How ‘real’ is virtual reality?

According to CNN.com, Santiago Martinez, a 41 year-old accountant living in the Yucatan, Mexico does all his birthday present shopping on the Internet, using hi5 ‘virtual dollars’. When he wants to give his friends birthday presents, such as a cuddly bear or birthday cake, he orders them on-line, pays for them with virtual currency and sends them on-line too. The recipient receives a virtual gift; there’s no physical reality involved. As Santiago says, “They can’t eat the cake. It is an image [of] the thing that it represents. You send the feeling of the [cake] that you want to send.”
 
So you send the feeling. Really? How does that work?
 
I’m curious how much the five year-old recipient of a virtual teddy bear or birthday cake feels the love. How often do someone’s eyes well up with heart-felt tears at the sight of a virtual diamond bracelet, a virtually-expensive tie or the warmth of a virtual puppy? How long do the memories last from that type of emotional experience?

A fragmented world

In spite of the continuing growth of on-line networks, people are isolating themselves in increasing numbers, both emotionally and psychologically.

We have created tools that reinforce casual connections, all the while reducing the opportunity for close, personal contact. In our hectic lives, we can’t allocate the time it takes for real intimacy with another person. However many ‘friends’ you have on Facebook, the truth is that the size of your on-line network does not mean anything when it comes to real relationships.

All around us, relationships are disintegrating, replaced by superficial, fleeting contacts via impersonal channels. People swap direct, personal contact for electronic connections devoid of face-to-face interaction or tangible connectivity.
 
When relationships are replaced by electronic interactions, emotional connection—the human factor that creates true relationships—goes missing. Yet that’s what marriage researcher John Gottman says is the definitive foundation that determines the sustainability of relationships. Emotional connection does not work via transmission through the ether. You can’t “send the feeling of the cake.”
 

Connection is not relationship

 Within an electronic, transactional world, more people may be connecting, but fewer are relating. We live in an increasingly inter-connected world, but experience a far less inter-related one. When ­human contact is limited to a phone call, an e-mail or a quick “cu” or “luv u” text message—even a virtual teddy bear—where is the authentic connection with another live human being?

It’s questionable whether connecting like that represents any actual contact. Even as it becomes easier than ever to stay ‘in touch’, our capacity to touch one another, physically or emotionally, is slipping away. Is that what we want?
 
This week’s food-for-thought questions are:

• What face-to-face conversations are you avoiding? Are you spending more time on superficial contact and less on genuine personal relationships?
• Do you regularly send virtual cards and gifts in place of the real thing? Do you do that for your own convenience or for the one receiving the card or gift? Are you saving time at the expense of something that might convey genuine relatedness? Are you short-changing them emotionally?
• Are you addicted to Twitter, Facebook or other social networking tools? Can you do without these tools for a day or a week? If not, that’s addiction, whatever your denials and protestations.
• Do you automatically answer with your cellphone or Blackberry while you’re having a face-to-face conversation? What does that communicate to that person? Do you care?
• Are you on an electronic leash on weekends, days off and while on vacation? Can you truly make the disconnection (from the world) needed to make a real connection with someone else?

Technorati Tags: relationships, authenticity, connection, making time for others, isolated lives

Making interactions work when the stakes are high
 

According to the joint authors of a new book—Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler—“crucial conversations” are the kind of tough, day-to-day interactions with people in which the stakes are high, there are conflicting viewpoints and emotions run deep and strong.

The trouble is, while you can anticipate many of these conversations, they can also occur when you least expect them, whether in the boardroom or by the water cooler. Handling them well can transform businesses and careers, strengthen teams, increase productivity and all those other good things. Doing it badly . . . well, I’m sure you can fill in the blank.

Looking back on my own career, I can think of a good number of times when I fell into a crucial conversation unawares and came out of it covered with both confusion and another, brown substance I shan’t name here. That’s why any help on doing better seems to me to be worth considering.

In their new book, “Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High”, the authors present the fruits of a study based on more than 20,000 people seen in hundreds of organizations during the past twenty-five years.

