CHAPTER 7

People: Feel Your Lover’s Heart

Our life is made of love,

and to love no longer is to live no longer.

—GEORGE SAND

Where the Dreamer muses about vision, and the Thinker analyzes ideas, your Lover values relationships. As you would imagine from its name, the Lover carries your emotions and connects you with other people. If you’re the person in your family who hosts on holidays, or lets everyone know when a family member gets sick, you can guess your Lover is on the case.

The Lover is about forging relationships. Think of Diana, the “People’s Princess.” Or Magic Johnson, Los Angeles Lakers point guard and member of the Dream Team that won Olympic gold. He was a great champion on the court. He was also a uniquely joyful, unselfish, and lovable player. He even became friends with his former bitter rival, Larry Bird. Lovers often produce greatness through partnership with other people. Watson and Crick. Woodward and Bernstein. Simon and Garfunkel. Venus and Serena.

A signature of the inner Lover is the drive to nurture and tend. It’s the impulse you feel to leave work on time because your dog is alone at home. To buy organic vegetables from a local farm to care for the natural environment. Or to sponsor the student who rings your doorbell in their fund-raiser for school.

The Lover Cares About People

When we hear the word lover, most of us think first of romantic love. The kind of love we vow to each other, “in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad, for as long as we both shall live.” The need for loving partners goes back to the Garden of Eden. In Genesis, we’re told that Adam is alone, without a proper mate. For the first time in the creation story, God says this is “lo tov”—not good. It’s “good” once Adam and Eve get together.

This form of devotion evokes passion and poetry from the Lover. As it says in the Song of Songs, “Rise up, my love, my beautiful one, and come away . . . for your love is more delightful than wine.” Shakespeare’s Romeo declared, “Life’s not worth living without Juliet.”

In 1607, Emperor Shah Jahan was fifteen years old when he was betrothed to his fourteen-year-old future bride. He had a few wives in his lifetime. But it was this woman who became his true love. He gave her the name Mumtaz Mahal, meaning “Jewel of the Palace.” Mumtaz Mahal died in 1631 while giving birth to their fourteenth child. Shah Jahan built the Taj Mahal in her honor. It took twenty-two years, and twenty-two thousand workers. An ode to his beloved, the Taj Mahal is one of the seven Wonders of the World.

Abelard and Heloise. Cleopatra and Mark Antony. Jacob and Rachel. Odysseus and Penelope. Rama and Sita. Napoleon and Josephine. Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire. Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi. Jay-Z and Beyoncé. Barack and Michelle.

Love is timeless.

Romantic love, and with it sexual intimacy, plays an important role in our lives. Our inner Lover encompasses all of that, but also plays a much broader role. As you know, love is felt and expressed in many relationships. Both literature and popular culture have long celebrated the love in personal bonds of friendship, as just one example.

Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn. Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. Laurel and Hardy. Lucy Ricardo and Ethel Mertz. Celie and Shug in The Color Purple. Dr. Watson and Sherlock Holmes. Thelma and Louise. Jerry Seinfeld and George Costanza. And we can’t forget the television comedy that aired for ten seasons. It was all about the camaraderie among Friends.

Indeed, the Lover is expressed in myriad roles that we play: friend, parent, coach, mentor, philanthropist, advisor, carpooler, humanitarian, confidant, blood donor, volunteer, caregiver, teacher, sister and brother, son and daughter, and on it goes.

If your Lover leads your inner team, you might devote your life to helping other people. Like mega-philanthropist George Soros, who’s spent decades funding initiatives around the globe. Or Marian Wright Edelman, founder and president of the Children’s Defense Fund. You might set new standards for treating employees well, like Indian aviation pioneer J. R. D. Tata. The humanitarian and business icon felt the social responsibility of leaders to serve society at large, acting from a sense of fellowship with his people. Or you might reach out broadly like Rick Warren, senior pastor of Saddleback Church. Warren’s ministry emphasizes teachings like “Love the Lord your God with all your heart” and “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

In times of crisis, elected officials tap their inner Lover to connect with their constituents. New Jersey governor Chris Christie embodied the essence of the Lover when he toured his state after Hurricane Sandy. The state was in ruins. People were devastated. Governor Christie visited citizens with his heart open. He gave a seemingly endless number of hugs to strangers. He showed people he was there for them. Rudy Giuliani did the same as mayor of New York City, when he addressed New Yorkers in the aftermath of September 11, 2001. His heart was broken. And he let it show.

The Lover specializes in the “people skills” that are central to leading on the international or national level. Consider the complexity of relationships that Christine Lagarde needs to manage successfully. She’s the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, an institution with 188 member countries. Or the challenges facing Peng Liyuan. Formerly a beloved performing artist of national acclaim, she’s now wife to the president of the People’s Republic of China. Through warmth, sincerity, accessibility, and style, she aims to show the world the human side of China. While those in the West refer to her as China’s First Lady, her own people frequently call her Guo Mu, or “Nation’s Mother.”

Lovers notice how it feels to work for you, and what it’s like to live with you. They value authentic communication, and they listen as well as they talk. Those of you with strong inner Lovers care about the morale of the team. You feel sad when other people get bad news. You let the world touch you.

