200: The Business of Friendship – Why Personal Connections Should be Encouraged at Work with Shasta Nelson on the TalentGrow Show with Halelly Azulay
/
Employees who have a best friend at work are seven times more engaged than those who don’t. What’s behind this staggering statistic? And why are workplace friendships still considered objectionable by many? On this episode of The TalentGrow Show, I chat with author, keynote speaker and leading expert on friendship Shasta Nelson about how to cultivate a healthy approach to friendships in the workplace and reevaluate harmful taboos on the topic. According to Shasta, the workplace, by default, provides a fertile ground to grow meaningful connections, and leaders should be encouraging this potential in our teams. Learn healthy relationship skills to benefit your entire workplace, discover the three requirements at the foundation of every relationship, and find out what you can do as a leader to help spark positive friendships in your workplace and maximize engagement seven-fold. Plus, get Shasta’s advice for staying connected in today’s ‘epidemic of loneliness’ brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic! Listen and be sure to share this episode with friends.
ABOUT
Shasta Nelson is a leading voice on reducing loneliness and maximizing healthy personal and professional relationships, a keynote speaker, and author of new book, The Business of Friendship: Making the Most of the Relationships Where We Spend Most of Our Time.
WHAT YOU’LL LEARN:
Why friendships at work benefit both the employees and the employers (5:49)
Shasta explains the first of her three requirements of every relationship, consistency-- which is actually the easiest to achieve at work (8:35)
An overview of all three requirements of every relationship (10:04)
Halelly voices common objections to fostering close friendships at work, and Shasta describes her model for building healthy relationships at work (14:00)
Why it’s a bad idea for leaders to discourage friendships in the workplace (17:08)
We are in an ‘epidemic of loneliness’-- Shasta shares statistics that highlight the importance of feeling more connected, and discusses the impact of the current COVID-19 pandemic on the issue (18:54)
The number one factor for employee satisfaction is enjoying our coworkers (21:40)
What can leaders do to encourage positive friendships in their workplaces (22:25)
Halelly shares an exercise that she uses in her workshops to help build connections (24:16)
Why leaders especially need to pay more attention to their friendships (27:01)
What’s new and exciting on Shasta’s horizon? (29:36)
One specific action you can take today to ratchet up your workplace relationships (30:36)
RESOURCES:
Get Shasta’s book, The Business of Friendship: Making the Most of the Relationships Where We Spend Most of Our Time.
Check out Shasta’s website
Connect with Shasta on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and LinkedIn
Listen to Episode 182 of The TalentGrow Show with Shelly Gable for more on positivity, and to learn about Active Constructive Responding
Episode 200 Shasta Nelson Transcript
TEASER CLIP: We know that right now, 61 percent of us are reporting lonely. We’ve gotten medical doctors and sociologists and mental health professionals calling this an epidemic. To feel lonely is worse on your health than smoking, being obese, it’s worse than not exercising, does more to your health than what you’re eating. This is the biggest issue. How you answer the question, “How loved and supported do I feel,” tell us more about your health 10-15 years out than any other question we can ask you, including about your DNA. This is really, really, really, really significant. The studies are so compelling, and I feel like when we’ve got 61 percent of us reporting lonely, that’s doing incredible damage on an individual and collective health level, happiness level, and the more stress we have in the world – hello! – the more connected we need to feel. Right now it’s not happening that way, so this is a really, really big issue that we need to be leaning into, not pulling away from.
Welcome to the TalentGrow Show, where you can get actionable results-oriented insight and advice on how to take your leadership, communication and people skills to the next level and become the kind of leader people want to follow. And now, your host and leadership development strategist, Halelly Azulay.
Welcome back to the TalentGrow Show, TalentGrowers. I’m Halelly Azulay, your leadership development strategist here at TalentGrow, the leadership development company that I started back in 2006 to develop leaders that people actually want to follow. Today we have a topic that is a little bit out of the ordinary and I am so excited about this episode, this conversation. The only thing I’m not excited about is that I had to stop it because of my stupid 30-minute rule that I keep adhering to even though I keep complaining about it. But I think of you and how much time you have and I know that your time is limited as well, so my goal is always to give you the best insights and actionable tips and things you can use right away, while also managing how much time you need to invest in it.
