Why human connection is so important right now

Organisations thrive when everybody speaks up. Businesses are better positioned for success and ready for challenges when your team feels safe to ask questions and offer their input, opinions, or concerns without fear of reprisal. There are several reasons why employees might remain silent, though in 2020, with so much unprecedented change, life is a little more complicated. Your team might feel their work environment, now completely virtual, doesn’t allow much opportunity for open discussion or speaking up, and they may even fear the cost of showing how they really feel.

Just like in life, our working relationships form on first impressions when we unconsciously scan a boss or colleague and the interaction to assess whether we can trust their credibility and competence. Today, with the additional challenge of a global pandemic, much uncertainty, and widespread remote working, why should leaders focus on creating stronger human connections across their teams?

Removing the emotional masks to build connections.

During times of upheaval and change, many of us revert to previously learned behaviours and hide our true feelings to avoid others’ judgment. As Paul Laurence Dunbar writes, ‘we wear the mask,’ which profoundly disconnects us from one another. Do we know how our team is feeling? How are they coping with this new world?

Today, with so many of us remaining physically apart and relying solely on texts, calls, and video chats, we find ourselves in a new territory where our relationships lack a strong human connection. We’re no longer able to read the social cues that often prompts banter and informal discussion across the workday. We’re a little less sure of what’s acceptable socially in the virtual workplace. If it’s harder to be connected socially and the social norms aren’t defined, we’re less likely to feel safe and comfortable enough to be ourselves. So we put on an emotional mask, and many of us are suffering as a result.

Recently, via a LinkedIn Poll, I asked what people noticed about how others are managing their emotions/stress levels. Results showed that 57% of respondents believed people are imploding, i.e., depression, sadness, 20% were unsure of how people felt, and 15% said folks are exploding, i.e., anger and blame. Only 9% believe others are happy and resilient. This confirms that there’s a lot of anxiety, and we truly need each other. Symptoms of imploding create a pressure cooker for stress, which plays out in our relationship engagement.

Now, more than ever, as leaders, we must look for ways to extend our human connection beyond our screens and devices to offer psychological safety and promote resilience within teams.

Share your feelings; the good, bad and the ugly.

Creating connections in a remote working environment is much more challenging than in a physical office. We might appear more task-oriented; there might be less spontaneity in our zoom calls and more structure to projects. How are you as a leader, promoting vulnerability, personal sharing, small talk, and feelings? What role do you play in helping to remove the emotional masks your team members might be wearing?

Start with yourself. Recognise the signs of negative stress and identify your coping strategies. Do your team members exhibit any of these behaviours too? They’re looking to you as a guide and a model of how to behave, so consider being more open to what you’re thinking and feeling to encourage others to do the same. Sharing details and feelings about your journey may help others become more likely to open.

Spill the beans, share and accept the good, bad, and the ugly feelings all at once, offering some positive and authentic optimism to balance the conversation.

If you’ve hired a new team member in the last six months, chances are you haven’t met them in person yet. Your relationship has been formed off zoom calls and messaging, with little face-to-face interaction or ample time for you both to let your guard down. Client or supplier relationships are the same; without human connection and rapport, there’s a danger of it becoming commoditised. If a relationship is based on task and efficiency and lacks inherent knowing and trust, empathy and humanity are absent.

Creating connections in the online space places extra responsibility on us to be more proactive, self-aware, and emotionally intelligent. How did you build rapport in the workplace pre-pandemic? In what ways can you adapt those encounters to create a stronger bond with your team? Thinking outside the box and making positive human connections during this challenging time will serve to see your business succeed. Instead of retreating, you can leverage this time to form tighter bonds, build more trust and come out of the pandemic stronger and more resilient than before. I offer positive psychology and resilience based programming that focuses on making your employees thrive and help realise their full potential.

Contact me for a chat on how our coaching services might be able to help your business navigate these challenging times.