Meaningful Meetings With Dr. Gary Chapman and Paul White Ph. D: Lessons Shared About Appreciation in Love and the Workplace
Dr. Gary Chapman
Paul White, Ph. D.
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The languages of appreciation apply equally to love and the workplace. Many people have difficulty expressing appreciation because they are unhappy, in many cases because they have never found a true purpose in life. The same forces that end marriages can also end organizations—taking without giving in return can produce results in the short-term but rarely leads to sustainable success either in love or business.The same qualities in people who have successful marriages also help foster success in organizational leadership.
Click here to view or listen to the show, or here for a 60-second clip that summarizes an essential point: it all comes down to attitude, whether in love or in business. Most tend to be among either those who genuinely wish to make life better for those around them or who are fundamentally out for themselves. It's your choice, he says.
These are just a few of the insights in the Enterprise Engagement Alliance Meaningful Meetings YouTube show featuring Dr. Gary Chapman, a Baptist pastor and marriage counselor, who first published The 5 Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate in 1992, and Paul White Ph. D., with whom he first published The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace: Empowering Organizations by Encouraging People in 2011. Updated in 2019 and 2023, this book focuses on how to effectively communicate appreciation in professional settings using the same five languages and has sold over 600,000 copies worldwide in 25 languages.
5 Love Languages introduces the concept of the five distinct ways people express and experience love: words of affirmation, acts of service, receiving gifts, quality time, and physical touch. Building on the foundation of The 5 Love Languages, Dr. Gary Chapman collaborated with Paul White Ph. D. to adapt these concepts to the workplace.
His insights were drawn from his years of experience counseling couples to help them better understand and meet each other's emotional needs more meaningfully. With the help of Paul White, the same principles are applied in the workplace to improve employee morale, retention, and overall workplace culture by ensuring that employees feel genuinely valued and appreciated.
The five languages of appreciation in love and the workplace are:
Words of affirmation: Expressing love through authentic compliments.
Quality time: Giving someone your undivided attention for a meaningful period.
Physical touch: Expressing and receiving affection through physical closeness and touch in an appropriate manner.
Acts of service: Doing things for your partner or colleagues that make their lives easier, like completing chores or doing something special that is unexpected.
Receiving gifts: Feeling loved when someone gives you a gift, not just for the monetary value but the symbolic thought behind it.
Here are highlights of some of the insights of the 30-minute show.
Dr. Gary Chapman
- People generally fall into two camps, those with a positive attitude committed to finding the good in people and life and those who primarily focus on themselves, rather than others. Those with positive attitudes have a much better chance at succeeding in love, marriage, and their careers, he believes, than those who focus on themselves, even though it often seems that nasty people can succeed in the short run.
- Many people are fundamentally unhappy because they have not found a defining purpose or meaning in life. This includes understanding that the deepest meaning is found in finding meaningful relationships and enhancing the lives of other people. These are the people who find the greatest happiness and satisfaction, who understand the power of appreciation, who have the greatest chance at success in marriage, and who make the best leaders.
- Despite the apparent dark mood in the country, Chapman is optimistic that as more people discover that serving others brings life's deepest meaning, we're going to see some good things happen in our culture. "That's what I'm hoping for.”
- Chapman emphasizes the importance of understanding the languages in which people value being appreciated, but it can’t be faked. Underlying the chances for success in marriage or business is “rooted in an attitude of love, in which one seeks to enrich the life of their partner rather than on focusing on selfish desires.”
- That the five languages of appreciation are universal is supported by the fact that 5 Love Languages has been purchased by nearly 20 million people and published in 50 languages. The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace has sold over 600,000 copies in 25 languages. “When I was first asked by a Spanish publisher to translate the book,” Chapman says, “I was hesitant because I didn’t know the principles would apply universally, but the publisher insisted.” Public demand is an indication of the book’s effectiveness.
- When it comes to the particularities of the languages of appreciation, there are of course differences in what acts of service, compliments, or forms of touch might look like given the culture, but the principles remain the same.
- Chapman draws a parallel between marriage and the workplace, suggesting that an attitude of love and a desire to enrich the lives of others can enhance relationships and productivity at work.
Paul White, Ph. D.
- Leadership comes down to attitude, just as it does in life, White says. There are many CEOs who disregard the importance of appreciation. They feel people should just be happy to have a job. These people can succeed in the short run but usually get tripped up in the end because they have developed little to no loyalty when it’s needed.
- Appreciation is not just a nice-to-have. Having a genuine culture based on meaningful appreciation has demonstrated economic benefits, but it cannot be faked. If the CEO does not have a fundamental appreciation for the importance of employees and other stakeholders, it will not propagate throughout the enterprise, no matter what the “program.”
- In the end, leaders (and people) choose their attitudes. “I can’t give you motivation or an attitude. People must be receptive.”
- Notwithstanding the universality of the five love languages, there appear to be distinctions in the distribution of types of appreciation in love and work by culture and generation, which is why it’s so important to correctly identify each person’s preferred language of appreciation. You can’t just ask someone how they wish to be appreciated. (White’s company, Appreciation at Work, will soon introduce the ability for people to periodically retake the assessment to see if they have changed.)
- Timing is everything. When White first introduced the workplace version of the series, he did not generally receive pushback to the concept of appreciation, despite the “warm and fuzzy” nature of the concept. In fact, he says, the approach was disruptive in that a lot of the world of rewards and recognition was focused on gifts. Those with a positive attitude about people immediately understand the importance of appreciation and that it requires an underlying system in order to produce sustainable results.
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