WORK IS A RELATIONSHIP OF UTMOST IMPORTANCE

LET’S RETHINK OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH BEING HUMAN AT WORK

Do you sometimes feel that work is hard and challenging and something to get through and survive every day? Our relationship with work tends to be something we view as what we do, separate from who we are. And yet, work is supposed to fuel our sense of self. Work is supposed to be a place where we learn and grow through challenges. Where engaging with each other, solving problems, and harnessing change builds confidence. Where doing work that matters is exciting.

We cannot keep pushing through, hoping something will change. Or this is just one more thinking that we will have to get through and then… then we will be able to reclaim agency over of life at work. 

The thing is, the future of work will not slow down, so we have to learn how to work better with what we got. To start, that means give ourselves and our minds some space and grace to catch up so that we can access our human advantage to think and engage with intent and focus. Work is the place where we can unlock our human potential from the inside out, ––if we have the tools and a culture that believes people are the most important secret sauce.

WORK IS A RELATIONSHIP OF UTMOST IMPORTANCE 

Forbes recently reported that new data suggests that for almost 70% of people, their manager has more impact on their mental health than their therapist or their doctor—and it’s equal to the impact of their partner. If you’re a leader, you’re right to find this data sobering.

Leaders must role-model what it means to work with a healthy mindset that fosters inclusion and engagement. 

Care doesn’t work if we simply tell others to take better care of themselves and not do so ourselves. 

When we care about people we respect boundaries, which works in two ways: we don’t overstep them and we encourage people to keep them.  

As much as leaders want their people to be accountable and responsible for their work, so must leaders be accountable and responsible for theirs. This includes communication and good briefings, with space and time to ask questions about the desired direction and expectations that are often left unspoken. Often, leaders share too little information about their desired outcomes and express too much frustration at what’s not working instead of focusing on what is working and building on that. 

A leader's job is to cultivate an environment where people can grow, like the gardener who tends to the seeds and ensures they have what they need to grow and flourish into a thriving garden. Just like gardens, humans need care (circumstances) and to feel they matter (conversations) in order to grow and flourish - even through adversity.

WE MUST LEARN TO PAUSE TOGETHER

That also means that we must learn to pause, individually and collectively. Pausing gives us space to stop reacting to stress and choose how to respond. Pausing gives us space to listen and respond with curiosity instead of critique. Pausing gives us space to stop our automatic survival mode behaviors where we just fix the urgent and instead focus on what matters. And pausing gives us space to resist our impulse to push through and work harder, and instead ask what we need so that we can achieve our goals. 

Working with Power-Pausing is how we can reclaim our power of choice over how we think, engage and act, so instead of stress running our lives, we choose how to respond to stressful events. 

I know… it’s not easy to change the way we work, because the work paradigm was set up a very long time ago and it was set up to facilitate production by making people work like machines. Today, we need you to think before you do. Today, we need you to listen to and be aware of your emotions so that you can engage C.A.R.E.; curiosity, acknowledgement, respect and empathy. Today, we need you to be mindful about your behaviors and actions so that we make better and faster decisions and do work that matters. 

TOGETHER WE WORK BETTER 

Work has been siloed and disconnected for a very long time and we tend to focus on our individual performance. We have yet to learn how to think of work as collective input, a chain reaction of cause and effect where each department is working together in service of each other and their collective results. A workplace where everyone matters. Including you. 

To create change that matters, we must get past our stories of what’s impossible and ask how to make it possible. We must learn to value ourselves and ask for what we need to do our best work, which is not easy when working in a culture that still values faster over better. However, we can impact change one pause at a time. 

It’s time to learn that Power-Pausing isn’t about time off, but rather how we engage better and change the work culture to one that sustains and unlocks our humanity.  

People who pause together create impact and change together.