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Love as a Change Strategy: Innovation, Growth, and Transformation
A Bold, Human-Centered Guide to Leading Change That Actually Works
What if your biggest barrier to change isn't strategy, but humanity?
In Love as a Change Strategy, the team behind the Wall Street Journal bestseller Love as a Business Strategy is back—with an urgent, deeply human follow-up. This isn't another dry playbook on change management. It's a wake-up call for leaders who are tired of fear-fueled cultures, toxic “transformation,” and surface-level solutions.
The truth? Most change fails because people resist what they don't trust—and leaders aren't willing to change themselves first. That's where this book begins.
Part memoir, part practical guide, and part leadership journey, Love as a Change Strategy takes readers inside one company's brutally honest transformation story. Through powerful storytelling, actionable tools, and sharp insights, the authors reveal what happens when you lead change from a place of love—not fear.
Inside, you'll
Why most change efforts collapse—and how to fix them Real stories of failure, ego, and redemption from the authors' own leadership team A people-first framework to lead adaptive change in any organization The change principles that build trust, accountability, and forward momentum How to confront resistance, navigate chaos, and make love your change strategy If you're leading change (or trying to survive one), this book is your roadmap. Raw, honest, and transformational—Love as a Change Strategy is the leadership reset we all need.
What if your biggest barrier to change isn't strategy, but humanity?
In Love as a Change Strategy, the team behind the Wall Street Journal bestseller Love as a Business Strategy is back—with an urgent, deeply human follow-up. This isn't another dry playbook on change management. It's a wake-up call for leaders who are tired of fear-fueled cultures, toxic “transformation,” and surface-level solutions.
The truth? Most change fails because people resist what they don't trust—and leaders aren't willing to change themselves first. That's where this book begins.
Part memoir, part practical guide, and part leadership journey, Love as a Change Strategy takes readers inside one company's brutally honest transformation story. Through powerful storytelling, actionable tools, and sharp insights, the authors reveal what happens when you lead change from a place of love—not fear.
Inside, you'll
Why most change efforts collapse—and how to fix them Real stories of failure, ego, and redemption from the authors' own leadership team A people-first framework to lead adaptive change in any organization The change principles that build trust, accountability, and forward momentum How to confront resistance, navigate chaos, and make love your change strategy If you're leading change (or trying to survive one), this book is your roadmap. Raw, honest, and transformational—Love as a Change Strategy is the leadership reset we all need.
256 pages, Hardcover
Published September 17, 2025
About the author
Mohammad F. Anwar
7 books10 followersMohammad Anwar
CEO of Softway
Mohammad is the youngest of five children and was born and raised in Saudi Arabia by Indian parents from Bengaluru. He graduated from the University of Houston (Go Coogs) with a BS in Computer Science and started Softway at twenty, where he still serves as the President and CEO.
Mohammad lives in Sugar Land, Texas, with his amazing wife Yulia, a Russian diver and five-time Olympic medalist, and his beautiful children, Sufia and Moshin. In his spare time, he enjoys fitness, watching college sports, and butchering American idioms.
CEO of Softway
Mohammad is the youngest of five children and was born and raised in Saudi Arabia by Indian parents from Bengaluru. He graduated from the University of Houston (Go Coogs) with a BS in Computer Science and started Softway at twenty, where he still serves as the President and CEO.
Mohammad lives in Sugar Land, Texas, with his amazing wife Yulia, a Russian diver and five-time Olympic medalist, and his beautiful children, Sufia and Moshin. In his spare time, he enjoys fitness, watching college sports, and butchering American idioms.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
October 14, 2025
WOW!! To start this off honestly, I usually hate nonfiction books. I had the opportunity to hear Mohammad Anwar speak last week and got a free copy of this book, so I decided to read it. This book is extremely impactful, and it gives you real steps to using Love as a Strategy to create organizational change. Every co-author of the book was extremely vulnerable in the stories they shared, making it easy to understand and relate to them (this also helped make it fun to read). Anyone who is in leadership or wants to be in a leadership role one day should read this book!