So, I hope that you enjoy my conversation today with Shasta Nelson about the importance of friendships at work. Lots of reasons, lots of statistics that she shares are pretty earth-shattering, and I think this is something that lots of us don’t realize is a need, but when you think about it and you listen to Shasta today, you’re going to see that this is something that is not only really important to pay attention to, but also really doable. You can do this. So, I look forward to hearing what you thought about this episode and your feedback and other things you’re thinking about as a result or what else you want me to cover afterward. But without further ado, let’s listen to my conversation with Shasta Nelson.
What is the equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes a day or being a lifelong alcoholic or more harmful than not exercising or twice as harmful as obesity? Well, it’s actually not having friendships. I am glad today to help you with understanding why friendships are important with my guest Shasta Nelson. She’s a leading voice on reducing loneliness and maximizing healthy personal and professional relationships. Shasta is a keynote speaker and author of the book that just was released, The Business of Friendship, making the most of the relationships where we spend most of our time, and that’s at work friends. So, welcome Shasta to the TalentGrow Show.
Thank you so much Halelly. What a privilege to be with you.
I’m really glad you’re here. I think this is a topic … we talked a little bit back in the green room about how a lot of people either don’t think about it or don’t give it any attention or don’t give it importance. And you have a really good case for why we should change that. Before we get into it, I always ask my guests to describe their professional journey. Really briefly, where did you start and how did you end up where you are today?
I actually started as a pastor, if you can believe it. I look back and can see why that pulled me in, because the idea of creating community and people coming together regularly and building that sense of support in a community, I loved that element of it. Then from there I kind of went into coaching and from there I just keep seeing this need of how do we build community today? When we’re not flocking to churches, not flocking to synagogues and tabernacles and we’re not flocking to the bowling alleys and the leagues and all these different places that we used to participate and kind of gather around, so many of us are lonely. My question really became, how do we build deeper, more meaningful connection today, in this world and this life, and so I’ve been on that for 12 years, just writing and speaking and kind of naming that loneliness and speaking to what we actually do with it. To your point, most of us don’t walk around naming that loneliness. Most of us are not quick to feel it. We call it boredom or we call it, we’re too busy and we call it sadness or whatever, but we don’t really always actually identify the loneliness, because we think, “I have friends. I know people. I’ve networked and I’m actually exhausted by people and I'm tired of small talk and I’ve been around people all day.” And we don’t actually realize that what we’re hungry for is really being seen in a deeper way, and that most of us aren’t doing that in a way that actually feels as fulfilling as we want it to.
I am very guilty of that I used to think that way too. It’s not that I didn’t value friendships, that I just didn’t intentionally value friendships. They just seemed to be there or not be there and they happened naturally and you take them for granted.
Totally.
But mindfulness about friendships is something that – a personal story that I don’t want to get into here – but it was related to when my dad passed eight years ago and the transition around his passing with my mom. I learned many lessons about that. But at work, we know friendships as something we do in our personal life, and that you come to work to “get the work done.” But you’re saying that friendships are not something to ignore or to shun but a necessity and in your book, you write that friendships at work benefit both the employees and the employers. I think we’re going to have to make the business case here – let’s do it!
This is an easy case to make, because the research is so strong. You start with Gallup organization, that 20 years ago – so two decades – they’ve been surveying and interviewing people all over the world as to what makes an employee feel engaged. One of their questions is, “I have a best friend at work.” They come right out and say, over and over and over, the best employees are the ones who answer yes to that. By best, we mean they are seven times more engaged – I hear that word and I think, “If they were just twice as engaged, I would be impressed.” But they are seven times more engaged, which translates to better customer service, calling in sick less, fewer workplace accidents, safer brainstorming and showing up with new ideas. They’re more eager to come into work on Monday morning. They’re more willing to step up and take on an extra project to help the team succeed. So when you look at what that translates to from a bottom line perspective, from a retention issue, from just your health build, your mental health of your employees, the well being, I mean, it just goes on and on and on.
