How to Develop Relationships at Work That Are Consistent
Consistency, in short, is the time we spend interacting with each other to build trust. It’s in interacting with each other that we develop a pattern, a norm, or a consistent way of being together that therefore increases our perception that we can predict how we each might respond in a certain situation. In other words, future trust is built on past Consistency.
And this one requirement, my dear friends, is single-handedly the main reason we bond with people at work even though they may not be the kind of friends we’d otherwise choose. Childhood, high school, and college are the top three ways we made our friends growing up; but move into adulthood, and our jobs top the list—because these are the places in our lives where we experience the most Consistency.
It’s not that friendships happened automatically when we were kids as much as that Consistency happened automatically when we were kids. We had to go to school with the same kids every day—we didn’t wait to be invited; we had to show up at our extracurricular activities, whether band practice, swimming meets, or soccer games—they were scheduled into our lives repeatedly; we had to have a roommate in college—proximity was never optional. And, now, for most of us, work is the most consistent thing we have in our lives. That Consistency is why we are most likely to bond with those we work alongside, whether we intend to or not.
Of course, there are people we spend consistent time with whom we don’t end up liking, or trusting, because we lack Positivity and/or Vulnerability with them—so Consistency alone isn’t enough. But as we start understanding the components of a healthy relationship, we’ll quickly see that it’s also impossible to ever enjoy others (Positivity) and get to know them (Vulnerability) without investing time (Consistency). This one matters big-time.
In our nonwork relationships, Consistency is the requirement that people complain is the hardest in the bulk of their friendships. Consistency takes the one thing that too many people feel is in scarce supply: time. It’s one more thing to initiate, schedule, and organize.
But bring us to work, and the hardest requirement can often become one of the easiest—we’re already there!
CONSISTENCY IS DEVELOPED
At the bottom of the Triangle, we don’t yet feel secure commitment with someone based on a history of really being there for each other, but we can aim for reliable interactions. We don’t need to trust them with our secrets, respect the way they do business, or enter into commitments with them. But our decision to create as reliable of interactions as possible will help us get our jobs done well.
The goal of Consistency is to increase trust so that we feel safe with each other, which we do incrementally as we increase Positivity and Vulnerability. We need to feel as though we can rely on each other, which happens as we get to know each other and build history.
But just as friendship isn’t all or nothing, neither is trust.
• We might not confide in a colleague because we don’t know if we trust her not to use this personal information against us at some point, but that doesn’t mean we don’t trust her to do her job.
• We might not trust that a new customer will eventually join our loyalty program, but we can feel confident that he left our store or restaurant happy.
• We might not trust that our supervisor thinks we’re ready for a promotion, but we can still feel that she appreciates our work in our current role.
The extent of what we can rely on in someone grows only as our experience with them increases.
Trust at the bottom of the Triangle is situational—at this meeting, during this shift, on this project, in this role—as opposed to the unlimited trust we might have for someone at the Top of the Triangle. Here, at the bottom, we don’t confuse the difference between trusting people in this circumstance and expecting them to be that way in all circumstances.
In other words, we don’t have to blindly trust everyone around us, but can we assume we’ll both show up respectfully, stay focused on each other or our task, and accomplish what we’re both trying to make happen? Can my coworkers count on me showing up when I said I would? Can my supervisor presume that I’ll make the deadline? Can my sales manager expect that I’m trying to make a sale with every interaction? Can my customer count on the food being delivered as ordered? Can the workshop trainer safely assume that I’ll pay attention and participate? Can the person whose business card I just collected at the networking event depend on me not sending a blizzard of sales emails? Basically, can I be trusted in this moment to be as competent and reliable as the occasion demands?
As we move up the Triangle, we practice being more reliable with each other by having consistent behaviors that lead to trust. We trust each other more in our collaborations and eventually extend that to other areas as we learn more about what we can come to expect from each other in various settings.
At the Top of the Triangle we experience secure commitment, where we both feel confident that the other person has our back, can be relied upon to support us, and holds themselves responsible for being present in our lives. Ideally, there is little need up there for insecurities, unanswered questions, or unspoken expectations because we feel meaningful transparency (highest level of Vulnerability) and complete acceptance (highest level of Positivity).