March 10, 2026
This is a leadership and organizational transformation guide that demonstrates how vulnerability, trust, and people-first approaches can drive meaningful change within organizations.
The book combines memoir, practical guidance, and leadership insights, using one company's real transformation journey to illustrate how leading with love creates sustainable organizational change.
The book is structured in four interlocking parts that guide readers through understanding the approach, changing yourself, transforming your organization, and implementing systemic change.
Change is presented not as a clean process but as messy, unpolished, and uncomfortable—requiring a series of conscious choices rather than following a predetermined formula.
The authors use their company Softway's transformation story to highlight real challenges and successes in transitioning to a love-focused culture.
The core message emphasizes that vulnerability, trust, and experimentation unlock real transformation where it matters most: among your people.
This book represents a shared journey of vulnerability, growth, and the power of leading with love. It's positioned as a modern leadership resource designed to help leaders bring humanity back to their workplace while driving organizational innovation and growth.
The book challenges conventional thinking about organizational change by arguing that:
- Change isn't a process—it's a series of intentional choices about reorganization and renewal
- People come first—successful transformation centers on human connection and trust rather than metrics alone
- Vulnerability is strength—leaders who embrace authenticity create cultures where real transformation happens
This book is designed for modern leaders, organizational development professionals, and anyone seeking to create meaningful workplace culture change rooted in human-centered values.
- Read this book if you're leading organizational change and want to understand how human-centered, love-based approaches create sustainable transformation
- The four-part structure makes it accessible as both a continuous narrative and a reference guide for specific change initiatives
- The real-world Softway case study provides concrete examples of how these principles work in practice
https://chatlyai.app/chat/a45ce090-88...
———————
From the Art & Practice of Adaptive Leadership: change happens at the rate people can absorb. Lead change that honors people as people. “Change is survival, but change with love is evolution.”
Positive, people-centered change occurs when a leader will sit you down, explain the need for change, outline the company’s vision for the change, and describe how you fit into the picture. During the conversation, it’s clear that this person took the time to consider you, your role, and how you might respond to the news and then tailor their message accordingly.
Only about 34% of change initiatives succeed with 1/3 of CEOs failing to achieve their intended outcomes.
Of the digital transformations, 69% resulted in an avoidable loss.
50% of leaders don’t know if their change programs succeeded or failed at their nominal conclusion.
37% of employees are resistant to change.
2/3 of employees experienced burnout during a change initiative.
72% of leaders say they involved their employees in developing a change strategy, only 42% of employees agreed.
These problems start at the top. Research shows that over a third of executives underestimate their role and require involvement in successful change management, while a third of CEOs are fired for reported poor change management.
A study by Prosci found that 47% of transformation failures resulted from employee resistance and lack of effective change management.
Change is non-linear. Change requires human adaptation. Organizational change is never a technical problem, but rather a process of preparing humans to adapt to change and unpredictable circumstances. Change starts with you. Leo Tolstoy said, “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing themselves.”
Not every step toward your goal is going to be the right one; but, if you take more right steps than wrong ones, you’ll get there.
“According to The Future of Transformation is Human, organizations taking a people-centric approach to their digital transformation saw a 73% success compared to a 28% success rate for the organizations that didn’t.”
A culture of love is built by embodying the six pillars of love: inclusion, empathy, vulnerability, trust, empowerment, and forgiveness. When an organization practices the six pillars, employees often experience profound resilience and belonging, psychological safety - bringing their authentic selves to work in a way they shared feedback and ideas without fear of humiliation, and brought a sense of ownership and accountability to everything they did.
Through the lens of fear, we see change as vague, painful, uncertain, and potentially costly. Fear will only limit your understanding of the problem. A culture of fear cannot produce change-ready teams. It can only produce frustration, unforgiveness, indifference, false narratives, burnout, intellectual arrogance, and cynicism – outcomes all antithetical to love.
Our mindsets and experiences combined to form our beliefs. We externalize those beliefs through our attitudes or how we show up in different situations.
