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Love and Organization
Lessons of Love for Human Dignity, Leadership and Motivation
Michael Pirson, Michael Pirson
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eBook - ePub
Love and Organization
Lessons of Love for Human Dignity, Leadership and Motivation
Michael Pirson, Michael Pirson
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About This Book
Organizations are not human, but they are made up of people. Examining the organization, functioning, growing and developing and moving together as one unit, the well-being and success of that organization depends on the well-being of people that make it up.
Love, in its various forms, is the energy that motivates and fuels creativity, care, innovation, progress and well-being. Traditionally, organizational structures have been set up to support compliance and command and control, which often discourages love and creates policies against love at the workplace. The result has been reduced growth, productivity and retention of businesses as well as reduced well-being for employees. This reduced connectivity between individuals has also, at a higher level, adversely affected society. Without love, people are working and performing with reduced energy, and at reduced capacity. While prior research has been focused on love at the workplace from the viewpoint of psychologists, this book explores the impact of love within organizational contexts from various viewpoints including management, psychology, and philosophy. It explores love in the organizational context by looking at how it affects meaning, purpose, well-being, motivation, faith, care, spiritual development and how the identity and well-being of each person in the organization positively affects retention and the growth and success of that organization.
It will be of interest to researchers, academics, and advanced students in the fields of organizational studies, leadership, and management.
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1Love as a Foundational Principle for Humanistic Management
Matthew T. Lee
DOI: 10.4324/9781003254034-2
Confusion about love is both widespread and enduring (Reeve 2005). This confusion continues to harm human health and well-being. It has fatal consequences whenever cultural narratives about love promote harmful emotions such as jealousy and hatred that justify violence (Borochowitz and Eisikovits 2002; Conde et al. 2018; Wood 2001). The quality of our awareness about love has extraordinary implications for how we organize, manage, and lead. Disordered notions of love represent a serious threat to group and organizational stability (Yeung 2005; Poloma and Hood 2008). Positive understandings and expressions of love are associated with desired organizational outcomes (Barsade and OâNeill 2014) and with deeper humanistic ends that cannot be quantified in narrow financial or other material terms (Keir 2017).
In this chapter, I will argue that a healthy, mature conception of love is a foundational and unifying principle that might more intentionally guide the project of humanistic management (HM) (Von Kimakowitz et al. 2010) in ways that ultimately contribute to the promotion of flourishing: more complete forms of healthy, life-affirming well-being across multiple domains. In general terms, these domains are manifest at the individual (VanderWeele 2017), community (VanderWeele 2019), and planetary levels (Carlisle et al. 2009; Willett et al. 2019). Well-being is also understood by many people in specifically spiritual terms (Messer 2021; VanderWeele et al. 2021). Stated simply, the quality of our awareness of love is a crucial â and generally overlooked â factor that fundamentally shapes our individual and collective ability to thrive.
I draw attention to awareness because social scientists continue to confirm a bedrock truth that philosophers and the founders of religious orders have promoted for millennia: âthe control of consciousness determines the quality of lifeâ (Csikszentmihalyi 1991, p. 20). Although perhaps not widely appreciated, there is great wisdom in the statement that the âprincipal form that the work of love takes is attentionâ (Peck 1978, p. 120). By means of thoughtful attention, we become empowered to love more effectively. A healthier and more virtuous understanding of love provides a means for focusing awareness on that which is truly life-affirming, as well as greater clarity about the criteria that might be used to discern which actions to take at both the individual and organizational levels in order to promote the highest amount and quality of flourishing.
A First Glance at Love in the Context of Humanistic Management
Any discussion of love must acknowledge that the word is most frequently defined as a noun, often in terms of strong feelings or emotions that evoke desire â âI am in love!â âI love ice cream!â â in fact, as the âsupreme emotionâ (Fredrickson 2013, p. 10). This is not wholly inappropriate. Indeed, there is perhaps no better word in English to evoke the intense feelings of self-transcendence experienced in the giddiness of romantic infatuation, the ecstasy of spiritual communion, or the great joy of consuming a delicious dessert. These disparate experiences involve very different modulations of love (Johnson 2001; Lewis 1960). The words of the 13th century Sufi poet Rumi (1998, p. 243) still resonate: âThe way of love is not a subtle argument. The door there is devastation.â The devastation of unrequited romantic love immediately springs to mind, particularly in its headline-grabbing manifestations when obsessive understandings of love result in deadly violence. It is indeed difficult to distinguish love and hate when considering âpossessive loveâ (Lomas 2018, p. 142).
But Rumi may have had a more theological understanding of love in mind: it is the selfish self that is âdevastatedâ by a transformative experience of love â an experience that allows a more generous self to come into being. This chapter promotes management practice that is grounded in a healthy and mature understanding of love, one that is life-affirming and promotes generosity rather than possessiveness (see also Vallerand 2008, on harmonious as opposed to obsessive passions). From a mature vantage point, operating from a spirit of generous love is not a sacrifice. Instead, it involves the giving up of a lower good, such as a self-centered accumulation of power, status, or wealth, in order to seek a higher good: the flourishing of all. In this way, we discover our best possible self: âIn the giving of self lies the unsought discovery of selfâ (Post 2003, p. 3). The characteristics and outcomes of this kind of love have been enumerated in countless classic and contemporary works: patience, kindness, truthfulness, courage, unity, respect, trust, generosity, effectiveness, empowerment, warmth, understanding, perseverance, purity, and so forth (1 Corinthians 13:4â8; Beck 1989; Hooks 2001; Kongtrul 2018; Post 2003; Sorokin 2002/1954).