I think one of the interesting things for me is I’ve been seeing that research. I’ve been in what you call the personal friendship space for the last 12 years, and so my first two books are all about friendship, and we didn’t even mention work really. It was just how to build friendship, how to make new friends, how to make deeper friendships, and I found myself two things really kept coming up for me. One is, why are no companies or organizations or businesses actually seeing friendship as a workplace issue, despite all the research? Nobody is actually looking for this or training for this or speaking to it. The other thing is I kept hearing from all the people that I would talk to, the one thing that they felt was the hardest part of their friendships is they didn’t feel like they had time. They felt like they were too busy and they didn’t feel like they could do the consistency that is required. To see somebody regularly enough to maintain that deeper bond. I just thought, this is brilliant, because work is the place that we see people consistently. Work is to adults what school was to us as kids – this is the place that would make that problem for each of us as individuals go away to some degree, and it benefits the organization. To me, I was like, “We’ve got to talk about this. We need to bring this out in the open and actually believe the research.”
It’s amazing. You’re right, we often don’t think about how much of our time we spend at work, just as a proportion of our life. And then seeing the same people over and over almost only happens at work, because that’s one of the things where we spend the time we have.
Exactly. One of the three requirements of all relationships – we can get into the other two here in a minute – but one of the three requirements is consistency. Which means we have to see each other on a repeated basis in order for us to log the hours and get to know each other. If your kids go to the same school, you might see them consistently there. If you live in the same neighborhood, if you have a roommate. Yes, there are other ways where we can kind of do that, but our only two choices for building consistency in our relationships is either join or participate in something where it’s already consistent – like work – or the only other choice we have is to create the consistency ourselves. It means initiating and scheduling and following up and making it happen again and then inviting them again and scheduling and organizing again. Those are the only two choices, is to look and say, “Where am I already consistent?” And build relationships there, and/or go and create that consistency yourself. Which means you have to choose to be the ongoing initiator, which can be done, but most of us aren’t taking that kind of energy and focusing it. It’s strategic and very smart and very effective to look and say, “Where am I already consistent?” Work is, for most of us, that place.
And in your book of course we’re not going to be able to name all of the research, but you’re research-based. I really appreciate that. And in your book, you do describe a lot of the research that shows why this is a productivity issue. This is an engagement issue. This is a customer service issue. It is not just a “nice to have.” You mentioned several things here. I don’t know if there’s anything more you want to say, but I want to give us some ideas about, let’s say we personally want to maximize healthy work relationships. What are some of the things that we can do that can help us do that at work? And that can help benefit the employees and the employers and the mission of the company?
I think from there, it’s a great segue to the other two relationships. When I studied all the things we’re studying when we look at what social scientists are studying when we talk about what builds trust or what makes for a healthy team or what makes me feel closer to one person over another? Who do I call my best friend and why do I call them my best friend? What makes for a healthy marriage? When we look at everything we’re studying out there, and when we’re studying these types of relationships, a couple of years ago I was trying to find, we’re all using different words, studying different things, it’s all different things, but what are the things we have in common in all of these studies? I identified three drivers of relationships, what I kind of call the three requirements. We have never, ever build a relationship without these three things being present – a meaningful relationship without these three things being present – and conversely, any relationship in our life that’s not feeling as healthy in our life or as good as we want it to, it’s because one of these three things is lacking.
I mentioned the first one earlier, and that’s consistency. That’s usually the hardest one for most of us, but in work, we have that logged in somewhat automatic for us, which is cool. The other two are positivity and vulnerability. So positivity means positive feelings. We have to have five positive feelings for every negative feeling in any relationship in order for that relationship to keep feeling healthy and good. And it needs to feel good for us to want to repeat it and have more consistency. So we’re not going to want to keep showing up and engaging and interacting if it doesn’t feel good. Positive emotions, examples would be what can we do to help build pride? What can we do to help celebrate each other? What are we doing to create hope? What are we doing that brings inspiration? How are we doing acts of kindness? What about laughter and humor? What can we do for compliments and gratitude? Empathy and validation. All of those are expressions and outcomes of positivity. We can always, always, always add more positive emotions. We should also try – I should mention – to decrease the negative emotions where we can, which sometimes means setting boundaries, apologizing, forgiving somebody, saying no. There are certainly things we can do to decrease negative, but we can’t always. Sometimes there are just stressors. There are pandemics. There are deadlines. There are disappointing sales numbers. Somebody is going to annoy you. There are always going to be the stressors, but positive emotion is one of the biggest requirements. This is the one that the teams score the lowest on. We can come back to that – interestingly enough, when I go in and do team assessments of these three requirements, positivity is most often the lowest of the three requirements. As easy as it sounds, not happening.