HOW TO DEVELOP CONSISTENCY
In our nonwork life we understand that if we want to spend time with someone we have to initiate it, because the chances are low that we’ll simply “run into each other.” But at work, for good and for bad, this is how most of our relationships start. It’s good in that it allows us to build connections without having to extend invitations to near strangers to get together, schedule extra events into our full calendars, or start conversations without knowing a thing about the other. By both of us being in the same company, industry, or workplace, we already have conversation starters, opportunities to see each other, and a reason to connect. Where it can be bad, or limiting, is when we don’t understand the role this Consistency has in our feeling close. Once we understand how we can increase it, or limit it, we can start to see how we can strengthen (or weaken) any relationship we want.
But time is an interesting thing. The answer to a healthier relationship isn’t just more time. The reason time is important is because it’s our interactions that build up the scaffolding of our relationship—the structure, the bones, the systems, the patterns, the expectations. Time is simply the product that builds our scaffolding and allows us to see the shape of that relationship—what we do together, where we do it, how we do it, and when we do it. What will we find we most enjoy talking about? Are we going to be friends who primarily text or email? Will we feel most supported with short and frequent interaction or wait for occasions where we can connect longer? What will be the activities we repeat the most often?
So, far more important than just increasing time is being more strategic and thoughtful about how we’re using that time to build the interactions that matter most.
Consistency is the answer to the question “What is the norm for us?”
Consistency Starts with Proximity
Proximity, or the nearness in space we have to each other, is how most relationships start. If you broaden proximity to also include virtual proximity—those moments and reasons where our two worlds might come closer to each other via an email, phone call, or video conference—then it’s safe to say that we will only form friendships with those in this world with whom we have reason to bump into, to meet, to interact with, because at some point proximity brought us together. But physical proximity is the biggest predictor of who we’ll bond with.
Proximity does a number of things for us, including two worth mentioning here. The first benefit is that proximity increases our chances of liking each other! Simply seeing each other more often—what is called the mere-exposure effect—increases our familiarity and ups our odds of feeling closer, and safer.
Remember that police academy study I referenced in Chapter 3 when I was highlighting that the cadets didn’t end up becoming friends based on common interests or personalities? On the contrary, much to the surprise of many, they ended up building close ties based on their name. More specifically, where their name fell on the roster, since all classes sat in alphabetical order. When graduating cadets listed the classmates with whom they had formed the closest relationship, 90 percent listed the individual they sat beside. They bonded based on proximity.
That study has been repeated a hundred times over in dorms, neighborhoods, schools, and workplaces around the world: we are more likely to be close to someone the closer we physically are to them. Despite the technology in our world that allows us to be friends with anyone on the planet—we still have the highest chances of feeling close to those we live with, or near, and those we work beside. In fact, we’re six times more likely to form collaborative relationships with someone sitting near us, even if they work in a different department than we do, than we are to partner with someone from our own department if they work on a different floor.1 Researchers can walk into nearly any workplace and predict with uncanny accuracy who we are probably close to simply by seeing whom we work beside. And it’s mind-boggling, to say the least, to see the odds exponentially drop for every seat or office apart we are.
The second thing that proximity increases besides familiarity is the opportunity for spontaneous conversation. Proximity is why we we’re more likely to strike up a conversation with the person beside us on the plane than the person behind us, why we might say hi to someone in an elevator whom we’d ignore if they were on the other side of the room, and why we feel closer to the colleagues whose offices or desks we have to walk by every day to get to ours.
Scientists, like Ben Waber, author of People Analytics, who have tracked our internal communication, have verified that no matter how we talk to each other—email, chat, face-to-face—the likelihood that we will communicate is directly proportional to the proximity of our desks. He says, “As you get pretty much onto different floors you might as well be in another city.”2 He has hundreds of examples of how much that proximity matters, including an interesting one in which engineers who worked next to each other were four times more likely to bring up a problem they were trying to solve in contrast to a team who worked remotely from each other.
