E20 | Community Vs. Individualism #TeamworkTuesday

How do you build true community in the workplace? 
This month, in GETTING TO UNSTUCK, we are digging into reclaiming our humanity through relationships and community.
Today we are focusing on the key elements that help build the foundation of a strong community at work. They are simple, but their effects become foundational for everyone that is part of your team.

Creating a community at work, rather than just focusing on individual achievements, has several benefits:

• Collaboration: A community fosters collaboration, allowing team members to work together, share ideas, and learn from one another. This can lead to more innovative solutions and better problem-solving.
• Engagement: Employees who feel a sense of belonging and connection to their colleagues are more likely to be engaged in their work and committed to the organisation's goals.
• Morale and job satisfaction: A strong community can improve morale and job satisfaction, as employees feel supported by their colleagues and management. This can lead to lower turnover and higher productivity.
• Resilience: A community can help organisations weather difficult times by providing a support system for employees and encouraging a sense of shared responsibility for the organisation's success.
• Inclusion: A community can create a more inclusive work environment where everyone feels valued and respected. This can lead to better decision-making, as diverse perspectives are taken into account.

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When a sense of community is not established within a team, several negative consequences can arise.

• firstly, there may be a lack of collaboration and cooperation among team members, leading to decreased productivity and efficiency. This can also result in missed opportunities for innovation and problem-solving.
• team members may feel disconnected and disengaged from their work, leading to lower morale and job satisfaction. This can result in higher turnover rates and increased absenteeism. In addition, a lack of community can lead to a lack of support and trust among team members, which can further exacerbate these issues.
• the impact on individual mental health can also be significant. A lack of community can lead to feelings of isolation and loneliness, which can contribute to mental health issues such as depression and anxiety. In addition, the stress and tension that can arise from a lack of collaboration and support can also take a toll on an individual's mental health.

Here's a question to consider: What is the best community you have ever had at work? What made it that way for you?   

Join Christal, Colin, and Carol from Whole Human Coaching as we focus on reclaiming our humanity in work and life.Find out how we work and who we work with at https://wholehumancoaching.com
While you are there, take our Whole Human Wheel of Life assessment. It's quick, insightful, and helps you get focused on what matters for you right now.

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Transcript

Good morning. Happy first Tuesday of the month of February.  So for wherever you are. Yeah. Over in Collins, part of the world, you are  probably digging out from an insane amount. Yes, we are. Oh my goodness.  Yeah.  Well, if you're just trying to.  The wonderland.

That's what we'll call it. We'll call it a winter wonderland. So welcome to the show. If you're just joining us we are, today is  a part of our Teamwork Tuesday conversations. And today we're going to be talking about What happens in the almost the juxtaposition between community versus individualism.

But before we get into that, I have a really exciting invitation and announcement that we would love for you to know. On February 29th, you're going to be seeing some information come out shortly. We're going to be doing our first live workshop and it is going to be about how to lead like a coach 101.

So we're going to be talking how about how we can reimagine dialogue at work. So we're going to do some teaching about helping you build those skills and there's actually going to be some practical applications right there live in the workshop. You can follow us. We're going to be making the announcements shortly about it and we look forward to it and we hope to see you there. 

So Carol and Colin, today we're going to be talking about Community in the workplace, but not just about the nice the nice side of community, but actually helping us to understand what it looks like to build it and what it also looks like when we don't have a strong sense of  so there are there are things that help that can help us define a community.

And I think that it would be great for us to start our conversation there today about what it looks like.  

Right. I think there's, there's some key, key elements to it. Right. And I'm sure there's lots more, but the first one would be a collaborative environment an environment that's engaged  one where morale and job satisfaction are. 

More elevated than, than, than, than baselines. And then one where there's a real feeling of resilience within the team and also inclusion so that, you know, together, you know, together we are stronger as, as, as a group. And of course,  the antithesis of those are manifested in kind of the opposite, right?

Where you have more competition, you have less, less, less cooperation amongst individuals, and that really can, that can show up and break down productivity and efficiencies. So this isn't just a, a personal matter that we're talking about. It really can have a huge impact on, even on things like missed opportunities.

