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Social Connection · Humanity Working

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: So the last Surgeon General of the United States, Vivek Murphy, described the U.S.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: as having an epidemic of loneliness.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: So I guess my question is why would we be discussing loneliness on a work-related podcast?
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, um, gosh.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know, Matt.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: I I've I've got lots of favorites in terms of topics to talk about.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but this might be my favorite.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: I'll probably say something different next week, but uh um, but one of the reasons that it is is is just because it's an area that we're learning so much about that is so much deeper than I think almost any of us thought it was, even five uh even five years ago.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um he was very wise uh to uh to talk about it in those terms, in terms of it being an epidemic.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's a huge issue.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Harvard study of adult development found that social connectedness is the biggest predictor of long-term happiness.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um there's that.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, theoretically, we're a country that, you know, it's in the constitution pursuit of happiness, so it should be important to us.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um and there's very good reason on the flip, there's very good reason to believe that loneliness is one of the major reasons that we rank so poorly in terms of our mental health.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: As a nation, we do.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: And that mental health part really is uh that part of the equation is the reason why we should be talking about it here.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: To get really, really practical if people are not well, including uh struggling with their mental health, they cannot do their best work.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: And a lack of social connection is what's making millions of us less well.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's foundational, right?
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: And that was a bit of a shock for us too.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: So for those of us uh for those people who don't know what what a main company does, billion minds, we deliver a durable skills training to help people thrive in the modern uh the modern workplace.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: And when we started, we didn't reference social connection at all, right?
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: Because it just didn't feel it's it's not in soft skills ontologies.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's not uh it's not something that, you know, like where you can say, oh, conflict resolution is gonna make you better at uh at dealing with colleagues or collaboration style is really important, or you know, these various things that where you can tie it directly.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um but the more we studied people, Matt, the more we realized that loneliness was impacting their ability to do good work.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: And if the intangibles really, really matter, this is a major, major intangible.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: And the other thing we found fascinating was that the more we were shifting to the modern workplace, the more that was causing them to be lonely.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: So, in other words, there's something about the nature of the work itself, um, which is in uh which is increasing loneliness.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: Not just the nature of society, but the nature of work in that society um is causing them to be lonely.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: Interesting.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: So, like it I wonder if if you would see like the con the relationships or the the connectedness of people, say prior to the explosion of remote work, where they're forced to be in the same building with other people, uh may or may not impact their loneliness because they still may not engage with other people, even though they're physically in the same room.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then doing more complicated work, you would think they'd have more work stuff to talk about.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: So create those bonds, but maybe yeah, it's really complicated to think about.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: Like it is.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: It it it's it's really complicated.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: Because you're right.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, like if you go back, I don't know, 30 years and we were all doing the same stuff, but we were doing it in a very kind of like drone-like way.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: Well, what is there to talk about?
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um but of course, people under those circumstances, if the work is taken care of itself as it were, and they're just the drone doing the work, they end up talking about other things, and that's good, right?
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: That's creating that's creating social connectivity.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but even in this world where, you know, work theoretically, if you're working on complex stuff and you're working alongside complex stuff with other people, you have to be able to collaborate well with other people.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: Theoretically, that does mean that you are um that you're engaging more with those people, but it's happening at the same time that other trends are happening as well.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the other trends, of course, that's happening as well is this shift towards distributed work.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I say distributed work, uh, remote work being part of that.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: But there's a bigger thing that's going on that's bigger than remote work.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: You in a when we think about remote work, we think about work from home, or we think about like who the person is and where they are, you know, where that individual worker is.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_01: But really, the shift is distributed work naming, meaning that the people that you work with, the people you work alongside, are not three feet away from you.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: They're the person who in the other continent who maybe they work for your company, maybe they don't work for your company.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: So now, even in office settings, what you often have is people doing very complicated work, but different complicated work to the people that are sat three feet away from them.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: And so they're not talking, right?
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: They're homed in on that, uh, on that complicated work.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe the only thing they're talking to is generative AI or or something like that.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: We have encountered people, Matt, who have sat next to somebody for an in uh for a year and never said hi to them.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: That's crazy.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's the same thing like neighbors.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: People live in apartment buildings and never talk to the person that they share a wall with.
• 6:10
  unknown: Yeah.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: You know, for for it's it's wow, that's crazy.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: Because our lives are getting so more complicated and we're getting more absorbed in them.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and therefore we're not talking so much uh so much to each other.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: So what do we do about this?
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, just give up now.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_01: No, I I'm I'm joking.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: So there is, um there is a bunch we can do.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I think one uh one is, for example, uh, let's talk about the AI piece.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: Let's say like lots of people are talking to AI.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and they're talking to AI, meaning they're actually engaging in more conversations on a day-to-day basis than they were.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: Like, hey, GPD, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: That's a conversation of some sort.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: But it's not the same as a human conversation.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so I do think uh make sure that you're using AI wisely.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: So using AI to automate the routine tasks so you can focus on deeper, uh, on the deeper stuff and find ways to make meaningful human connections in relation to your work.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: Second thing I would say is that be intentional about your social interaction, right?
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, social interaction is really good for you.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's good for your brain, it's uh it's good for your health, um, your overall health, even your physical health.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: And it's really good for all of us, even if we are introverted.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: Uh even if we're introverted.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so you need to make that extra, uh, extra effort.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so three times a week I walk to a coffee shop and I work from there specifically for this purpose.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm highly introverted, so it's difficult for me, but I do it.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: But you can you can set up coffee chats, you can have co-working days, you can do, you can have casual settings, but schedule them.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: Otherwise, they will not happen because you're too busy.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: And then the last thing I would say is just make an effort to engage with each other, real people, real connections to people outside of work as well.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and again, it's one of those things that people push naturally to the to the bottom of the list at periods of time.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: Be mindful about the fact that you need to push it up.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: And if you do, it will help you be more effective in the workplace.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: It will help uh maintain your uh your mental wellness so that you can so that you can do work really well.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's uh it strikes me that if you weren't doing it when we were prior to pandemic, everybody in an office or whatever that that does this kind of work where you were presented the opportunity to have those interactions, whether you liked it or not, because you're surrounded by all these other people, maybe doing the same work, maybe not, versus when you can get heads down and do remote work and you are in your home office or whatever type setting.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: If you didn't substitute social interaction in some way, not necessarily with your coworkers, but with friends or whatever, and make sure you could do that, that it strikes me that this might be part of the toll of the pandemic in general, is whether you were prone to have those social interactions or not prior to the pandemic, not having them was forced upon us.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: During the pandemic, right?
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like absolutely.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: You had to create your bubble, right?
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: So you had to have that social network, but it had to be extremely small.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: And you got to be my and so now what that means is that things you did not have to be mindful about before and consciously do, you now have to consciously do.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't happen just as a side effect if you're doing work.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's a really important shift that we have to make.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: So today's challenge assess your social connections and make sure you're getting enough real human connection time.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and uh yeah, another great episode, Paul.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: Humanity Working is produced and edited for Billion Minds by Matt Neal.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: Our interviewer is Paul Slater.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: If you like this podcast, please subscribe, like, and recommend us to others.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: It helps us reach more people.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to learn more about how Billion Minds gets companies ready for the future of work by building adaptable, resilient employees, look for them on LinkedIn or visit their website at billionminds.com.