The proximity we have to each other increases our creativity, problem-solving abilities, and overall performance. Daniel Coyle, best-selling author of The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Effective Groups, says, “Being in the same space together for vast chunks of time—physical, face-to-face proximity—that’s the killer app. You’re actually thirty-four times more likely to respond favorably to a request face to face versus email. If you’re just talking about productivity, you can succeed alone, but if you’re talking about creative groups, proximity ends up being really important.”3
The power of proximity is what has led to so many workplaces being designed to maximize our human interaction: open-floor plans, cafés stocked with food, common spaces for recreation or socialization, commuter shuttle programs, and any other ways that encourage us to meet around the proverbial watercooler. It conversely begs us to be strategic about our workforce spread around the globe—whether, and how, we support remote working and how to best manage teams that don’t share floor space. Continuing to learn just how powerful this proximity is will continue to inform our organizations as they think through which departments should share a floor, which teams should sit next to each other, and even which people are best next to each other.
And for each of us—whether we sit beside the same people every day, work in relative solitude from home, or are spending the bulk of every day interacting with different customers, it behooves us to ask: Is there anything I can do to intentionally be closer, even occasionally, to others so that we can increase our familiarity and allow for more spontaneous interaction that might enrich my work and life?
Consistency Accelerates with Intensity
Intensity, the strength or potency of an experience, is perhaps one of the rarer ways that time can bond us, but bond us quickly it can. We find typically that trust and reliability increase over time, but sometimes a shared experience can be so unique or powerful that it accelerates our trust in each other.
Some of us have jobs—such as in the armed forces or as first responders—where the term foxhole buddy literally means more than just someone with whom we’ve gone through something difficult or unique. A longitudinal study of veterans from World War II and the Korean War followed three groups of men—those who saw no combat, those who participated in combat but were never exposed to death, and those who participated in combat and were exposed to death. Besides the obvious correlations between the increase in danger leading to stronger camaraderie (notably they felt closer to someone with whom they shared battle conditions than someone they saw frequently in the mess hall), the bond lasted longer too. The researchers found that the veterans who were exposed to death together were nearly twice as likely to still be friends forty years later than those whose lives weren’t at risk.4
But here’s the kicker—while, certainly, intense experiences bond us more quickly than simply sitting next to each other—studies show that simply believing we are in something together has a similar effect. That’s how powerful a frame can be—that simply perceiving to be in something together makes a huge difference. In a compelling study out of Stanford University, researchers found that when one group was treated like they were working together—even though they were each working alone in different rooms—they persisted 48–64 percent longer, reported more interest in the task, and performed better than those who simply worked by themselves, never believing that they were “together” in the exercise.5
Retreats, special projects, mergers, layoffs, crises, surprises, successes—anything that can produce intense feelings shared with others—has the potential to accelerate bonds as we are reminded that we’re not “in it” alone.
Yoon became friends with Janet “for no other reason than we had to,” she said with a bit of a smile. Basically, they were the only two female partners at a law firm. They actually did have a choice as they could have let fear whisper that they needed to compete with each other, but instead they took the shared experience of knowing what it felt like to be the only woman in the room and bonded over that unique commonality. Based on proximity alone, since they worked in different divisions, chances were low they would have become friends had they both been male, surrounded by plenty of other men with whom to connect. But the intensity of both being the minority in a group helped them feel like they were in a shared experience together as they used that commonality to accelerate their Consistency, Positivity, and Vulnerability.
If we want to feel like we belong at work, what are the ways we can reach out to others in the company with whom we might share a common feeling or experience? What are the activities we can initiate or lean into that might help us feel like we accomplished, or survived, together?
Consistency Increases with Frequency
Frequency, the regularity at which something is repeated, is usually made possible by proximity, but they aren’t the same thing. We can put ourselves in someone else’s proximity to increase the chance of connecting—say, at a networking event or conference—but frequency is when it’s repeated. It’s frequency that leads some of us to say some variation of “My coworkers know more about me than my dear friends!” By that we usually mean that we talk to our coworkers more frequently, so chances are they know more about what’s going on in our day-to-day lives than many of our nonwork friends. If our frequency with a dear nonwork friend is only a monthly lunch or a weekly phone call, then we can quickly see how someone who sees us on Monday at work might hear more about our weekend than we’d think to tell our friend when we see them for lunch in two weeks.
