Loyalty Fundamental to Human Relationships

James Kane made the keynote at the Legal Marketing Association 2012 Annual Conference from the behavioral science perspective about loyalty. The subject, he said, is about relationships, all relationships.

Relationships are built along four states. The first state – antagonistic – is the foundation, and comes from our survival response and the need to quickly determine if a relationship is one in which we belong or must reject to stay alive.

The second state is transactional – the stage where what you give to the relationship is perceived as a duty or responsibility instead of something that comes from authentic feeling. The third state is predisposed – these are relationships you currently have and feel no need to change. Final stage is loyal – it’s a human condition, a behavior, an emotion. This is where you will get opportunities. This state is also about forgiveness and about advocacy.

Kane said the word loyalty has been hijacked – in the middle ages by poets, was about duty to king and queen, county. Recently, about brands – but studies say loyalty has nothing to do with products, rewards programs – not really about frequency of consumption, that’s a bribe. It’s not about satisfaction, said Kane, loyalty is a completely different thing.

Your clients are satisfied, perhaps, and they will pay you and give you more work, but they may not need to be loyal to perform those acts. Satisfaction is a mood. Loyalty is an emotion. Satisfaction is about the past. Loyalty is about the future. Satisfaction is about what you do for them. Loyalty is about what they do for you.

Kane said humankind expanded across the globe because we learned to live in social commuinites and communicate. Because members of these communities needed to know that they could trust one another, that they could “put my life in your hands”, our brains learned how to figure out who we can trust  because the moment we arrive in this world we need another human being.

The emotion of love has almost an identical brain response as loyalty. There are stages of love/loyalty.

1. it’s initially about attraction, familiarity – it’s contextual, based on what we know or want to be
2. second stage is passion, because we need to defend the choice we made, this is when the person needs to hear good things, to reassure their choice
3. next phase is pair-bonding, allowing relationship to remain over time 
4. loyalty = “you make my life easier” (more efficient), “you make my life better” (fulfillment)

Easier is not a hard hurdle to get over, better is a much higher bar and is about not having to make a new choice. There is a difference between choice and control – choice we want, control we need. Kane said the fact is people don’t want a lot of choices, they just want to have some control over those choices.

Loyalty is composed of trust, belonging, purpose. Trust is about competency, character, consistency, capacity. The way to build trust is to make sure your promises and their expectations are aligned. Trust is an expectation you need to manage. We all think we should get great credit for doing things that are just basic expectations.

Purpose is composed of vision, fellowship, commitment.

Belonging is do I feel connected to someone

1. stage one is recognition – do you know who I am, for example, how well is your receptionist prepared for the arrival of your client
2. stage two is insight – knowing with the problem is
3. stage three is anticipation – do something I didn’t ask for, solve a problem before I ask
4. stage four is identity – how we mingle with the world you occupy
5. stage five is is inclusion – not us vs them :”WWIC – why wasn’t I consulted”

Kane concluded by pointing out research shows conclusively that all our relationships want to be loyal to us, want to feel included, wanted and valuable. Loyalty proceeds from enabling these components to flourish.