How We Can Connect While Working From Home
by Andrew Downing
The Progress Coaching Blog: Connectivity in the Workplace
Most managers believe that sharing a physical workspace increases our ability to communicate and connect. They believe that being together will increase our interactions and allow us to use body language cues and mirroring to better understand each other.
But the world is changing, and with it, our understanding of how people connect. We must stop relying on old communication methods and work on developing skills of the future. In the virtual world, we cannot rely on body language and mirroring. Instead, we must develop our listening skills, shed our unwillingness to show vulnerability, and take advantage of genuine opportunities to connect.
Most of us are so used to putting on our professional demeanors while at work, we have learned to hide our true emotions. We feel sad, but we act normal. We are angry at a co-worker, but we learn to "play nice." We've developed these professional personas to protect us and create a safe workplace. At the same time, we are taught to read and accept emotions at face value, which means there's a divide between what we're taught and what actually happens. We see someone smile and think they're happy. We see someone working like usual and assume they are okay. But what we see does not always correlate with what's actually going on in someone's life.
Being in the office doesn't stop this disconnect from happening, and neither does working from home - but the basics are the same. No matter where you work or how you are communicating, opportunities to connect are there. The most important thing we can do is vigilantly look for openings to be vulnerable and use them.
For example, the other day, I was talking to a co-worker while doing virtual training. We asked about each other's weekend, and she told me that her family gathered to remember her grandma, who had passed away a year earlier. At that point, I had two paths. Down one path I could tell myself an excuse to give a simple reply, dismissing her comment and moving on. The other path was much more difficult, where I would try to make an emotional connection by being vulnerable. I could have told her about someone close to me that passed away and how great I think it is that her family made time to be together and remember her grandma.
Unfortunately, I took the first path, the easiest one. I'll give myself a break. You don't have to take advantage of every situation, just the majority of them. I'll do better next time. But the opportunity was there...and no matter where we are working from, they will always be there. You just have to notice them.