You cannot change other people. That’s their job. All you can do is change yourself. Are you going to be a victim or a victor? You cannot influence others to change unless you are willing to change yourself first. Rather than swim against the change, learn to roll with it. How you receive change is up to you. Embrace change versus complain about it. You determine your outlook. Do you love yourself enough to change for the better?
Self-awareness is the difference between how we think we are perceived and how others experience us.
Introspection is a way of looking inward to understand why we act and react the way we do.
Feedback enables us to see ourselves as others do and ask ourselves whether that’s how we want to be perceived.
To lead change with others, first, you must lead change in yourself. To lead change in yourself, you must develop strong self-awareness through introspection and feedback. Mindsets matter. Mindsets fundamentally determine how we receive and interpret a given change.
Our belief systems are often invisible to us, operating in the background without us giving them a second thought. Unless we pause to introspect, we never consider how they guide our actions. If mindset is the lens through which we view the world, and our beliefs are the legacy of those mindsets, then attitude is how we act on those views. “Leading change begins with uncovering your true self and then carefully choosing what stays and what goes so you can learn to change your behaviors to positively influence others.”
Change readiness is the willingness to adapt to challenges, embrace discomfort, and ultimately embrace change. How do you measure change readiness? www.culturecounter.app
The six principles of change help you make informed choices about how you show up, how you operate, how you behave, and how you make decisions in times of uncertainty. They are in a quasi-particular order. The first three principles are more relational and behavior-focused whereas the latter three principles are more tactical.
Embrace discomfort: When buffalo sense a storm, they don’t run from it. They run head-on into it. The storm is both on them quicker and over quicker. We need to get out of our comfort zone and get in the growth zone. “We generally don’t learn much doing things that make us feel comfortable. By leaning into the uncomfortable moments and adapting to the challenges they present, we learn more about ourselves and the challenges we are made to confront.” Growth begins where comfort ends. Unfortunately, we tend to default to the biggest growth killer around: avoidance. We need to get the affected teams involved in the change as quickly as possible.
We need to choose honesty over harmony.
Honesty without kindness is brutality.
Kindness without honesty is manipulation.
Honesty with kindness is integrity. Honesty with kindness is love.
Many organizations practice false harmony where they seek a “nice” culture. Everyone is so concerned with preserving the peace that they actively resist efforts to improve, change, or rock the boat. Discomfort is where the magic happens, however. Conflict is essential!
Getting in the rumble means putting yourself in the center of uncomfortable conversations, calling attention to unspoken problems, and creating space for hard conversations. But without trust, many team members don’t feel comfortable sharing their true feelings with their teammates. We need to figure out how to trust and how to rumble without being in our feelings too long.
“If leaders want to see change, they must be the change they want to see. They must be the first group to change so they can embody the change they want others to see. Then, they must build a bridge for others to come across to the other side.” Transformation awaits on the other side of discomfort. Choosing honesty over harmony improves relationships and workplace culture.
Prioritize relationships: Putting people at the center of a transformation creates the space for solution-focused experimentation and empowering people to solve challenges. Conflict is just the interpersonal manifestation of discomfort, and embracing discomfort can lead to profound personal transformation. In transformational conflict, instead of avoiding the issue, or only addressing its symptoms, the parties in conflict work to resolve the deeper-seated misunderstandings or differences that led to the conflict in the first place. Many times what we feel might be a conflict, is simply a fantasy filled with preconceived notions, imagined grievances, and assumptions about a person’s innermost thoughts. We often invent ways to avoid the interaction altogether. [Know that discomfort will happen and people will get triggered.] Yet avoiding hard conversations damages relationships. “Better relationships lead to better communication, consistency, coordination, and efficiency, which enhances the quality of your work environment and output.”
