Mutual empathy is a powerful connector that is made possible by the mirror-neurons in our brains. These neurons act like an emotional Wi-Fi system. When we feel the emotions others feel it makes them feel connected to us. When we feel their positive emotions, it enhances the positive emotions they feel. When we feel their pain, it diminishes the pain they feel. If someone expresses emotion, it’s okay, and natural, for you to feel it.
This post begins our series entitled “100 Ways to Connect.” The series highlights attitudes and behaviors that help you connect with others. Although the attitudes and behaviors focus on application in the workplace, you will see that they also apply to your relationships at home and in the community.
#1 Develop the Courage to Connect – It requires courage to make the effort to connect because not everyone will reciprocate. You may hold out your fist to invite a “fist bump” only find you are left hanging or you may say “hi” to a passerby and receive no response. When our efforts to connect are spurned it triggers “social pain” in our brains (the part of the brain that feels physical pain becomes active when we are left out of a group or our efforts to connect with someone are turned down). That’s why it’s necessary to be prepared by knowing that not all people will connect with us. In such cases, we need to recognize that we made the effort and had the courage to do so. Of the three core elements of a connection culture, this practice reflects “Value,” which is also known as “human value.”
Update: It’s been a busy beginning to the summer. I just returned from speaking at conferences and teaching workshops in Chicago, Dallas and New Orleans. People in attendance at the workshops represented a wide variety of organizations including Allstate, AAA, Blue Cross Blue Shield, FINRA, the U.S. Government Services Administration, Leo Burnett, Liberty Mutual, Northern Trust, and United Airlines. Recently, I also spoke with Jim Blasingame on his radio program entitled The Small Business Advocate. You can hear recordings of topics we covered during the conversation at the links below:
Who feels the most stress in the workplace?
After American and British troops took control of the beaches on D-Day, they got stuck in France’s hedgerow country. Sergeant Curtis Cullen, a former cab driver from Chicago, came up with an innovation that General Omar Bradley, commander of America’s First Army, credited with helping to liberate France. Watch the video to learn about this extraordinary story of innovation and the leaders and culture that made it all possible.
Are you working in a “culture of connection” where you feel a sense of connection to your supervisor, your colleagues, your day-to-day job tasks, and your organization’s mission, values and reputation? A connection culture is life-giving as compared to a culture of indifference or culture of dominance that drain the life out of you. To learn more, check out the video interview I did with Michelle Pokorny of Maritz Motivation following the keynote speech I gave at the Recognition Professionals International Annual Conference in New Orleans.
It’s been said that attention is oxygen for relationships. That’s why it’s important when meeting with an individual, to develop the habit of being present by staying focused on him or her and giving your full attention. Be engaged and curious by asking questions and then ask follow-up questions to clarify. Listen carefully to words and observe facial expressions and body cues. Pause before you respond to make certain he or she has finished. Don’t check your smart phone, don’t look at your watch, don’t look around the room or let your mind wander. Develop the habit of being present during conversations and you will soon see how it improves your relationships and influence.
Update: Engagement Strategies Magazine just featured an article we wrote entitled “Do Leaders Need to Make Employees Happy?” This week I had the pleasure of giving a keynote speech on employee engagement at the Recognition Professionals Association’s annual conference in New Orleans. Later this month I’ll be speaking on inclusion and innovation at the Dallas Convention Center as part of the American Society for Training and Development’s International Exposition and Conference. We will also be exhibiting at ASTD so if you’re attending, please come visit us.
Why do people react so strongly when they don’t have a voice in decision-making? Research suggests there is a rational biological basis for this reaction. It comes down to this: feeling that we have little or no control is detrimental to our health.
The famous Whitehall studies in the U.K. established that there was an inverse relationship between level of hierarchy, power, control, status and cardiorespiratory disease/mortality rates in members of the British Civil Service. More recently, a group of researchers found that participants in a Harvard Business School program for leaders had lower stress (as measured by cortisol levels and self-reported anxiety levels) versus people in the local community who didn’t manage others. The researchers also found that leaders with more powerful positions had even lower cortisol and self-reported anxiety. Here is a link to the published research and to a New York Times article about it entitled “It’s Easy Being King.”
John Sexton, the president of New York University, is been aggressively expanding NYU at home and abroad. Now the faculty of NYU’s largest school, Arts and Sciences, have scheduled a no-confidence vote on Sexton. An article in yesterday’s New York Times entitled “A Test of Leadership at NYU,” described the no-confidence vote as coming about because dissident faculty felt Sexton was acting like a maverick CEO. How did this happen? It appears that Sexton’s mistake was failing to give faculty a voice in major decision-making and failing to address their legitimate concerns such as increased teaching loads that require travel abroad and the impact of the expansion on student-teacher ratios. “Voice” is one of the three elements in a Connection Culture (the others are Vision and Value). When a leader fails to give people a voice in decisions that affect them, he or she runs the risk that some people will organize and seek to have the leader replaced. This article describes that scenario. Note in the article that one astute observer comments: “had more faculty been involved in the process…few if any professors [would be actively opposing Sexton].”
Recently, I’ve sensed more people feel lonely and left out at work. With years of layoffs, those who remain carry greater workloads. This crowds out time to connect with colleagues. Managers are also stretched and have less time to connect with the people they are responsible for leading. When I ask people at the seminars I teach which element of a Connection Culture — Vision, Value or Voice — they would like to increase in their workplace culture, it’s nearly always Voice. One result of this is that there has been a decline of connection, community and the spirit of unity in organizations.
Organizational missions are inspiring when they communicate how an organization brings truth, beauty and/or goodness to the world. For example, organizations in research or education help bring truth to the world (e.g. biotech companies, universities, schools). Organizations that produce goods or services reflecting aesthetic or artistic beauty or functional excellence bring beauty to the world (e.g. organizations that produce goods or services reflecting a high level of quality, advertising and design organizations, entertainment organizations). Finally, organizations that help improve the wellbeing of people, bring goodness into the world (e.g. healthcare, consumer products or leisure and entertainment organizations).
Citibank’s recent television commercial is a great example of an organization communicating a mission that inspires. The ad shows some of the projects that Citi helped finance including the transatlantic cable, the Marshall Plan to rebuild a post-World War II war-torn Europe, and the Space Shuttle Program. Now those are some accomplishments to be proud of and collectively they have brought greater truth, beauty and goodness into the world.
Seeking and considering the opinions and ideas of others reflects the character strengths of wisdom and humility. Today’s world is complex and rapidly changing so that we need to hear the perspectives of people who have had different experiences and who possess different thinking styles. Doing so helps improve the likelihood we will make optimal decisions.