Summary
Marcus Buckingham argues that organisations have designed work in ways that suppress human uniqueness, leading to disengagement, stress and poor performance. As technology takes over routine tasks, he explains that the most valuable parts of work are increasingly human – requiring authenticity, connection and individuality – yet most systems still prioritise conformity.
Drawing on large-scale global data, Buckingham shows that outcomes such as engagement, resilience, retention and performance are strongly linked to whether people love what they do and are good at it. He concludes that leaders, including CEOs, CFOs and HR leaders, must take love at work seriously, not as sentiment, but as a core driver of sustainable business performance.
“We've created work as though human uniqueness is a problem or a bug that we need to fix,” says Marcus Buckingham, bestselling author and a global leader of the strengths-based movement. “And yet the most valuable parts of most jobs are the most human parts – the parts that require authenticity and uniqueness and human connection.”
From school to work, systems are designed around standardisation and conformity. Thus from the moment we start our journey through education and into work we are judged by how closely we match a set of models rather than by how we have cultivated our unique loves. And this has serious implications to not only our individual success but also to the sustainable success of businesses, argues Buckingham.
“We've got such intricate uniqueness inside of every one of us, and faced with that uniqueness, what work - and to some extent what school - has done - is to deliberately pretend that's not real,” he tells The People Space.
Organisations identify our gaps in relation to competencies they have designed irrespective of us as individuals, and then put in place development that is not about manifesting our uniqueness but how closely they can get us to match the model.
“That's just everywhere. That's how we think about human performance at work. And it becomes apparent that individuals feel as if this whole project of work isn't about me at all. It doesn't actually want to see me at all. I don't think companies are trying to alienate their people or psychologically damage their people, but they're doing exactly that.”
In other words, as Buckingham argues in his new book Love + Work, we have designed the love out of our workplaces and schools, so that they fail utterly to provide for or capitalise on one of our most basic human needs: our need for love.
“An organisation should simply be really effective at taking advantage of what it is to be human,” he says. “Well, love is a really important part of being a thriving human. If you aren't talking about love and how humans can find it in their work, you are running a broken business.
“Now it might not break immediately, but given everything that's going on demographically, it's going to break and it will break because you didn't take seriously one of the defining aspects of the human experience.”
In this video Buckingham talks to The People Space’s editorial director Siân Harrington about research on what is driving poor engagement, increasing stress and intent to leave, what the implications of a loveless workplace are and why chief executives, financial directors and human resources directors need to talk about love.
Listen to the full interview on our Work's Not Working... Let's Fix It podcast.
About Marcus Buckingham
Marcus Buckingham is the author of two of the bestselling business books of all time, has two of Harvard Business Review’s most circulated cover articles and has been the subject of in-depth profiles in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and The Oprah Winfrey Show among others.
After spending two decades at Gallup and co-creating the StrengthsFinder tool he built The Marcus Buckingham Company and is today known as the most prominent researcher on strengths and leadership at work.
He is head of people and performance research at the ADP Research Institute and the author of nine books and his latest, Love + Work: How to Find What You Love, Love What You Do, and Do It for the Rest of Your Life is available now.
Transcript
We've created work as though human uniqueness is a problem or a bug that we need to fix. And what's weird is that more and more jobs, the rote part of those jobs, more and more those are being handled by technology and most parts, the most valuable parts of most jobs including housekeeping, manufacturing work, delivery driver work, nursing, financial services, any job you look at the most valuable parts of those jobs are becoming the most human parts.
The parts that require authenticity and uniqueness and human connection and forcing conformity, almost by definition, prevents you from adding that kind of authentic value.
Why modern work is psychologically damaging
Biology loves variety. One of the defining characteristics of human beings is our variation and not our variation across gender or generation or sexual orientation or race, although those things are interesting and important. But just variation between two people who grew up in the same house from the same mother and the same father. You've got inside families - and there's more differences in terms of your synaptic network inside of your family than there is between two people of different genders or different races. And yet all we hear talked about is these broad categories of difference. But the real interesting and powerful difference is between you and your brother, you and your sister, you and a very close sibling.
We've got such intricate uniqueness inside of every one of us and faced with that uniqueness, what work, and to some extent, what school has done, is it's deliberately pretended that's not real. It's deliberately said, look your uniqueness, the fact that you are driven by this, lean into this, find love in this, are most creative when you're involved in this, but over here the person in the same job as you is driven by different things, is creative in different ways, learns in different ways, that difference is really annoying to us.
Just like it's really annoying in school when we're trying to get you to pass standardized tests, your uniqueness isn't just irrelevant to the project of school, your uniqueness is an impediment to the project of school and university. And at work it's the same. Let’s take an emergency room nurse. Let’s say there are 60 nurses. They're all in the same job. Well, we define that job by its methods. By a model, a set of behaviors that we expect to see in said nurse or in said nurse’s supervisor. Here are the competencies the nurse supervisor is supposed to have. Here is the way in which we will measure you against those competencies.