Your Lover carries a basic interest in other people. So if you access your Lover easily, you’re likely to enjoy a rich web of affiliations and friendships. You accept that vulnerability is a necessary part of building intimacy. You know how to give, and how to receive.

At the office, strong Lovers take the lead on employee engagement. They keep their eyes out for high potentials, and they care about developing talent. These are people who flag what you’re doing well when they give you feedback, along with your “developmental opportunities.” They will work the system behind the scenes to help get you promoted or elected as a new partner.

When your inner Lover’s heart is open, you let other people help you. Those supporters provide fuel for your excitement—or prop up your flagging will—so you can reach the top of the mountain. They also help you deliver results by holding you accountable. This Lover wisdom stands behind daily meetings at Alcoholics Anonymous, and weekly weigh-ins at Weight Watchers. We need each other to accomplish great things.

Our inner Lover enables us to provide help and support to other people. To sit in a hospital waiting room with a friend while she waits for test results. To take a buddy out for a drink when his girlfriend moves out. To read a draft of a co-worker’s assignment before they hand it in. To build and maintain a high-performing team. To get out of silos and work together.

We draw on our inner Lover to join in solidarity. To wish each other luck before a big game. To sit together in the living room watching election returns, in collective excitement that our candidate will win the day. To applaud our alma mater when we show up at school reunions. To stand side by side in our community after hearing terrible news.

We share love when we cheer together for our national team. When we help a friend fix his laptop, because we’re his unofficial IT consultant. When we toast the law school graduates in our office because they passed the bar exam. When we celebrate an anniversary. We love when we apologize. And when we forgive.

Lover Quiz: What’s Your Favorite Strategy?

As you’ve done in previous chapters, review the short scenario below. See which of the three options fits best for you.

What Would You Do?

In the first option, this Low Lover sees it as his responsibility to deliver the information: no more, no less. For him, it’s just another thing to cross off the to-do list. It doesn’t occur to him that there are people with feelings and expectations on the receiving end of his text.

In the second case, this High Lover goes overboard in her compassion for her team, blurring the lines between what’s business and what’s personal by throwing a party at her home. While her empathy is admirable, there’s a good chance her team will be confused by the largesse of her gesture. There’s no money for the conference, but there’s money for a party, complete with invitations? That seems like an expensive apology in a cost-conscious environment.

The Balanced Lover in the third option realizes that how she communicates is just as important as what she says. Unlike the Low Lover, she resists the temptation to avoid the confrontation by sending a text, despite the fact that it would be quicker and easier for her, too. And unlike the extreme gesture of the High Lover, the Balanced Lover comes up with the idea for a fun, unexpected treat. The team will enjoy it in the coziness of her office during their weekly meeting, making it both special and appropriate to a work environment.

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The Lover in Daily Life

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Because the Big Four are a team, you can’t really work on any one of them exclusively. At the same time, it helps to look at the unique strengths and functions one at a time as you’re getting your mind around how they work.

With your Lover you can do things like:

■    stay home with your child who’s too sick to go to school

■    show a new colleague the ropes

■    ask your longtime client to give your junior partner a shot

■    help your aging parents so they can continue to live in their current home

■    stay up late wrapping holiday gifts

■    gain sensitive information from your patient

■    help your spouse connect to the Internet even though you’ve explained it five times

■    develop and retain top talent

■    sit together with your soon-to-be-ex-spouse, to tell your kids that you’re separating, but you both love them

■    call your siblings to remind them to change the clocks back

■    rally other renters to approach the landlord together

■    foster cross-selling between service lines

■    rebuild goodwill after making a mistake

■    keep up morale when your company goes through a reorganization

Your Lover also enables you to receive love, like when you:

■    read words of appreciation on a birthday card and let them sink in

■    get tough feedback from your boss and know he means to help

■    accept a team member’s offer to deal with your angry client, so you’re off the hook

■    let friends cook for your family in the aftermath of a death

■    accept financial help from your parents so you can get a mortgage

■    let a peer give you credit for a shared customer, so you can hit your sales target

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Putting Principles into Practice

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Lover Sweet Spots

Renowned composer and bandleader Duke Ellington said, “I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues.” The Lover’s power source is emotion, and his strongest muscle is compassion. The Balanced Lover provides connection, and specializes in the skills you need for relationship.

The Lover’s sweet spots enable you to:

            1.    Connect with Emotions

            2.    Collaborate with Others

            3.    Build and Maintain Trust

The Lover’s inner resources include openness, generosity, empathy, and acceptance.

Let’s see how these work in practice.

Connect with Emotions

At a meeting in London, an executive named Nigel shared this story with me. He asked if I had any insight into what happened.

“I’d taken my client out to dinner. Out of nowhere, he looked me straight in the eye and asked, ‘Nigel, do you care about me?’ I didn’t understand the question. But I answered yes.”

His client didn’t let it end there.

“I know you care about solving my business problem. But I’m asking if you care about me. In other words, if I got fired from this job, would you still call? Would you still care about me then?”

Nigel was silent. He didn’t know what to say. He told me later the conversation was dumbfounding. Why would Nigel call his client if he didn’t have his job anymore? Why would the client want Nigel to call? What would they talk about? What’s the point of calling if not to discuss the problem they were working together to solve?

