Listen up out there — there are millions of dollars to be had and untold amounts of success, productivity, innovation, and satisfaction that goes untapped and sabotaged daily. Let’s pretend you are a leader in a large corporation. Or, maybe you’re a manager or supervisor of people. Heck, let’s just say you interact with other people on a daily basis as part of your job. My guess is that means most of you can relate.

Ball and ChainI’ll skip my 1000 words of venting and get to the heart of what I see that is most troubling to me in the workplace that directly impacts everyone’s ability to experience abundance. Treating other people as the human beings they are and tapping into our ability to be compassionate with one another. That’s it, that’s the secret and the simple (yet seemingly elusive) missing link in everyone having more abundance (financial and otherwise).

You might wonder how this translates to the bottom line in your company or even your own personal bottom line. I will get there in a second, but first let me share several stories from just the last week that I have either experienced firsthand or heard from trusted friends.

Imagine this one. You work for a several hundred billion dollar company. One of those companies touted to be so great to work for. Your inexpensive computer monitor is going on the fritz and your job requires that you stare at it and do detail work all day, so you ask for a replacement. The answer? Sorry, we don’t have any budget for that but we can give you a tiny, really old, even worse than what you have monitor to use. So, while the execs will get 5 and 6 figure bonuses in a month or so, they can’t afford a few hundred dollars so you (their supposed value employee) doesn’t go half blind. How inspired are you in this situation? Are you just dying to give your all to your job day in and out?

Here’s another. One of your co-workers recently lost her father. It is her first day back to work so you and another co-worker get some flowers to put on her desk to make her feel some love and care as she returns to work. As you’re trimming those flowers so you can put them in a vase, a high level director (who is SUPPOSED to be in a role focused on helping employees, the double irony of it all) pushes past and starts bitching and moaning to get out of his way. He continues to rant about how he needs his coffee, you’re in the way, and we’re not running a floral business here so get back to work! As one of these compassionate employees (or one of those in earshot), how does this make you feel?

One more vignette for you to ponder…One of your employees falls on the ice and breaks her elbow. She is unable to type and is in pain so she is out on sick leave. You call her constantly at home asking questions and saying “can’t you come in and type with one hand or a few fingers??”. We’re talking a staff level employee making very small amounts of money to do office grunt work. Is there a reason we have to ignore the person who is actually in pain and not wanting her elbow to be broken? What makes people wail outrageously in such an absurd way?

In the January 22, 2007 issue of Business Week the cover story is “Revenge: The power of retribution, spite, and loathing in the world of business”. A subarticle called “Grudges in the Cubicle” states that when asked “do you guys engage in revenge?” respondants said “Oh no, we’d never engage in revenge.” Yet, when asked differently – if they ever tried to get even with people, they said “all the time”. What’s the difference? Who’s fooling who?

Now, I’m not talking about the big scenarios where employees seek revenge or do unethical things. I’m not talking about Enron level misdoings that need to be dealt with in a formal and serious way. I’m thinking about how fragile the relationship between employee and employer and employee to employee is every single day. When situations like those I share above happen over and over again, people feel used and not valued. There’s only so much people can take when they feeling like they are being kicked in the pants. We all long to be seen, feel like we matter, and that those around us value us at least on some level. Maybe they don’t “like” us, but they respect us as the human being we are.

When you feel lousy about a relationship, how much do you invest in it? Are you trusting? Do you go the extra mile? Do you care? Or, do you just go through the motions the best you can because at your core you are totally spent. The bottom line is you’re simply trying to get through the day so you can pay the mortgage; running on EMPTY from the repeated beatings and negative environments you have to traverse each day. As I wrote in “The Power of Negative Thinking” the power and downward spiral can be deadly. Are you aware of how you personally feel?

So, what does this have to do with money you ask? I don’t have hard figures. But, I do have questions that will get you thinking. And, for those in leadership positions of organizations, ponder on them twice – once from your own perspective and once from that as the organization as a whole.

  • What is the cost of this sort of behavior and its resulting ripple effect to your well-being and that of your organization?
  • What could be possible for your life and your company if you and those around you showed up 100% willing to trust, be human, and focus their energies on working together, not getting even?

We are each leaders and it starts on the inside — how we treat ourselves and how we treat others. I’ll take that a level deeper and say that how we think and feel about others also impacts how we show up and how we relate even if it is not readily visible. While we all have a job to do and a contribution to make — why not approach the journey from your human-ness? See the person behind the roles and treat them as you would a young child (in terms of compassion) and an infinitely capable adult (from a capability standpoint). You have no idea the exponential impact that is possible. You might just find it opens a path to greater riches.