Design Love In: How to Unleash the Most Powerful Force in Business
Marcus Buckingham
Harvard Business Review Press (April 2026)

“Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else.” Margaret Mead

In 2002, Jackie Huba and Ben McConnell published a book in which they explain how to create “customer evangelists.” With only minor modifications, the material can help to create help other stakeholders who are also determined to share the “good news” (from the Greek word “euangelion “) about your organization.

Years ago, Southwest Airlines’ then chairman and CEO, Herb Kelleher, was asked why his airline was more profitable than all of the nine other major airlines COMBINED. “We take great care of our people. They take great care of our customers. And our customers take care of our stockholders.”

It is no coincidence that companies annually ranked the most highly regarded and best to work for are also annually ranked among those most profitable, having the greatest capital value in their industry segment. It is also noteworthy that the results of major surveys of employees indicate that, when asked what is of greatest importance to them, most respondents ranked “feeling appreciated” first or second.

Marcus Buckingham has already published several bestsellers and  Design Love In is certain to be another. In it, he shares the most valuable lessons he has learned about high-impact leadership, management, teamwork, communication/cooperation/collaboration, personal growth, and professional development.

In First, Break All the Rules (May 2016),  Buckingham discusses the results of a Gallup study that focused on eighty thousand great managers who broke so many rules of conventional management wisdom. “They didn’t treat every employee the same. They didn’t identify and then correct people’s weaknesses. They played favorites. And no, they didn’t think you could ever get too close to your people.” Moreover, “the best managers in the world saw each person as unique, and all their strategies were, fundamentally, an effort to capitalize on this uniqueness.” He agrees with Margaret Mead.

Buckingham suggests that, within a workplace culture, love  consists of five sequential element, best viewed as feelings:

1. Control
2. Harmony
3. Significance
4. The Warmth of Others
5. Growth

He discusses each in Chapter 3.

These are among the business subjects and issues on which Buckingham focuses his and your attention.

o How and why experiences drive behaviors that drive outcomes
o Compare and contrast loving with unloving
o Developing a workplace culture within which everyone feels safe, welcome, significant, appreciated, and achieving personal growth and professional development
o Developing teams that manifest those cultural values
o Developing customer relationships with those values
o Three disciplines that will help you design experiences that people love
o Four tools for Loving Experience Design
o Ten non-negotiables for building a DLI company

In order to “unleash the most powerful force in business,” a very special type of leadership is needed at all levels and in all areas of the given enterprise. I agree with Lao-tse’ who suggests in Tao Te Ching:

“Learn from the people
Plan with the people
Begin with what they have
Build on what they know
Of the best leaders
When the task is accomplished
The people will remark
We have done it ourselves.”