If your inner Lover moves through life in low gear, these are reasonable questions. For you, like Nigel, the client’s questions may sound strange—or just irrelevant. Your role is to focus on the challenge at hand, and get results. Performance is the point. Relationship isn’t much on your radar screen.

You’re not alone.

Both men and women have inner Lovers who run low. On the whole, it’s often men who’ve been taught since a young age to push their emotions away. Research on male adult development shows how social norms contribute to emotional mismanagement and limited empathy skills.

Psychologist Paul Dunion has spent decades exploring the process of adult maturation, including founding a group called Boys to Men. In his book Dare to Grow Up, Dunion writes about the systematic ways men are taught to numb themselves and ignore their emotions. “The waters of their emotional lives dry up, leaving them parched by the loss of what they truly love.”

I’ve seen firsthand what Dunion describes when I lead learning programs for senior leaders. By and large the people in these groups are men. Like Nigel, they’ve earned their reputations on powerhouse IQ, the reliability of their quantitative analysis, and their ability to generate shareholder returns. Now they find themselves hitting an unexpected barrier to achieving their highest aspirations: expectations of intimacy in business relationships.

A Wall Street investment banker explained it to me this way: “Clients are pushing back on us. They tell us they’re leaving to go to another advisory firm. When we ask why, they say things like ‘I trust your advice, but I don’t trust you.’ ”

The fact is that in today’s world, credible Thinkers, no matter how brilliant, will hit a wall if they can’t connect on a human level. It’s a bit of a bait-and-switch, really, after years of being directed to achieve compulsively. These Low Lovers accepted long ago what Dunion calls the cultural mandate of manhood: habits of isolation, rejection of emotion and intuition, and focus on the outer world to the exclusion of the interior one.

This isn’t the case, by the way, everywhere in the world. I did a leadership program in Argentina, for instance, where the men were very expressive emotionally. They grew up with different norms. In most groups I run with a global mix, though, the Low Lover fills the room.

In fairness, people whose Lover ran high tended historically toward “helping professions.” Vocations like teaching or social work. In the past, a stance like Nigel’s would work just fine in business-related settings.

That was then. This is now.

In today’s world, every serious professional is expected to bring some level of emotional intelligence to their work. Managers expect it. Clients demand it. That requires Lover capabilities. Fair or not, there’s no escaping the new reality: relationships matter everywhere. You don’t need to become Mother Teresa. But you do need to show there’s a beating heart in there somewhere.

Making space at your inner table for your Lover might also save your life. Emotions get rerouted through the body. They show up as back pain, ulcers, migraines, even heart attacks. Some oncologists believe some cancers result in part from unexpressed grief or anger. Stifling emotion over long periods of time can lead to depression. On top of that, people use things like alcohol and painkillers to escape from feeling their emotions. If taking the edge off turns into addiction, then substances like these can wreak havoc in your life. How you deal with your inner Lover directly impacts your physical, mental, financial, and social health.

Bringing some attention to your heartache is another way of saving your life. I’ve heard leaders say things like, “I went back to work the day after my miscarriage. I never let myself feel the loss. I still need to grieve for that child.” They express feelings that appear seemingly out of nowhere, like a flash of lightning on a clear day. “I just realized why my wife fell out of love with me. I stopped being the guy she fell in love with. But I’m still that guy. I hope she’ll give me another chance.”

Emotions also open the door for reclaiming what gives you peace and joy. As a college professor said at the end of a program, “When I go home I’m going to pick up my guitar again. I miss my guitar.”

These are my favorite parts of running seminars, when we engage with the deeper dimensions of leadership. It’s the moment when the walls come down, the fear has melted, and suddenly everyone realizes they can actually be themselves. For real. The level of excitement, relief, humor, affection, and innocent joy touches everyone. Sometimes it’s life-changing.

It brings me back to a novel I read in college by Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God. She has a character, Janie, who’s been beaten down by life, and—like many of these professionals—goes through her days in a highly guarded inner fortress. In a certain moment, Janie realizes she’s okay: she’s not alone, she’s safe, and she’s loved. Hurston’s words describe what I feel like I’m witnessing in these moments of transformation, from crossed arms to open hands, from fear to trust, from numb isolation to genuine community and fellowship. Hurston writes about Janie something that I see in front of my eyes, that “her soul crawled out from its hiding place.”

For every reason, the working world needs to make room for the inner Lover as part of a balanced, dynamic inner team. It’s not a coincidence that new life comes from Lovers. When you’re cut off from your inner Lover, you abandon your own beating heart, the source and sustenance of your aliveness.

People Are Not Corporations

In a controversial decision, the United States Supreme Court held in 2010 in the Citizens United case that the First Amendment rights of a company deserve the same protection as that of any other “citizen.” In principle, they said, corporations are people.

Whatever you think about that decision—and its implications for campaign financing—you want to make sure you don’t live by the opposite principle. Simply put, people are not corporations.

If your Lover runs low like Nigel’s, you might struggle to relate to people in a natural way. Maybe you don’t look up when people sit down next to you, or say hello when you pass them in the hallway. Developing your Lover’s strengths and sweet spots will help you pivot to the next level, in your profession as well as in your personal life.