So, that's that's company wide. And then individual on on the individual side, it, of course, can manifest in, you know, depression and anxiety and all of those other markers that  are counterproductive. And then we go on to loneliness and isolation and things like that. So important, important subject matter, especially post Post 2020, right?

When everything changed, right, Carol?  

Yeah. And you know, I think it was, there was something that existed before COVID that we took for granted. And it is, but like teams, it isn't naturally occurring. It isn't something that just happens when you put a group of people together. So a community that may have been existing fully, fully expressed in a community, in a workplace.

prior to COVID got all broken up and split up because we weren't in the same workplace.  We were working hybrid or we were working remote and then there's this enforced return to work that has happened.  As a result of that, I think people have forgotten. Or maybe never had the experience of what it is like to work in a community  setting in a workplace, because it doesn't happen without some forethought and some effort and work put into it,  you know, Colin, you and I.

met in a workplace that has stood out for me as being absolutely remarkable.  Playground, which was a division of Infrawest, was one of the most amazing places that I have ever worked. And the the motto that we all held and we I think we took it very as seriously as we could was we work to play.  That's right.

And it was emulated throughout the organization, and you opened the elevators at HQ, at head office. There was a scotch, a hot scotch, hopscotch painted on the concrete to walk in, and there were puzzles and things all over the walls, and it was clearly intended to be a place where people had fun.  But more than that, what happened was these incredible relationships were built in a relatively short period of time.

I worked there for about five years, and the connections that I made were just, they're still deep in my heart and really connected with people around the world.  

What do you think? It's interesting.  It's interesting that what came out of that culture though, were a whole lot of exceptional coaches, which is interesting that we have, I hadn't thought about that until just now, but that culture was, was, you know, based on play, right, but also based on short sort of shared spaces and allowing creativity.

And there was that. That sort of,  you know, the rule in brainstorming, right? That you can, you can say anything and there's no judgment. And this is a place of creativity and expansion. And we're creating, we're creating, you know, stages upon which people live their lives and create memories and, and, and legacy.

So we, we. The, the, the ambition was lofty, right? Cause you're placemaking and things like that. But, but the, the, it was just this completely egoless, creative,  almost you know, like a, not like a think tank, but those, those places, those capsules that they put people in just to go crazy with wild ideas.

And we did that every day. Yeah, we did. 

We had that opportunity. 

Yeah, but I forgot how many coaches came out of that environment. So what does that say? Right? What is that saying about? The idea of we work to play, right?  Well, 

there was a real invitation for that kind of collaboration. And what happened out of it was, was people felt like they could be fully expressed.

So there was that wonderful alignment of purpose. Which was, we worked hard. That was for sure. There were many, many long hours and many, many events and things that we attended and worked on that that took us deep into the night. But there was the shared fun experience, too. And there was this, also, this sense of being able to lean on each other. 

In, whenever there was a big event that occurred, everybody came in and helped. And that's where I think of that raising a barn idea that happens in community, in In rural places like you grew up, Crystal. 

Yeah, yeah, I was actually thinking about that. You know, one of the interesting things that you said Colin, about,  about how what community provides is, and, and what it provides for the, for the organization, but for the people inside that.

One of the words you used was resilience. And I don't think that that's a word that we, you know, inclusion, that seems very obvious. Engagement seems very obvious. Resilience is actually. I can see it. It just is not as much of an obvious thing. But if we think about the ways that resilience helping to build resilience in our teams, what that provides for the individuals and for the team, if we think about setbacks you know, and I think about so in terms of community Carol referring to that, I think about my parents.

I'm from a  central Saskatchewan community. And my parents live in a very tiny town. We joke that it would be like 500 people if you counted the dogs twice, right? Everybody in the dogs twice. But there is such a strong sense of resilience in that town because people have each other's backs. And if something happens, you know, that other people surround you, everything from loss to all, all the things that we know are going to call upon resilience  and as leaders.

And as.  Builders and people who lead teams or maybe are part of teams. I think it's really an important  attribute to community that is perhaps not so often given enough,  enough airplay to, to talk about what that provides for people, because the opposite of that is an, is.  The individualism, which leads to isolation, and Colin, you talked about this already, and isolation leads to becoming very non resilient, very brittle in your thinking, very unbending in how you see things.

