I believe business first and foremost is relational. Think or imagine what you do daily – everything in business touches a person, a relationship.

There is a silent thief running free and loose in many businesses today. He doesn’t make much noise – but sure steals a lot from you. All that is needed to help perpetuate this silent thief is to do nothing. Who is this silent thief? Neglect! Neglect of important relationships in your business – employees and customers primarily. What you don’t take care of, you may very well lose. Neglect is very damaging in your important relationships. Your business may be like a spinning gerbil wheel, but the thief doesn’t care. The
longer you let relationships go, the harder it’s going to be to fix.

Let me ask you a question, “What’s important to you about Valentine’s Day? I ask that question at times when I speak and usually the majority of the responses I get are “romance.” What is important about romance to you? Of course romance means different things to different people but to some of the groups I speak to it means: attention, time spent being fully present, respect, thoughtfulness, interest, listening with the intent to hear, understanding, significance, acceptance and love.

Make an emotional investment by romancing each and every employee, customer, prospect, supplier, person who calls or drops into your location, etc. Treat and have each employee treat every person they speak to or see as if it were Valentine’s Day each day and the other person was the most important person in their life. The fruit of a Valentine’s Day mindset daily in business is: heightened productivity, greater efficiency, increased sales, greater understanding, improved morale, less stress, less absenteeism, less sickness, more joy and cooperation in the workplace. Your business will create greater value causing sales to soar.

Are there times in business where you feel you and others you are communicating with are speaking different dialects? I believe the universal dialect is ‘LOVE’. Everyone is, regardless of their language, able to understand love. Go and speak to them in this dialect.

Put in a different context, many problems experienced in business today, I believe, are the result of an orphan spirit in the workplace as well as the lack of a true godly, supernatural fathering spirit. Where the orphan spirit exists and the fathering spirit is absent relationships disintegrate.

This fathering spirit is characterized by unconditional love, exhibited by our Heavenly Father Himself, as He gave freely His son, Jesus, to redeem and accept fully mankind. This highly desired spirit needed and wanted in the workplace is contrasted by what is mostly seen and exhibited today – a heart that is self centered, self-absorbed, self-serving and puts itself above all others. The fatherless spirit exists when business owners, executives, supervisors and managers “abandon” those under their charge in the workplace by focusing and centering themselves on their own needs and desires at the expense of others.
The lack of a true, godly supernatural fathering spirit promotes the orphan spirit in the workplace. Several characteristics of the orphan spirit usually witnessed in the workplace are:

• Obsession with self
• Inaccurate perception of the value of both themselves and others
• Compulsive drive to succeed at all costs
• Insecurity accompanied by the need to control others
• Inability to handle rejection properly, feeling they are most always rejected by others and they will be rejected by others and they deserve to be rejected
• Critical, judgmental spirit
• Uncontrollable anger

Several root words describing the fathering spirit are: a nourisher, protector, upholder, comforter, exhorter, one called to another’s side, aid, and advocate.

Question: what is the most valuable asset in each business?

It is my opinion that for many years the most valuable asset in any organization – the employees – have been reappraised downward or devalued by fatherless owners, executive management, supervisors and managers. I believe God is telling us that one of the ways to improve the economy and individual businesses is to unleash the “fathering spirit” in each business as well as to romance all relationships in the business. This is truly the strong stimulus package each individual, business and the economy needs.