Heart Centered Business: Healing from Toxic Business Culture So Your Small Business Can Thrive
Mark Silver
Wildhouse Publications (October 2023)

“People won’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” Theodore Roosevelt

Perhaps I have gone down a rabbit hole of semantics but I really do have some issues with the title and subtitle of this book. I agree with Mark Silver that many (too many) organizations have a toxic workplace culture. They are unhealthy. He provides an abundance of information, insights, and counsel that can help their leaders to “heal” themselves as well as those organizations. Phrases such as “heart centered” and “heart driven” may have some value in terms of marketing (i.e. attracting attention, creating or increasing demand) but I think other terms such as emotional intelligence (EQ) are more accurate and offer better opportunities for addressing the given issues. Also, the reference to “your small business” fails to accommodate the fact that almost all of what Silver recommends (with only minor modification) can be helpful to almost ANY organization, whatever its size and nature may be.

Silver focuses his attention on these subjects and related issues, each having the prefix HOW TO:

o Have a healthy relationship with business
o Clarify and strengthen your relationship with money
o Earn others’ respect and trust in your business acumen
o Successfully complete the first two stages of business development: Creation and Concentration
o Successfully complete the third and forth stages of business development: Momentum and Independence
o The dos and don’ts of profitable and principled business
Note: At its best, marketing is truth well-told.
o The “three journeys” of marketing: becoming known, nourishing those waiting, and supporting referrals
Note: One of the most important goals is to create customers who are among your “evangelists.”
o The “top five surprising heart qualities”
o The ten elements of a thriving business
o Making and keeping a heart-felt commitment
o Embracing the multi-dimensional journey to sustaining success of both profits and principles

Silver wrote this book because, over the years, he has developed his thoughts as well as his feelings about how to achieve profitable success in business while being guided and informed by principles of impeccable honesty and integrity.

This is precisely what Robert Greenleaf has in mind (in an essay published in 1970) in which he affirms the importance of what he characterizes as servant leadership: ” “The servant-leader is servant first…It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. That person is sharply different from one who is leader first, perhaps because of the need to assuage an unusual power drive or to acquire material possessions…The leader-first and the servant-first are two extreme types. Between them there are shadings and blends that are part of the infinite variety of human nature.”

It is no coincidence that companies annually ranked among those most highly admired and the best to work for are also annually ranked among those most profitable and have the greatest cap value in their industry segment. That is not a coincidence. However different they may be in most other respects, all of the high-impact companies have a healthy workplace culture ulture.” within which personal growth and professional development are most likely to thrive. They create employee evangelists who in turn create customer evangelists. Long ago, Southwise Airlines’ then chairman and CEO — Herb Kelleher — was asked to explain why his company had more profits and greater cap value than all of its primary competitors…COMBINED. His answer? “We take great care of our people. They take great care of our customers. And our customers take great care of our shareholders.”

Look at your company, as Silver suggests, as a living organism. How healthy is it? What are its vital signs? All of the major studies of employee satisfaction indicate that, when asked what is of greatest importance to them, most rank [begin italics] feeling [end italics] first or second. How many of your employees feel appreciated? Gallup’s latest studies indicate that, on average, about 30% of employees in U.S. companies are actively and positively engaged; all others are either mailing it in or actively involved undermining the success of their company. How actively and productively engaged are your employees?

Mark Silver has written a “must read” book for all business leaders and I mean those who have supervisory responsibilities. I also highly recommend it to others now preparing for a career in business or who have only recently embarked upon one.  And now, here are two concluding suggestions: Highlight key passages and have a lined notebook near at hand while reading Heart Centered Business. Record your comments, questions, and page references as well as your responses to questions and issues raised by the material as you work your way through it. These two simple tactics will facilitate, indeed expedite frequent review of important insights later.