Mm hmm. You know, one of the things when we were talking about this episode yesterday, Crystal, that you said, that I think defines community, is that it is an actual connection.  So it is when people feel like they've got that ability to go to someone or some group of people and, and they are connected in a way where they're accepted. 

And they know that whether the, whether it's a good time or a bad time, they're going to have somebody to talk to. Yeah. And there is that sense of camaraderie that allows you to know, oh, this was a tough day, but you know what? I got my team together with me tomorrow. It's going to get better. Exactly. 

exactly.  

Back to that conversation we had also about the perfect cocktail. Right? So it it is also, it's also on the leader to know  the ingredients that he's putting into that community. Mm-Hmm. . Mm-Hmm. . And to be attentive to people that might have an issue with boundary setting or they might, some there might be social anxiety there as well.

That just to just for the leader to be aware of the cocktail that they're making, it's live and it's organic and it's human and  we spoke last time about, you know,  being attentive to, to how people can't leave their personal lives at the door anymore, you know, it's no longer widgets, you know, building widgets,  it's human beings in this room. 

You know, the interesting part about that is that in some of, some of the, what I have read and certainly the people I've talked to, sometimes widget building builds the best communities because they know we're all here building the widget together and we better be a community. Otherwise it's going to drive us crazy.

Yeah. There's an interesting camaraderie and collaboration that happens in those communities, but it  you know, when we talk about it, what defines it? Well, we know kind of what defines it and what the outcomes could be, but how do you create it? Yeah, exactly. So as you said, Colin, if you're a leader looking around thinking, well, I want to build community who doesn't everybody, what is it?

So what are those factors that take it from being just a workplace to being a community of people in a workplace?  

I think you have to start with that concept of a shared. micro vision or a shared vision for that workplace. You know, we, we often work with organizations that have incredible strategic plans and, and beautiful visions and missions  may you,  the, some good work to be done would be to look at what is the cohesive mission and vision and values and the attributes the tone of voice, even language, like even as like a small brand promise for that individual team that everybody can get, get around.

 Because yeah, I think it, I think it, it, it's about creating a shared common vision for that group, you know, for your, for your 

To facilitate alignment, 

right? Yeah. 

Yeah, 

yeah, exactly. 

Yeah, people feel like they're, they're attending something that makes, that's important to them too.  That's right.  The other piece that I, in the reading that I've done and in the teams that I've been working with, it's also remembering that we need to have that, those elements of play.

There needs to be a social connection. So, is it a potluck at lunch? Is it an opportunity to go out together? Because while playground, we said we worked to play, we lived our words. We actually had Organize social events where everybody was invited to engage, and that was the team building part that had us feel like we were a community with the fun that we had together. 

Yeah, 

well, we also knew that we were creating spaces for fun for others, too. So that was that that was like. Also a collective mission, so we would have fun together, but we're also creating fun. So our our goal was yeah, it was a double, double whammy on that, on that play.  And,  but that's a really good point, Carol.

A lot of people forget about play, you know, in, in the, and humor and  You know,  it's time for some fun again, and yeah, we all got so serious  

and a sense of a sense of lightness in some way, right? Like finding, finding things and it's amazing because humor, like a smile is like the universal. It is the universal thing that we would do even if we didn't speak the same language or anything, you know, there's a smile and humour is there.

I think that the third thing is about communication and because there is an intentionality in what we're talking about around communities. So, and not a heavy handed. Which is boundaries are important, but communication around how we communicate with people in a way that they feel heard, that validates them, that they feel like it's a safe space, but it's also an accountable space so that they can have the freedom to be able to show up and embrace it, you know?

So when people are put into what's often kind of, you know, that. The kind of the stereotypical, like, team building exercises and I think of things like,  from the early 2000s, the show The Office and all the crazy things that Michael Scott tried to get them to do, right? Like, well intended sometimes, but misled a little bit.

But when we're, when we're forced into things without either clear understandings or anything, if the communication is not clear, then it, it,  Pulls us back into a place of feeling isolated again, and we can be in the middle. We can be in the middle of a team and be in the middle of all these great things going on.