The frequency we have at work is perhaps the largest motivation I felt for writing this book. Author Annie Dillard famously said, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” And there’s no question for most of us that the largest portion of our days is spent at work. In fact, the average person among us will spend ninety thousand hours of our lives at work—a third of our lifetime. Dillard, less famously, then wrote, “What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing.”6 Yes, we are working, but it’s perhaps the biggest missed opportunity in the world if we aren’t also using those hours to connect in satisfying ways.
Of course, frequency doesn’t guarantee that what we share will be deep, meaningful, or personal, but it does set us up to experience a higher quantity of interactions with one another. And interactions we need! With over 140,000 Americans tracked with the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, they have found a correlation between the number of social hours each day to our daily mood. The data suggests we need six hours of social interaction every day to lower our stress, minimize our anxiety, and leave us feeling connected. Compare the two-to-one ratio of happiness to stress if you get only one hour of social interaction in a day to the eleven-to-one ratio if you can hit the six-to-seven-hour mark!7 That sounds like a lot, and I doubt we all feel like we need that much, but in my Friendships in the Workplace survey, I asked respondents how they felt about the amount of interaction they get at work every day, and a whopping 36 percent said they wished for more! In contrast, only 11 percent wished for less.
How do you feel about the amount of interaction at work? |
||||
Wish for Way Less |
Wish for Less |
Good the Way It Is |
Wish for More |
Wish for Way More |
2% |
9% |
53% |
32% |
4% |
And they aren’t wanting more because they’re not getting any. When they’re asked how much of their daily job consists of interaction with their peers and with their clients, about two-thirds of us are already spending at least half of our time, or more, with others throughout the day.
|
None |
Very Little |
About Half |
Quite a Bit |
Almost All |
Peers/Team |
3% |
28% |
27% |
29% |
13% |
Clients/Customers |
9% |
27% |
23% |
17% |
24% |
If I dig deeper in the data, we see that, unsurprisingly, the less we get, the more we want. For example, 60 percent of those who get no, or very little, time with their team members wish for more time with their team; but surprisingly, 20 percent of those who say they spend quite a bit or all of their time with their peers still want even more.
And, obviously, few of us just want more for the sake of more. Rather we want it with hopes that it leaves us feeling better. And it usually does. In line with other studies, we see once again that our time spent with colleagues is directly correlated with our energy. When I asked them, “How do you feel about the quality of interaction at work?” they were twice as likely to feel connected and energized if they spend almost all day with their team, as opposed to none at all.
|
Disconnected/Drained |
|
|
|
Connected/Energized |
Very little time w/peers/team |
14% |
21% |
32% |
22% |
11% |
Almost all time w/peers/team |
11% |
4% |
21% |
41% |
23% |
Clearly, we all have different needs and preferences, but the important thing is paying attention to how much frequency we each feel like we need—and most of us need more.
One last correlation I found interesting is based on whether someone has a best friend at work. If so, they’re 20 percent more likely than someone who doesn’t have a best friend at work to be happy with the amount of interaction they have, half as likely to wish for more interaction, and five times more likely to report feeling very connected and energized.
That frequency obviously extends to our interactions with our boss or supervisor too. How frequent does the interaction need to be? Well, when more than 32,000 American and Canadian executives, managers, and employees were surveyed by IQ Leadership, they found that people who spent more time with their managers—up to a point—reported higher levels of inspiration, engagement, innovation, and intrinsic motivation. That point seems to be six hours a week.8 Interestingly, their research also confirmed that to be true even for employees who didn’t much like their boss. Apparently when we are getting that face-to-face time, we are more likely to recommend our company as a great place to work, we feel more inspired with our work, and we generate and share more ideas. Unfortunately, only about 4 percent of us are getting that important face-to-face interaction with our managers. While six hours might feel undoable for most managers and workplaces, hopefully we can at least let a study like this inspire us to ask, “How might I interact even a bit more frequently?”
