Using love languages for business

Wait, what? Using the word “love” in a business setting. Yep. That’s right. We know that our customers are more likely to buy from people they like. We know that when we hit a hiccup or a really challenging negotiation that the best way to create a win-win or collaborative negotiation is to listen and empathise with our client. This holds true for our manager-associate relationships as well. We need to find a way to relate to people… so why not boil this down to the most visceral of responses? Enter: Love Languages for business. Some people like to use the phrase “Language of Appreciation”, but at the end of the day…. it all comes down to love.

This is not a new concept, so much so that you can find somewhere in the range of 100 different tests to establish your love language like this one. You can also find some really helpful resources for what to do with that information… applying it to your relationship with a friend, a partner or your child.

Once you’re able to identify your love language and that of someone close to you, it becomes easier to start to understand how to best relate to your colleagues and clients. Or, if you’re a bit self-reflective, you can look back at an interpersonal interaction that went terribly wrong and it will usually boil down to an overlooked or accidentally declined act of love. If you’re sitting there thinking I’m crazy, I’m going to give you an example:

Think about the last work meeting you attended. I’m going to guess there were a few people who were early or at least very one time, and then at least one person who was late. If one of your primary love languages is time, I’m willing to bet you were on time, and it drove you absolutely CRAZY that your colleague was late. So much so, that I bet you can also recall the last three times someone was late to that meeting. If you’re reading this thinking “I don’t understand what the big deal is”, I’m going out on a limb to say that time does NOT fall into your top two love languages and you may even be the person overlooking how important it is to your colleagues that you show up on time.

This is such a simple idea, and such an effective way to connect better with friends, family and colleagues that I highly recommend this to just about anyone who will listen. It’s helped me to hone in on where I made some mistakes early on in my career and it very rarely fails me on connecting with people today.

As a wrap up I’d say, don’t overlook importance of accepting a business-appropriate act of love, or the importance of honouring the human preferences of our colleagues and clients. The grid above should be good to get you started.