Meaningful Connections at Work
By Kyra Hazilla, December 01, 2023
According to researchers Jane Dutton and Monica Worline of the University of Michigan’s Center for Positive Organizations at the Ross School of Business, “high quality connections” are integral to our well-being in the workplace. High-quality connections are those interactions that feel vital, are full of mutual respect and engagement, and provide a sense of unconditional positive regard.
Drs. Dutton and Worline have identified four important elements for bringing more of these kinds of interactions into our professional environments:
1. Respectful engagement
They note that this is a condition precedent of high-quality connections. Without communicating respect, there can be no trust. Active listening, warm and engaged body language, and presence (mindful attention) all lead to the kinds of exchanges that build a sense of belonging and positive regard that ?ows both ways.
2. Task enabling
The Drs. use this term to define the way that we help colleagues achieve their goals in the work they are trying to do. Examples of this are when we provide adequate resources and support for the task at hand or we actively remove barriers that impede our colleagues from doing their best work. When we engage in this action, it demonstrates both a willingness to understand someone else’s needs and experience and an interest in helping improve things. This touches on the skill of cognitive empathy, or having an intellectual understanding of someone else’s experiences. This trait can be challenging for lawyers, but we can grow the skill with intention.
3. Trusting
Communicating safety (physical and emotional) helps people do their best work. When we feel under threat, we lose access to executive functioning and it becomes impossible to do higher order tasks like lawyering. When we communicate mutual trust, others feel safe with us and recognize that we feel safe with them. Dutton and Worline suggest that giving others control over resources or decisions is one important way to demonstrate trust and vulnerability.
4. Playing
We cannot play in environments where we do not experience a sense of safety. Play can be a useful mechanism to allow for engagement as well as connectedness. Creating fun and enjoyable activities as part of our day-to-day workplaces leads to a tenor of good-natured interaction, which has great stress-inoculating effects.
Drs. Dutton and Worline have identified in their research that individual-level compassion (kindness between colleagues) is one element of compassionate workplaces, and workplace compassion also includes systemic and organizational practices that foster compassion. By expressing compassion, it empowers all of us, no matter our role in the legal community, to bring more heartfelt connections into our interactions with each other. It makes a difference.
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Drs. Dutton and Worline have identified four important elements for bringing more of these kinds of interactions into our professional environments:
1. Respectful engagement
They note that this is a condition precedent of high-quality connections. Without communicating respect, there can be no trust. Active listening, warm and engaged body language, and presence (mindful attention) all lead to the kinds of exchanges that build a sense of belonging and positive regard that ?ows both ways.
2. Task enabling
The Drs. use this term to define the way that we help colleagues achieve their goals in the work they are trying to do. Examples of this are when we provide adequate resources and support for the task at hand or we actively remove barriers that impede our colleagues from doing their best work. When we engage in this action, it demonstrates both a willingness to understand someone else’s needs and experience and an interest in helping improve things. This touches on the skill of cognitive empathy, or having an intellectual understanding of someone else’s experiences. This trait can be challenging for lawyers, but we can grow the skill with intention.
3. Trusting
Communicating safety (physical and emotional) helps people do their best work. When we feel under threat, we lose access to executive functioning and it becomes impossible to do higher order tasks like lawyering. When we communicate mutual trust, others feel safe with us and recognize that we feel safe with them. Dutton and Worline suggest that giving others control over resources or decisions is one important way to demonstrate trust and vulnerability.
4. Playing
We cannot play in environments where we do not experience a sense of safety. Play can be a useful mechanism to allow for engagement as well as connectedness. Creating fun and enjoyable activities as part of our day-to-day workplaces leads to a tenor of good-natured interaction, which has great stress-inoculating effects.
Drs. Dutton and Worline have identified in their research that individual-level compassion (kindness between colleagues) is one element of compassionate workplaces, and workplace compassion also includes systemic and organizational practices that foster compassion. By expressing compassion, it empowers all of us, no matter our role in the legal community, to bring more heartfelt connections into our interactions with each other. It makes a difference.