What if the most powerful force in business isn’t strategy, innovation, incentives, or even leadership itself?
What if it’s love?
In this powerful episode of Passion Struck, John R. Miles sits down with Marcus Buckingham, one of the world’s leading researchers on strengths, leadership, and human performance, to explore a revolutionary idea: love as a business force is far more than a feel-good philosophy—it may be the single greatest driver of human flourishing, customer loyalty, employee engagement, and long-term performance.
Drawing from decades of research and the insights behind his new book, Design Love In: How to Unleash the Most Powerful Force in Business, Buckingham explains why the experiences people describe as extraordinary, transformative, and unforgettable all share one thing in common—they are experiences people love.
Far from being a soft concept, love becomes a measurable force that shapes behavior, strengthens relationships, fuels resilience, and creates lasting organizational success. Together, John and Marcus unpack how leaders can intentionally design experiences that help people feel seen, valued, connected, and capable of growth.
The result is a compelling blueprint for human flourishing in an increasingly disconnected world.
Why Marcus Buckingham Believes Love Is the Most Powerful Force in Business
The central idea behind Marcus Buckingham’s latest work emerged from a simple observation: when people describe the most meaningful experiences of their lives, they often use the same word. Whether they are talking about a mentor, a team, a company, a product, or a life-changing moment, they describe those experiences as something they love.
Rather than dismissing that language as sentimental, Buckingham began treating it as valuable data. If love consistently appears in people’s descriptions of their most positive experiences, perhaps it deserves greater attention from leaders. His research ultimately led him to a powerful conclusion: love is not separate from performance. The experiences people love are often the same experiences that inspire loyalty, resilience, engagement, advocacy, and growth.
This perspective challenges many traditional assumptions about business. Organizations often focus on processes, systems, and incentives, yet the experiences that leave the deepest impression are those that make people feel understood, valued, and connected to something meaningful. According to Buckingham, those are the experiences that drive flourishing, and flourishing is what drives sustainable success.
The J-Curve Effect: Why Extraordinary Experiences Drive Extraordinary Results
One of the most compelling ideas discussed in this conversation is the J-Curve effect, which challenges the belief that better experiences automatically create proportionally better outcomes.
Buckingham’s research suggests that average experiences rarely change behavior in meaningful ways. Incremental improvements may make an experience slightly better, but they often fail to create the emotional connection necessary to inspire loyalty or commitment. The real shift occurs when an experience becomes exceptional—when it creates a feeling that people remember, talk about, and actively seek out again.
This insight has profound implications for leaders. Rather than investing enormous energy into optimizing average experiences, organizations should focus on creating extraordinary moments that strengthen relationships and build trust. Those moments become the foundation for customer loyalty, employee engagement, and long-term performance because they create an emotional connection that goes far beyond satisfaction.
The Five Feelings That Turn Ordinary Experiences Into Extraordinary Ones
At the heart of Buckingham’s framework are five sequential feelings that shape experiences people ultimately describe as ones they love: Control, Harmony, Significance, Warmth, and Growth.
The journey begins with control, because people need clarity and a sense of agency before they can fully engage. It continues with harmony, which reflects the feeling of being understood emotionally rather than simply managed. Significance follows, reminding us that every person wants to know their story matters and that their unique contributions are recognized.
Warmth builds on that foundation by creating a sense of belonging and connection. Finally, growth completes the experience by helping people feel more capable, more confident, and more prepared for whatever comes next.
Together, these five feelings provide a practical framework for creating experiences that strengthen trust, deepen engagement, and foster human flourishing. They also reveal why the experiences we love most are often the ones that help us become more fully ourselves.
Key Highlights from this Episode on Design Love In
- Why love drives loyalty, engagement, and performance
- The hidden flaw in traditional business metrics
- The power of emotional harmony
- What great leaders understand about experience design
- The five feelings behind extraordinary experiences
- The connection between significance and flourishing
- Why does growth come last in the process
- How to create more meaningful interactions at work and in life
Why This Conversation About Love as a Business Force Matters Today
At a time when organizations are struggling with disengagement, burnout, declining trust, and growing disconnection, many leaders continue to focus on systems, metrics, and incentives as the primary drivers of performance. Yet despite unprecedented advances in technology and efficiency, people are searching for something deeper: meaningful experiences that make them feel seen, valued, and connected.