Consistency Stabilizes with Repetition
Repetition, or the reoccurrence of an action or event, creates a structure or expectation of our time together that can leave us feeling safer, or closer, because we know what to expect. While frequency speaks to how often we might interact, repetition speaks more to how similar that interaction might look. Think of rituals, habits, practices, procedures, ceremonies, customs, and culture. Any time we are repeating what we say, how we say it, what we do together, how we do it, or even where we do it—we are tapping the power of repetition to bring people together and build bonds.
In other words, Consistency isn’t just about spending more time together, but for that time to feel safe, we need it to feel reliable. It feels reliable when we’ve repeated it enough to be able to answer, “What can I expect?” The foundation of our culture is determined by all the things we repeat—or not.
• Can I walk into my office expecting to be greeted because that’s how we do it?
• Do I walk into meetings feeling like I know what’s coming because we have a pattern?
• Can I trust that if I send this email to my coworker that I’ll hear back promptly because they’ve repeatedly proven that to be true?
• Do I know how this task helps my team because I’ve repeatedly heard the objectives?
• Do I feel safe suggesting a somewhat nontraditional idea because I’ve repeatedly seen others get praised for doing the same?
• Am I safe in assuming that if someone on my team has a problem with me that they’ll come talk about it with me directly because we’ve role-played that and repeatedly said we’d prefer that over talking behind our backs?
It’s repetition that moves the needle of trust, establishes expectations, and leads to effectiveness. A study of managers in the workplace whose communication was recorded and whose actions were shadowed showed that the “managers who were deliberately redundant moved their projects forward faster and more smoothly.”9 Indeed, redundancy outperformed power in getting things done quickly and more efficiently.
And the good news is that we don’t have to just cross our fingers and hope that others step up to repetition—we can initiate it! We can ask our managers to clarify one more time what their goal is, and we can ask, “What can I do to increase the odds of hearing back from you more quickly?” We can be consistent, we can ask questions to inform our expectations, and we can kindly let people around us know what we’re expecting.
Even with the more fun aspects of ritual-building, we have way more power than we often think. Certainly, we want our leaders and managers to think through what rituals could be created, supported, or implemented around things like new hires, team milestones, personal accomplishments, team events and meetings, birthdays and anniversaries, and failures and losses. But since few of us are in positions that might create the rituals for an entire brand or industry, what fascinates me is how powerfully even small and seemingly ordinary repetition can encourage more bonding and satisfaction in our workplaces.
Kara, an operations assistant for a skin-care brand, shared with me how much her coworkers loved her homemade green smoothies she shared one afternoon, so much so that she ended up deciding to make a different green smoothie for everyone each week on what is now affectionately called “Wellness Wednesday.” Her boss wisely then started picking up the tab on the ingredients.
Salena, a senior project manager, said she and another manager unintentionally started a ritual walking one loop around the city block together after either of them has to do something tough—whether it’s reprimanding an employee or looking at disappointing product-launch reports. Now either of them need only to pop into each other’s office and say the word, “Walk?” and they know they’ll have a few moments of fresh air and support.
Andy, on the other hand, was looking to have more fun with a few of his coworkers at his elementary school. Working in a primarily female-dominated workplace where they rarely saw each other without kids around, he said it felt challenging to feel connected to the other teachers. What started as him inviting a few other teachers to meet for drinks at a restaurant down the street one day after they had all turned in their quarterly report cards is now a quarterly ritual where all the teachers are invited. (And the PTA was only too happy to spread the word that gift certificates to said restaurant would be welcome teacher appreciation gifts!)
Allyson, an independent hair stylist who doesn’t have colleagues, per se, since she “just rents a chair” next to other stylists, thought it would be fun to decorate the station of another stylist for her birthday. Of course, you can already guess that now they all gang up to make sure there’s a little party in a chair for every stylist on her birthday.
In what ways might we start, and repeat, something that can bring us feeling closer to those around us?
Consistency Broadens with Variety
Variety, the diversity or lack of sameness, gives a relationship the well-rounded feeling that we have practiced different ways of being together. While it’s not always the opposite of repetition, it does help provide a bit of yang to the yin of familiarity that every relationship eventually establishes. Spending time together doing something new, or unusual, together invites us to learn more about each other, strengthens our relationship as we add “one more thing” we do together in the story of our relationship, and often can be one of the ways we create meaningful memories.
