Meaningful Meetings With Maria Romano: The ROI of Love and Respect

A long-time entrepreneur and minister who has officiated at many weddings shares what leaders can learn from love, empathy and effectively designed ceremonies to maximize the impact of recognition in the marketplace. For proof of the benefits, look at the success of practicing total quality management in manufacturing.

Incorporating the Principles of Love in the Workplace
For Proof of the ROI—Look at Total Quality Management

Click here for links to information about EEA engagement solution providers.

In today's fast-paced business world, success is often measured by numbers and results. But what if the key to truly sustainable success lies in a different metric—love?

Click here to stream the show via video or podcast on the Enterprise Engagement Alliance Purpose Leadership and Stakeholder Management channel. The show is hosted by Enterprise Engagement Alliance Founder Bruce Bolger and co-host Jaki Baskow, Founder and CEO of Baskow Talent.

Based on her own entrepreneurial experiences and role as a minister, Maria Romano’s signature talk, "The Power of Loving Your Way to the Top," delves into how leading with love, empathy, and kindness can transform not only your personal life but your professional success. Drawing from her unique journey as a pioneering female business leader, minister, and as a both an officiator at weddings and a grief counselor, Romano shares how love can be a powerful catalyst for building high-performing teams, fostering client loyalty, and driving unparalleled results. It starts, she says, with the mutual respect essential not only to successful marriages but to successful organizations.

Before undertaking her speaking career, Romano says that she ran the first woman-owned car rental firm to gain a license to operate at Las Vegas’ airport, which at its peak achieved $17 million in annual sales based on over 120,000 transactions a year. Being in the hospitality market, and later serving as a minister focused on both helping couples celebrate their marriages and helping older women cope with loss, she says, awakened her to the power of love in business and the underlying respect that entails.

Incorporating the Principles of Love in the Workplace

Her key topics include:

How to incorporate love and empathy into leadership while enhancing performance through respect.
The secret to building teams that are not just effective but inspired.
Practical steps to transforming your client relationships into lifelong partnerships.

She says her work experiences made it clear to her that “we need a lot more empathy and love in the workplace, because every business is in the hospitality industry if you think about it. If people don’t feel loved and respected in the workplace, chances are they won’t love their jobs, which of course will affect how they treat customers and colleagues.”

These principles, she says, apply to any size or type of organization.

What does her vision mean in practical terms? The essence of love, she explains, “is fundamental respect for oneself and for others. We all need to be treated with kindness. If we are not loved, it’s difficult to express love.”

Explains Baskow Talent’s Baskow, “I’ve been doing my work for almost 45 years. I love waking up in the morning, putting people to work. When I ran a company with a lot of employees, I liked to leave little notes of appreciation or gifts on their desks, or just let them go home early on a quiet afternoon. I love the interactions involved with customer service. I think that one reason that customer service is so bad is because people don’t love what they do. Whether it’s picking up trash, serving as a CEO or a secretary or whatever job one does is important. Having a great attitude in the morning and going to work in a positive frame of mind, embracing your company’s mission, and seeing what you can do to make things better makes a difference.”

It's particularly easy to detect unhappiness in her line of work, adds Baskow. “One day a client might be very kind, respectful and supportive, and then on another day, cranky or difficult. It’s much more difficult to produce good work for someone who is disrespectful and dismissive...The reason that employees don’t express love is because they don’t feel love. They can be laid off in a minute. They are treated like they’re a commodity. They could have worked for a company for 30 years and still feel ignored.”

Stresses Romano, creating a culture of love and kindness starts at the top. “The CEO really must believe in it...When you have a team working effectively together, they feel seen and heard, but you also have to pack their parachutes properly. People need the right tools and training to get the job done. If you don’t pack the parachutes properly, they won’t open and you know what happens next.”

Most importantly, she asserts, “great leaders listen.” She recommends that when attending update meetings with their teams, leaders should generally wait until all others have spoken before they speak up.

For Proof of the ROI—Look at Total Quality Management

So what is the return on investment of love and respect in the workplace? For an example, Romano cites the work of W. Edwards Deming, the total quality management evangelist from the 20^th century, an unanticipated source related to justifying the impact of love in the workplace.

She recounts that in the last century, the German quality guru Deming was hired by Toyota to help with the development of the Camry. Based on the success of the Camry, he was hired by Ford to help with the Taurus but did not achieve the same results. Respect played a major role, she explains, because while Toyota gave almost every worker on the assembly line the autonomy to shut it down in case of a problem, Ford at the time would only allow a manager to shut down the line. (To this day, there is not one US car in the Consumer Reports list of the top 10 most reliable cars. And, while strikes are legal in Japan, they are rare compared with the US, which recently experienced a costly and vitriolic walkout.)

Romano says that properly designed exercises at events can help drive home the principles of love in the workplace. “The idea is to find an activity relevant to your purpose, goals, and objectives that involves everyone equally in a specific task or game.” This enables people to directly experience how different temperaments affect their own performance, she notes, in a way that everyone in the group can experience together.

Be creative, she urges. Look for relevant activities that support organizational goals and don’t be afraid to have fun, provided the activity reinforces the purpose of the event.

Baskow recommends looking for keynote speakers who enjoy interacting with the group off stage. Rather than just the usual book signing, she suggests, ask speakers for their suggestions on how to make their story and vision more personal for event attendees. “Not every speaker likes to do that,” she adds.

ESM Is Published by The EEA: Your Source for Effective Stakeholder Management, Engagement, and Reporting

Through education, media, business development, advisory services, and outreach, the Enterprise Engagement Alliance supports professionals, educators, organizations, asset managers, investors, and engagement solution providers seeking a competitive advantage by profiting from a strategic and systematic approach to stakeholder engagement across the enterprise. Click here for details on all EEA and ESM media services.

1. Professional Education on Stakeholder Management and Total Rewards

Become part of the EEA as an individual, corporation, or solution provider to gain access to valuable learning, thought leadership, and marketing resources to master stakeholder management and reporting.
The only education and certification program focusing on Stakeholder Engagement and Human Capital metrics and reporting, featuring nine members-only training videos that provide preparation for certification in Enterprise Engagement.
EEA books: Paid EEA participants receive Enterprise Engagement for CEOs: The Little Blue Book for People-Centric Capitalists, a quick implementation guide for CEOs; Enterprise Engagement: The Roadmap 5th Edition implementation guide; a comprehensive textbook for practitioners, academics, and students, plus four books on theory and implementation from leaders in Stakeholder Management, Finance, Human Capital Management, and Culture.

2. Media

ESM at EnterpriseEngagement.org, EEXAdvisors.com marketplace, ESM e–newsletters, and library.
RRN at RewardsRecognitionNetwork.com; BrandMediaCoalition.com marketplace, RRN e-newsletters, and library.
EEA YouTube Channel with over three dozen how-to and insight videos and growing with nearly 100 expert guests.

3. Fully Integrated Business Development for Engagement and Total Rewards

Strategic Business Development for Stakeholder Management and Total Rewards solution providers, including Integrated blog, social media, and e-newsletter campaigns managed by content marketing experts.

4. Advisory Services for Organizations

Stakeholder Management Business Plans; Human Capital Management, Metrics, and Corporate Sustainability Reporting for organizations, including ISO human capital certifications, and services for solution providers.

5. Outreach in the US and Around the World on Stakeholder Management and Total Rewards

The EEA promotes a strategic approach to people management and total rewards through its e-newsletters, web sites, and social media reaching 20,000 professionals a month and through other activities, such as:

Association of National Advertisers Brand Engagement 360 Knowledge Center to educate brands and agencies.