Practice empathetic curiosity: This is the practice of suspending judgment and listening to somebody without problem-solving, rationalizing, interjecting, reassuring, or dismissing. You create space for that person to explore. Once the adaptive challenge is more clearly understood, you can work together to address it fairly and transparently. The goal is creating dialogue and understanding. But, you must be willing to consider new information and change. Try to remain neutral and ask to hear more. “You must first learn to shut up, listen, and embody the mindset (empathy) and the behaviors (curiosity) necessary to make these discussions work.” “You must be willing to choose the hard work of sitting with your discomfort rather than acting on it.” Note that change is inherently emotional, and you need to be honest, not only about the facts, but also about feelings. Ignoring our emotions isn’t professional; it’s negligent. “Change-ready organizations embrace honesty over harmony, share how they’re feeling, and address those feelings as part of the solution.” Remember that change happens gradually and intentionally.
Experiment: promote a bias toward action. Experimenting with AI in real time with no pressure and no strings attached could change people’s beliefs and understanding of what AI could do for themselves and the organization, help people understand how AI tools might benefit us to increase efficiency and deliver better results, and reinforce a bias towards action. Create a four-day hackathon (page 115). There’s no energy wasted on the path. Note the Beyond HumAIn podcast.
Wield your influence: CEOs often find themselves in the role of confidant and therapist among their leadership team. It’s common among teams to skip the change-readiness phase and drive straight into execution. “Leaders in a change-ready organization wield their influence to promote healthy relationships, maintain trust in each other, engage in healthy conflict, and show awareness and appreciation of each other’s strengths. More importantly, they recognize that power isn’t centralized or dictated by title or position; influence can come from any person in any corner of the organization. Whoever has the most relevant experience and skills has the authority to lead in a given situation.”
Dr. Esmaeil Porsa and Harris Health in Houston is profiled (beginning on page 130). Dr. Porsa leads authentically and humanely to create a better workplace and better patient outcomes. (Recall his email to all 10,000 employees where he signed off with, “I love you all.” HR pushed back claiming it didn’t meet compliance. He overroad their concerns, and the responses were overwhelmingly positive.) Over the span of roughly a year, he rolled out the “Leading with Love” leadership program to around 250 leaders, requiring them to read the book Love as a Business Strategy along with two other books. Dr. Porsa set the tone – driving, embodying, and owning the culture of love he wanted to create. He “wielded his power in the right way at the right time to create necessary change in a system built to resist it. Sometimes, you have to do the right thing – even if it’s difficult, even if there’s resistance, even if there are consequences you might not want.” As a leader, are you serving others or waiting to be served?
Be effective: Effectiveness over efficiency - I can argue that effectiveness is efficiency. To have better relationships, you need to slow down and build them. (slow-down-to-speed-up mindset) One must create the environment where everyone speaks the same language regarding mindsets, discomfort, conflict, leadership, and communication. This will create a culture change. Experience over training - For most adaptive challenges, training is not the solution because it is largely passive. Unfortunately, the way most organizations approach training is outdated, mundane, and ineffective. “Honesty unlocks efficiency, and empathy unlocks effectiveness.” Unlearning over learning – unlearning stems from a growth mindset – clearing our mental cache. Identify and discard the knowledge and beliefs that might hold you back. Examine your own knowledge and skill sets, and be willing to learn and change.
Most leaders unfortunately don’t change with their business. They expect their organization to change around them and their desires. For a person to be changed, they must experience change. Turn your change plans into a series of experiments and meaningful experiences that are guided by feedback and observation. Communicate, collaborate, and commiserate. Listen, learn, and understand. You have to meet people where they are, to make their pain, our pain. Measure, remind, and reward. Always be looking for what could be fixed, what could be better, and what could be abandoned entirely.
There is no shortcut to success. No silver bullet. No “easy“ button.
Saving money is hard, but so is being broke.
Working on your marriage is hard, but so is being in a bad marriage.
Love is hard, but so is hate.
Change is hard, but not changing is harder.
Choose your hard.
You can choose to be like the herd of cattle and run away from the hard, or you can choose to be like the herd of buffalo and run headfirst into it. There are two paths: the path of comfort and the path of the hard.
The future we create are the consequences of the choices we didn’t make.
Determination is your WHY.
Discipline is doing the hard thing even if you hate it in the moment because you know it will pay off in the future.
