The Less Loneliness Framework
Guest Speaker Ryan JenkinsIn this episode of WiseTalk, CEO and Executive Leadership Coach Sue Bethanis hosts connection enthusiasts and author Ryan Jenkins. Ryan is the co-founder of LessLonely.com, the world’s first resource fully dedicated to reducing worker isolation and strengthening team connections. His new book, co-authored with Steven Van Cohen is Connectable: How Leaders Can Move Teams From Isolated to All In. Ryan is an internationally recognized keynote speaker and three-time published author. He speaks all over the world to companies such as State Farm, Salesforce, Wells Fargo, FedEx, Liberty Mutual, and John Deere. For a decade, he has been helping organizations create engaged, inclusive, and high-performing teams by lessening worker loneliness and closing generational gaps. Ryan’s top-ranked insights have been featured in Forbes, Fast Company, and The Wall Street Journal.
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INTERVIEW SUMMARY AND KEY TAKEAWAYS
Loneliness doesn’t stem from a lack of people, but a lack of connection. Ryan dives into how workplace loneliness is derived from a low quality of connection to teammates, leadership, and work itself, and that if we do not get more intentional in our interactions we will continue to drift apart. He provides some great data from recent research that shows the effects of loneliness including that “lonely workers are seven times less likely to be engaged at work, five times more likely to miss work due to stress, and then they’re twice as likely to think about leaving their employer” (11:29). He also mentions that research shows loneliness affects our brain the same way physical pain would, leading us to see the larger impact it can have on an individual level. As the pandemic has ramped up feelings of disconnectedness and loneliness and led us to the point of the current Great Resignation, it is evident that we need to be even more deliberate about connection in the workplace.
Ryan provides a four-step model, the Less Loneliness FrameworkTM, as a system to combat loneliness and increase connection. (18:19)
- Look at loneliness and gain awareness of its impacts.
- Invest in connection and create safe spaces for connection in the workplace.
- Narrow your focus and create more clarity on what’s important.
- Kindle the momentum and continue to focus on connectivity.
Some additional key takeaways from this talk:
- When we prioritize convenience over connection, we are doing ourselves a disservice. We should prioritize using the time saved to reinvest in meaningful connections. (9:46)
- Whether introverted or extroverted, there is really no difference in the necessity of connection. While introverts handle solitude better, they still need meaningful connection. (15:38)
- Our social skills are like a muscle we need to exercise and coming out of the pandemic we need to be more intentional in building up our social skills and connections to reduce loneliness. (35:31)
- Leaders can have a huge impact on the prevention of loneliness in the workforce by creating more opportunities for learning, engagement, and social connection. Individuals are less likely to want to leave a company if they feel connected to their work and their organization. (36:22)
Ryan also offers a few solutions and practices to help combat loneliness in the workforce. His team created the first Team Connection Assessment which is an anonymous test that provides leadership with an honest assessment of how well team members are connected to other team members, leadership, and the organization itself. It provides leaders with specific recommendations for how to increase connection. Ryan’s website also offers a digital course on connection in addition to a card deck that provides remote workers with activities to connect with their team. Implementing resources like these are invaluable during a time when fostering connection is needed most.
FAVORITE QUOTES
“How do we define workplace loneliness? It’s defined by the distress caused by the perceived inadequacy of a quality connection to teammates, leaders, and the organization itself.” (3:19)
“As we can all attest, connections don’t happen naturally, right? They don’t. You have to work at them, you have to be intentional. And so, we will just naturally drift away from each other if we aren’t more intentional.” (4:49)
“The more that we can share some of these non-work-related things, we create data points that people can start connecting to. And if we’re not deliberate, and intentional, these opportunities won’t surface.” (25:23)
“I think creating a sense of belonging might be one of the greatest talent retention levers you can pull because why would you ever want to leave a place that you felt connected, where you felt seen and heard and you had a voice, and you could contribute.” (38:34)
RESOURCES
Ryan Jenkins:
Website | LinkedIn
Book: Connectable: How Leaders Can Move Teams from Isolated to All In
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Sue Bethanis 0:00
Welcome, everyone to WiseTalk. This is Mariposa’s monthly podcast providing perspectives on leadership. Today we’re excited to welcome Ryan Jenkins. Thanks so much for being here. Ryan is an internationally recognized keynote speaker, virtual trainer, and author for a decade he has helped organizations such as Coke Salesforce.com, John Deere, the Home Depot, Wells Fargo and Delta Airlines optimize generational dynamics, lessen workforce loneliness and prepare for the future of work. Ryan is also the co-founder of lesslonely.com, the world’s first resource fully dedicated to reducing worker isolation and strengthening team connections, love that title. Ryan’s top-ranked insights have been featured in Forbes, Fast Company, and the Wall Street Journal, he has written over 200 articles for Ink Magazine and Entrepreneur magazine. He has written three books Millennial Manual, The Generation Z guide, and his latest book with co-author Steven Van Cohen is Connectable: How Leaders Can Move Teams From Isolated to All In. Ryan also holds a bachelor’s degree from Miami University in marketing entrepreneurship. He is a dedicated husband and dad currently living in Atlanta. Well, so welcome. And thanks so much for being here. I’m just so fascinated with this title; you really caught our eye. Certainly, my team, we spent probably an ordinate amount of time talking about isolation, solitude, the difference, loneliness, the difference between that and solitude. really curious to hear more about it. But before we get into the content, I read your bio. But I always like to start with the first question, which is, you know, how did you decide to write this book? What’s the backstory? And how did you come to it?
