On a Sunday morning about 7 AM, I was in the middle of a run. It was a quiet, beautiful fall morning until I looped back around and through the sports and water park complex near my house. Cars started driving by and turning into the parking lot by the tennis center. I could hear an abundance of tennis balls popping off rackets as, what seemed to be, many people warming up. I’ve run by on other Sunday mornings about that time to see what couldn’t be older than five and six-year-olds warming up for soccer matches. The minivans and
What is your most desired love language- or language of appreciation- at work? The Motivating by Appreciation (MBA) Inventory assessment can help you and your colleagues discern this. What makes giving and receiving appreciation at work so hard? Often, it is the simple fact that we’ve been conditioned to follow the golden rule instead of the platinum one. The golden rule says to do unto others as you would have them do unto you. So in context, if my language of appreciation is quality time, then the way I live the golden rule is to give you quality time because
The Five Love Languages for romantic relationships and parents and children can also be applied at work. Adapted to be the Five Love Languages of Appreciation instead of love in the workplace, the approach is the same. Know what other people need and give them that. Even though the developers of this concept replace “appreciation” for “love” when applied to the workplace, I have no problem with calling it love languages at work. Our workplaces can and are better places when we show love in the right way and context everywhere we go. Including the office. Especially in the office.
The sink is piled high with dishes. The trash is overflowing. Laundry hasn’t been done in days. The baby is crying, and the third grader needs help with homework. And my husband is playing Xbox. I don’t want to have to ask for help, I want him to notice I need help and do it. My urge for him to read my mind and miraculously unload the dishes and clean out the sink without me having to ask is temporarily outweighed by how bad the dishes piled up are bothering me. “Could you empty the dishwasher and reload it, please?”
Expressing love at work may seem like a little too much. But in reality, showing love is really showing people you care. It isn’t about recognizing people’s accomplishments, it’s about appreciating people for who they are. When we are talking about love at work, we are really talking about how to show people you appreciate them. We talked about how to apply quality time as a love language at work on the blog last week. Quality time is a love language that is sometimes hard to know how to apply to work, but the love languages that are most and