Consistency is the willingness to do it all again tomorrow.
Wash, rinse, repeat.
The book combines memoir, practical guidance, and leadership insights, using one company's real transformation journey to illustrate how leading with love creates sustainable organizational change.
The book is structured in four interlocking parts that guide readers through understanding the approach, changing yourself, transforming your organization, and implementing systemic change.
Change is presented not as a clean process but as messy, unpolished, and uncomfortable—requiring a series of conscious choices rather than following a predetermined formula.
The authors use their company Softway's transformation story to highlight real challenges and successes in transitioning to a love-focused culture.
The core message emphasizes that vulnerability, trust, and experimentation unlock real transformation where it matters most: among your people.
This book represents a shared journey of vulnerability, growth, and the power of leading with love. It's positioned as a modern leadership resource designed to help leaders bring humanity back to their workplace while driving organizational innovation and growth.
The book challenges conventional thinking about organizational change by arguing that:
- Change isn't a process—it's a series of intentional choices about reorganization and renewal
- People come first—successful transformation centers on human connection and trust rather than metrics alone
- Vulnerability is strength—leaders who embrace authenticity create cultures where real transformation happens
This book is designed for modern leaders, organizational development professionals, and anyone seeking to create meaningful workplace culture change rooted in human-centered values.
- Read this book if you're leading organizational change and want to understand how human-centered, love-based approaches create sustainable transformation
- The four-part structure makes it accessible as both a continuous narrative and a reference guide for specific change initiatives
- The real-world Softway case study provides concrete examples of how these principles work in practice
https://chatlyai.app/chat/a45ce090-88...
———————
From the Art & Practice of Adaptive Leadership: change happens at the rate people can absorb. Lead change that honors people as people. “Change is survival, but change with love is evolution.”
Positive, people-centered change occurs when a leader will sit you down, explain the need for change, outline the company’s vision for the change, and describe how you fit into the picture. During the conversation, it’s clear that this person took the time to consider you, your role, and how you might respond to the news and then tailor their message accordingly.
Only about 34% of change initiatives succeed with 1/3 of CEOs failing to achieve their intended outcomes.
Of the digital transformations, 69% resulted in an avoidable loss.
50% of leaders don’t know if their change programs succeeded or failed at their nominal conclusion.
37% of employees are resistant to change.
2/3 of employees experienced burnout during a change initiative.
72% of leaders say they involved their employees in developing a change strategy, only 42% of employees agreed.
These problems start at the top. Research shows that over a third of executives underestimate their role and require involvement in successful change management, while a third of CEOs are fired for reported poor change management.
A study by Prosci found that 47% of transformation failures resulted from employee resistance and lack of effective change management.
Change is non-linear. Change requires human adaptation. Organizational change is never a technical problem, but rather a process of preparing humans to adapt to change and unpredictable circumstances. Change starts with you. Leo Tolstoy said, “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing themselves.”
Not every step toward your goal is going to be the right one; but, if you take more right steps than wrong ones, you’ll get there.
“According to The Future of Transformation is Human, organizations taking a people-centric approach to their digital transformation saw a 73% success compared to a 28% success rate for the organizations that didn’t.”
A culture of love is built by embodying the six pillars of love: inclusion, empathy, vulnerability, trust, empowerment, and forgiveness. When an organization practices the six pillars, employees often experience profound resilience and belonging, psychological safety - bringing their authentic selves to work in a way they shared feedback and ideas without fear of humiliation, and brought a sense of ownership and accountability to everything they did.
Through the lens of fear, we see change as vague, painful, uncertain, and potentially costly. Fear will only limit your understanding of the problem. A culture of fear cannot produce change-ready teams. It can only produce frustration, unforgiveness, indifference, false narratives, burnout, intellectual arrogance, and cynicism – outcomes all antithetical to love.
Our mindsets and experiences combined to form our beliefs. We externalize those beliefs through our attitudes or how we show up in different situations.