As we’ve said, Low Lovers run into trouble with emotions. This happens in both directions: they don’t express their own emotions well, and they don’t express empathy with other people well, either. Langdon is a freelance writer who brought the next dialogue to a workshop I led. You’ll see both of these dynamics, this time in a personal context. This conversation took place as he caught up with his wife at the end of the day.

WHAT I THOUGHT and FELT BUT DIDN’T SAY	WHAT WE ACTUALLY SAID
	My Wife: I had a terrible day at work. My manager is on my back, and I don’t think the new project is going to work out.
	Me: Oh?
	My Wife: And I found out the others have been talking behind my back, saying I don’t belong leading the team. They completely fail to see how I am carrying this whole thing!
Oh, today’s drama.
	Me: Sounds like a problem.
	My Wife: You would think they’d respect me after all I’ve done for them.
She’s always the victim.
	Me: It’s time for you to talk to the Big Boss. I’ve told you that before. As for me and my day, I’ve made some great progress today.
	My Wife: I’ve told you a million times that I don’t want to become the “problem child” in the office. Running for help isn’t going to help me. I can’t believe they’re talking about me behind my back.
Blah blah blah . . . Here we go again. Do you want to hear about my day?
	Me: Do you want to hear about my day?
	My Wife: I’m in the middle of telling you something very important. Can’t you just listen for one minute?
I don’t believe this! I’m so sick of this!
	Me: [Silence.]

At home and at work, for men and for women, connecting with emotions in an authentic and appropriate way remains a big challenge.

This isn’t a permanent state of affairs, by the way. In “emerging leaders” programs with men and women in their thirties, emotional life stands alongside intellectual life as a given. These younger professionals carry different expectations from the generations before them. One factor in this shift is that these women expect men to act like full partners, including sharing their feelings, empathizing, and, down the road, nurturing kids. Since these men grew up dating these women, they entered the world of relationship by expressing emotions and creating intimacy from the beginning. Their Lover capabilities are often well intact.

Contain Your Emotions If They Take Over

At the other end of the spectrum, if your Lover’s favorite strategy is to run high, you can become overly emotional. You can create unnecessary drama, or force closeness where it’s not invited.

I’m reminded of Tamar, a colleague who was proposing a large project to a potential client. All signs were positive. So Tamar flew out to spend the day with the decision-maker, a woman named Catherine, known to friends in the industry as “Cookie.”

Tamar’s Lover nearly always ran high. As usual, she felt she’d made “an instant connection” to her prospective client. By the end of the day they were trading tips about spas and yoga teachers. Tamar had hinted at the idea of attending a yoga retreat together.

When she got home, Tamar sent a follow-up email.

Dear Cookie. Thought we had a great meeting. Can’t wait to spend more time together.

She signed the email “T” for Tamar.

Later that day, Tamar sent Catherine another email. This time she sent a recommendation for a physical therapist, for the back pain Catherine had mentioned, offering to make an introduction, or to go with her to see him next time she was in town.

Catherine didn’t return Tamar’s emails.

Unsure of what was happening, Tamar figured she should reach out. She emailed again.

Dear Cookie. Haven’t heard back from you. Assume you’re totally swamped. Looking so forward to re-connecting and taking the world by storm! Warmest best wishes, T.

No answer.

The deal collapsed.

Tamar was totally confused. She and Cookie had such a strong connection. Tamar found Cookie’s behavior so inexplicable that she had to know what went wrong. In the past, Catherine had worked with Tamar’s friend Raj, so she asked Raj to investigate. Raj had dinner with Catherine and came back with a report.

“I’m sorry to tell you this, but she found you ‘inappropriate.’ Ironically, she liked the proposal a lot. But she said you pushed way too far, way too fast. She wasn’t looking for a new best friend. She wanted a high-quality service provider.”

The discussion with Raj was a painful but instructive “aha” moment for Tamar. She acknowledged that she relied on her personal “click” with potential clients as the basis for her business deals. She often sent recommendations in her follow-up from meetings, from restaurants to places for a great massage. And, yes, she did look for ways to “befriend” clients as quickly as possible. This time it had undercut her credibility and cost her a major contract.

From then on, she signed her emails with “Tamar.”

Openness to others is a valuable Lover skill, when used in a balanced way. Taken too far, it can bring the opposite result, distancing people and souring a relationship. Well placed, it creates trust and rapport.

Collaborate with Others

Lovers get satisfaction from relationships because they enjoy other people. They thrive on community. But they also know you can harness relationships to make things happen. Sometimes the drive to collaborate is tactical: you’ll get things done more quickly if you work with other people. Other times it’s your standards of excellence. Partnering with other people increases the chances you’ll make the best decisions, and catch mistakes. Sometimes you reach out for survival, like handing your newborn infant to a friend so you can take a shower. No man is an island.

Get Things Done Together

My sister Heather is a marathon runner. Before the big day, she gets ready by running with Team in Training, a fund-raising group for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. During months of training, when her alarm goes off at five in the morning, and rain is bearing down outside, she doesn’t jump at the chance to run fifteen miles.

