Status Updates From Managing From the Heart

Managing from the (heart):
Hear and understand me
Even if you disagree, please don't make me wrong.
Acknowledge the greatness within me.
Remember to look for my loving intentions.
Tell me the truth with compassion.

I guess it's pretty hard to get mad at a person who's just acknowledged your good intentions, Harry said. Right, Neil agreed. Since we continue to treat each other with respect, it makes for a productive and supportive meeting.

When people at a staff meeting get overly contentious, Neil explained, we impose the loving intention rule. It means that before you can disagree with someone, you are required to come up with a statement about that person's loving intention... Everyone keeps stating the loving intentions of others until we've all gone back to thinking like a team.

I've never looked at it that way, but I guess the intention can be considered separately from the behavior. I've always focused on results - the final score - not the motivation behind the act. For me, whether or not an employee was good was based only on the results they produced.

For your assurance, Harry, telling the truth with compassion can help increase productivity. Look at it this way. Unless you tell people the truth with compassion, it's impossible for them to know whether they are actually making a contribution in your eyes. Telling the truth with compassion not only helps people know where they stand in productivity or anything else, it also helps them understand, as you see it...

You want me to not only talk directly to Harris but to do it respectfully and make him feel dignified, and all while he's got a poison dart aimed at me? It was incredible to Harry that someone who knew him would even think of asking him to speak to Carl Harris that way. He felt outraged.

So, even when my employees just want to dump their emotional garbage I should be willing to listen to them and try to understand them? That's one good way you could help make them feel good about themselves. When you listen and understand, it makes them feel they are important to the refinery and that they're making a contribution... People need to know that they are an important part of your refinery.

That's right. When people make mistakes, give them a chance to correct the mistake without making the person wrong. Your wife made a mistake with the tub. But instead of looking for a way to get the mistake corrected, you turned her into a mistake. It was the tub that was wrong, not her? Harry asked, wanting to make sure he understood. Precisely.

Managing from the heart may be expressed as five principles, she began without hesitation. Think of them as five request everyone at work makes of you:
1. Please don't make me wrong, even if you disagree.
2. Hear and understand me.
3. Tell me the truth with compassion.
4. Remember to look for my loving intentions.
5. Acknowledge the greatness within me.

Manage from the heart? Harry was shouting now. That's a contradiction in terms right there. How can you manage from your heart? Look, I cry at sad movies, and I love my family, but in business it's my guts and my brain power that keep the workers and the competition, not to mention the oil-producing countries, from eating me alive.

We believe that a company cannot maintain high quality people, products, and profits unless it is managed with compassion and caring. While these qualities are crucial for effective management, their role is often misunderstood. If you did a survey of managers, most would say that they do care. The difficulty arises in the expression of that caring.