Is safety making us lonely?
An old boss used to say "never be fragile, Christine".
It's great advice that I try and live by. But it's rather out of fashion.
Just this week people have told me they avoid asking any personal questions at work, for fear people might be offended. Another said she doesn't know her colleagues enough to trust them anymore so chooses to say as little as possible.
We've optimised work for individuals and somehow killed the joy of it. Often with the intention of creating a sense of safety that ironically doesn't come with that kind of distance.
This week the vlog is about my forced move to a small, muddy village. Despite having always considered living within seven minutes of a zone two tube station to be one of life's non-negotiables.
To my great surprise, it's not the disaster I expected. In fact it has many of the qualities of the world of work pre-2020:
Bumping into people
Chatting
Mutual support (Also a WhatsApp group so contentious you could sell tickets to it)
The question is what we do about building connection in a world designed for safety. The answers are what I am working on. With thanks to everyone agreeing to interviews at the moment.
This weeks three ideas to build more connect are:
Take your own headphones out first (who knows, it could be contagious)
Send someone a note in actual handwriting (maybe not me, you wouldn't be able to read it)
Don't cancel that networking event that your curser is hovering over. If you're not out there, you'll never know what you missed...
I'm working on a piece about how we reintroduce robustness (within reason) as a quality we want at work. Your robust thoughts are as always welcome...
Enjoy!
Christine
