Humanizing Your Team

Show Notes:

• [0:01:12] Intro
  • Brief Recap on the Last Episode of AIB
• [0:02:05] “How to not turn your coworkers into your crazy Facebook uncle.”
  • In a polarized world where everything is extreme, our society has a habit of pitting us against each other on most topics and issues. 
  • We evolved to be able to read body language and in-person communication.
    • But now we need to adapt to modern technologies and to the landscape of changing industries, and distributed workforces. 
  • Unlike Facebook, you can’t just turn off your coworkers. 
    • How we humanize each other goes a long way toward creating a healthy and safe work environment. 
  • [0:06:03] Things we can do to humanize our perceptions of others and eliminate our own biases:
    • Give people spaces to discuss things that aren’t work-related. 
    • Find out where you all have common ground.
    • Avoiding apathy out of anger, frustration, or as a symptom of poor communication. 
• [0:12:06] Things you can do to ensure broader interaction between coworkers:
  • Personality Profile Workshops & Team Discussion 
    • Enneagram
    • Strength’s Finders
    • Etc
  • All-Team Video Calls
    • Cross-departmental discussion encouraged. 
    • Don’t mandate or assume you’ll have every person on the team for every call.
  • “Off-site” Events
    • Company Retreat/Summit
    • Sporting Event
    • Etc 
  • Any & All Common Ground Interactions
    • Experiment. 
      • Find what works for your teams and company culture. 
  • Friendly Unmandated Coworking Calls
  • Automated Check-ins Unrelated to Work
    • E.g. “What’s something you saw recently that you found interesting?”, or, “Have you read any good books you’d recommend of late?”
  • Regularly Recorded and Publicly Shared Shoutouts
    • Hearing someone praise your work, or the work of others makes it really hard not to like them. :)
• [0:25:50] Parting Words & Last Minute Insights
  • Take the time to get to know your coworkers, beyond just their roles and opinions, political or otherwise. 
  • You don’t have to be friends with everyone you work with, but there is no harm in liking everyone you work with. 
    • And that is more on you than it is on them, so put forth that effort to get to know them. 
      • At the end of the day, the choice is yours.