Their aim was to identify the skills and techniques that are used by people who are masters at influencing others: people who routinely hold crucial conversations and hold them well. These people, they write, “. . . are able to express controversial and even risky opinions in a way that gets heard. Their bosses, peers, and direct reports listen without becoming defensive or angry.” 


The authors also explain the dynamics of what goes on in people’s minds when they’re confronted by difficult conversations; then present specific techniques for clarifying objectives, staying focused on goals and helping other participants do the same. This process, they claim, enables people to keep their emotions in check even when angry or threatened, to find out what others are thinking, and to resolve problems before they explode.

As a taster, the publisher has given us permission to reproduce a short questionnaire from the book. It seems the skills required to master high-stakes interactions are quite easy to spot and moderately easy to learn, according to the authors of “Crucial Conversations”. See how you think you would fare and whether you might benefit from their suggested approach.

STYLE UNDER STRESS TEST

Instructions: Before you start, please read through the following points.

1. Relationship. Before you get started, think about the relationship you want to improve—with your boss, coworker, direct report, friend, or family member—and keep this relationship in mind.
2. Circumstance. Next, think of a tough situation—one that you might have handled poorly or avoided altogether.
3. Apply. Now, with that situation in mind, respond to the following statements as either true or false.

Scoring

Score 1 point for each false answer, then tally up your number of points. This is what they indicate:

© 2009 VitalSmarts. All Rights Reserved. VitalSmarts, Crucial, Crucial Skills, and Style Under Stress are trademarks and Crucial Conversations is a registered trademark of VitalSmarts, L.C.

Technorati Tags: crucial conversations, handling stressful discussions, influence, keeping calm, defusing conflict

Why are working relationships between bosses and subordinates such a problem?

I thought it would be a good idea to review some of the basics of management—topics that we take for granted because they are so familiar to us, or because we assume the last word on them has been spoken and there is nothing more to be said. Motivation is on my list, as is communication, but I am going to start with the topic of working relationships between bosses and their subordinates.

Establishing good working relationships with subordinates is something every manager has to attempt. That’s why it’s the subject of innumerable books, articles, training courses and blogs.

This bothers me. Since managers are obviously still struggling with establishing productive relationships with their team members, the advice being given has to be missing something essential.

I’m not going to claim that I know the answer, but I do have some suggestions for areas of questioning that might move us forward.

Is everyone ‘showing up’ and paying attention?

The most basic requirement for any relationship is that both parties should be ‘present’. By that I mean both should be involved in that relationship and give it their undivided attention, in person, whenever necessary. Yet, what I observe are managers proclaiming their wish to have productive relationships with their staff while avoiding actual contact with them whenever possible.

It’s a truism to point out that relationships have two sides. Have such managers yet to grasp this point? They expect their subordinates to be fully involved in establishing and maintaining a relationship with them, while they make little or no effort in return. Talking with them is like speaking to an answering machine. You get a pre-recorded message back and have no means of knowing whether the message you leave will ever be listened to.

What you give your attention to grows; what you ignore, or attend to only when forced, quickly withers away. No relationship can survive prolonged neglect by either party.

Are they being honest with one another?

Exactly the same point could be made about honesty in relationships. Managers demand that their subordinates be open and honest with them, yet feel no obligation to behave the same way in return.

If you are not honest about a relationship, the message you are giving is that you don’t value it. This is as true of the relationship between boss and subordinate as it is of the relationship between spouses or friends.

Dishonesty destroys a relationship because all are based on some degree of mutual trust. If deal with you only on a one-off, transactional basis, there’s little need for me to trust you. We do what we must do and there’s an end of it. But if you and I are to work together, I have to feel sure that you will do what you promise, tell me the truth and deal with anything that concerns me openly and honestly.

It’s a sad thing to have to say, but many bosses do none of these. It’s little wonder that their subordinates have come to expect duplicity and concealment as normal—or that they repay the boss in kind.

Who’s paying attention?

Another corrupting influence on working relationships is narcissism. Why should anyone enter into a relationship with me, if the focus of that relationship is always fixed on me and what I want?

