The Beatles in Eleanor Rigby sang:
“All the lonely people (ah, look at all the lonely people)
Where do they all come from?”
There can be many reasons for feeling lonely in our personal lives, but this can also happen in our professional working lives if we feel isolated for some reason – from our colleagues or our manager or both. This can be damaging to our individual work and to our team and ultimately our organisation. The Cambridge Dictionary defines “lonely” as “being unhappy because you are not with other people”. However, in a work context I suggest this is more the absence of being or feeling connected to fellow workers or your firm.
See this apt Guardian article which is quite old but explores the topic well Workplace loneliness is a real problem. For 45 hours a week I feel isolated. It cites “An academic study in 2011, by professors from California State University and Wharton School of Business, explained why workplace loneliness matters. After surveying a sample of 672 workers, Hakan Ozcelik and Sigal Barsade concluded that loneliness at work has a “significant influence on employee work performance, both in direct tasks, as well as employee team member and team role effectiveness rated by both the employee’s work unit members and supervisor”.”
And all of this has of course been exacerbated by the pandemic when we were forced to isolate and the subsequent trend to working from home much more than we used to. Lawyers, accountants and commercial managers have embraced remote working to some extent. Even medical professionals, who clearly need to meet their patients at some stage, are increasingly utilising technology to have more remote consultations. The opportunities to connect and to have casual conversations and generally communicate face to face have significantly reduced – see my blog last year Water Cooler Conversations - Real and Virtual.
I like this LinkedIn article We're Lonely at Work - So What Do We Do Now? which consists of an interview with Steven Van Cohen the co-author with Ryan Jenkins of the bestselling book, Connectable: How Leaders Can Move Teams from Isolated to All In. This discusses the loneliness of leaders quoting Carter Cast, a professor at Northwestern and an ex-CEO of Walmart.com who said, “The loneliest I have ever been was when I was managing at scale and didn’t know if I was doing it right. I did not know who I could talk to. Being lost was lonesome.” As the book’s title suggests Steven Van Cohen says “The first thing we need to remember is that loneliness is the absence of connection, not people. People can be in a crowded office and still feel debilitatingly lonely, or they can work fully remote and feel completely connected. What matters most is the type of interaction happening between people.” And this really matters: “Our research uncovered that lonely employees are seven times more likely to be disengaged, five times more likely to miss work due to stress or illness, and think about quitting their jobs twice as often as their non-lonely colleagues. Making people feel like they belong, that their work matters, and that they are important is not just good for humanity, it is good for business. Lessening loneliness is not a soft topic; it is a dire one.”
While this article 8 Ways to Beat Loneliness in the Workplace proposes that “Loneliness is a painful emotion that occurs when a person perceives that he or she is alone, or is being shunned by and isolated from other people.” It cites research that suggests “loneliness can be worse for your brain and your body, over time, than alcohol and smoking.” But it is at work where it becomes a business issue because it affects how we perform. “Loneliness often results in an emotional withdrawal from the organization. Lonely people tend to be less committed, creative, collaborative and attentive, and both the quality and quantity of their work can deteriorate.” It suggests “the best way to tackle loneliness in the workplace is to build a culture of connection and community” and proposes ways to do this including:
See this Harvard Business Review article Work and the Loneliness Epidemic by a former surgeon general of the United States which explains the origins of loneliness noting that “Over thousands of years, the value of social connection has become baked into our nervous system such that the absence of such a protective force creates a stress state in the body.” In a work context “people bring the most to their work when they feel connected to the mission and the people around them”. At the Surgeon General’s Office they promoted this by “an exercise in which team members were asked to share something about themselves through pictures for five minutes during weekly staff meetings”.
The article concludes:
“The world is suffering from an epidemic of loneliness. If we cannot rebuild strong, authentic social connections, we will continue to splinter apart — in the workplace and in society. …….We must take action now to build the connections that are the foundation of strong companies and strong communities — and that ensure greater health and well-being for all of us.”
As the American author, advocate and activist Helen Keller (who went to Harvard University and became the first deafblind person in the United States to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree) said “Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.”
“All the lonely people (ah, look at all the lonely people)
Where do they all come from?”
