Leading through the language of love
How we nurture our personal relationships offers a clue to how to motivate a team of employees
THE ability to innovate and adapt effectively in business is critical for success. If you do not innovate, you do not survive. We continue to see organisations of all sizes failing because they did not evolve.
As a result, there are great innovations that have influenced how we communicate, market, strategise and execute — with technology playing an increasing role.
There is one area, though, that still offers an opportunity for incorporating innovation, and that is the approach to incentive mechanisms. Organisations continue to follow the same old-fashioned approaches — despite the fact that traditional approaches do not always lead to the desired outcomes. For example, we continue to rely on financial-based incentives as the primary means to reward good performance.
These incentives work, but only up to a point. Once the threshold is reached, people care more about factors unrelated to money — such as the organisational culture and professional development. When you look into the top reasons people leave jobs, it becomes clear that the less healthy relationships are at work, especially between leaders and subordinates, the more likely it is the employee will leave.
We tend to invest significant time and attention on what we can do to make personal relationships healthy, but we do not focus as much attention on what it takes to keep professional relationships healthy as well. This is despite the fact that a typical five-day week means that we spend more time with our colleagues than we do with family and friends.
In the same way that we pay attention to the proven techniques that help build healthy relationships in our personal lives, so too should we be spending time on applying these techniques to how we improve the HAPPINESS IS: Office workers enjoy the outdoors during a lunch break in the La Défense business district in Paris, France quality of our professional relationships.
I recently revisited the insights from the book titled The Five Love Languages, written by relationship counsellor Gary Chapman more than two decades ago. The book has consistently been on the New York Times Best Sellers list, as well as on Amazon.com’s top 100 books.
It talks about how individuals can keep their relationships healthy by communicating with their loved ones in the language of love their partner values the most. In this way, each individual takes steps that are guaranteed to make their partners happier and feel more appreciated in the relationship.
Over the past two decades, the book has saved thousands of marriages — and Chapman’s insights have also been used to build healthy relationships with children, relatives, friends and the communities we live in.
What I am proposing is that we start thinking about how we can infuse the wealth of perspectives and insights on healthy personal relationships into how we strengthen our professional relationships.
Using Chapman’s theory as an example, the five languages of love commonly valued by human beings are gifts, quality time, touch, acts of service and words of affirmation. So, in business, as a leader you should consider spending quality time with the employees who value it as a currency for expressing appreciation. In a different context, you should use words of affirmation with those who value that language the most.
Surely it would be most beneficial to the company to stop wasting money on possibly under-valued financial incentives and rather focus on matching the mode of appreciation to the kind of mechanism that is most appreciated by that individual?
Some of these modes of appreciation are harder to implement than others. For example, investing time and using appropriate language can be relatively easy to implement. But physical touch is more complicated.
I am obviously not advocating inappropriate workplace behaviour, but simple actions, such as a smile or a nod of the head when a colleague makes a good point in a meeting, walking over to a colleague’s desk to talk about a work matter rather than discussing it on e-mail, or stopping what you are doing when a subordinate approaches your desk to discuss something, would all do the trick.
The mistake most leaders make is that they consistently apply the same leadership approach to everyone on the team — usually the approach most comfortable and valuable to the leader. But he fails to adopt the approach that works best for the individuals involved.
This is much harder to implement in a big organisation that already has long-standing mechanisms in place. However, it could be a great opportunity for leaders in smaller, earlier-stage businesses who are in a position to shape the culture of the organisations that they lead.
Finding innovative ways to use the research and insights on healthy personal relationships in business could go a long way towards establishing a more satisfied and happier team.
Once the threshold is reached, people care more and more about factors unrelated to money
Sikhakhane is an international speaker, writer and business advisor, with an honours degree in business science from the University of Cape Town and an MBA from Stanford University