In addition to noun-based understandings of love, prominent cultural observers and psychologists suggest that âwe would all love better if we used [the word] as a verbâ (Hooks 2001, p. 4; see also Chapman 2009; Peck 1978). In Western culture, the Greek concept of agape (see Silverman 2019; Kreeft 2004, especially chapter 3; Templeton 1999), sometimes translated as charity or altruistic love, captures this sensibility that love is much more than just a feeling or an experience (see also Sorokin 2002/1954). Love is a self-giving action, an intentional activity that involves nurturing the growth of others and, perhaps indirectly, the self. In some instances, âlove is primarily giving, not receivingâ (Fromm 2000/1956, p. 21). Of course, a skillful ability to receive love is also important. I will draw upon these ideas to advance a stipulative definition of love that has relevance for all types of relationships (friends, relatives, romantic partners, colleagues, strangers, and even enemies) and also positions the concept as a foundational principle for HM.
The core principles of HM indicate that this movement within the broader field of management represents an âinterpretive communityâ (Fish 1980) whose members may be receptive to the cultural understandings that I use to develop my stipulative definition of love. As articulated by Von Kimakowitz et al. (2010, p. 4, emphasis added), HM is built upon three dimensions: (1) âunconditional respect for the dignity of every person,â (2) âethical reflection [as] an integrated part of all business decisions,â and (3) the search for ânormative legitimacy for corporate activitiesâ in the context of striving to meet âcorporate responsibilities.â Inherent dignity, ethical reflection, and legitimacy linked to responsibility are all in alignment with the conceptualization of love that I will advance. They also work to achieve a shared outcome:
Taken together, these three dimensions promote human flourishing through economic activities that are life-conducive and add value to society at large. Submitting business decisions to these three guiding principles is what we call humanistic management.(Von Kimakowitz et al. 2010, pp. 4â5)
The perspective on love that I will develop offers a unifying principle for humanistic managers in a pluralistic context who seek to (re-)organize, manage, and lead in life-conducive ways guided by these three dimensions. Framed in terms of the three dimensions and the primary aim of HM, I suggest that healthy love fosters an awareness of dignity, it encourages ethical reflection and responsible action, and it promotes flourishing. I am seeking convergent thinking across diverse perspectives in order to arrive at an understanding of love that will be both conceptually and practically useful to the broadest possible group. This is why my exploration of the concept of love is broader than a single philosophical or religious tradition, or for that matter, a reductionistic social scientific approach.
An analogous situation confronted the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) as they encountered resistance to the particularistic features of the initial iteration of their step-based addiction recovery process. Through their own trial-and-error experiences, they broadened their spiritually based approach so that it became universally accessible in a manner that still honored the Christian inspiration from which it was born. This standpoint continues to emphasize adherence to the spiritual âabsolutesâ of honesty, unselfishness, purity, and love, while reaching both religious and nonreligious audiences. The entire process âboiled down,â in the words of AA co-founder Dr. Bob Smith, to the two primary virtues of âlove and serviceâ (Lee et al. 2017, p. 163).
This chapter builds on the contention that a boiled-down essence of healthy, mature love might be used to more intentionally and skillfully guide life-conducive management and leadership practice. Or perhaps, spirit of love, if the word âessenceâ is too strong for our deconstructionist era. Regardless of word choice, the fact of the matter is that some more or less healthy forms of love already serve as foundational and unifying principles within culturally legitimated narratives that guide behavior, provide resources for making meaning, and foster collective identities. The word itself may not always figure prominently in these extant narratives, but many are at least implicitly rooted in some conceptualization of love. Unhealthy conceptions obviously contribute to domestic violence among intimate partners as well as caregivers and children (the ânear and dearâ). Disordered concepts of love also contribute to the Tragedy of Tribal Altruism: an intense love of in-group which results in an equally intense âout-group antagonismâ (Sorokin 2002/1954, p. 459). Even the most brutal tyrants in history have waxed eloquently about love of country or family (âI can fight only for something that I loveâŠâ). This is the source of much group conflict and suffering on a global scale.
But we also find an abundance of inspiring examples of positive social transformation grounded in healthy understandings of love, as evidenced by Martin Luther King, Jr.âs creation of a ânew narrative of America with his âI Have a Dreamâ speechâ (Wood 2001, p. 258). For King â steeped as he was in the Christian tradition of agape â love was a powerful force capable of remaking the world (see also Kahane 2010; Sorokin 2002/1954). As he famously put it:
What is needed is a realization that power without love is reckless and abusive, and that love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.(King 1967, n.p.)
This kind of awareness of love is not âsentimental and anemic,â it is a powerful source of motivation and energy to lead in the best sense of the word, in ways that promote benevolence and the empowerment of others (Lee et al. 2013). This thoughtful, mature understanding of love has beneficial effects on the motivation to persevere through difficulties and provides guidance for the shape that positive social change might take in a specific context. Kingâs perspective was shaped ...