“How can we improve CX when we have business targets to meet? How can we focus on people outcomes when we have business outcomes to focus on?” This is what I (and other practitioners) have heard for many years in the customer experience field.

Here’s my response… Love is not the antithesis to business targets; it's the accelerant of them.

If Love was a KPI, how would that metric be derived? Love as a KPI anchors on the premise that when organizations (and inherently, the people within them) are driven by Love for people - regardless of if those people are categorized as ‘customers’ or ‘employees’ (or 'suppliers'... or 'community members'...) - it exponentially drives the financial, operational and strategic success of the organization. Why? Because those very people are at the helm of the operational, strategic and financial success organizations want.

‘For someone on top of the world, the view is not exactly clear…’

Leadership is naturally where Love as a KPI starts (and where it ends). We as leaders should measure how loved people are as a consequence of an enterprise’s culture, actions, products, services, experiences, practiced values, operations etc
Do people experience being more valued, uniquely appreciated, validated, propelled into their purpose and potential, and called higher as a result of their interaction with a business?

The tenets required to build meaningful, enduring relationships in our personal lives (with friends, mentors, family members et al.) are the the very same tenets required to build enduring relationships with employees, customers and other stakeholders in business.

Love is the outcome of the perspective, posture and practice that prioritizes the true needs and betterment of another. Tt warrants a pivot that starts with a perspective shift, where we look at each goal or initiative from the lens: 'how can our strategy, goals or initiatives be a conduit to leaving the people impacted by it holistically better': be it developmentally mentally, financially, physically, ethically or otherwise.

Love does not mean the same thing to everyone - how is this premise implemented practically? Not everyone experiences being loved in the same way.

Everyone wants to be appreciated. Everyone wants to be valued. Everyone wants to be acknowledged. Everyone wants to be seen. Everyone wants to be loved.

However, the specific expression of love that would resonate and is potent enough to completely change life’s trajectory for one person at any a given time could be quite different from what would be required for another.

I believe how people are 'left' after interacting with a business is the real bottom line. The balance sheet or a signed employment letter is only part of the story. By how businesses are leaving people, I mean what is the mental, emotional, physiological, psychological state businesses leave the human beings that interact with it?

And where does it then go? How might that state influence

…their interactions with fellow commuters later that day?

...how they engage with their family when they return home?

...their disposition towards the first person they interact with at the next business they go to?

... their view of themselves?

There is often a missed connection between how we see people and the outcomes we want in business. Two things are of significant consequence to nearly all outcomes in life and particularly business - how people see and treat other people, and how people see and treat themselves. How we 'see' another (also colored by how we see ourselves) spills over to how we treat one another.