Does love matter? fear and compassion in organisations and leadership

Dr Eliat Aram (TIHR CEO) used a recent TIHR Lunchtime talk session to open up a heart-to-heart conversation about the ethics of love and the freedom in fearlessness. Or the freedom of loving fearlessly.

Transcript

1. ‘Does  love  ma+er?’     fear  and  compassion  in   organisa6ons  and  leadership    dispersed  thoughts     Eliat  Aram   CEO,  The  Tavistock  Ins6tute  of  Human   Rela6ons       LTT  June  2015    
2. 1st  thought:     love  and  fear     Our  fear  of  loving  and  of  being  loved;   our  love-­‐ability  and  lovability  drive  the   worst  behaviours  in  organisa6ons   including  corrup6on,  blame  culture,   bullying  and  harassment.    
3.   2nd  thought:  The  ethics  of  love;     servitude  and  spirit     “……  work  is  more  than  mere  labour.  Biblical   Hebrew  has  two  words  to  express  the  difference.   Melachah  is  work  as  crea6on,  and  avodah  is  work   as  service  or  servitude.  Melachah  is  the  arena  in   which  we  transform  the  world  and  thus  become,  in   the  striking  rabbinic  phrase,  ‘partners  with  God  in   the  work  of  crea6on’.  God  deliberately  leR  the   world  unfinished  so  that  it  could  be  completed  by   the  work  of  human  beings.”       Jonathan  Zacks,  The  Dignity  of  Difference  
4.   3rd  thought:   ordinary  love  as  an  event  of  the  soul           “then,  what  is  he?”   “he’s  like  what  we  men6oned  before”,  she   said,”  he  is  in  between  mortal  and  immortal”   “what  do  you  mean,  Dio6ma?”   “He’s  a  great  spirit,  Socrates.  Everything   spiritual,  you  see,  is  in  between  god  and  mortal”      Plato,  Symposium      
5.   4th  thought:  compassionate  leaders  as   good  lovers     Avoiding,  concealing,  hiding-­‐  are  a  recipe  for  the   kind  of  scandalous  conclusions  and  let  downs   we  have  been  recently  experiencing  in  society,   in  our  most  beloved  ins6tu6ons-­‐  BBC,  NHS  and   the  Police.  Compassionate  leadership  would  be   that  which  works  with  -­‐  not  against  -­‐  not   knowing,  uncertainty,  ambiguity,  frailty.  All   these  exist  in  love.    
6. And  an  epilogue     Shall  I  compare  thee  to  a  summer’s  day?     Thou  art  more  lovely  and  more  temperate.     Rough  winds  do  shake  the  darling  buds  of  May,     And  summer’s  lease  hath  all  too  short  a  date.     Some6me  too  hot  the  eye  of  heaven  shines,     And  oRen  is  his  gold  complexion  dimmed;     And  every  fair  from  fair  some6me  declines,     By  chance,  or  nature’s  changing  course,  untrimmed;     But  thy  eternal  summer  shall  not  fade,     Nor  lose  possession  of  that  fair  thou  ow’st,     Nor  shall  death  brag  thou  wand’rest  in  his  shade,     When  in  eternal  lines  to  Time  thou  grow’st.     So  long  as  men  can  breathe,  or  eyes  can  see,     So  long  lives  this,  and  this  gives  life  to  thee.