What touches the human spirit are the ways in which we build connection, interact with one another, and build systems that nourish everyone in the process. In these complicated times, a simple truth remains.
We need each other.
This truth remains present in organizations. However, too often organizations break down into functional silos that separate or frustrate one another, or worse, pit one department or individual against another.
As leaders, it’s our responsibility to craft the ways in which all the people within the organization can depend on one another as we work towards common goals. We do this through networks.
Monica Worline and Jane Dutton define networks, the third component of compassionate architecture, as “webs of relations and affiliations that connect people and carry information, emotion, and energy through their structure, shape, and quality.”
Compassionate leaders seek to grow the quality of connections among their team, peers, partners, and communities. Information, energy, and emotion are all present within our workplaces, and how we create and manage the flow of these forces makes a big difference.
As you think about enhancing the networks within your organization, here are several areas to focus on:
1. Model high-quality connections yourself
As a leader, people are always looking to you as an example. Think of how many people you interact with each day. In each of those interactions lies the opportunity to listen with authentic curiosity and interest. As people come to you for wisdom, guidance, or decisions to be made, allow yourself to be open and appropriately vulnerable.
Often leaders become unintentional gatekeepers. We withhold information until we feel ready, or hold the intention of making big decisions all on our own. However, choosing to share responsibility and control with trusted partners allows information and energy to flow with ease and deepens relationships.
2. Embed regular practices that promote connection
Networks help us harness the power of connection. In many organizations, meetings and exchanges are transactional. Networks help organizations shift from solely focusing on the required transactional work to experiences where people can also connect on a personal, human level.
What would it look like or sound like in your organization if people were answering the question, “How are you?” with a genuine response.
With intention, we can move beyond masked answers and bland icebreakers to create space for authentic connection. Author and researcher Zach Mercurio studies the science of mattering. He posits the beginning of helping people build positive connection is empowering others to remember they are first worthy of connection. It is a compassionate choice to notice, be curious, and pay attention to one another first as human beings.
He also suggests simple switches:
Instead of asking “How are you?” make a slightly different inquiry,
“What kind of day have you had?”
or
“What has your attention right now?”
When people feel they are seen and heard, it is easier to bring in elements of play and fun. Joy is an essential part of the human experience, and yet we can erase it with an exclusive focus on strategy or outputs. Joy helps us achieve our outcomes more easily and with less suffering.
When was the last time you felt you felt joy or had fun at work?
As you get curious, ask the question, “Fun at work for me is like …” and see how people answer.
What opportunities are there to bring those who have similar answers together? Where can the organization benefit from their responses?
Some teams come together monthly for experiential activities to cultivate more joy and play. One team we know does an “And now for something different” hour where employees present on passion projects or what they are learning outside of work. Other teams have members contribute to shared playlists, or create systems to measure laughter or the number of smiles they get from customer exchanges. Repetition can help build space and time for intentional connection, which will deepen the quality of those networks.
3. Create inclusion networks that are themselves networked to promote the opportunity for high quality ties.
Knowing each of us experience the world differently, it is essential to create norms that promote respect for one another and sanction behaviors that are disrespectful to others. The aim is to foster workplaces where employees not only are encouraged to support each other, but also to speak up to protect others and the culture you are trying to create with pride. Inclusion and belonging at work are vital for compassionate organizations.
When people feel respected and connected to others, empathic concern increases in positive ways. To improve inclusion networks, compassionate leaders find ways to create spaces where everyone has opportunities for high quality ties to a number of others.
Some organizations promote affinity groups, resource groups, or interest groups along a wide range of different dimensions. It’s easy to stay in our proverbial bubbles at work. And with remote / hybrid workplace challenges, leaders know how much extra care and attention it requires to help people feel connected to one another.
In Harvard Business Review’s recent article “We’re Still Lonely at Work,” Constance Noonan Hadley and Sarah L. Wright offer several antidotes to counter separation and loneliness. They state that “Embedding social activities into the regular flow of organizational life signals their importance and increases the chances that everyone will participate.”
4. Get Started
As you consider the three strategies above, Worline and Dutton again offer a few questions in service of noticing that can help you examine the strength of the networks at your organization:
How can we deepen the quality of our connections?
How might we invite more people and groups into networks where they feel others are concerned for their wellbeing?
How might we cascade our concern for people’s wellbeing across networks in the organization?
How might we share information about suffering and distress across more of the networks in the organization as part of activating more noticing of compassion at work?
What do your answers reveal?
We believe we are stronger together. Compassion calls us closer to one another. As you remember that we need one another, what are the opportunities for you to increase connection as energy, information, and emotions flow through your spaces? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
For deeper reading on this topic:
Awakening Compassion at Work: The Quiet Power That Elevates People and Organizations
by Monica Worline and Jane E. Dutton. Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2017.
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