You cannot change other people. That’s their job. All you can do is change yourself. Are you going to be a victim or a victor? You cannot influence others to change unless you are willing to change yourself first. Rather than swim against the change, learn to roll with it. How you receive change is up to you. Embrace change versus complain about it. You determine your outlook. Do you love yourself enough to change for the better?
Self-awareness is the difference between how we think we are perceived and how others experience us.
Introspection is a way of looking inward to understand why we act and react the way we do.
Feedback enables us to see ourselves as others do and ask ourselves whether that’s how we want to be perceived.
To lead change with others, first, you must lead change in yourself. To lead change in yourself, you must develop strong self-awareness through introspection and feedback. Mindsets matter. Mindsets fundamentally determine how we receive and interpret a given change.
Our belief systems are often invisible to us, operating in the background without us giving them a second thought. Unless we pause to introspect, we never consider how they guide our actions. If mindset is the lens through which we view the world, and our beliefs are the legacy of those mindsets, then attitude is how we act on those views. “Leading change begins with uncovering your true self and then carefully choosing what stays and what goes so you can learn to change your behaviors to positively influence others.”
Change readiness is the willingness to adapt to challenges, embrace discomfort, and ultimately embrace change. How do you measure change readiness? www.culturecounter.app
The six principles of change help you make informed choices about how you show up, how you operate, how you behave, and how you make decisions in times of uncertainty. They are in a quasi-particular order. The first three principles are more relational and behavior-focused whereas the latter three principles are more tactical.
Embrace discomfort: When buffalo sense a storm, they don’t run from it. They run head-on into it. The storm is both on them quicker and over quicker. We need to get out of our comfort zone and get in the growth zone. “We generally don’t learn much doing things that make us feel comfortable. By leaning into the uncomfortable moments and adapting to the challenges they present, we learn more about ourselves and the challenges we are made to confront.” Growth begins where comfort ends. Unfortunately, we tend to default to the biggest growth killer around: avoidance. We need to get the affected teams involved in the change as quickly as possible.
We need to choose honesty over harmony.
Honesty without kindness is brutality.
Kindness without honesty is manipulation.
Honesty with kindness is integrity. Honesty with kindness is love.
Many organizations practice false harmony where they seek a “nice” culture. Everyone is so concerned with preserving the peace that they actively resist efforts to improve, change, or rock the boat. Discomfort is where the magic happens, however. Conflict is essential!
Getting in the rumble means putting yourself in the center of uncomfortable conversations, calling attention to unspoken problems, and creating space for hard conversations. But without trust, many team members don’t feel comfortable sharing their true feelings with their teammates. We need to figure out how to trust and how to rumble without being in our feelings too long.
“If leaders want to see change, they must be the change they want to see. They must be the first group to change so they can embody the change they want others to see. Then, they must build a bridge for others to come across to the other side.” Transformation awaits on the other side of discomfort. Choosing honesty over harmony improves relationships and workplace culture.
Prioritize relationships: Putting people at the center of a transformation creates the space for solution-focused experimentation and empowering people to solve challenges. Conflict is just the interpersonal manifestation of discomfort, and embracing discomfort can lead to profound personal transformation. In transformational conflict, instead of avoiding the issue, or only addressing its symptoms, the parties in conflict work to resolve the deeper-seated misunderstandings or differences that led to the conflict in the first place. Many times what we feel might be a conflict, is simply a fantasy filled with preconceived notions, imagined grievances, and assumptions about a person’s innermost thoughts. We often invent ways to avoid the interaction altogether. [Know that discomfort will happen and people will get triggered.] Yet avoiding hard conversations damages relationships. “Better relationships lead to better communication, consistency, coordination, and efficiency, which enhances the quality of your work environment and output.”
