W&F Issue 8 2018

www.wealthandfinance-news.com 28 Wealth & Finance International - Issue 8 - 2018 The debate about care is philosophical - philosophers have been dissecting its meaning for centuries, attempting to articulate it - and it’s surprisingly complex. In a dictionary sense, care is depicted in two core ways - as troublesome worries and woes - “all the cares in the world”; or the solicitous, authentic act of caring for another person, situation, issue or object. Either way, very few models of business or management mention a care aspect in either sense. So why don’t we mention care in leadership and business? No plausible leader ever says they don’t care, yet we fail to contemplate this perspective of humanness professionally. In our concern to become more professional, we have lost our leadership roots; those solicitous, compassionate, attentive interactions, which facilitate growth and development, in turn achieving business outcomes. Are we afraid of seeming ‘soft’ and un- business-like? From a holistic view, human beings are ‘whole’ – the sum of the experiences, values, learnings and ambitions that make us who we are. We must ensure we get the best from everyone by valuing them and recognising what they bring. This predictably incorporates all those messy feelings, woes (cares?) and fears that we usually avoid in business, because they are considered difficult or unprofessional to bring to work. In business, we must ‘take care of’ the business processes and outcomes, as well as ‘care for’ people. We are still ‘us’ when we are in work or not; only the behaviours change between contexts. We must care as much about what ‘matters’ to the individual as much as what ‘matters’ to the organisation. This way our teams come to work, work hard and achieve what they are supposed to. Caring is what it’s all about – not soft and unprofessional, but human attention towards our people. This enables the success of our business. We have people and things we care about deeply outside of work and we also care about the work we do and the job we are in, so this makes us experts already. Consider how you can apply that in business. How could you have a team who are enabled to come to work and do their best? This isn’t the weak choice – it’s the option most likely to get the best from your team. Why? Because people choose their working environment, seeking to feel valued, respected and able to contribute meaningfully. If we get this, we will stay longer, work harder and ‘go the extra mile’. If leaders care, it becomes easier to challenge our people. This is because they feel that they ‘matter’ as much as the business does – we all need to feel that what we contribute is important. Care provides the safety to explore, analyse, reflect and challenge. This enables meaningful change. It provides the safety net needed for engagement in activities which carry significant personal risk (admitting that we might be wrong, need to change Care is not a usual topic for an article on business. Why in a business context, would we need to mention it? My background is in health care, so it isn’t a huge departure for me to consider this in a professional context – it may be more difficult if you work in industry, finance or other sectors underpinned by hard data and equally hard management styles. Business should be caring: why the two should be intertwined or adopt new skills), because the situation is safe, and someone cares sufficiently about us to ensure the outcome will be positive and worthwhile. We recognise immediately if care is lacking. When managers forget to care, display poor manners or behave as if they are ‘superior’, we see teams who are disparaging and who work against them rather than with them. Most people can recount a story where they have felt less than conscientious attention, care or compassion from their line managers. This is hopefully short term or transient in nature, but where it is more prolonged in leaders and managers, we intuitively know this will impact on staff turnover and retention rates, complaints, grievances and general personnel issues in the workplace. What happens when ‘hard business’ is the driver, and care is absent? I would argue that all of the things we want to achieve at work – business success, profitability and growth – will also be absent or at least affected negatively. Care and the creation of a safe place to work with challenge and heavy demands, is about attentiveness and an acknowledgement that individuals seek to do a good job. No one gets up in the morning wanting to be difficult or perform poorly! If the leader reflects acceptance – ‘cares for’ their people – change, growth and development occur and successful business can be achieved. Positive business happens when individuals and teams prosper – care is the way human beings do this best. About Tracy Kite: Tracy is author of Love to Lead (£14.99, Panoma Press). She has many years of experience in the design, delivery and implementation and evaluation of learning and leadership development programmes. Her work is focussed on achieving strategic and operational leadership excellence and a defined return on investment for organisations.