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What’s in a Name?

by Miki Saxon

https://www.flickr.com/photos/jonoropeza/1832649884

How do you start your day?

Do your colleagues and boss jump on you with questions, demands and complaints?

Or are there congenial greetings, happy how-are-yous and questions displaying authentic interest in you-the-person?

Other than perpetual curmudgeons and people who got up on the wrong side of the bed, most people would prefer the second scenario to the first.

Bosses should take note, because the second scenario leads to higher productivity and better retention rates.

Wharton management professor Sigal Barsade has solid research to back that up, but, in my view, she badly undermined its adoption by choosing to describe it in terms that will turn off most managers.

She calls it “companionate love.”

Companionate love is shown “when colleagues who are together day in and day out, ask and care about each other’s work and even non-work issues. They are careful of each other’s feelings. They show compassion when things don’t go well. And they also show affection and caring — and that can be about bringing somebody a cup of coffee when you go get your own, or just listening when a co-worker needs to talk.”

Why don’t experts, especially academic experts get it? Why is it so difficult to understand that what something is called affects it in the marketplace?

From about age two on (maybe even younger) humans react to what something is called, whether a product or an action, and that reaction is a good predictor of success.

In today’s world, to succeed, management advice needs to develop terms that wrap the user in a mantle of cool while projecting an image of knowledge and leadership.

Sadly, ‘companionate love’ seems to fall short.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t implement the underlying philosophy or respect, consideration and interest using terms more acceptable to your situation.

Flickr image credit: jon oropeza

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