Slacker Manager

Management: A Labor of Love?

by David Zinger on September 5th, 2007

To love or not to love, that is the question.

Labor day was on Monday. Now it is back to work for the week. Are you just laboring along or is management a labor of love? How do you feel about the following equation (labor = love)? Is it a dream of new age management flakes or an essential requirement for full engagement and effective management? Is your heart in your work or is it just another day on the rock pile?

If you love what you do it hardly feels like working. Do you labor with love or do you feel as disengaged as the following haiku poem by James Rogauskas:

In my cubicle I sit;   envying the dead    Two hours left to go.

I believe you can’t always do what you love but you can always bring what you love to what you do. If you love baseball perhaps that knowledge and understanding can influence your management or if you love flowers perhaps that can enrich your understanding of the workplace.

Erich Fromm in the Art of Loving stated that love was more of a discipline or art rather than just some sort of raw feel-good emotion. According to Fromm, love requires discipline, concentration, and patience.

How much discipline,concentration, and patience do you bring to managing?

What is your level of labor-love? Are you a:

• 10 (my work is my passion);
• 5 (work is okay);
• 1 (get me out of here)?

David Zinger

Photo Credit: Heart by http://flickr.com/photos/madolina/630262815/

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POSTED IN: management, management hack, principles, work life