In today’s rushed workplace, attention is at a premium. That’s all the more reason to direct it where it matters most. A great many bosses think that is on themselves and their own careers. The only time they have any attention left over for their subordinates is when they want to complain or criticize. While the subordinate is ignored for the rest of the time, he or she is expected to find as much attention for the boss as the boss demands—at whatever time and on whatever topic.

Would you stay friends with someone who never found time to give you any attention? Would you stay with a lover who demanded that you fulfill his or her smallest need, while ignoring yours in return? Why should you behave differently with the boss? The boss may indeed be able to demand that you jump as and when requested, but that is a matter of authority, not the basis for a relationship.

The relationship between a boss and a subordinate is always going to be affected by their relative positions in the hierarchy. You have to face this. That’s why so many are based more on the approach you would expect between master and servant than between colleagues pursuing the same goal. Subordinates are paid to carry out instructions from the boss and are expected to comply without resistance. To make the boss feel better, they are also expected to look as if they enjoy it.

Is that a relationship? Hardly. It looks more like prostitution. You pay. I give as little in return as I can get away with . . . and fake some pleasure to make you feel special.

Is the boss trying to change you?

If the boss wants a relationship, it has to be marked by acceptance. No relationship gives either party the right to change the other to fit their expectations or wishes better.

One of the commonest causes is for breakdown in marriage is when one spouse determines to change the other to fix some problem or match an ideal. At once, the relationship becomes manipulative. The one starts ‘doing things’ to the other, who resents it.

Doesn’t this sound like the typical boss dealing with a subordinate? Isn’t this the basis for performance management and similar techniques? I, the boss, assert the right to change you, the subordinate, into what I want. If you don’t accept me doing that, it means you’re ‘ not co-operative’, ‘not a team player’, or ‘lack commitment’. Your career will suffer accordingly. You may even have to be let go.

To accept someone as they are is the basis of all successful relationships. It doesn’t mean you don’t help them to improve, or that you don’t make clear what works for you and what doesn’t. It does mean you don’t try to ‘do things’ to them or manipulate them. Any changes they make must be of their own, free will. You can advise what might be best, help them find a way forward, and, most certainly, show your appreciation of positive results. What you cannot do is coerce them or use the relationship as a means of blackmail.

Time, attention, honesty and acceptance are the keys

Relationships take time. In the end, their success is what you make it. If you don’t take time to pay the other person adequate attention, accept them for who they are and deal with them honestly, the person to blame for any breakdown is you.

Why are relationships between bosses and subordinates such a problem? The answer is clear. They will remain a problem as long as they are seen as tools of authority and used for manipulation under the guise of co-operation. A relationship is not a technique to be applied to an object to produce a particular result. It must consist of open, willing contact between individuals who are equally committed to its success. Anything else is fake and will fail.

Technorati Tags: relations with the boss, dealing with the boss, working relationships, getting on at work

However you get the word out, make sure to do it.
 

I know I could be accused of harping on about the necessity for leaders to communicate—and, more importantly, to know how best to communicate—but communication is a critically important activity. In today’s economic environment, communication takes on an even more important role.

Employees are not sure if their jobs are secure, partners are not sure if companies are viable, and what once was unthinkable has become commonplace. In times like these, communication can provide some sense of security, assurance and comfort. As Suzanne Bates suggests, think of Captain Sullenberger’s communications to both the air traffic control and to passengers during the recent plane ditching in the Hudson River.

“We’re gonna be in the Hudson,” he says to controllers. He never wasted words, but told people exactly what would happen. “Brace for impact,” he told the passengers, a signal that also prepared the flight crew to fall back on their training, remain calm, and get passengers safely off the plane.

No excuses!

What’s also worth noting is that, in today’s world, communication can take place in so many different ways—and from nearly anywhere on the planet. We aren’t constrained by geography any longer. Technological innovations have redefined what counts as ‘nearby’. Timing is no longer an issue either. Nearly everyone has some kind of message-taking system available to them.

Yet I still hear colleagues say they haven’t had a chance to reach out and let people know about something, or are simply “too busy to communicate.” To be honest, I doubt that either is true very often.