In this conversation, Marcus Buckingham challenges conventional thinking by arguing that love as a business force is not a soft ideal but a measurable driver of loyalty, engagement, growth, and human flourishing. His research reveals that extraordinary experiences—not average ones—are what inspire people to do their best work, build lasting relationships, and remain committed to a shared mission. For leaders seeking to create stronger teams, better cultures, and more meaningful lives, this conversation offers a powerful blueprint for designing experiences people truly love.
Design Love In: Marcus Buckingham’s Blueprint for Experience-Driven Leadership
Marcus Buckingham’s newest book, Design Love In, expands on the ideas explored throughout this conversation and offers leaders a practical framework for creating extraordinary experiences.
At the center of the book is the belief that leadership is fundamentally about experience creation. Every interaction leaves an impression. Every conversation shapes perception. Every meeting, policy, decision, and customer touchpoint influences how people feel about an organization and their place within it.
Buckingham argues that too many leaders leave these experiences to chance. By intentionally designing experiences that create control, harmony, significance, warmth, and growth, leaders can strengthen loyalty, improve engagement, and create environments where people thrive.
The goal is not simply to improve business outcomes, although those outcomes often follow. The goal is to create the conditions where people can flourish and perform at their best.
In a world increasingly focused on efficiency and automation, Design Love In serves as a reminder that meaningful human experiences remain one of the most powerful competitive advantages available to any organization.
The Founder’s Flame and Why Great Organizations Lose Their Soul
One of the most compelling ideas Marcus Buckingham explores is what he calls the founder’s flame—the vision, purpose, and conviction that inspired someone to create an organization in the first place. Long before there were customers, employees, or investors, there was a belief that something meaningful could be brought into the world. That original energy often shapes the culture, values, and experiences that make an organization stand out.
When people feel deeply connected to a company, they are often responding to that founder’s flame. Organizations such as Apple, Disney, Chick-fil-A, and Zappos built loyal communities not simply because of what they sold, but because of what they represented. Customers felt connected to a mission, a story, and a set of values that gave the experience greater meaning.
The challenge is that growth can gradually pull organizations away from that original purpose. As companies become larger and more complex, processes, metrics, and efficiency often take center stage. Leaders become focused on scaling operations, while the experiences that once created loyalty and emotional connection receive less attention.
This is where Buckingham introduces one of the most important lessons from the episode: the opposite of design is not undesigned—it is drift.
Drift occurs when leaders stop intentionally shaping the experiences people have with their organization. Over time, customer interactions become transactional, employees feel less connected to the mission, and the culture begins to lose the qualities that once made it distinctive. The founder’s flame doesn’t disappear overnight; it slowly fades when no one is actively protecting it.
For Buckingham, the organizations that endure are the ones that remain connected to their purpose while continuing to create experiences that help people feel seen, valued, and inspired. In an increasingly competitive world, that human connection may be one of the most enduring advantages a company can possess.
The Mattering Effect and the Search for Human Significance
One of the strongest connections between Marcus Buckingham’s work and John R. Miles’ upcoming book, The Mattering Effect, is the idea that people flourish when they feel seen, valued, and significant.
Throughout this conversation, Buckingham repeatedly returns to the importance of helping people feel that their story matters. Whether in the workplace, at home, or within a community, individuals want to know that who they are and what they contribute makes a difference. This desire sits at the heart of significance, one of the five feelings in his framework.
The connection to The Mattering Effect is clear. When people feel invisible, disconnected, or interchangeable, engagement and well-being begin to suffer. When they feel recognized, valued, and appreciated, they become more connected to their work, their relationships, and their sense of purpose.
Viewed through this lens, love as a business force becomes more than a leadership philosophy. It becomes a practical approach to creating environments where people experience belonging, contribution, and significance. Those experiences strengthen not only performance but also the deeper human need to know that we matter.
How to Apply Love as a Business Force in Your Own Life
One of the most encouraging aspects of Buckingham’s framework is that it does not require a leadership title to put into practice. Every person has the ability to shape the experiences of those around them.
A useful place to begin is by paying closer attention to the interactions that fill your day. Before a meeting, consider how you can create greater clarity and control. During a conversation, focus on understanding what someone may be feeling before trying to solve a problem. Look for opportunities to recognize another person’s strengths, acknowledge their contributions, and help them feel seen.
You can also strengthen warmth by creating moments of connection and belonging, particularly in environments where people often feel isolated or overlooked. Finally, consider how your interactions can leave others feeling more capable, confident, or prepared than they were before.
