The Executive People Advantage: Creating Teams, Leaders, and Cultures That Thrive (Episode # 526U)

Today, we are talking about loving your employees at work.

And you might wonder how we could talk about a subject like that.

Well, first of all, let me give a very basic definition of love.

and that is doing what is best for yourself and others.

And you might wonder, why do I put self in there, especially if we're often other-focused? Well, here's the reason.

If you don't love yourself, it's very difficult to love other people.

In fact, there are so many in our society today who are willing to kill others because they don't value their own lives.

You've got to start at home with you, love you, and then love others as well.

Now, in the initial dance between a prospective employee and a company where that employee might work, we could say there's a dating and courtship process that goes on.

We understand the company's perspective.

The company is looking at this prospective employee and they're trying to gauge Is this person going to be a good fit for our organization? They're looking at the person's personality, the person's temperament, and also the person's skills.

Now, not only is the company looking at the prospect, the prospect also has to evaluate the company.

Is this a great place for me to be? Is this an environment where I want to lend my skills and my ability? I remember one client that I had who was applying for an executive leadership position elsewhere from his current company.

And in the process, he was thinking more about whether that organization wanted him.

And as I heard more about the story, it was very clear to me that even if they did, maybe he didn't want to work in that environment.

And so we had to talk about that part of it, too.

It's a two-way street.

If you're going to get together and, in essence, be married, love together, you've got to both decide that it's a good idea.

So let's say you do that.

You decide it's a good idea.

Here you are now in the organization.

Today I'm going to talk about the company's responsibility in loving the employees, of doing what's best for them.

So number one, as the employee organization, you want to have that compelling experience.

mission and purpose that we talked about many times, that compelling mission, purpose, and vision that your employees are proud to be a part of it.

What is it that you're doing? Are you saving children's lives? Are you curing cancer? Are you building state-of-the-art office and workspaces that facilitate joy and innovation? Are you bringing news and information to people in a very compelling way? Maybe you're using artificial intelligence.