The third requirement is vulnerability. Vulnerability is where we feel seen, where we feel known, where we get to know some of our histories, our stories. In the workplace, it’s us feeling known for what we bring to the table. Strength, personality, it’s feeling honored for who we are, it’s the ideas we feel safe bringing. It’s feeling like we can bring our whole selves to work. We don’t have to hide certain things as much. It’s feeling like we’re accepted for who we are and we’re known and valued for that. So, it’s funny, that’s always the one that people are most hesitant – like why do we want vulnerability in the workplace? We picture people standing around crying about personal life, and truth of the matter is, your workplace, if you value diversity and inclusion, if you value creativity, if you value almost every single driver of the things we want more of in this world, comes from a place of where it had to start from vulnerability. So it’s really, really important for us to talk about not whether we should have vulnerability in the workplace, but how to do it appropriately and how to kind of train for it in meaningful ways. It’s what bonds us to each other.
It’s interesting, I see so many places where if that makes sense for you and it clicks, I also can imagine that the TalentGrowers as they’re listening can think of a million, “Yeah, buts …” I always kind of put on my devil’s advocate hat, because I can imagine. You say, “People change jobs more frequently now.” For example, just as one anecdotal reason, if I open up myself to them and then they leave and I have to create a new relationship and a new friendship or work harder to keep that one. So it could cause people to sort of stay guarded and not open up too much, because it’s too painful then to let go. That’s one reason. Another reason is, the whole PC – we definitely are seeing our whole culture is kind of in turmoil because of diversity and inclusion, it’s a two-edged sword. You want to make people feel seen and you want to show them your real self, and yet if you say something you’re thinking, you could be hurting someone or saying something that’s inappropriate, and so then you’re kind of guarded and careful with your words and that makes you not vulnerable. It’s like oy! Now I’ve talked for an hour [laughter]. What do you say?
I love it. Those are great. It’s helpful to picture these three requirements on a triangle. The very bottom of the triangle, the foundation, is positivity. It has to feel good. Then from there, the two sides of the triangle, the two arms that go up, one side is consistency and one side is vulnerability. All relationships start on the bottom of the triangle, and as they practice these three requirements, they move, some of them move up the triangle. What’s really helpful to what you’re talking about here is that the goal isn’t just to go in and be vulnerable with anybody and everybody and just kind of show up and do all of this stuff. The goal is to actually be, to train all of us, to actually have healthier expectations, understand what a relationship is and how to do it well. We know that the healthiest relationships are incremental and continue to escalate into slow and steady ways. What we want to go in and have a feel good, positivity, it makes us want to repeat that experience with somebody as we interact with them, get to know them a little bit more, so you see the consistency goes up and the vulnerability goes up and then it needs a feel good again and we want to repeat it and we share a little bit more and get to know them a little bit more. It needs to feel good again and those three things just keep spiraling.
At work, our goal isn’t to go in and be at the top of the triangle with every single person. It’s not okay to come in and be, “I’m an open book and here’s everything because we need vulnerability, so here it is!” No, not appropriate. The goal is to only be a little bit vulnerable as we’ve built a little bit of safety with that consistency. So that consistency is what helps us feel we can trust somebody or rely on somebody. It’s a commitment and pattern, the structure, the pattern we’ve developed as a team or at a workplace. What I would argue back to is that what we need to be doing is there are a lot of things that could go wrong. Absolutely. When I did the research for this book, I got all the rebuttals and all the fears and surveyed all the fears and I got all of that in. The last third or half of the book is all of the things of, “What about toxic people? What about romantic interests? What about being friends with the boss? What about fighting with your friend at work?” All of that got covered for sure. Because that’s really, really big stuff. I would say the problem is, we can say there are risks for sure, but if we just avoid the benefit of friendship – because we’re afraid of the risk – we are not getting all the benefits that we desperately need and we end up with a lonely culture. It’s not working for us. The way we’re doing it now is not leading to better, happier well-being and people feeling connected. And, I would say the more we talk about this, the better all those other things get. It’s not by ignoring it or avoiding it or being concerned about it. It’s by looking into it and saying, “Okay, what does happen in this situation? How can we deal with this?” And actually talking about it more. Because, you can look at a workplace and they can say, “We have a no friends policy,” and you can go in and say, “I have no friends here. Nobody else has any friends.”