These actions may seem small, but they accumulate over time. They influence trust, strengthen relationships, and shape culture. More importantly, they create the kinds of experiences people remember long after the interaction itself has ended.
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Guest Bio – Who Is Marcus Buckingham?
Marcus Buckingham is a world-renowned researcher, bestselling author, and one of the leading voices on strengths, leadership, and human performance. During his career, he co-created the StrengthsFinder assessment and helped millions of people discover and develop their unique strengths.
He is the author of numerous influential books, including First, Break All the Rules and his latest release, Design Love In: How to Unleash the Most Powerful Force in Business. Buckingham currently serves as Head of People and Performance Research at the ADP Research Institute, where he continues to study what helps individuals, teams, and organizations flourish.
The Business Secret Nobody Wants to Talk About: LOVE | Marcus Buckingham on YouTube Now!
Learn More and Connect
👉 All episode links, my books You Matter, Luma, and The Mattering Effect, The Ignited Life newsletter, and the Start Mattering store are here: linktr.ee/John_R_Miles
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Catch Jaime Bronstein on How to Manifest the Love of Your Life
FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)
What Is Love as a Business Force?
Love as a business force is Marcus Buckingham’s idea that the experiences people describe as extraordinary, meaningful, and transformative are often the same experiences they describe as ones they love. Rather than being a soft or sentimental concept, love becomes a measurable driver of customer loyalty, employee engagement, resilience, innovation, and long-term organizational success. According to Buckingham, organizations that intentionally create these experiences generate stronger business outcomes and greater human flourishing.
Why Does Marcus Buckingham Believe Love Is the Most Powerful Force in Business?
Buckingham’s research found that extraordinary experiences create disproportionate behavioral outcomes. When people genuinely love an experience, a leader, a team, or an organization, they become more loyal, engaged, productive, and committed. He argues that while many leaders focus on incentives and performance metrics, it is love that ultimately drives sustainable human behavior and organizational success.
What Is the Design Love In Framework?
The Design Love In framework is Marcus Buckingham’s blueprint for creating experiences that help people flourish. Introduced in his book Design Love In: How to Unleash the Most Powerful Force in Business, the framework teaches leaders how to intentionally design experiences that make people feel more seen, valued, connected, and capable. Buckingham believes every interaction—from meetings to customer touchpoints—can be intentionally designed to create stronger emotional connections and better outcomes.
What Are the Five Feelings That Create Experiences People Love?
Buckingham’s research identified five sequential feelings that appear in experiences people consistently describe as exceptional. These are Control, Harmony, Significance, Warmth, and Growth. Together, they form a practical framework that leaders can use to design customer experiences, employee experiences, and organizational cultures that foster trust, loyalty, and human flourishing.
What Is the J-Curve Effect in Business?
The J-Curve effect explains why average experiences rarely produce meaningful behavioral change. Many organizations assume that incremental improvements will create proportional gains in loyalty or engagement. Buckingham’s research suggests otherwise. Most behavioral change occurs only when experiences become extraordinary. Those exceptional experiences create dramatic increases in customer advocacy, employee commitment, resilience, and performance.
Why Is Significance So Important to Human Flourishing?
Significance addresses a fundamental human need: the desire to feel seen and valued. Marcus Buckingham argues that every person wants to know that their story matters and that their unique strengths are recognized. When leaders create experiences that communicate significance, they strengthen engagement, trust, belonging, and commitment. Significance becomes one of the key building blocks of both personal fulfillment and organizational success.
How Does This Conversation Connect to The Mattering Effect?
The themes explored in this conversation align closely with the principles behind John R. Miles’ upcoming book, The Mattering Effect. Both frameworks emphasize the importance of helping people feel seen, valued, and connected. Buckingham’s five feelings—particularly significance—provide a practical roadmap for creating experiences that reinforce a person’s sense of worth and contribution. Together, these ideas suggest that people flourish when they know they matter.
How Can Leaders Apply ‘Design Love In’ in Their Daily Work?
Leaders can begin by recognizing that every interaction creates an experience. Whether conducting a meeting, sending an email, coaching an employee, or interacting with a customer, leaders have the opportunity to create more clarity, emotional understanding, significance, connection, and growth. Small experiences accumulate over time and ultimately shape culture, trust, loyalty, and performance.