We will then identify your gaps to the competencies and then development for you isn't about manifesting your uniqueness. It's about how closely can we get you to match the model? And that's not an exaggeration. That's just everywhere. That's how we think about human performance at work. We're going to define the model, a priori independent of you. We'll define the model of the behaviors we want. And then we measure you against the model. Well, you start peeling that onion, it's really apparent that individuals feel like this whole project at work isn't about me at all. It doesn't actually want to see me at all. And so I couldn't agree with you more we built systems which deliberately, and I'm not meaning this cynically, I don't think companies are trying to alienate their people or psychologically damage their people, but they're doing exactly that, sometimes with really good intentions.
The cost of treating uniqueness as a problem
But we've built systems of conformity and rather than telling each individual nurse in the emergency room, look here are the specific skills that everybody's supposed to have but beyond that how you administer care, how you make decisions to treat and help that patient, how you build a relationship with that patient, that's all up to you guys because you're unique. And every one of these driven by different things and make different choices and we're not interested in that. We want to pay attention to that because you're a whole human at work and we want you, yes, we want you to give care but we want you to give care authentically and that's going to be different for every one of these 60 nurses.
We don't say that. We don't really say that anywhere. I'm not picking on the NHS. But we've created work as though human uniqueness is a problem or a bug that we need to fix. And what's weird is that more and more jobs, the rote part of those jobs, more and more, those are being handled by technology and most parts, the most valuable parts of most jobs including housekeeping, manufacturing work, delivery driver work, nursing, financial services, any job you look at the most valuable parts of those jobs are becoming the most human parts.
The parts that require authenticity and uniqueness and human connection and forcing conformity, almost by definition, prevents you from adding that kind of authentic value.
So it is an odd time, this is a really odd time, not least because most of the human capital management systems in place that we live within are the ones that execute that conformity. You're measured inside of an HCM system against a bunch of rote competencies, or attributes or key results areas. And your uniqueness is frankly just irrelevant to all of that, which is super discordant and psychologically destructive. So look in a very tight labor market that gives a lot of power to individuals to start saying to companies you need to shape up otherwise I'm gone.
As humans we all know that there's no creativity without love. There's no productivity without love. There's no generosity or collaboration without love. So we know that as humans. But in the world of work we've gone, you know, don't expect your job to love you back, man. Just do your thing and go home to the people you love.
What the data says about love at work
But in terms of the data itself, it's just really clear. We just finished this 27 countries study 27,000 people. So a stratified, random sample of 1,000 people in every country. And if you look at what drives stress, intent to leave, actively interviewing for another job, resilience and engagement, it's this question, do I love what I do and I'm good at it?
Now we've asked them all 17 different ways. Do you love what you're do and you're not good at it? Are you really good at it? You don't love what you do, you're not loving what you do and you're not good at it. But when people said they love what they do and they're good at it, all the other outcomes that you want, including performance and engagement and resilience and attrition and stress. And discrimination, interestingly. They're all driven by whether or not the person feels like there is some sorts of love in their work.
So this is a wakeup call for all CFOs. If you actually want to increase your payroll and reduce your profits and increase the costs of running your business, then don't talk about love at all. Because you'll do that. You'll drive attrition up. You'll reduce productivity and you'll reduce engagement with all the negative lost work days, accidents on the job, all those things. If you want all those negative outcomes, don't talk about love at work. Just don't pay any attention to it.
But if you want all those outcomes and indeed a really interestingly defined talent brand, which in super tight labor markets is really important. And dear CFO, if you don't understand that, then you need to go and look out in the world and realize that you can get capital like that. Human capital is really hard. And if you want an impediment to our growth it will be because we can't find enough and keep enough good people. So our talent brand is critical.
Why leaders and CFOs can’t ignore love
In this world right now, if you aren't talking about love and how humans can find it in their work, you are running a broken business. Now it might not break immediately, but given everything that's going on demographically, it's going to break and it will break because you didn't take seriously one of the defining aspects of the human experience.
And so that's kind of what the call to arms is for the book to CFOs or CEOs or CHROs or HRDs is you can use the word connection if you want. You could use the word joy if you want. You could use the word passion if you want, but if you use all those words, you're not really getting to the heart of it. We do really, really well when we love what we do.
Biochemically we know that. And therefore an organization should simply be really effective at taking advantage of what it is to be human. Well, love is a really important part of being a thriving human, so deal with it and figure out how to deploy it, figure out how to make use of it.
It's not easy because everyone is different and learns different things. It's not easy, but it's impossible if you're not trying. So that's the call to arms. I think I would make. It's just bad business to build loveless work environments.
About the author