Every relationship, while it needs its predictability and meaningful repetition, also thrives with some variety. Variety broadens the roads in our relationships by expanding our territory with each other, and it paves new roads that give us additional ways of interacting. Both outcomes strengthen our relationship and provide backup roads if one no longer works.
Variety is like cross-training a relationship, giving any two people, or group of people, more ways to know one another and have fun together. Variety—whether it’s an escape room, scavenger hunt, ropes course, cooking class, or go-cart racing—is why the best team-building activities are the ones that don’t feel like a typical day of work. Yes, we might roll our eyes a bit, but the truth is that opportunities to experience different sides of one another strengthen the side of us that works together. We build trust, increase our communication skills, and practice collaboration every time we step outside of our comfort zones together. The more we engage with one another in a variety of ways, the more that engagement spills over into our routine interactions and work.
But it’s not just the creative off-site meetings, fun team-building exercises, and elaborate parties that our superiors may, or may not, plan that strengthen our team bonds. Any one of us can ask the question, “What can I do to get to know this annoying coworker, someone outside my department, my colleagues, or my new boss in another way?”
Morgan, a group fitness teacher, spent more time with her class attendees than with the other teachers. So when a couple of them started talking last year about an overnight trip to someone’s cabin one weekend, she decided to join them. “I don’t need them to be my friends,” she assured me. “And, quite honestly, leading up to it, I would have preferred to just stay home and be with my family, but I could also see how spending a night together would give us something more to build on at work.” So she committed. She jumped in and made new memories and got to know them outside of their work mode. And while she still doesn’t view any of them as best friends, she not only enjoyed working with them more but said, “We now have a few inside jokes and, interestingly, I feel more supported at work. Like if one of us needs a favor in covering a class, we’d be more invested in helping each other.”
And beyond seeking variety in our activities, I’d be remiss if I didn’t also broaden the meaning of variety to include our communication—what we talk about, how we connect, and when we interact. If most of our interaction with a team member on the other side of the country is limited to email or phone—variety could be suggesting a video conference next time. If we see our client only when we’re collaborating on a big deal, variety could be surprising him with a phone call with some good news in between deals. If we only talk about what’s not working on our computer every time the IT person is in our office, variety could be asking her how she initially got into being everyone’s go-to fixer. Anything that helps broaden the relationship, giving us one more conversation, memory, or method of communication is variety that bonds.
Consistency Lasts with Duration
Duration, the length of time we’ve known each other, is one of the strongest correlations to how much we will, or will not, trust each other. The longer we’ve experienced someone being a certain way, the more likely we are to feel like we know them. The more history we share, the safer we feel predicting our future interactions.
While workplaces, and how we spend time interacting within them, vary widely, what we do know is that every relationship is developed over time—and the longer the time spent, the closer we’re likely to feel. In fact, Dr. Jeffrey Hall, from the University of Kansas, has been researching this very aspect of bonding by asking, “How long does it take most of us to start feeling close to someone?” People’s answers, while conducted outside of a work setting, remind us that relationships are indeed developed over time. People report needing about fifty hours with someone to move from stranger to casual friend, about eighty to a hundred hours to feel like friends, and about two hundred hours before we feel the closeness of being best friends.10 Obviously, it looks different at work where we may not be spending quality hours getting to know each other. But every relationship is an investment of time, and the more time we’ve shared, the more we’ll feel like we know each other.
REMOTE WORKING, GLOBAL TEAMS, AND WORKING ALONE
How to Feel Close When Consistency Doesn’t Include Proximity
When we realize the important role Consistency has in our relationships, we also then realize why loneliness shows up as one of the biggest downsides to working alone. Considering all of us who work off-site, work for ourselves, are part of global teams, participate in the growing “gig economy,” or telecommute part of the time, that’s almost 50 percent of us who need to become more skilled in relationship-building strategies when face-to-face interaction with the same people isn’t the norm.11
The answer to our workplace loneliness is to look to add other ways, besides proximity, to build Consistency with our colleagues. The good news is that in my Healthy Team Relationship Assessment, the teams who work remotely frequently score as high, or higher, than teams who work together because they’ve been forced to be more strategic to foster their Consistency and not take it for granted. Here are some of their tips:
1. Schedule the Consistency. Without fail, the teams who are doing it well are doing so because they have scheduled the frequent and regular interaction that leaves them feeling closer to each other. They aren’t leaving it to chance or connecting only when there’s an urgent need or focused agenda.
