What Is The Most Important?
When it is all said and done and your race is finally run, what will your greatest memories be? When you sift through all you have been and all you have seen, what will stand out on top of it all? When you reflect back with wonder and delight, or maybe, despair and regret, what did you do or wish you had done?
With over a decade facilitating, training and coaching individuals and teams I am reminded, on an almost daily basis, about the universality of what people find the most important. Whether we are doing strategy sessions, teamwork, culture or sales training, the desired end outcome pivots on this imminently social requirement. At the start of working with people I like to ask what they want to ensure we cover. As I have shared before, the most common requests focus on improving communication and confidence.
The desire to be more confident within oneself and to be able to communicate effectively both point to the importance people place on their interactions with other people. Intuitively people understand that the way you present yourself makes a difference both internally to yourself and externally to others. Confidence is one of the fastest transferred human emotions. It forms part of the unspoken communication that we trade in daily. Communication, in all its forms, is the oil that helps people and teams function smoothly. The better the quality and timing of communication, the greater the chances a team will grow and succeed. The speed (and quality) of feedback equals the speed of success. Stephen Covey explored this in depth with his excellent work “The Speed Of Trust”.
Trust is the foundation of relationships. People need relationships.There is a groundswell trend, being led by people like Brene Brown, towards being authentic, which requires being vulnerable. This is countercultural. We have spent years putting on a face and being “proper”. This worked in a world where communication was predominantly interpersonal. The exponential increase in technology has both facilitated an ability to communicate at speed and reduced the time required for connection to do this. We can communicate with more people quicker with each passing day. The growing trend towards “being real” highlights the increasing realisation that much of our current construct of reality is stealing what is important to us. Can you relate to having a broader network of connections at the sacrifice of depths of connection?
If you work with a team, be aware that over the long term, more than anything, people need relationships. The quality of our relationships determines the quality of our lives. What do you do to ensure people are connected within your workplace? For all the technology we have and the ability to communicate there is a steadily increasing number of people reporting loneliness. Our statistics in New Zealand report a steadily increasing rise in depression and suicides. Humans are social beings. We are wired for relationships. People need people and the longest running study of adults, the Harvard Study of Adult Development that has been going for over 75 years, has shown that positive meaningful relationships have a huge impact on our lives - from health to happiness. When all is said and done life is more about who you did life with than what you have done.
