LOVE: The Most Powerful Force in Business?
Leahcim Semaj, Ph.D. - Change Agent

The most powerful force in business isn't greed, fear, or even the raw energy of unbridled competition. The most powerful force in business is love. It's what will help your company grow and become stronger. It's what will propel your career forward. It's what will give you a sense of meaning and satisfaction in your work, which will help you do your best work. This is the position of Tim Sanders who is the chief solutions officer at Yahoo, where he drives some of the company's largest partnerships and delivers next-generation marketing programs for world-class brands. His views are expressed in the current issue of Fast Company and provide the content for his forthcoming book, Love Is the Killer App: How to Win Business and Influence Friends (Crown Business), which will be published on February 14, 2002.

There are two tough-minded reasons for this soft-hearted reality. The first is the abundance of choice in business -- choice of products, schools, media, and career paths. Choice spells doom for villains. At a time when more of us have more options than ever, there's no need to put up with a product or service that doesn't deliver, a company that we don't like, or a boss whom we don't respect. The second reason is what I call the "new telegraph." It's almost impossible for a shoddy product, a noxious company, or a crummy person to keep its, his, or her sad reality a secret anymore. There are too many highly opinionated and well-informed people with access to email, instant messaging, and the Web, not to mention telephones and Talk Shows. Their was a time when "you could fool some of the people some of the time", but that time is quickly coming to an end.

The bottom line: If you don't like certain people, it's easier than ever to escape them. If you are a lousy person, it's harder than ever to keep people around you. Hence, the power of love.

Sanders accepts a notion of love as "the selfless promotion of the growth of the other." He believes that when you help others grow to become the best people that they can be, you are being loving -- and as a result, you grow. Love is seen as the act of intelligently and sensibly sharing your knowledge, networks, and compassion with your business partners. The secret to being a high-impact leader and the essence of individual and corporate success: Learn as much as you can as quickly as you can and share your knowledge aggressively; expand your network of people who share your values and connect as many of them with each other as possible; and, perhaps most important, be as openly human as you can be and find the courage to express genuine emotion in the harried, pressure-filled world of work. And one last point: Behave this way not because you expect something in return -- a quid pro quo -- but because it's the right way to behave. The less you expect in return for acts of professional generosity, the more you will receive.

The Power of Love

Sanders identifies three critical drivers of professional success, three elemental particles of love in business. They are knowledge, networks, and compassion. To be an impact player in business, you simply have to know more than most other people know. That means taking the power of ideas seriously, reading books voraciously, and developing a system of organizing what you've learned. But all of your knowledge won't amount to much if you don't have a network of people to share it with -- and enough compassion for the people in that network to understand that your success is a direct result of their success.

He reminds us that the businesspeople who are the busiest, the happiest, and the most prosperous are the ones who are the most generous with their knowledge and their expertise. People who love what they're doing, who love to learn new things, to meet new people, and to share what and whom they know with others: These are the people who wind up creating the most economic value and, as a result, moving their companies forward.

Even in the digital era, when the Internet connects hundreds of millions of computers around the world, the power of love in business is rooted in the centrality of the human factor. Success is based on the people we know. Everyone in our address book is a potential partner for everyone we meet. Everyone can fit somewhere in our ever-expanding business universe. And the value of our network is a function of our willingness to share it.

We collect marbles, baseball cards, and antiques in order to hold on to them while they increase in value. The purpose of collecting contacts, however, is just the opposite: to give them away -- to match them with other contacts. So don't screen people out. Those who appear powerless or insignificant may be stars waiting to rise. Someday, they may become key nodes in your network -- and create a huge opportunity for you. And they will remember that it was you who was on their side before everyone else was.

As you think about the right way to deal with your colleagues, customers, and business partners -- about how to conduct yourself in a world in which nice, smart people finish first -- just listen to Lennon and McCartney, who said it better than anyone else: "In the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make."

Why Love Conquers All

Sanders provide us with five tough-minded reasons why generosity is the best strategy for individual and corporate prosperity.

You'll build an outstanding brand. By becoming a knowledge guru, sharing your network, and being a compassionate partner, you'll differentiate yourself. You'll be useful, memorable -- special.

You'll create an experience. Business is not just about what you know -- it's about whether you can break through the clutter and information overload. When you represent knowledge, opportunity, selflessness, and intimacy, you are not just a smart colleague; you are fun, interesting, and valuable.

You'll get access to people's attention. The scarcest resource in business is attention. How do you convince people to really pay attention to what you're saying or to give you advice that you need? People with outstanding brands and people whom others are eager to deal with attract undivided attention. This produces results.

You'll harness the power of positive presumption. Making progress means making change. One of the biggest obstacles to change is getting people to trust you. Businesspeople embrace the power of building relationships with a deep level of trust. Your colleagues will presume that your arguments hold water, that your recommendations are solid, and that your referrals are valuable. They'll presume that you have their best interests at heart (which you do). This is a powerful advantage.

You'll receive exceptional feedback. There's one last tough-minded reason to share what you know: You'll learn whether your knowledge has value. If you are eager to offer people knowledge, they will be eager to give you helpful feedback in return. They'll tell you which ideas worked out well and which didn't work out so well. They'll tell you which contacts were helpful and which weren't. They'll keep talking to you. And you'll keep learning from them. It's a loop. We can call this Karma.