One team has a group video chat every Monday where they each talk about their upcoming objectives that week and then, again, every Friday where they all debrief. Another team works virtually every morning together for two hours through video, online chatting, and collaboration software to maximize their interaction before spending the rest of their day doing their own tasks. Another team pops on video for thirty minutes every morning to each share one thing they want to tell everyone about, and one thing for which they would like more support. Managers, especially, have found it critical to schedule more regular one-on-ones with their remote workers to ensure they have clear and measurable outcomes, are receiving helpful feedback and validation, and ensure they feel they have easy access to their company and its mission.
But we don’t need to fall victim to bad leadership if that Consistency isn’t as much as we’d like. We can reach out to our manager to suggest more clear ideas for increased connection by asking, “Would you be willing to schedule a more regular one-on-one with me to make sure I stay connected to your vision and can support you the best way possible?” Or, “Would you be willing to experiment with scheduling a weekly video call with our whole team for the purpose of simply brainstorming and collaborating on various projects, in addition to the staff meeting we have where we’re more updating each other?” Or, “Would you mind if I started a channel in our collaboration software that is simply designed for us to each ‘share one thing every day that others might need to know’ to help make sure that those in the office are also updating those of us who are working remotely?”
And we can most certainly schedule our own Consistency by reaching out to various team members, being reliable with responding promptly, letting our team know when we’re working and/or will be available, and by participating as fully as possible in any and all gatherings and team meetings.
2. Prioritize video and in-person communication as much as possible. While it takes more energy to look presentable, we also feel closer when we can see one another’s faces. Neuroscience has shown us that empathy is developed when our mirror neurons are able to mimic the micro expressions of other people, so we’re more likely to feel invested in, and empathetic toward, those whose feelings we can intuitively see. As a team, be clear which modes of communication are preferred in which scenarios, and give preference to in-person, or video, as we’re able.
For some, this means prioritizing coming into the office occasionally (one study showed that telecommuting up to two and a half days a week had no negative effects on the relationships12), even when we’re not required, to simply communicate that they matter and that we value feeling connected. This could mean, when traveling near one of our colleagues—either for business or personal reasons—that we reach out and see if we can schedule a lunch while we’re in their vicinity. This could also be as easy as asking, “Hey, do you mind if we switch this over to video? I’d love to see you!” And, above all, it means when we are together in any way with our colleagues, we will do all we can to maximize that time by staying off our phones, participating fully in team-building activities, and showing interest in everyone.
3. And remember that Consistency is simply the foundation for the other two requirements of friendship: Vulnerability and Positivity. A team that simply stays in touch and communicates well may be efficient, but it doesn’t prevent loneliness or increase our commitment and loyalty to that team or job. So beyond simply having consistent interaction, we also need to aim to have some of the interaction focused purely on relationship building.
Good managers will make sure that there are video calls for the purpose of celebrating, getting to know a new employee, and asking everyone what more is needed from one another to feel better connected. They will make use of the technology that ensures that every employee is having a thirty-minute phone call each week with someone different on the team just for the purpose of getting to know each other, that new employees feel there is an accelerated pathway for getting to know their team, and that there’s time for each employee to feel seen by the team outside of projects. They will create online conversations that help the team get to know one another, inspire one another, and laugh together. They will schedule virtual happy hours or team lunches designed to help their team hang out with one another. And when they bring everyone together, they will maximize making memories, laughing, and connecting.