It’s hard to imagine anyone, despite how very busy many people are, not being able to find the few moments it takes to communicate with those that want to hear from us. Imagine going to a doctor for a biopsy and not hearing back from them because they are “too busy” to let you know the results. Where do you think your imagination would go after just a couple of days?

Just do it!

All it takes is some brief, to-the-point communication. The way you do it is much less important that the fact of doing it at all.

Write something. When did you last hand-write a note or letter? Use e-mail. What about cell phones? Text messaging keeps the communications pithy. Instant messaging is always there too— at least if you have those you want to communicate with on your buddy list (and they’re online). You could always distribute your message via Facebook or MySpace, assuming you don’t mind the public nature of it. Oh, and let’s not forget about Twitter. In just a mere 140 characters, you can still communicate a great amount to an enormous number of people simultaneously.

There are plenty of ways to get the word out, whether it means picking up the phone, writing an email, a text message or using on-line technology. The bottom-line is this: regardless of your communication weapon of choice, be sure to communicate. Inquiring minds want to know and silence is no longer an option.

Technorati Tags: communication, getting the word out, keeping people in touch, managerial necessities

Sowing the seeds of fear, doubt and mistrust

Mistrust is a fact of life in many workplaces, yet it doesn’t originate there. Mistrust is a consequence of experiences individuals have long before entering the world of work. They don’t find it in their working environments; they bring it with them.

Since trust is the single most important building block of successful relationships, rampant mistrust jeopardizes all the ways people at work relate to one another. Lacking trust, people feel unsafe. In place of co-operating or supporting one another, they disengage and keep themselves to themselves.

Many of the psycho-social and emotional dynamics at work reflect feelings that we experienced when we were growing up. We unconsciously react to colleagues, bosses and others at work who push our buttons as we once did to family members who pushed the same buttons. We project the same feelings of fear and mistrust onto the people around us today that we experienced in growing up.

Hearing voices

More than 2000 years ago, Epictetus pointed out that people are not disturbed by things themselves, but by the view they take of them. We are not born with a natural sense of distrusting others yet, long before we could spell ‘workplace’, the seeds of fear, doubt and mistrust were planted in our minds. In the early stages of our lives, we absorbed those seeds from adult voices telling us we were bad, not wanted or presented needs that were a problem. We began to feel perhaps that we weren’t safe and might not be taken care of. Hardest of all, we learned the bitter taste of betrayal.

Whatever form such messages took, they dismissed us and made us feel small. Maybe they ridiculed our clumsy efforts. Laughed at our our creations. Belittled our imagination and ideas. Dismissed our growing individuality as unimportant.

The positive voices we so wanted and needed to hear as children were probably heard much less often. For many adults, the voices of childhood were so often negative that, to this day, when they hear someone call their name they are startled, fearing another admonition.

People who grow up being told continually the ways in which they are falling short carry that fear, that doubt and that mistrust of others for the rest of their lives.

Misunderstanding the voices we hear today

How often have you interpreted or reacted to someone else’s words as if you were hearing one of these critical messages? Did the other person actually mean that? Or was your interpretation ‘off’ in some way? If you were moved to fear, doubt or mistrust, was the story you read into that person’s remarks accurate?

It’s probably fair to say that the majority of our interpretations of the words we hear are based on internalized beliefs. If, each day, you walk into your workplace feeling unworthy, unimportant or insecure, won’t you be unconsciously primed to doubt and mistrust people? Won’t it become your wiring? You’re constantly turning the radio dial in your head to a negative station and allowing preconditioned fears to direct your actions.

Finding an antidote

There are six steps you can take to discern whether fear, doubt and mistrust are justifiable. Six steps to move yourself towards building more trusting and healthy relationships.

