Love of the work

"Love of the work" is a human capacity that, in the Learning Circle, represents a desire and passion to continue our work.

Pertaining to OpenAgile
Love of the work is one of the capacities which Team Members must practice as it is the prerequisite capacity for planning. It is our Love of doing our work which drives us to plan our next steps and then, with Courage, plunge into action.

A demonstration of Love of their work or, by implication, a passion for learning is the very reason that team members are invited to participate in newly forming teams. OpenAgile teams are collaborative, oriented towards excellence, and consider Love of work or learning one of their cornerstones. This may be easy to understand in the context of its opposite: hate. If an individual hates their own work, then the work results are going to be poor, that person will be resistant to learning and improvement, and their receptivity to guidance is greatly diminished.

"Love of the work" and "Love of learning" are seemingly interchangeable and both phrases are used throughout OpenAgile's training materials; this is perhaps representative of the general assumption that an OpenAgile practicioner's work is to learn.

Pertaining to the History of the Learning Circle
It may be interesting to note that the Learning Circle's early versions explained that "Love" is the prerequisite to planning. Articles written about the four capacities within the learning circle stated things like:

"In order to [plan] effectively, we must develop and exercise the capacity for Love – love for the act of learning." "Love: The capacity for Love of the learning supports the Planning step. Love creates openness to Guidance. Love engenders vision, passion, and a sense of purpose." We can see in both citations that "Love" is used and subsequently clarified with "the love of learning". It is apparent that the broad term, "Love", often raised discussion and was perhaps too ambiguous for newcomers to OpenAgile to readily accept. It is clear however, that "Love" is the label intended by the Learning Circle as Love requires empathy and therefore is that which encourages us to embrace the other two OpenAgile Foundations:
 * Truthfulness: a commitment and a desire to be fully understood by and to fully understand others
 * and Consultative Decision-Making: a commitment to accept others' input and to trust the team's plan for future action.

In late-2010 it appears there was a slight change made to the Learning Circle by Garry Berteig and "Love" was replaced with "Love of the work". Almost simultaneously, Josh W was using his own rendition of the Learning Circle (here at Prezi.com)wherein he included both "Love" and the phrase, "for the act of learning"; he later edited his rendition to include both clarifiers: "Love of the Work" and "for the act of learning".