As I was putting my winter clothes away, I realized I had been wearing a sweater with a hole in it for months. I didn’t know. My husband didn’t mention it. Rather than putting this in the category of spinach in your teeth, I realized that my frayed sweater looked fine from a distance.
However, when examined more closely, the strained threads became far more apparent. The sweater was still held together; the question was, how long before it pulled apart?
Organizational loneliness occurs when someone feels isolated or disconnected from leaders, co-workers, and the workplace. Here as well, things may appear fine on the surface. But on closer inspection, employee vitality is also fraying, raising a similar question: “How long before things come apart at the seams?”
Contributing factors are complex. People come to work with their personal histories, life challenges, and unique personalities. Lingering societal stressors, such as the pandemic, continue to leave their mark.
On the larger stage, a decline in social capital and community engagement — something that has been slowly eroding in our society for a few decades now — continues. Organizations are simply a microcosm of that larger social reality.
Why Does Loneliness Matter?
On a human level, most of us want to help ourselves and others find solutions that alleviate the intensity of that feeling.
In business, an essential truth is that an organization cannot succeed without its people. Critical change objectives cannot be effectively implemented if the people executing the tactics feel interpersonally disconnected or isolated. Further, in addition to suffering alone, the lonely employee has the potential to bring the entire team down.
Organizational loneliness is invisible until its impacts on performance, commitment, creativity and, ultimately, turnover show up. Even the person experiencing this cannot always put a finger on it. They just know they are dissatisfied or they quietly quit.
Although loneliness is not an issue for everyone in a company, division, or team, the best thing for leaders to do is simply assume it exists. Yes, human resources and corporate communications can do their part to address the needs of the workforce. But it’s the individual leader who has the most direct influence on the employee experience.
Addressing organizational loneliness requires thought and a clear understanding of the context — it is not my style to provide you with the simple steps. However, what I will share are some thoughts to consider…
Be Aware of What Gets in the Way
- Beliefs regarding employee satisfaction are often based on limited information. Leaders may assume employees are connected to the organization based on improved engagement survey scores. We all need to dig deeper.
- Efficient communication is over-valued. How well are people understood in a culture of brief summations, virtual interactions, and meetings that serve as transactional checkpoints rather than connection points? How closely are you looking?
- People are over-scheduled. Back-to-back meetings serve to cut off any “non-essential” chatter before it begins. This lack of emotional exchange can create a sense of isolation that builds over time. Is this the way things need to be simply because it seems the norm in business today?
Change the Communication Experience
The simple truth is that people are wired to connect. It is not the quantity of social interactions at work that matter, but the quality. As a leader, communicating in a relational way is your most important tool.
We relay what happens in our lives in summations. People are asked to get to the point or are given five minutes of meeting time to express themselves. But that’s not how we live our experiences. Experiences have color. They are filled with details– moment to moment events that build on one another, with emotions and thoughts attached. Summations leave out some of the most important parts.
Herein lies the notion of bearing witness, which is getting as close as possible to “seeing” firsthand what a person has confronted. Help the colleagues you lead share enough information so you co-experience what happened, whether a worry or something they feel good about. Help them go beyond the summary when talking about a topic. Pose questions such as “What happened next?” “Then what?” “How did you feel?” “Tell me more” “What was the result?” “How can I help?”
Communicating in this way doesn’t need to occur every day — just often enough to help people feel seen, known, and understood. The result? You will hear your employees say things like, “I’m so glad I got that off my chest;” “I didn’t realize how stressed I was;” “I really needed your help with this.” Or, simply, “Thank you for listening.” This is connection.
An Opportunity to Influence
It is not your role as leader to be a therapist to your employees. That said, the social environment you encourage and the way in which you interact with those on your team and in the organization more broadly can have tremendous impact on how people feel about their work, the company, and themselves.
Organizational loneliness is not always visible — but it is always there, at least to some degree. Take steps to recognize and manage it before “the sweater” comes apart.