1. Uncouple from the past. Try asking yourself if the feeling is familiar. Does it seem like a feeling that comes again and again? If so, tell yourself firmly that that was then and this is now. Detach yourself from that habitual pattern of reactivity. Take a deep breath and engage in a ‘right-here, right-now’ relationship that has no history.
2. Look to discover the rest of the story. Instead of jumping to conclusions, consider whether the story you are telling yourself is accurate. Checking out with the other person what precisely they do mean can go a long way to clarifying the situation and engendering a more trusting relationship.
3. Learn to forgive. Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die. Forgiving people who hurt you, maybe without even meaning to, is not condoning their behavior. It is a way to move beyond resentment. Healing best occurs when you choose to give up your bitterness and anger.
4. Explore your history around issues of doubt, fear, betrayal and trust. See if your issues are caused by learned behaviors you have been carrying with you. Explore where and when you project your emotions onto others. Are those projections justified, or are they little more than knee-jerk reactions?
5. Try talking out your problems with people whom you trust. Air your feelings. This will likely help you to gain greater clarity. It will also will allow you to express feelings which, if kept inside, will fester and rise up again, fueling yet more fear, doubt and mistrust.
6. Empathize. Everyone has limitations and blockages around trust; everyone has ‘stuff’ they carry about with them. Other people’s fears and doubts , like yours, are more often than not projections they put on you. Communicating with empathy, understanding and compassion will go a long way to forging healthier and more positive relationships.

Technorati Tags: trust, fear, mistrust, doubt, misunderstanding others, living in the past, empathy

Indra’s Net: the viewpoint of interconnectedness
 

“Indra’s Net”, illustrated by Schnerf

Our financial markets have been crumbling, many of our corporations and institutions are in grave jeopardy of failure, millions of people have seen the value of their 401(k) retirement programs evaporate, job losses are mounting in geometric proportions, and we are drowning in debt, both nations and individuals. In addition, global warming is increasing, our ecosystems are being destroyed and millions around the globe are starving to death or subject to war and displacement.

From one perspective there is no surprise. The concept of the zero-sum game might help us understand what’s happening. The seemingly universal principle of Interconnectivity might even help us find a solution.

In game and economic theory, zero-sum describes a situation in which a participant’s gain or loss is exactly balanced by the losses or gains of the other participant(s). If the total gains of the participants
are added up, and the total losses are subtracted, they will sum to zero. Cutting a cake is zero-sum because taking a larger piece reduces the amount of cake available for others. Simply, if you get yours, I won’t get mine. Most of our economic struggles are driven by the mantra, “How can I get mine . . . and forget everyone else?”

What happens if you live from a zero-sum perspective?

How readily will I accept that you should get what you want or need, if I know that it will cause me to lose out on getting what I want? Zero-sum thinking is fear-based. What we see happening in the world’s marketplaces is the result of living a zero-sum game: millions suffer for the sake of the few; wealth for some means poverty and financial insecurity for the rest. There seems to be no way out since, as the number of zero-sum games increases—and it is increasing—the number of people caring for others decreases. Yet such institutionalized selfishness will undoubtedly, if not destroy the planet, cause serious harm on many levels. We are witnessing this harm right now.

It’s natural to wonder whether we are being ‘punished’ for past misdeeds, as though someone is doing all this to us from outside. The truth is that no one is doing anything to us; we are doing it to ourselves. In a zero-sum environment, the more we focus only on ourselves and try to ‘do others down’, the more we all suffer. Ego-inflating behaviors, based on greed and fear, create an environment that cannot sustain healthy life. Our national health statistics show increasing spikes in diseases like cancer and depression; diseases of the immune system that are often the result of constant anger and fear.

The more time we spend blaming others, fighting for “mine”, and living in fear and anger, the worse the problems we are moving towards. As Pogo said, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

Is there a solution?

What if each one of us were to take personal responsibility for the problems we are facing? What if we were to choose to believe we can change the world for the better, albeit in some small and personal way—right here, right now?

In the Buddhist tradition, there is a symbolic image known as Indra’s Net: a three-dimensional network of golden threads filling the whole of space, at each juncture of which is a jewel. These jewels reflect every other jewel in the infinite network. As the sparkle in one jewel changes, it is reflected in the sparkle of every other jewel. It’s a metaphor, of course. A poetic way of saying each of us is connected in a web of life and relationships stretching across the universe. If I change my tiny world for the better, that change must be reflected in yours.

