The importance of showing you care
Think back on the best manager you have had during your career. Or maybe, reflect on that person that you consider your mentor in life. What is the first thing that comes to mind? Why, do you think, they are the best?
If you are like most of the people, the person or people that jumped to your mind in the first place are probably the ones that took some time getting to know you. No matter how rushed they were, or how many deliverables were piling up, the people that got stuck in my personal development career always took the time to start the conversation with a simple “how are you feeling today?”.
We are always “too busy”
Because being rushed and being busy is the new thing, sometimes we underestimate the importance of stopping and acknowledge the people around us.
Think back to one of the most stressful days you have had at work in the past year. Try to recall how you were feeling: what was the main source of that stress? What did you do during that day?
Now that you are mentally already there, try to picture your teammates in that scenario. What were they doing? Were they all frowning, yelling at each other? Were they focused and silent? Was anybody there talking to you? Chances are, you can’t recall this as easily as you can when the memory was just about you.
Being “self-focused” during stressful moments
Stressful moments tend to be ingrained in our memory, as a defense mechanism so, next time, we would know better and not repeat the same situation again. But, if we are social animals, why is it that we don’t recall much about what was happening around us? What did other people experience?
When we are stressed, we tend to focus most of our energy on the task that is stressing us out. We want to get that paperwork done, get an answer to that angry customer, deliver that document to the tax agency… So we don’t have time to socialize and see what is happening around in the office or chit-chat. We will have time for that later… But will we?
Let’s go back to that stressful day. Success finally! Paperwork was delivered, you have accomplished what people were expecting from you and now you have time to talk about your teammate’s daughter football match. But what you don’t have now, is the energy to do it. The last thing you want to do now is to socialize, you just want to go home and relax staring at the TV.
There is nothing wrong with that … unless you work in a “fast-paced environment” where tight deadlines are the norm and this situation repeats itself over and over again.
Force yourself to de-focus on the stressful task at hand
It is not all but news… some people are able to deliver results and connect with their teammates. Guess who? Probably the best manager/mentor that you were thinking on at the beginning of this article.
Showing care for another person is such an important aspect of our interpersonal skills that is what gets stuck in our social brain — so much as that stressful moment sometimes. I am not referring to the shallow “how are you” and “I don’t care about the answer and walk away”. I’m talking about those people that, no matter how busy their day is, they will stop for a moment and consciously make some time to connect with you. I’m talking about that skill that makes them pause and raise their heads to see what is happening around, no matter what is burning on the background.
Take the time, it only takes 5!
At the end of the day, each one of us has a preferred work style and ways to energize ourselves but, no matter what, we all feel more comfortable in an environment where our teammates are not only expecting outputs from us (as if we were machines) but also showing us they care.
So, next time you feel people are stressed at your workplace, ask your deskmate to go for a coffee, spend 5 min chit-chatting about their life and… who knows? Maybe in the future, you might be “that person that helped them” when they reflect back on a stressful moment at work.