Left to her own devices, she might roll over and go back to sleep. But when you train with a team, you can’t stay in bed. People are counting on you. That fellowship gets her out of bed and out the door. The connection between relationships and results is even more apparent on Marathon Day. Heather is also a pediatric oncology social worker. She works with children with cancer and their families. Fighting blood cancer isn’t an idea for her: it’s personal.

The marathon is 26.2 miles through the San Francisco hills. Oh, man. “I don’t know if I’d finish if I ran for myself,” Heather once told me. “But I don’t worry. I think about the families, and the kids going for their treatment. I’m running for them—and that will get me across the finish line.”

For my sister, relationships enable her to run a marathon, literally. For the rest of us, life often feels like running a marathon. The hills. The distance. The emotional stamina we need to persist. Like Heather’s Team in Training, we need to help each other face the rain and then keep going.

Notice That Working Together Creates Value

Relationships are both an end unto themselves, and also a means to an end: relationships create enormous value. You can see that easily in business partnerships. Think of Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard. They started designing gadgets in a garage outside of Packard’s house. In 2010, Hewlett-Packard—known around the world as HP—employed more than 320,000 people and reported more than $126 billion in revenue. Or Sergey Brin and Larry Page, who became friends spending time in their college dorm room. The pair was fascinated by how the Internet could determine how often a research paper was cited in other papers, leading them to a new “search engine” that they called Google.

Like HP and Google, partnerships improve our world. Like luxury designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana. Through their company, Dolce & Gabbana, they create fashion with a distinct flair, reflecting their love of southern Italy. And Oprah Winfrey and Gayle King. This Wonder Duo brings coaching and advice to millions of people in a vast range of media. Taking on serious topics to educate the public, Winfrey and King relish their relationship, showing us how to engage with real problems and keep each other going along the way.

And we do need to mention those wonderful human beings—Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield—who brought us chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream. In 2000, Unilever bought Ben & Jerry’s for $326 million. Not a bad result for two guys who became friends in seventh grade and decided to learn together about the ice cream business. I’m happy to say that supermarkets sell Ben & Jerry’s in The Netherlands. So in moments of homesickness, I can run out and buy a pint.

Of course, the Lover’s ability to forge partnerships creates many kinds of value. Look at the impact of Dr. Paul Farmer, Ophelia Dahl, and their cofounders of Partners in Health. PIH started in the 1980s with a few colleagues working in a makeshift medical clinic in rural Haiti. Farmer and Dahl now help provide state-of-the-art medical services as well as hope to millions of sick and poor people in ten different countries. From Malawi to Mexico, the forging of long-term relationships gives their work meaning and is core to their strategy.

In an article in the Atlantic marking PIH’s twenty-fifth anniversary, Dahl commented on the power of partnerships for improving global health. “Be it transforming a sick person to a well person, or a parking lot into a clinic—the transformations became amplified as we grew our partnerships. You see that most NGOs work alone—when there are thousands of NGOs in Haiti—and simply forming partnerships, connecting to local and national government, makes things much, much more efficient.” Working in places with 200,000 residents and not one doctor, PIH relies on partnerships with local groups in rural villages, people they train on the ground as doctors, foundations who support them, and high-quality teaching hospitals in the United States.

Indeed, the ability to collaborate is often the make-or-break variable in value creation. When mergers and acquisitions fail, the most likely culprit isn’t a poor business model: it’s the inability to align the people. On the flip side are institutions such as NIBR, the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, where successful industry-academia collaborations lay the groundwork for life-changing discoveries.

In an interview, NIBR president Mark Fishman said, “We’re looking for projects that will change the practice of medicine.” Fishman praised the scientist-to-scientist relationships, saying that “working with academia is extremely important for us: it expands our horizons and acts as a quality control.” In matters of life and death, or in deals worth millions of dollars, it’s the Lover capacity to partner and work well with different people that makes the crucial difference.

Accept That It Takes Two to Tango

Eleni directs a business operations unit that provides fiscal, HR, and IT support throughout the office. As the provider of shared services, Eleni’s “center of excellence” touches every part of the organization, which includes fifteen divisions. Over the last few years, her office has worked hard, in her words, “to transform the culture from one of internal competition and divisional self-reliance to one of collaboration and cross-division teamwork.” She’s seen real progress, which is why she got angry with Atul when he challenged her plans. This is the case that Eleni brought to a leadership program.

DESCRIPTION:

As part of our culture transformation, the office decided to implement a formal retirement ceremony honoring any member of the office, regardless of which division they work in, indicating that the office values every person at every level and in every division. Employees have expressed appreciation and enjoyment for the opportunity to celebrate with others from across the organization.

ATUL:	I don’t want a retirement party. Please do not throw me a stupid party.
ELENI:	Atul, you know it’s the office tradition now, and it’s important for the office to honor you for your service.
ATUL:	The best way to honor me is to respect my wishes.
ELENI:	I do respect your wishes, but I want you to respect the office and my point of view as well. If we don’t have the party, everyone will think badly of the leadership. Besides, it’s important for those who are left behind to be able to say goodbye and show their respect for you publicly.
ATUL	(loud enough so people in adjoining offices can hear):   You don’t care about me. If you did, you would respect my wishes.
ELENI	(also getting angry):   Look, the last two people who retired from this unit said they didn’t want a party when it turns out they really did. They both were very grateful and happy afterward. If I had listened to them I would have broken the tradition and ended up making them feel bad.
ATUL	(still angry and loud):   They were the kind of people to say one thing and pretend to be modest when they really craved attention. You know I’m not like that. I really am a behind-the-scenes person, and making me go through a reception would be torture for me. In fact, if you have a reception I won’t go.
ELENI	(still angry but speaking very quietly):   I respect you and your wishes, which is why I am so angry with you right now. You have really put me in a no-win situation.
ATUL:	If you care about me at all you won’t have that party.