Do they really?
Oh yeah. We could sit here and say, “We are uncomfortable with this. Let’s just nobody have friends.” But that doesn’t take away the risk of favoritism going away. That doesn’t take away the fact that nobody will gossip about you. All the things we say we’re afraid of with friendship don’t go away if we’re not friends. They probably get worse and we probably will have a healthier workplace if we actually teach and encourage and give permission and foster healthy friendships. That’s what actually minimize most of the things we’re afraid of.
And of course, it would also help people see different perspectives more and become more empathetic toward people who are different than them and all of the things that we struggle with would actually get better if we tried. I love it. You have to be courageous enough to take the risk. Things that are worth having are not going to come easily. Or risk-free.
And anytime you’re interacting with people, there is going to be risk. But we don’t sit there and say, “Because we might fight, we’re not going to get married,” or, “Because these kids might annoy me, I’m not going to have kids.” We say there’s something valuable about showing up and making these relationships, so we’ll deal with the stuff that comes. Let’s instead prepare, like, yes, there are risks. Yes, there are going to be disappointments. Yes, we’re going to have some awkward conversations. Yes, let’s do it. Because we know that right now, 61 percent of us are reporting lonely. We’ve gotten medical doctors and sociologists and mental health professionals calling this an epidemic. You started the show off with really great statistics that I hope everybody really heard. To feel lonely is worse on your health than smoking, being obese, it’s worse than not exercising, does more to your health than what you’re eating. This is the biggest issue. How you answer the question, “How loved and supported do I feel,” tell us more about your health 10-15 years out than any other question we can ask you, including about your DNA. This is really, really, really, really significant. The studies are so compelling, and I feel like when we’ve got 61 percent of us reporting lonely, that’s doing incredible damage on an individual and collective health level, happiness level, and the more stress we have in the world – hello! – the more connected we need to feel. Right now it’s not happening that way, so this is a really, really big issue that we need to be leaning into, not pulling away from.
With this huge, massive, accelerated shift to remote work that we’ve been experiencing these last few months because of the corona pandemic, it’s I’m sure not making any of this any easier. Plus, to make things worse, the youngest members of our workforce are actually the loneliest. You wrote some statistics about Millennials and Generation Z – they’re the loneliest generation, and not only that, but when they’re asked what’s important to them, their fear of being lonely is higher than their fear of losing a home or a job. So, it’s higher in value to them and they recognize this. What are we doing?
I would actually say, good for them. The truth is, that should be more important to all of us. When you look at really what makes happiness or health, this is the issue. One of the other studies that was really fascinating, Dr. Niven in his book about happiness, he looked at all of the happiness research and said, you know, we often think that this is hard to identify, what really makes us happy. He says it’s actually quite easy – 70 percent of our happiness comes down to our relationships. When you think about all the other things that make us happy, I’ll add that to 30 percent – that ideal body weight, that house, that car, that promotion – that’s all 30 percent of your happiness. So if you don’t have this relationship piece figured out, that is the bulk of your happiness. I would actually say the Millennials and the Gen Z, they are actually naming what is true for all of us, which is the most important thing. And they actually know that value. If we want to keep them in the workforce, keep them at a company, we know the thing that helps them feel loyal is not their job description. It’s their coworkers. It’s that feeling of belonging. That’s true for all of us.