Today, in 2009, it’s clear we have failed to understand the connections around us, whether within our ecosystem; between our ‘Western’ lifestyles and the economies of the developing countries; our use of chemicals in daily life and their effect on our oceans and streams; and, most of all, between our zero-sum greed and the poverty and hardships we have brought on ourselves and on others.

Interconnectivity in the realm of economics might help us out of our current mess. We could focus on being stewards of wealth, not treating it as personal property to use as we will. We could try attaching more value to using wealth for the good of all and less to competing with others for individual benefit. We could follow the principle that economics and a moral and civilized life are neither separate nor mutually exclusive.

Without an inner understanding of how our universe is interconnected—an understanding that comes from self-reflection, awareness and a deeper understanding of ethics—we’ll stay enmeshed in greed, hatred and ignorance. From this alternative perspective, we’re engaged in a huge wake up call. Unless we act, and act soon, the damage we’re doing to our planet and our nations will be irreversible. Our self-destructive behavior will go on towards ultimate disaster.

The final choice

Even though as have increased our ability to connect with each other over the Internet, we are losing our ability to relate on anything but a superficial level. We seem to be using the Internet mostly to perpetuate our own egos and garner more for “me” in a more globalized form of the zero-sum game.

In the weeks and months ahead, there will be numerous prescriptions put forward to solve our current mess. Yet the sad truth is that probably none of these will point to this, simple, well-established and practical way of approaching economics, based on the ideas taught in the East 2500 years ago: the fundamental interconnectivity of people and nature.

That’s the real challenge. That’s the essential choice we will live or die by. Will we choose to make fundamental changes in our thinking, or simply search for another way to reinvent the zero-sum approach to economics and life? We can evolve, but only if we allow old paradigms to collapse and make way for a new economic order: a more metaphysical approach to economics, that reflects a rising consciousness of the interconnectedness of us all.

Our $10 food-for thought-questions this week are:

• Do you believe life is a “zero-sum” game”? If so, why?
• Does it worry you that others may well suffer as a direct result of you getting something you want? Could you do anything about it?
• Are you content to keep going down your current path? Does it concern you that we may be destroying the possibility of life on this planet? Or is that ‘none of your business’?
• Do you believe that you are helpless to change anything? Are you content to accept this and trust to luck or fate? Do you see how this absolves you from any personal responsibility?
• Do your thoughts and actions around money consistently reflect your higher values? Do the ways you make, spend and invest money result in harm to others or to the earth? Do you care?
• Do you consciously seek to realize the highest good for all—or dismiss this as airy-fairy nonsense?
• Can you imagine a world with well being for everyone? What would it take to bring this about?

“Unless we have inner abundance, our material abundance works against our own survival.”—Torkum Saraydarian

Technorati Tags: zero-sum game, economics, interconnectedness, working for the common good, selfishness, competitiveness, winning at any cost

Loneliness, friendship and the human need for connection
 

“When friendship disappears then there is a space left open to that awful loneliness of the outside world which is like the cold space between the planets. It is an air in which men perish utterly.” —Hillair Belloc

How many close friends do you have? Let’s define a close friend as someone you would invite to a family dinner without first having to make any excuse for them (or some aspect of them); someone you can accept without compromise or condition; someone you can share your most intimate thoughts and feelings with.

Research indicates the average American has two close friends. Yet, twenty-five percent of people say they have no one with whom they can be authentic; no one with whom they can discuss deep personal or emotional issues.

Without true friendship, what remains is loneliness. In its most serious form, loneliness is considered a serious, even life-threatening condition, heightening the risks of heart disease and depression. Tough, stressful times usually make it worse.

Connection isn’t the same as closeness

In many ways, our times are more ‘connected’ than ever before. People engage within huge networks, online and off. We have more means to stay in touch over remote distances. We live in a time when people feel a kinship with TV stars like Oprah; when they engage in non-stop communicating with folks on My Space and Facebook; when people vent and emote on the talk shows and cozy up to watch re-runs of Friends—even if they don’t actually have many friends themselves, or any at all.