When Eleni spoke in the group about this, she was passionate about the culture transformation. She expressed pride at how far they’d come toward living their new values, like teamwork and valuing each person. I have no doubt that Eleni believed in this vision and wanted to role-model it for her staff.

Yet she was a bit off track.

I asked Eleni what she was thinking during this conversation, and she said her thought was “Oh, we’re going to have this thing—even if Atul doesn’t show up! My team and I have worked too hard to build our reputation and a culture of respect in this office to let this sour person ruin it.”

While Eleni truly believes that she’s motivated by her inner Lover, in fact her Warrior is in the lead here. Not unlike Bram, when he kept pushing Rachel to review proposals for the anti-bullying campaign. Remember that the Warrior provides protection. What is her Warrior protecting?

It seems like her Warrior feels protective of the office culture she’s worked hard to create. Yet the authenticity of that culture transformation rests on actually valuing each person—not listing it on the “New Office Values” chart on the wall. As you read between the lines, Eleni’s Warrior seems more focused on protecting her reputation than on truly honoring Atul, her departing staff member.

Eleni’s Lover needs to negotiate with her Warrior to get a seat back at the table. To practice what she preaches, Eleni needs to listen to Atul, and take him seriously. When her Lover starts taking in what Atul needs, then the two of them can look for a creative solution. A good outcome will honor Atul in a way that works for him, maintain the spirit of the culture transformation, and protect Eleni’s reputation as well.

Learn How to Walk Away

On the flip side, not every relationship is meant to be, or lasts forever. Sometimes the best thing to do is let go. For High Lovers, that’s a lot easier said than done. Like the song first recorded by Neil Sedaka says, breaking up is hard to do.

In the traditional negotiation context, we approach the decision of whether to reach an agreement, or walk away from the table, as a rational one. We teach people to assess the value of the best option on the table, and then compare it to the value of their best alternative—a term of art called your BATNA: your Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement. In theory, best practice is simple: compare your best option to your best alternative, and then take the one that’s better. It’s hard to argue with that advice. It makes so much sense.

As I’m nearing two decades as a teacher and a practitioner in the field, I can tell you the problem with that very reasonable advice. Walking away from a live human being, whether you’ve been married for ten years, run a business together, or attended the same weekly yoga class, doesn’t pull on your inner Thinker. From ending a relationship, to turning down an offer, walking away cuts to the core of the Lover’s heart. If your Lover runs low, you can exit when the time comes. But for the High Lover, the notion that you could simply compare apples to apples, and based on that assessment you could stay or go, doesn’t exist in their reality.

I’ll give you an example.

Malvikha is a certified personal trainer and a certified sports massage therapist. She thrives on motivating people, and helping them to accomplish their fitness-related goals. She recently decided to pursue a nutrition certification. Since she couldn’t work full-time and go to school, she enrolled for some courses at a local nutrition program and set up a comfortable environment in her house to train private clients.

Overall, things worked out well. She found a number of clients fairly quickly, and her flexible schedule gave her enough time to study. The problem was in the “back office.” Malvikha had hired her friend Preeti as her bookkeeper. She found out that while Preeti was a lovely person, she was an incompetent bookkeeper. Malvikha was spending more time fixing Preeti’s spreadsheets than if she’d done them herself in the first place.

Her friends pushed Malvikha to let Preeti go, and get someone else. The current setup was bad in every way: Malvikha was spending money she didn’t really have to pay Preeti, and her bookkeeper wasn’t saving her time to spend on school. She wasn’t maintaining a proper system, so she worried about making mistakes in her next tax return. By every objective measure, Malvikha needed to walk away.

For a Balanced Lover, situations like this can feel awkward, but they’re manageable. For a High Lover like Malvikha, they’re a dead end. No matter what her friends said, she had a retort:

“But she’s such a nice person.”

“But she really needs the money.”

“But she trying so hard.”

“But she’ll hate me.”

It was a classic High Lover dilemma. Malvikha acknowledged that she “should” get a new bookkeeper. “But I can’t fire Preeti. She’s my friend.”

Like Malvikha, High Lovers prioritize relationships over getting what they legitimately need. That makes it very tough to walk away. They’re caught in a two-sided emotional bind that dissuades them from cutting things off. They don’t want to hurt other people. That’s rule number one. But they also don’t want to suffer themselves. Remember, High Lovers feel their emotions intensely. Part of what keeps Malvikha from firing Preeti is avoidance of the guilt and inner turmoil she will face if she does. Balanced Lovers understand that you should never be callous with other people, or blatantly disregard their feelings. And—that general principle also applies to you. Balanced Lovers are well rounded, able to care for other people as well as for themselves.