There’s a big study that just came out last year by the Myers-Briggs company and they ended up surveying 110-plus different countries, 10,000 people, and they said the number one factor for employee satisfaction – I would have been impressed if this were just in the top five – but the number one factor was enjoying our coworkers. This ends up being more than the meaning we find at our job, the pay we’re getting, I mean, there’s a lot of other things we say are most important, but at the end of the day, most of us have had experience being at a dream job description and hating it because of one or two people or a yucky culture, and most of us know the experience of being on a team where we just love the people and we would stay even if it weren’t the perfect job. Our relationships really matter more than we sometimes admit.
The TalentGrowers, many of them are already leaders or preparing to become leaders of teams. You’re making a good case. What specific things can they do to make the reality different on their team, for their employees?
I want to talk in a moment, if we have time, about their own friendships as leaders, because that’s really important too. As leaders, I have a whole section in the back of my book that’s just resources for leaders and managers. All three requirements – positivity, consistency and vulnerability – I end each chapter with tips for managers and leaders. At BusinessofFriendship.com I also have resources. I have sharing questions for leaders to use with teams, I have videos they can show their teams, so I really, really am passionate about leaders helping foster this. I would just say the most important thing you can do in a nutshell is to talk about this. Actually give them permission to have friends, which means talking about the employee resource groups in your company, talking about all the different opportunities, highlighting events. When you see them talking to each other, make sure you walk by and say, “I love seeing you guys connecting.” Do everything you can. They’re going to think you’re going to come by and scold them. They don’t want to get caught talking or something. Our job as leaders is to say, “That’s okay. We want that.” To keep saying it, to keep talking about it, to giving that permission, to modeling it ourselves. Of course helping foster it. Knowing it’s in our care, that when we’re having – especially you mentioned the remote working right now – our employees, our team members, are probably not getting those five-minute interactions where they walk by each other’s desks right now. They’re not getting to sit down at a meeting and talk for a few minutes before the meeting starts. They’re just getting on that videoconference and that’s all they have. You have to put sharing and connecting as an agenda item in that videoconferencing. You have figured out the consistency piece by all of us connecting, but you have not figured out the vulnerability and positivity piece. We’ve got to build that into our Zoom meetings and videoconferencing and into our remote work.
It’s so great. I love it. I teach this too, even though I don’t base it on friendship reasons, but when you can connect with your employees as humans, and show them that you value and you’re curious about who they are as humans, you create a lot more of that feeling of connection and reciprocity that is baked into humans. We are social animals. We have the research to show it. We’re rigged for that. Our brains are looking for friend or foe, all the time. Giving signals of friend is something that helps people relax that threat response, that constantly being on the lookout for how are you going to ding me or what’s going to happen that’s a risk to me, and be able to function productively. It’s good for all of us but now it’s one more reason to do it. One exercise I often use in my workshops is I teach people to do a take five at the beginning of the meeting. On the agenda, just five minutes on the agenda, officially – this is not the thing we do to waste time for people who come late – but it’s the thing we all need to be present for where we check in with each other. Ask one simple, open-ended question like, “What are you excited about this week?” Or, “What was the best thing that happened over the weekend?” Just something to share.
I put a list of 35 of those questions together for managers, because I agree completely. We have to be fostering that. It’s what helps us. The definition of any healthy relationship is any two people or a group of people feel seen in a safe and satisfying way. We feel seen when we’re telling stories, when we’re doing that thing you just named. We want to have these conversations, because they’re not wasted time. They’re actually the thing that bonds us to that company and to that organization, ironically. We feel seen when we’re sharing stories. We feel safe when we’re doing it regularly, which is the consistency. This isn’t just some one-off thing or some weird, awkward thing. But we know it’s part of it, we know we’re part of a team, we care about each other, and so it happens regularly. And it feels satisfying because we end up saying, “Oh, I love hearing that.” We validate and we emphasize and we feel closer to each other and we say, “Thank you for sharing,” and that’s what leaves the team meeting thinking I’m glad I showed up. We aren’t just productive, but I was noticed. I was seen. I got to share a little bit. That really, really matters. We’re starving for that.