But we can do that too. Now that we understand that without us sharing parts of ourselves with each other (Vulnerability) or taking the time to enjoy one another (Positivity) that it’s us who suffer the most, we’ll be proactive to not just view our jobs as a means to an end but as a gateway to meaningful connection. We’ll put it on ourselves to contribute to the glue that will help our team feel close. We’ll text appreciation to our colleagues, we’ll initiate lighthearted moments in virtual hangouts, we’ll invite a colleague to virtual lunch, and we’ll be sure to help others feel closer to us by offering up glimpses of who we are and what we love. We’ll brainstorm a “safe word” for everyone on our team so that all we have to do is message that word when we’re feeling isolated or lonely and we’ll make sure someone jumps on a quick fifteen-minute call to just say hi!
The most important thing we can do, wherever we work, is see how important it is for our sakes to foster the connection that will keep us engaged. We can’t enjoy one another or feel known if we don’t have a regular way of connecting—so we’ll set up what we need. Additionally, we’ll take responsibility, on our end, beyond the relationships with our team and manager, to decide how much we need to work at a coworking space or café, attend association meetings regularly, and schedule more lunches or events with clients and friends to offset the interaction we’re missing from working alongside a team.
We can absolutely have the flexibility we desire and the relationships we need if we’re willing to value connecting the way we value productivity.
CONSISTENCY IS REQUIRED
The more ways we practice proximity, intensity, frequency, repetition, variety, and duration, the more glue we have bonding us, the more scaffolding we have protecting our relationship, the more threads are intertwined to make our rope stronger. The healthiest relationships are the ones who practice as many of the different paths of Consistency as possible.
1. Consistency starts with proximity.
2. Consistency accelerates with intensity.
3. Consistency increases with frequency.
4. Consistency stabilizes with repetition.
5. Consistency broadens with variety.
6. Consistency lasts with duration.
We can’t practice every path of Consistency with every person, but we now know what it takes to be a reliable person, to form bonds with others, and to have clearer expectations on what exactly we are trusting someone to do, or not. We need far more positive Consistency at work to leave us all feeling as supported, safe, and happy as possible.
But all the Positivity and Consistency in the world can only take us so far without the third requirement: Vulnerability.
THREE WAYS TO INCREASE CONSISTENCY
1. Be Proactive about Proximity. Purposely sit in different spots in meetings to ensure you’re bonding with different people. Volunteer on projects and teams with people whom you’d like to know better. Attend social events. Basically, keep putting yourself where people are in small groups and you will get to know one another.
2. Say Yes to Variety. Instead of begrudgingly participating in off-site meetings, new activities, or social functions—recognize them as the bonding activity that they can be and add your energy to the mix. Or initiate it. Invite the team over for a barbecue, offer up your living room to watch a season finale everyone’s been talking about, or invite someone out to lunch.
3. Value Reliable over Ideal. Others will trust us based on what we do deliver, not on what we intended to deliver. It’s better to respond with a quick email than to wait for time to write the perfect email . . . only to then forget. It’s better to ask clarification questions now than to try to wow them by reading their minds and failing. It’s better to consistently be on time than try to make up for it with lots of jokes. It’s better to give a coworker five minutes of our attention now than to keep waiting for “when we both have time.” Trust is built on tiny little consistent actions that build up over time.
THREE WAYS FOR MANAGERS TO INCREASE CONSISTENCY
1. Encourage Connecting. Smile when you see team members talking and socializing, backing it up with “Love that you two are connecting!” to minimize the risk of them feeling guilty. Talk frequently at staff meetings about resources within the organization (mentorship programs, employee resource groups, social events, mental health programs) so that your team knows what’s available and knows you support it. Basically, keep giving permission to them to value their social experience.
2. Establish Consistent Rhythms. Set regular team meetings and one-to-one sit-downs so that your team knows not only when to expect time with you but also what they can expect during that time. That might mean agendas sent out early for those who need time to process ahead of time, meetings they can trust won’t be moved, and flow that feels familiar.
3. Ask Each Person What Support Looks Like to Them. Regularly ask some version of “What do you need from me to feel supported in this task or on this team?” Or “What would help you feel more ___________________ (safe, connected, trusting)?” Maybe followed up by “What might that look like?” And commit to either delivering what they need or taking responsibility to negotiate with them until landing on something that is deliverable and meaningful.