Build and Maintain Trust

In leadership and in life, trust is one of the essentials that lives in the Lover’s domain. Trust can’t be seen with the eyes, but it can definitely be felt. You know when trust starts to form in a new relationship. You feel it when trust gets broken, when it’s repaired, and when it gets lost. How do you build and maintain trust with others?

It starts with building rapport. Making contact. Finding a point of affiliation with each other. In my experience, if you want that initial rapport to evolve into real trust, you need to put yourself out there a little, in a genuine way. You don’t need to tell your deepest secrets. But learning how to disclose something about yourself—ideally something that matters to you—is part and parcel of earning trust.

In this area as much as any other, the operating principle of Winning from Within applies: what you experience on the inside will lead directly to what you create on the outside. If you want to earn people’s trust, then start acting in trustworthy ways. If you want them to think that you care about them, then find a way to soften the walls that keep you from your emotional life, so you can feel a sense of caring for them.

Balanced Lovers know that for a relationship to work, the trust needs to be sincere. Often, Low Lovers go through the motions of the right behaviors and then they’re surprised when people don’t really trust them. I saw a great example of this distinction last year, expressed by one of my students.

In the negotiation course at Harvard Law School, we require the students to keep a daily journal of their insights from the day. They turn it in at the end of each week. We have cross-registrants in the class, and last year I had a student from Harvard Business School. I asked him if I could share an excerpt from his journal with you anonymously, and he said yes. This is a direct quote from what he wrote:

I previously believed that my interpersonal communication at the outset of a negotiation was one of my strong suits. It helped me build rapport which I could later utilize to claim an unfair share of the value near the end of the negotiation.

He went on to write that he’d received feedback from his peers that “much of my rapport building comes across unauthentic and disingenuous,” and he wondered why. He pondered what he could do to “appear more natural and genuine.”

His confusion points to an essential truth about building and maintaining trust. He won’t progress by trying to “appear” more genuine. That backfires. Building rapport as he did, to set the stage to take advantage of people later, isn’t actually building rapport. It’s theater, at best. Fostering trust means you don’t aspire to “appear” natural, but rather to “feel” natural.

You might not see yourself in the attitude of his journal entry. Maybe it sounds extreme. But actually, I get into discussions on this topic quite often. People tell me they already do treat others well, but “it doesn’t work.” As my client Javier said to me, “They still complain that I’m not listening. Or they say ‘I feel like you’re not present.’ What do they want from me?” His question was a sincere one.

Javier was frustrated because he was doing everything he’d learned in a daylong training on listening skills. He told me that he looks people in the eye, repeats back what they say, and makes sure to ask at least a few questions. These techniques are straight out of his Active Listening Operating Manual.

Why aren’t they working?

Because you can’t bluff trust.

Actually, I’ll admit that you can bluff it a little, or for a little while. But then the gig is up. The curtain is pulled. And the Wizard is discovered to be just a man with a microphone. This is the point that Javier is missing. “Doing” active listening behavior, when you’re not genuinely open, means you’re not actually listening. People have an uncanny radar about this: they know you’re faking it. And here’s the funny thing. They don’t actually care if you repeat their words back. They care whether or not you care. That is what they want from you.

If you relate at all to my student, or to Javier, then you want to negotiate with yourself to make some room for your Lover to show up for real. See what I mean in the start to the meeting below, between Jermaine and Quincy. Jermaine’s inner Warrior is filling his mind. He wants action, today.

WHAT I THOUGHT and FELT BUT DIDN’T SAY	WHAT WE ACTUALLY SAID
I need to get something done with this group. Now.	Jermaine: I really hope we move ahead and keep this group focused on action.
	Quincy: Yes, but building relationships is also important.
Oh, shoot, here we go again. Process, process, process. What a WASTE OF TIME.
	Jermaine: Yes, I agree, but too often we meet and only update each other. This isn’t the best way to spend our time.
	Quincy: [Silent, looks away.]

If Jermaine notices that he’s shut Quincy down, he might backtrack in his words. He might suggest a five-minute check-in about everybody’s vacation. Still, the voice in his head will tell him in no uncertain terms that this is a complete waste of time. If Jermaine needs Quincy in order to get things done, he has a problem. Because Quincy knows the difference between being humored and being understood.

There’s no magic phrase that Jermaine can say to Quincy to get out of this moment. There’s only an actual rebalancing of his inner Warrior and Lover that will make this better. It’s not a zero-sum game, either. Jermaine’s inner Warrior doesn’t need to give up on getting things done today. What he needs to do is negotiate with Jermaine’s inner Lover, and make a deal.

If he’s smart, Jermaine’s inner Lover will deal with the Warrior on his own terms. The Warrior wants to get things done. So Jermaine’s Lover can point out to his Warrior that by engaging Quincy sincerely on what matters to him—in this case, relationship-building—he’s much more likely to get on board for the Warrior’s action agenda. Seeing the sense of that argument, the inner Warrior might chill out for a few minutes while Jermaine’s inner Lover actually tries to get to know Quincy better. When Quincy feels that his priorities matter to Jermaine, he’s far more likely to reciprocate by focusing on what Jermaine values.