And it helps us discover points of commonality, which creates that feeling of we’re on the same time, we’re not opposites. Even when we are diverse in the sense that we’re different, from different backgrounds, now we see that we’re more of the same than different or we have things that are the same, which makes us feel – again – safe, to be vulnerable. So it does create that kind of upward spiral which we crave so much. I love it. On virtual meetings, and in virtual ways, we can still create that sense of connection and it’s purposeful.
Yes. We have to. Let me just come back to the leadership thing for a second, Halelly. I have a whole chapter in my book devoted to why I think leaders need to pay attention to their friendships themselves more, which is a really big deal to me. It’s probably kind of counter-cultural kind of stance to take, because we have kind of acted like, “I’m good with everybody else being friends, but I’m not okay with the manager being friends with somebody.” And we say, “Then they can be friends with other managers.” We have all of these buts and caveats. Changing jobs so frequently and this person gets promoted – we can’t be friends because now we’re in this position or now not be friends because now I report to you and now be friends … we just have to learn how to be friends, do it healthy, do it in a way that benefits the team, and I really make a strong case for this and teach how to do it, because when we look at the research, if we feel lonely, we have less empathy. We are less excited to be at work. We are less engaged. We feel more competitive. When you look down the list of all the things we do, why would we want our leader stealing any of that? Right now, we have like 69 percent of leaders feeling like nobody really gets them. Something like 56 percent of leaders report that they can’t really talk about their stuff with anybody at work. We’ve got really lonely leaders and it’s not serving us well. If there is anybody in our workforce that we should say, “We need them to have friends,” it’s our leaders. Because we need healthy people leading everybody else. I would really invite our leaders to look at how to do this in a way that benefits your own life, because we need you showing up big and whole and happy and engaged and when you have that, you’ll want and be able to help give that to others in a better way.
Amen!
I’m glad, because I know it’s kind of counter-cultural. I’m going to get pushback on it.
Well, TalentGrowers know I’m always complaining about my own time limit because there’s so much more I want to talk to you about, but I hope that it would create the beginning of curiosity. That they’ll follow up with looking at your website, it’s so full of all kinds of juicy research and resources and your book, so it’ll give them a chance to start talking about it. I’m going to ask you for one specific action that our listeners can take, but I would say a no-brainier would be to have the team listen to this episode after you heard it, and then have them listen to it on their own and come back and say, “Let’s talk about this during our next meeting. What did you think?” Get them a copy of your book and then do a book club and a discussion. There are so many easy ways you can get people to talk about this with resources. So, before you share that one specific action we always end with, what’s new and exciting on your horizon these days? What are you happy about?
Well, my goodness, I’m telling you, this book coming out is just the thing. If anybody has written a book, you know it’s a long time coming where you go from idea to proposal to writing to then getting this book out, so it’s hard for me to think about anything other than this book. I think if I were to say what’s exciting to me is that I’ve always been in the personal friendship space and I’m really excited about seeing if companies hear this and will say yes to this. Will they actually start saying, “We need to bring in a friendship speaker to this conference? We need to start paying attention to this. We need to teach and train and encourage.” I’m curious whether we’ll believe the research. I know this is an area we’d rather just avoid and just say it’s awkward, so many risks, but I really am curious to see if we can have this conversation. It’s a great conversation, but I think it’s going to lead to what the companies need and what our world needs. I really am curious around there and holding a lot of hope.
Good. I’m glad that you’re hopeful. I’m hopeful too. I would love to see more of this kind of a shift. What’s one specific action that TalentGrowers can take today, tomorrow, this week, to ratchet up either their own friendships or their own ability to enable friendships at work, whatever tack you want to take on it?
