Big Heart, Big Profits

Every living thing has a soul that gives it life. Business, as a living, breathing organism, therefore has a soul too. It is made up of the minds and hearts of the people touched by that business. This soul is the vital force that keeps business people animated, growing and moving. When the minds and hearts of people are cared for and nourished, business flourishes, as does everything and everyone around it. On the other hand, when this soul is neglected, or worse, violated, business dries up, dies and drags down everything and everyone connected to it.
This is exactly what has happened to our business world. From many years of financial turmoil, culminating with the recent Great Recession, the soul of business has become eroded and increasingly powerless. Stock markets crashing, credit drying up, sovereign nations defaulting or close to it and banks battening down their hatches, all these constrictions are part of the problem. Wrestling down unemployment a constant challenge, employees overworking (expectations have increased 33 percent on them since the beginning of the recession!) and leaders managing poorly are the other part. If anyone complains they’re told that they’re lucky they have a job. All this has taken its toll on the interior lives of people. Because our minds and hearts have been so compromised, work has become largely toxic and almost soul-less.
Is there a way out of this business calamity? Yes, but it is not the traditional route. What is called for is the complete liberation of the soul of people at work. And providing ample evidence why this liberation is the only way to accomplish the economic comeback everyone is hoping for.
Big Heart, Big Profits does just that. It presents a new vision for how business should function in the future. It deals with people, profits, and how the first leads inevitably to the second. It is a way (maybe the only way) forward into prosperity. By understanding this big heart, big profits connection, leaders have a roadmap for recovery and employees a source of hope for the future. Be prepared, though. The soul-filled strategies, skills and tools presented here are challenging. If implemented, they will liberate the minds and hearts of the people in your organization, change the ways you do business and reanimate your profits. Guaranteed.
To really meet the challenge of recovery, we urgently need radical new ideas about what it means to be successful in business and an aggressive commitment to put these ideas into practice. We need to rethink how we want business to work in the future and decide who we really want business to serve. We need a new trend in business, one that is broader, more humanistic and open to human beings. Our traditional methods – putting in more hours, throwing more money at problems or looking to more technology for the answers – no longer work. Gary Hamel, surely one of the world’s great business thinkers, asks the right question, “Why are the ideals that matter most to human beings the ones that are most notably absent in managerial discourse?” It boils down to this proposition – when the minds and hearts of people are treated in caring ways at work, the soul of business becomes healthier. People not only feel better, they work harder, smarter and are more dedicated to their jobs. No surprise, then, that their customers fare much better and business prospers. This is no fluke. The intangible soul of business (i.e., the minds and hearts of its people) drives us towards very tangible and positive results. When you walk on the human side of business, great things happen.