Curiosity, Connection and Culture: Can seemingly simple solutions change our experience of work?
2022 has been quite a year for the world of work. With quiet quitting, the great resignation, and the lowest workplace engagement scores in decades, it does feel as though something may be broken right now. But what exactly is it? And what would really make a difference to our experience of work?
It’s not as though workplaces haven’t been trying. In the last few years, we’ve seen a plethora of solutions from wellbeing apps to yoga classes, brain training, resilience courses, free lunches, and 4-day week trials. There’s evidence that these can work but could there be something much simpler that we’re missing here. Something so seemingly obvious, it’s almost too easy to forget.
The power of human connection
As humans we’re hard wired for connection. Caring for others is part of our DNA and is what first enabled the human species to survive. Caring for ourselves and others not only feels good, but it also helps to create communities and societies that can survive and flourish. We see it so often after collective trauma or national disasters. 9/11, the 2004 Tsunami and more recently the Covid-19 pandemic, it’s often the realisation of our shared human condition that fuels a collective outpouring of support and community spirit that makes a significant difference to how we experience trauma.
And we see this in the workplace too. At the start of the pandemic, there were several studies showing higher levels of trust in organisations with employees feeling supported and cared for. Research conducted by Randstad in 2020 suggested a remarkable percentage (71%) of people felt emotionally supported by their employer. However, this has seemingly flipped now with their latest research shows 62% of 25–34s feel undervalued, unappreciated and plan to look for another job. A picture also seen in the latest Gallup workplace engagement scores with only 1 in 5 people globally engaged in their work, making this the lowest score in decades.
But what would make a meaningful difference for this unengaged, unhappy global workforce? And could it be more straightforward than we think?
I was fascinated to hear Bruce Daisely talk about the ‘best friend at work’ data in Gallup’s latest global workplace survey. According to Gallup, having a best friend at work consistently leads to better performance. It sounds so trivial but apparently, it’s quite significant. For example, women who strongly agree they have a best friend at work are more than twice as likely to be engaged (63%) compared with the women who say otherwise (29%).
But how many people claim to have a best friend at work and how has it changed? According to Gallup only 17% of hybrid workers now have a best friend at work. When we worked full time in the office the number was three times higher. As a consequence, over half (55%) of hybrid workers report feeling lonely in their jobs. Could this be one of the major reasons we’re seeing such low levels of workplace engagement and happiness?
In our attempt to create flexibility and autonomy, could we have neglected the power of community and connection?
This is one of the key principles in Bruce Daisley’s latest book, Fortitude; a refreshing take on resilience and how we’re most resilient when we’re connected to others. Daisley references the over emphasis in recent years on individualistic solutions to common workplace challenges (coaching, resilience training, mindfulness etc) and whilst these aren’t necessarily bad, the focus on the individual employee taking responsibility for ‘fixing themselves’ rather than addressing toxic workplace cultures can be problematic. Daisley challenges us to think about whether there may be social cures to many workplace wellbeing issues and whether we can challenge ourselves to intentionally keep community at the heart of our working practices.
But how do we develop those deep workplace connections in the post-covid world of work?
Here are 3 areas that sprung to mind.
- Social Curiosity
- Curiosity is often thought of as a multi-dimensional construct. Stefaan van Hooydonk of the Global Curiosity Institute talks about 3 dimensions of curiosity (cognitive, social/empathic and self-reflective). With Kashdan also referencing ‘social curiosity’ as a key element.
But what does this mean? For both Kashdan and Van Hooydonk it’s about being genuinely interested in other people. Asking questions that help uncover new insights or truths, learning more about another’s lived experience and observing others to learn what they are thinking and doing. Social curiosity has been found to have great benefits in life, especially in fostering interpersonal relationships and reducing team conflict.
How can organisations facilitate more social curiosity?
a) Building informal social connections — this could be as simple as having a meal together as a team every week or two. The simple act of coming together informally can work wonders to build connection and community.
b) Fika Breaks — 3-person remote (or in-person) coffee breaks to get to know each other better. I worked in an organisation that encouraged a random fika chat every few weeks and I have to say it worked wonderfully. We sometimes had optional conversation starters but often just talked about anything and everything. It was a great way to connect more informally.
2. Storytelling
Storytelling is a uniquely human skill that creates connection with others. Stories are personal, they come from the heart and require an element of vulnerability According to Clare Patey of the Empathy Museum ‘stories act as an entry point into understanding a different experience of the world’. They enable us to see the world as others see it, to and to walk in their shoes. This can be a great way of inspiring empathy and connection.
How could we find more moments for storytelling at work?
a) Object/photo stories — a number of organisations use storytelling as a way of building connection. A common technique is the object or photo storytelling game where team members are asked to bring an object or photo that represents something about them. They are then encouraged to tell a two-minute story about it, with team members listening and responding with relevant questions and observations to build connection.
b) New starter stories — starting a new job can be a lonely time, especially in a hybrid or remote working environment when you may not meet your colleagues in real life for a while. Encouraging new starters to tell a story about themselves to new colleagues and others to reciprocate can be a great way of breaking the ice. The rest of the team can listen, appreciate and respond with other things they’d love to know.
3. Supportive Systems
Tasks and activities to build curiosity and connection can be great but how do we design spaces and processes and cultures that put human curiosity and connection at the heart of them? What nudges could we put in place that make curiosity and connection the default choice? Three things spring to mind here:
a) Involving employees in any culture or environment improvements. Spending time to observe, listen and understand employee experiences before jumping to any solutions is key. Here we can learn from placemaking and ethnographic research to truly design spaces with the users in mind.
b) Experimenting with different design nudges to facilitate connection in physical spaces and replicating these in the virtual world. This could be installing large sharing tables to encourage people to eat together (perhaps with screens so remote workers can also join), reducing the number of coffee/water stations to encourage more conversation while waiting and ‘story notice boards’ where employees are encouraged to share a photo and story about themselves.
c) Finally, I think there are some simple rituals we could implement into daily or weekly working practices that would make a real difference? For example, weekly appreciation emails. I’m a big fan of Friday Pulse for this. They measure weekly workplace happiness but also give colleagues an opportunity to thank others, publicly share what went well and any ideas for improvement. Teams then discuss the results and how they’re feeing at the start of each team meeting to build connection and shared responsibility.
Togetherness @ Work: A culture hackathon
I love the idea of using our collective brains to find solutions to make work a happier and healthier place for all. I’ve been hugely inspired by the work of Adam Wilder @ Togetherness who has created a movement for meaningful human connection in the UK. Together we’ve been working on a workplace idea called the Culture Hackathon which is an immersive journey for teams to address what matters most to sustain a thriving work culture. The half-day session takes teams on a journey from ‘me’ to ‘we’ to ‘us’ via cutting edge social technologies and curiosity practices. Teams leave with a culture kit, team culture blueprint and measurement mechanic so they can experiment with what works best for them. We’re pretty excited to pilot and share what we learn so watch this space or do get in touch if you’d like to experiment with us.
Until next time #staycurious