Practice empathetic curiosity: This is the practice of suspending judgment and listening to somebody without problem-solving, rationalizing, interjecting, reassuring, or dismissing. You create space for that person to explore. Once the adaptive challenge is more clearly understood, you can work together to address it fairly and transparently. The goal is creating dialogue and understanding. But, you must be willing to consider new information and change. Try to remain neutral and ask to hear more. “You must first learn to shut up, listen, and embody the mindset (empathy) and the behaviors (curiosity) necessary to make these discussions work.” “You must be willing to choose the hard work of sitting with your discomfort rather than acting on it.” Note that change is inherently emotional, and you need to be honest, not only about the facts, but also about feelings. Ignoring our emotions isn’t professional; it’s negligent. “Change-ready organizations embrace honesty over harmony, share how they’re feeling, and address those feelings as part of the solution.” Remember that change happens gradually and intentionally.
Experiment: promote a bias toward action. Experimenting with AI in real time with no pressure and no strings attached could change people’s beliefs and understanding of what AI could do for themselves and the organization, help people understand how AI tools might benefit us to increase efficiency and deliver better results, and reinforce a bias towards action. Create a four-day hackathon (page 115). There’s no energy wasted on the path. Note the Beyond HumAIn podcast.
Wield your influence: CEOs often find themselves in the role of confidant and therapist among their leadership team. It’s common among teams to skip the change-readiness phase and drive straight into execution. “Leaders in a change-ready organization wield their influence to promote healthy relationships, maintain trust in each other, engage in healthy conflict, and show awareness and appreciation of each other’s strengths. More importantly, they recognize that power isn’t centralized or dictated by title or position; influence can come from any person in any corner of the organization. Whoever has the most relevant experience and skills has the authority to lead in a given situation.”
Dr. Esmaeil Porsa and Harris Health in Houston is profiled (beginning on page 130). Dr. Porsa leads authentically and humanely to create a better workplace and better patient outcomes. (Recall his email to all 10,000 employees where he signed off with, “I love you all.” HR pushed back claiming it didn’t meet compliance. He overroad their concerns, and the responses were overwhelmingly positive.) Over the span of roughly a year, he rolled out the “Leading with Love” leadership program to around 250 leaders, requiring them to read the book Love as a Business Strategy along with two other books. Dr. Porsa set the tone – driving, embodying, and owning the culture of love he wanted to create. He “wielded his power in the right way at the right time to create necessary change in a system built to resist it. Sometimes, you have to do the right thing – even if it’s difficult, even if there’s resistance, even if there are consequences you might not want.” As a leader, are you serving others or waiting to be served?
Be effective: Effectiveness over efficiency - I can argue that effectiveness is efficiency. To have better relationships, you need to slow down and build them. (slow-down-to-speed-up mindset) One must create the environment where everyone speaks the same language regarding mindsets, discomfort, conflict, leadership, and communication. This will create a culture change. Experience over training - For most adaptive challenges, training is not the solution because it is largely passive. Unfortunately, the way most organizations approach training is outdated, mundane, and ineffective. “Honesty unlocks efficiency, and empathy unlocks effectiveness.” Unlearning over learning – unlearning stems from a growth mindset – clearing our mental cache. Identify and discard the knowledge and beliefs that might hold you back. Examine your own knowledge and skill sets, and be willing to learn and change.
Most leaders unfortunately don’t change with their business. They expect their organization to change around them and their desires. For a person to be changed, they must experience change. Turn your change plans into a series of experiments and meaningful experiences that are guided by feedback and observation. Communicate, collaborate, and commiserate. Listen, learn, and understand. You have to meet people where they are, to make their pain, our pain. Measure, remind, and reward. Always be looking for what could be fixed, what could be better, and what could be abandoned entirely.
There is no shortcut to success. No silver bullet. No “easy“ button.
Saving money is hard, but so is being broke.
Working on your marriage is hard, but so is being in a bad marriage.
Love is hard, but so is hate.
Change is hard, but not changing is harder.
Choose your hard.
You can choose to be like the herd of cattle and run away from the hard, or you can choose to be like the herd of buffalo and run headfirst into it. There are two paths: the path of comfort and the path of the hard.
The future we create are the consequences of the choices we didn’t make.
Determination is your WHY.
Discipline is doing the hard thing even if you hate it in the moment because you know it will pay off in the future.
Consistency is the willingness to do it all again tomorrow.
Wash, rinse, repeat.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews