also be applied in business?
Yes, sure. Some times and some circumstances can allow love to come forward, but I’m not yet convinced that all times and circumstances can be love filled.
Alright, so next time we chat I’ll share some more of don Miguel’s wisdoms and then we talk again.
OK, Frank. Now I am going to surrender to a condition of being utterly without expectations and obligations.
Ah, sleep well, Francois.
Good night, Frank.
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