And we feel like we're not  welcome to be a part of it. And so that's the interesting thing that comes back around to us as  leaders and to the people that are listening or finding this conversation is, do you Have even,  do you understand how to drop people into community as well?  Do we understand how to be able to set things if perhaps in a setting You know, there's a lot, we, we're learning a lot around how different generations are seeing the workplace, how things can be interpreted differently.

What is your skill set that you're building to be able to reach people in where they're at as a leader and to help draw them into that stronger sense of 

community? Well, it's such a good definition because what if leaders weren't considered, I don't know, Executives, what if they were considered community builders?

Yeah. How much differently would they approach what they do when they're interacting with their people?  If your mandate as a leader was not to just the bottom line of how much more profit, but what are the attributes of community, the community in your division?  

And you can have, you can measure it differently too, right?

Like, like Riley was speaking about measuring things like wellbeing and wellness and happiness and, and. Yeah. You know indicators around  yeah, loyalty, you know, all these, all these other things that paint could paint a very different picture than, you know, an ROI number. And I think that's where we need to go.

Oh 

yes.  And it leads beautifully into further conversations because that is in a multi generational workplace, which most of them are now. We're dealing with people's motivations are different. Their sense of loyalty is completely different. Yeah. What has them want to go to work in the morning is going to be different.

So, as a leader, when we look at our team building, it's going to be a challenge to invite everyone to play.  Not just those who put their hands up first. Yeah. The organization 

is also,  and the teams and people are, are working on a quicksand environment from a, from a macroeconomic perspective, right? Like the world around, outside those, those office doors is also changing and morphing and values and everything has changed.

So leaders today need to really work on what, what we call a, you know, the leadership toolkit and having that firm. Sort of tripod of, of, of, of resilience. If you want is, is, is  what I'm trying to say. We, we, we work with and work through with people, right?  Because it's scary out there,  not right. So creation of community also has to come from a sense of confidence too.

Right. That you as a leader are confident and resilient and sound and you have a solid foundation to come in and build that, build that community because if you're bringing in fear from the outside or you're bringing in ego or, you know, all sorts of external elements that can be a real challenge. You know, I definitely can't don't have energy for it, right? 

Leads perfectly to what we want to do at the end of the month. Crystal with the idea of creating the workshop, what we're, as we're, as we're describing it to, to really be providing leaders with  a tool. that they can be using immediately. So in the workshop, there's definitely going to be that opportunity to work on and practice something that you can put into practice, that you can put into practice the very next day.

Yeah. And it's, it's very put into practice very next day and the ability to be able to  create. Create cohesion, cultural cohesion and community with your team. Those are transferable skills in terms of your career. Even I think about and I, I know we're wrapping up here, but I think about one of the clients recently that I had, and he moved on from the organization that we started our coaching in, he moved on, but one of the.

Transferable skills that he talked about was what he learned about how to lead a team that helped him Get his next job and actually resulted in him moving to a different part of the country as well but those are That's helping to future proof our businesses and ourself because that is the future is in connection Right?

Like in a world that is  so much in the world is trying to tell us that everything is being lost and we're, we're going to be, you know, we're fighting against becoming further and further disconnected. The future is in connection and it's in how we allow ourselves to embrace it and how, how we stay open.

To becoming those kind of leaders. So, mm.  Wonderful. Yeah.  

Okay.  

Well, thanks for thanks for showing up today. And to you, the listener, wherever this conversation finds you. Thank you for joining us. If you enjoyed today's conversation. You can like and subscribe if you don't already follow us on LinkedIn.

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you can find us on. All those channels. And if you have a conversation or a topic that you would like to have us cover, please do not hesitate to reach out. And that leads us to one last question. Carol, why don't you ask that last question?  

We would love to know what was the best community you ever had at work, and why? 

Let's start a conversation. Let's start there. 

You can comment, yeah, in the comments wherever you've found this conversation. Please let us know, and we would love to share that experience, and we will give a shout out to you, we promise. Alright, until we see you again, thanks for joining us, and have a great week ahead.

Thanks. Take 

good care. Bye, everybody.