From a mental-health standpoint, what’s striking in all of this is the rise of depression in our society. Depression is rising in geometric proportions in every demographic sector. In spite of the quantum growth of connecting through online and off-line networks, people are isolating themselves emotionally and psychologically at ever increasing numbers. We have a pandemic of loneliness.

Who loves ya, baby?

Who supports you—really, really supports you—when you feel lonely, stressed or sad? What’s the difference between connecting online, or with local business or social networks, and the true, deeper connection of genuinely close friendship? The sad truth is that the frequency of contact and the number of contacts in our network does not necessarily translate into the quality of contact.

For a start, we’ve come to expect things instantly, and aren’t willing to spend the time it takes to develop real intimacy with another person.

Take the phenomenon of Facebook.com, the social-networking Web site where members proudly announce their huge numbers of friends. Some members say they have 1,000 friends. The pity is that they probably don’t even know half of them in any measurable way. They are simply contacts—and not very significant contacts either.

Some people thought going to their local Starbucks was a solution—a Marshall Plan for creating connections and finding new friendships. Have you sat in a Starbucks, or any other coffee shop, lately? People come in, get their lattes to go, or sit around ‘connecting’ with their laptops. You can bet that those who are talking to one another arrived as friends.

What’s going on?

We are becoming ever more insular. People spend thousand of dollars on home entertainment centers to fill their time, instead of devoting themselves to connecting with anyone else. They watch TV and don’t speak to one another. Everyone has a meal at a different time. They may live in the same house, but they aren’t a group or a community in any other sense of the word. Family time for many has become an event focusing on doing things rather than a deeper process of sharing and truly being with one another.

If there’s a Church of True Friendship, very few of us show up at the services. We say friendship is important to us, then choose lifestyles that make us too busy and distracted to cultivate or preserve it. It’s no different from the people who agree with their doctors that they need, say, a hip replacement, but never find the time to have the procedure.

So many of the major disconnects we feel in today’s culture—disconnects driven by fear, anger, hate, isolation, insecurity, and the like—are a function of loneliness and the lack of true and meaningful friendships. As Carl Jung wrote:

“Loneliness does not come from having no people about one, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to oneself, or from holding certain views which others find inadmissible.”

Our $10 food-for-thought questions this week are:

• How do you define friendship?
• Would your friends describe you as a true and real friend, or more as an acquaintance? Would you feel comfortable asking them?
• Do you feel safe disclosing your innermost thoughts and feelings to your friends? To your partner or spouse? If not, why not?
• Do you ever feel alone or lonely when you’re in a group—or even at home? How do you deal with that?
• Does your lifestyle exclude time and room for developing meaningful friendships? When was the last time someone referred to you as a “real friend”?
• Do you pride yourself on amassing a huge number of social-network friends? How many of these “friends” do you really know and trust enough to share your true feelings and secrets with?

Technorati Tags: friendship, connections, social networking, support, closeness, trusting others

Are people merely steps you use to climb up the workplace ladder?

Photo: © Thomas Schmid — Fotolia.com

There’s a phenomenon I’ve been following for years, one that takes place largely at work, whether ‘work’ takes place in a corporation, a sports arena, the arts or politics, or anywhere else. The phenomenon is this: there seems to be an ever-increasing number of people who use their social skills to create workplace relationships purely to climb the rank-related workplace ladder. They possess all the aplomb and niceties that go along with creating and maintaining relationships, but use them almost solely in the workplace.

Such people are great at relating to their peers, their bosses, clients and followers — all the typical business stakeholders. But when it comes to their relationships outside the workplace — spouses, partners, friends, children — there’s nothing there. They’re everyone’s friends in the office, but fail deeply when it comes to creating and maintaining healthy, conscious and intimate relationships anywhere else.

Many of them — I have observed or coached quite a number over the years — appear to have all the ‘right stuff’. They came from good backgrounds; growing up, they went to the right schools, played all the requisite sports and engaged in revered extracurricular activities; they pledged the right sororities and fraternities, and received the ‘degree-du-jour’ and the post-graduate accolades that now line their walls. Read the full story