I love it. And I loved your previous ideas and I have a book study guide at BusinessofFriendship.com. Tons of resources there that would be actionable. If I were to say one specific thing, I would say – actually two. One, identify who are some of the names. Actually name some of the people you would like to get closer to, or the relationships you want to protect or maintain in your workplace and in your career. It could be even clients, but just kind of name them, because I think putting them on a post-it note, naming them, these are the people I need to be consistent with. These are the people I need to practice vulnerability with. These are the people I need to keep encouraging. I need to practice these three requirements with these people. I think just naming them helps us say, “Okay, so if this person is not in my video meetings all the time, I need to go and schedule time to be consistent with this person.” And if this person is in my top five or three or whatever, these are the people I want to make sure on social media I’m cheering for them and leaving comments and being positive and adding value to them. Just naming them gives so much information. Then I would just say the second thing, we can be more mindful of the positivity piece right now. There’s a lot of stress, a lot of angst, a lot of worry. What can we do to add gratitude to our interactions? What can we do to help inspire hope and cheerlead and to celebrate? With our teams, I think that would be huge. What gifts can I bring? What little things can I bring that just are a little extra bonus for people today? Maybe we just take time today to do something fun. I heard one leader, they sent a box of chocolates to everyone on their team remotely, and then they did a chocolate thing together on video call. Just fun. What can you do that helps bring your team together for something, that just brings a little bit of joy and laughter? We need more of that now, desperately.
It’s true. This episode will also pair well with episode 182, where I talked with Professor Shelly Gable about active, constructive responding. It’s related to the positivity. She has a specific way that is a better way to respond. When someone shares something positive with you, so that whole cheering and being in someone’s corner. Don’t worry about doing it right or according to Dr. Gable’s instructions – just doing something is better than doing nothing. And mindfully, like you suggested. Cool. I know people are going to want to learn more from you and about you. What are ways for them to stay in touch online, on social media, how best can people follow you?
The BusinessofFriendship.com has all the resources you need for the book and for this workplace relationships. I am also very active on Facebook. I do videos every week on You Tube. I’m on Instagram. So ShastaMNelson. You can find me pretty much everywhere. I love interacting and engaging. My website is ShastaNelson.com if you want to bring me in as a speaker or anything like that or have any questions. You can email me through that. I would love to hear from anybody.
I’m so glad you came by Shasta. It’s been an interesting and energizing conversation and I hope that TalentGrowers will take action because this is going to make a huge difference in all of our lives. Thank you for the work that you do and for stopping by on the TalentGrow Show.
Thank you. It speaks highly of you that you bring the subject on. Seriously, for years, I’ve been like, “Why is nobody talking about this?” So you’re a pioneer and I so appreciate it.
Thank you so much. There you have it TalentGrowers. What did I tell you – really thought provoking, really interesting. I don’t know how many of us really think about this strategically, intentionally, consciously, but oh my gosh, isn’t it such an important and basic need for humans that a lot of us just pretend doesn’t exist when we go to work? So as leaders, my goodness, there’s kind of a heavy burden in the sense that we have the responsibility to create the right kind of workplace for our employees. Even if we don’t control the entire organization, there’s lots of things that each of us can do to create even just that oasis of connection around us, which will have ripple effects and affect others. It’s sort of that grassroots to global, start where you are. You’ve got in that one two actionable tips from Shasta that I hope you’ll take her up on and take action.
OUTRO I look forward to hearing how it went, what did you do, how did it work, what are some of your insights, what do you think about this whole topic? I really would love to have a conversation with you, so on my website you can leave me a voicemail on the little black tab on the side of every page on my website. That could be a way that you could comment. You can leave a comment in the show notes page. You can comment on social media. But I want to hear from you. And share this with others. Let’s spread the word. Let’s get more people on this bandwagon and make the world a better, friendlier place.
Thanks for listening today. I really appreciate your time. I’m Halelly Azulay, your leadership development strategist here at TalentGrow and this is the TalentGrow Show. Until the next time, make today great.
Thanks for listening to the TalentGrow Show, where we help you develop your talent to become the kind of leader that people want to follow. For more information, visit TalentGrow.com.
Get my free guide, "10 Mistakes Leaders Make and How to Avoid Them" and receive my biweekly newsletter full of actionable tips, links and ideas for taking your leadership and communication skills to the next level!
Don't forget to LEAVE A RATING/REVIEW ON APPLE PODCASTS/iTUNES! It’s easy to do (here’s how to do it in 4 easy steps). Thank you!!
Like the Facebook page of The TalentGrow Show!
Join the Facebook group – The TalentGrowers Community!
Intro/outro music: "Why-Y" by Esta
You Might Also Like These Posts:
86: Growing Your Network Based on the Science of Human Behavior with David Burkus