In a later journal entry, my business school student wrote the following:

I wish I had an easy answer to correct this error but I don’t believe there is one. Rapport is something that cannot be forced; it should develop naturally. It’s true that charismatic individuals may have better luck at establishing rapport quicker and more efficiently, but again, that’s not something one can fake. I don’t know the solution to this issue other than working to be more natural and authentic and look for genuine common interests which can build initial bonds.

In my comment on that entry, I wrote, “Yes, that’s it exactly.”

Earn Your Own Trust

If your Lover runs high, you likely take good care of other people. For you, it’s natural and right to put other people’s needs, feelings, or ambitions, ahead of your own. If two of you are working late at the office, you’re the one who’ll say, “Go ahead home. I’ll finish things here.” Not because you wouldn’t love to call it a day. But as you see it, one of you has to stay and finish. So your High Lover figures, “Why should I get to go home while my colleague is stuck at the office? That’s not fair.”

As you think back, you might notice that over the years, this Lover perspective has given you plenty of late nights at the office, finishing projects by yourself, when you sent other people home. Generosity is a beautiful Lover quality. But when you always put yourself second, you’re failing to earn trust in a significant way: you aren’t trustworthy to yourself. In practice, High Lovers often need their inner Warrior or Dreamer to step forward to protect them—from themselves.

Juliette is a mother in my neighborhood. She used to invite other mothers and their young kids over to her house to make art. Juliette had a master’s in fine arts but had chosen to stay home while her kids were little. This seemed like a fun way to stay connected with her painting while her children were young.

News spread throughout the town, and soon Juliette had nearly daily “classes” in her living room. She didn’t charge anything: she just loved the joy in the little faces over the masterpieces the kids made.

The art classes had another effect. A real community developed among the women who were raising their kids at home. Many of them had higher-education degrees. A bunch had led high-power careers before choosing to stay home to raise their children full-time. While none of them would have made time for themselves to meet a friend on a weekly basis, the art classes gave a perfect platform for them to spend quality time with other women while still prioritizing their kids. Everything seemed to work perfectly.

One day, a new mother came to the class. She’d heard about Juliette. She understood these really were “classes” with substantive instruction. Far from dropping kids on the floor with finger paint, Juliette was teaching them about art. Word on the street was that Juliette was also wonderful with kids, including the ones who had challenges to learn. At the end of the session, the visitor approached Juliette.

“First, let me introduce myself. My name is Dr. Ford, and I work in pediatrics at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital. I saw your class today—you’re terrific. We need someone just like you to join our team at the hospital. We have kids who are inpatient for weeks at a time. In most cases, their bodies needs treatment, but their minds are razor sharp. They’re bored and restless. We’ve gotten a gift to fund a position for a teacher of fine arts, to offer classes during the day, aimed at various levels that are age-appropriate to the kids. Could I meet you for lunch to tell you more about it? I think you’d be perfect.”

Juliette stood for a minute in a state of shock. When she finally gathered herself together, she thanked Dr. Ford for dropping by, exchanged email addresses, and said she’d get in touch.

Before the door even closed behind Dr. Ford, Juliette’s inner Lover was already yelling at her. “How can you even think of doing this? These mothers are like family. They need you. How will they survive without you?” As her High Lover’s voice became more intense, Juliette started to agree. “I guess I should just turn it down.”

This is the precise moment when High Lovers are at risk of betraying themselves. Before Juliette has a chance to even consider if this is something she’d like to do, her High Lover is already demanding that she not put herself “above” or “ahead” of the community of mothers that she’s fostered.

Thankfully, in this case, her inner negotiators were working as a team. Juliette’s inner Dreamer stepped in.

“Juliette, what do you want?”

Juliette hadn’t thought to ask herself that.

“This is your life. A job like this is exactly why you got your master’s in the first place. And, your kids are in school now. They aren’t even home with you anymore. You should go for this!”

If your Lover runs high like Juliette’s, situations like this feel wrenching. Your inner Dreamer wants you to pursue your dreams. Yet your High Lover holds you back, begging you to put other people and their feelings ahead of your own aspirations. If you follow the High Lover’s priorities every time, you’ll have a well-traveled path of self-neglect. To my mind, this dynamic relates to whether you’re trustworthy to yourself. Can you trust your Lover to care about you, or will he or she only take care of other people?

If you’ve tied your profile completely to your inner Lover, then your identity as a “giver” might trump everything else. You might reflect on why everyone else deserves to benefit from your generous nature, but you don’t. Christopher Germer explores this in a wonderful book, The Mindful Path to Self-Compassion. He writes:

If you’re used to beating yourself up during periods of sadness or loneliness, if you hide from the world when you make a mistake, or if you obsess over how you could have prevented the mistake to begin with, self-compassion may seem like a radical idea. But why should you deny yourself the same tenderness and warmth you extend to others who are suffering?

If your Lover runs high like Juliette’s, you can always come back to the basic wisdom teaching: you should love thy neighbor as thyself. Those simple words tell us that it’s valid and important to love ourselves, as well as we love everyone else.

We’ve met the Dreamer, the Thinker, and the Lover. Now we’ll add the last inner negotiator to the mix of the Big Four, the Warrior. As before, below are some reflection questions for you.