There can be many reasons for feeling lonely in our personal lives, but this can also happen in our professional working lives if we feel isolated for some reason – from our colleagues or our manager or both. This can be damaging to our individual work and to our team and ultimately our organisation. The Cambridge Dictionary defines “lonely” as “being unhappy because you are not with other people”. However, in a work context I suggest this is more the absence of being or feeling connected to fellow workers or your firm.
See this apt Guardian article which is quite old but explores the topic well Workplace loneliness is a real problem. For 45 hours a week I feel isolated. It cites “An academic study in 2011, by professors from California State University and Wharton School of Business, explained why workplace loneliness matters. After surveying a sample of 672 workers, Hakan Ozcelik and Sigal Barsade concluded that loneliness at work has a “significant influence on employee work performance, both in direct tasks, as well as employee team member and team role effectiveness rated by both the employee’s work unit members and supervisor”.”
And all of this has of course been exacerbated by the pandemic when we were forced to isolate and the subsequent trend to working from home much more than we used to. Lawyers, accountants and commercial managers have embraced remote working to some extent. Even medical professionals, who clearly need to meet their patients at some stage, are increasingly utilising technology to have more remote consultations. The opportunities to connect and to have casual conversations and generally communicate face to face have significantly reduced – see my blog last year Water Cooler Conversations - Real and Virtual.
I like this LinkedIn article We're Lonely at Work - So What Do We Do Now? which consists of an interview with Steven Van Cohen the co-author with Ryan Jenkins of the bestselling book, Connectable: How Leaders Can Move Teams from Isolated to All In. This discusses the loneliness of leaders quoting Carter Cast, a professor at Northwestern and an ex-CEO of Walmart.com who said, “The loneliest I have ever been was when I was managing at scale and didn’t know if I was doing it right. I did not know who I could talk to. Being lost was lonesome.” As the book’s title suggests Steven Van Cohen says “The first thing we need to remember is that loneliness is the absence of connection, not people. People can be in a crowded office and still feel debilitatingly lonely, or they can work fully remote and feel completely connected. What matters most is the type of interaction happening between people.” And this really matters: “Our research uncovered that lonely employees are seven times more likely to be disengaged, five times more likely to miss work due to stress or illness, and think about quitting their jobs twice as often as their non-lonely colleagues. Making people feel like they belong, that their work matters, and that they are important is not just good for humanity, it is good for business. Lessening loneliness is not a soft topic; it is a dire one.”
While this article 8 Ways to Beat Loneliness in the Workplace proposes that “Loneliness is a painful emotion that occurs when a person perceives that he or she is alone, or is being shunned by and isolated from other people.” It cites research that suggests “loneliness can be worse for your brain and your body, over time, than alcohol and smoking.” But it is at work where it becomes a business issue because it affects how we perform. “Loneliness often results in an emotional withdrawal from the organization. Lonely people tend to be less committed, creative, collaborative and attentive, and both the quality and quantity of their work can deteriorate.” It suggests “the best way to tackle loneliness in the workplace is to build a culture of connection and community” and proposes ways to do this including:
- If you suspect that one of your people is lonely or isolated, work on building up trust with them.
- Research and explore different ways of working.
- Build a team that has a shared direction - Purpose gives meaning to people's efforts, and a shared purpose builds camaraderie.
- Take an interest in people’s lives by providing opportunities for them to be understood as individuals
- The smallest gestures can make a world of difference
See this Harvard Business Review article Work and the Loneliness Epidemic by a former surgeon general of the United States which explains the origins of loneliness noting that “Over thousands of years, the value of social connection has become baked into our nervous system such that the absence of such a protective force creates a stress state in the body.” In a work context “people bring the most to their work when they feel connected to the mission and the people around them”. At the Surgeon General’s Office they promoted this by “an exercise in which team members were asked to share something about themselves through pictures for five minutes during weekly staff meetings”.
The article concludes:
“The world is suffering from an epidemic of loneliness. If we cannot rebuild strong, authentic social connections, we will continue to splinter apart — in the workplace and in society. …….We must take action now to build the connections that are the foundation of strong companies and strong communities — and that ensure greater health and well-being for all of us.”
As the American author, advocate and activist Helen Keller (who went to Harvard University and became the first deafblind person in the United States to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree) said “Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.”
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