We Are All Humans at Work
“Managing is not a series of mechanical tasks but a set of human interactions.” — Harvard Business Review.
I would say the same about work and those we work with. When we see work as purely technological or transactional, we forget that we are not dealing with emotionless, programmable machines. We forget the human aspect of work.
What I’ve found to be helpful is reminding myself that at the end of the day, we are all humans, and that no matter what our place is in the corporate world, we are all vulnerable in some way. We all err and make mistakes, we all feel the need to belong, we all have our personal lives to manage on top of our careers, and we all have emotions and our mental well-being to balance and keep in check. Knowing that we all experience these in one way or another helps me become a little bit easier on myself, and on others.
Vulnerability
We all fear something. There’s always something about ourselves we are a bit unsure of and we bury this uncertainty beneath fronts, titles, jargons, imaging, and beneath the false projection that we got everything under control. One of the worst blankets to cover it with is silence and lack of transparency. I find that when companies try to hide instabilities and fears, that’s when they lose their employees’ trust. On the opposite spectrum, I find that I tend to build a stronger sense of compassion and loyalty to leaders who aren’t afraid to show that they are vulnerable, and that they keep grounded despite their worries.
“When he [Howard Schultz] walked onstage, he realized his employees needed to see vulnerability from the person they were trusting to fix their problems. The truth was, he felt distraught about the direction the business had taken while he was gone, and they deserved to know that. Schultz chose to lift a mask that few employees‚ much less CEOs — remove in front of their coworkers. Setting aside formality, he let tears roll down his cheeks. Crying can sometimes seem manipulative or calculated. But Schultz had the emotional intelligence to pair this moment of vulnerability with a reassuring follow-up: he laid out his plan for a comeback and then invited feedback from workers. That month, Schultz was flooded with more than five thousand appreciative emails. And by 2010, the tide had turned: Starbucks’ stock price was higher than ever.” — No Hard Feelings, The Secret Power of Embracing Emotions at Work (by Liz Fosslien & Mollie West Duffy)
I believe vulnerability is where authenticity starts — when one lets go of who or what they think they should live up to and completely embraces who one truly is. Vulnerability is not weakness, it is a sign of courage when you show your true self. Vulnerability is liberating.
Errors and Mistakes
I believe that the best way to get over and learn from our mistakes is by being kinder to ourselves. When we’re too hard on ourselves, we tend to live in the past and try to get over our guilt (of doing something wrong) by means of self-imposed punishment. Everyone makes mistakes. In fact, the most successful people we can think of probably failed more times than we can imagine. Failing fast gives us more time and opportunity to bounce back and learn from the areas where we went wrong.
Emotions and Belonging
When I get to know someone who loves animals, I make an instant connection. I was once in a meeting with 2 C-level clients and naturally, I was intimidated. Towards the end of the meeting, one of them talks about his cat and suddenly takes on the persona of a dotting furdaddy. It was instant personal connection — we were suddenly exchanging cat photos. Finding a common passion paved the way for a more relaxed discussion and a more positive end to the meeting. This was us being humans.
I was asked by the CMO of one of the country’s top banking conglomerates on how I am as a leader, and the first answer that came to my mind wasn’t about strength, nor power, nor authority — but was all about establishing personal connections and psychological safety within the team.
I think that in showing vulnerability and acknowledging emotions in the workplace, we become a little bit more human and a little less like machines. We were never taught this in school. There was no formal training on which emotions to keep in the workplace, and which ones to throw out. So now I’m just learning about it on the fly.
“Most of us vastly underestimate the size and scope of the emotional needs we bring to the office. Beyond the leader-employer relationship, emotional dynamics affect our motivation, health, communication, decision making, and more. Yet most of us ignore these emotions. Why is it that when we think of professionalism, we immediately jump to the idea that we should suppress everything we feel?”- No Hard Feelings, The Secret Power of Embracing Emotions at Work by Liz Fosslien & Mollie West Duffy
Personal Life and Mental Well-being
Again, we are not robots that shut down at the end of the day and get rebooted in the morning for another full day’s work. We live and have relationships with other humans outside the office. Whether intentional or not, whatever happens in our personal lives, we tend to bring into the workplace with us. Personal matters aren’t commonly discussed in the workplace except with a select few, so we don’t always know what people are going through. It always pays to be a bit more considerate and kinder to people we encounter everyday.
“Overwhelmed” and “burn-out” are real. Very very real. And when your personal stress combines with work-related stress, sometimes it gets a little too much for us to bear. Stress greatly affects our mental well-being — even for those who we view as tough and invincible. They may not just show it but surely, everyone has a breaking point. We are mothers rushing home after work to spend time with our children. We are fathers stuck in traffic after work, wishing to reach home before our kid’s bedtime. We are pet parents who can’t concentrate at work because little Oreo is sick and wouldn’t eat his kibble — but we have to wait for the weekend to bring him to the vet. We are older brothers or sisters putting our younger siblings through school so we pray that our schedule will allow us to attend their graduation. We are daughters or sons caring for our elders and at times we worry that we are at work and not with them.
We all take a piece of our personal troubles with us in the workplace and it is not always easy to separate these two areas in our lives, but being around people who acknowledge this makes it easier to cope and get by.
The Digital World of Today
The thing is, we are all humans working with and for humans. Yes, progress and the future are now heavily based on technology, but all these (and life itself, basically) cannot run without even the most basic human interaction, mindset, and abilities — like having empathy and compassion for example.
“In all of the excitement about tech it seems that we have tended to overlook humans.” — Forbes.com
In the rush and demands of today’s numbers & performance driven life, let us not forget the human side of work.
