BUSINESS

Home > Business > "Biz Love" and business values: An interview with Tim Sanders

---

"Biz Love" and business values: An interview with Tim Sanders

August 29, 2007

Tim Sanders is an irrepressible advocate for good values in the business world. His first book, Love is the Killer App, showed how people who share generously can achieve professional success. It became both a New York Times and international bestseller.

His second book, The Likeability Factor, explores four aspects of likeability that you can measure and improve – friendliness, relevance, empathy, and realness.

The basis of both books is drawn from his deep experience with cutting-edge businesses such as Dell, Intel, boardcast.com, and more.

Most recently he served as senior level executive at Yahoo!, serving as Yahoo!’s Leadership Coach and prior to that as Chief Solutions Officer, where he oversaw next-generation marketing programs for world-class brands.

Here, he joins Kelsey Howarth, Senior Writer for Cognos, an IBM company, to discuss love, likeability, and why social responsibility is just plain good business.

Spread "Biz Love" to help people grow

KH: Your first book, Love is the Killer App, made you a bit of a renegade in the business world because you talk about the combination of business and love. Can you explain to us what Biz Love and a Lovecat are?

TS: "Biz Love is a term that occurred to me several years ago to describe a business relationship where I am fully committed to your growth.

"In this relationship I promote your growth intelligently in a win-win sort of way. Biz Love could be mentoring an employee in a way that not only promotes the employee’s personal growth, but increases the value of that employee to the company.

"Another example of Biz Love could be bringing customers or partners together to increase the size of their network, their capacity, and their growth.

"Lovecats" are lucky and generous

"Lovecat is a phrase I use to describe a business person that is so generous in his or her work-a-day life that you scratch your head and wonder how they get ahead.

"These kinds of people are frequently described as lucky and a lot of great things seem to fall right into their laps. The truth is that people are very generous to Lovecats primarily because of how much they give.

"The first time I thought about that phrase is when I met Herb Kelleher from Southwest Airlines. I thought he was just this old cagey tiger, but he is such a good guy.

"He’s a really loving, sweet, compassionate, hug-an-employee or union boss kind of guy. He reminded me of the lyric in the Cure song Lovecats, 'we move like cagey tigers yet no two can get closer than this'. He is the ultimate Lovecat."

Compassion: A hard sell in business?

KH: In the book you outline key ways people can put more love into their work. These include sharing your knowledge, network, and compassion more widely. Is compassion a hard sell in most businesses?

TS: "It shouldn’t be. What I’ve learned is that compassion is simply a commitment to solving problems, not creating them.

"Compassion creates a mission that can connect every single person in the business to the customer. Our mission in life and business is one and the same: to participate in the end of suffering.

Eliminating uncertainty, aches, and pains

"When I think of a company like Cognos, I think about what you do for your customers – you eliminate various forms of suffering related to running a business. You eliminate uncertainty. You eliminate gaps of knowledge.

"You eliminate disconnection between data and wisdom. You eliminate a lot of the aches and pains that the average business person has to deal with and that is a tremendous value proposition."

"I think you then have to take it down to an individual level. When I think about how I lead and manage people, my job is to participate in the end of their suffering. The same is true in our approach to customers and partners.

"We must dedicate our waking energy to eliminating suffering in their lives, in their business lives, and in their business model. This is compassion."

Raising your "L-factor"

KH: Your second book, The Likeability Factor, is all about raising your personal L-factor. Could you explain what an L-factor is?

TS: "The likeability factor reflects your personal capacity to consistently produce positive emotions in the lives of other people.

"People have three different factors that determine their success: there’s the talent factor, what I call physical intelligence talent factor that focuses on what you are good at.

"The second factor is your hard work factor. This focuses on how motivated you are, how much energy you bring, and how execution-oriented you are.

"The third factor is the likeability factor. People with a high L-factor are ones who create a positive mood state and harmony versus dissonance. They are emotionally attractive.

"These three factors are essential for long-term success without interruptions – whether you’re running for President or trying to run a company."

A sneak peek into the new book

KH: You have a new book coming out. Are you willing to give us a peek into the topic?

TS: "My next book is called, How To Save The Work At Work. It’s a book about how to embrace a business revolution that’s unfolding right now.

"I call it the good business revolution. Some people call it social responsibility, others call it sustainability or social values, but it is the revolution brought on by what I call the ‘them’ generation.

"You might call it the Brad & Angelina or the Warren Buffet generation, but it’s a unique generation that is divorced from the ‘me’ or ‘us’ generations.

Asking hard questions, navigating change

"This new generation asks hard questions and thinks their money and their loyalty are going to change the world. And it will. They want to buy products from, invest in, and go to work for companies that are doing good business.

"There are going to be huge changes that companies will need to make to bolster their brand in this stratosphere, and companies that embrace this revolution will create a tremendous competitive disadvantage for other companies.

"This book was written to force people to ask what good is their company doing besides making money. It’s a book about how everyone can prepare for the social value revolution."

Companies ahead of the pack

KH: Can you give us some examples of companies that are already doing this?

TS: "There are so many companies who are adding social value to the world of their employees, communities, supply chains, and the eco systems.

"Look at a company like Whole Foods that is taking tremendous share from its competitors because it’s doing good business. That’s what the consumer wants.

"Another example is the new socially responsible fund manager who has taken one third of the stock market away from the just-for-profit hedge funds in the last five years.

"By 2012, half of the stock market will be socially screened. By then there will probably be eco sin taxes, taxes on paper, taxes on electrical use, and taxes on carbon emissions.

"Companies that don’t shift their culture quickly will find that their operating costs are simply too high to stay in business.

"This revolution will affect every industry over the course of the next three to seven years. It will affect the stock price of certain companies and the talent pool within companies.

"One of the most important things any leader can do is go to work and help drive good business – whether it’s a good business culture, a good business structure, or a thousand little things you have to do to be effective.

"We’ve got to be a part of the solution when it comes to social values, not part of the problem."

Doing right by employees and customers

KH: When you talked about social value, you touched on so many different things: doing what’s right by employees; doing what’s right by customers, and doing what’s right by the world.

TS: "I think of it like an onion. The center of the onion is the people that work for you and the customers that give you money.

"The next layer is the communities that you do business with and the suppliers you work with. You’ve got to treat the suppliers right, and make sure those suppliers are treating their people right. You’ve got to make sure the communities you do business with put something back in.

"The outside of the onion is the ecosystem. You’ve got to make sure that whatever you’re doing is not robbing the future. Adding social value is about considering all the players involved and not just profit. Too often businesses that are profitable just take the money, keep it, and don’t share it.

"Being a good business means asking the hard questions. It's about asking what real value, besides making money, are you offering the world?"

Find Out More Performance management and the upside of green Green on wheels: How Toyota trumped the auto industry Customer perspective: Protecting the prairies with performance management

---