Ryan Jenkins 1:40
Yeah, so I spent over a decade speaking and consulting, and most of my work has been in the generational differences space, specifically, helping organizations understand the emerging generations and how to attract, lead, and engage the next generation workforce. And it was in writing my last book, which is all about Gen Z, which is the youngest generation entering the workforce, that I learned that they are the loneliest generation. And I found that to be so troubling. And I got curious as to why that was happening. And then what can we do to help? And that started my journey down the loneliness path. And that was all pre-pandemic. Once the pandemic hit, I brought all this research to my clients thinking, I don’t know, does anyone want to talk about loneliness? Let’s see. I didn’t think they did, they would, because human humanities never wanted to talk or address loneliness. Right. But I was dead wrong. Everyone wanted to, it became the most popular program of 2020 and 2021. I knew we had something here. The initial interest, really then put the research into hyperdrive. And we’ve researched over 2000 global workers now. And we worked with 50 global leaders on what they’re specifically doing to address worker isolation and loneliness. And now we’ve worked with hundreds of organizations on this topic. And so yeah, that’s where we’ve got to today, and we’ve condensed it all into the book. And we’ve created a ton of other resources to help organizations and individuals on this topic.
Sue Bethanis 3:11
Okay, that sounds and of course, the first question I have is like, how do you define loneliness? And what is what do you consider workplace loneliness? How do you look at that?
Ryan Jenkins 3:19
Yeah, I think it’s probably best to start with just loneliness in general, because a lot of people misconstrue what it is, and it’s not the absence of people like, which seems obvious, and what most people think it’s actually the absence of connection. It’s not the absence of people, it’s the absence of connection. Because we we’ve all been there, we’ve all been in a crowded restaurant, or crowded office space or event where we feel disconnected and isolated, even though there’s all these people around. So it’s not the absence of people. It’s the absence of connection. And there’s a lot of different varieties of connection, right, there can be connection to oneself, there can be connection to team members, to leaders, to organizations, to the work itself, to purpose, to meaning, there’s all different kinds of levels of connection that we have to be focused on. And specifically in the book, we try to make a strong argument that work is the most fertile ground for us to address loneliness, because there are so many loneliness lifelines. So that’s kind of the overarching definition of loneliness. But how do we define workplace loneliness? It’s defined by the distress caused by the perceived inadequacy of a quality connection to teammates, leaders, and the organization itself.
Sue Bethanis 4:34
So, tell us about the research and in terms of I want to know what happened before the pandemic, what were you finding, then how it’s I’m going to make an assumption that it’s become more pronounced during the pandemic. Tell us a little bit about what the research is saying about what that looks like.
Ryan Jenkins 4:49
Yeah, so the loneliness has been increasing for quite some time pre pandemic. And you’re right, your assumptions right. The loneliness escalated during the pandemic; it really put a spotlight on it. And because loneliness is increasing, that means it’s malleable, right? So it can also decrease. And through our research, it was glaring that it doesn’t take much, we’ve just got to be a little bit intentional, and put a little bit more focus attention on some of these pro social behaviors that we can all enact whether we’re an individual contributor, or a leader, and to really move the needle. So yeah, it was growing. If we don’t do anything, we’re gonna continue to drift away from each other because as more technology comes into our lives, and as we continue to adopt this hybrid and remote work situation we will continue to drift apart. Because as we can all attest, connections don’t happen naturally, right? They don’t, you have to work at them, you have to gotta be intentional. And so we will just naturally drift away from each other if we aren’t more intentional. So if nothing else, we would love for this book to just be a kind of a beacon or a sounding alarm, that we’ve got to start putting our attention to this because if not, the loneliness will continue to increase, we’ll just find ourselves more disconnected and just more frustrated and ill because the other interesting fact on all this is we have just like you and I have been ignoring loneliness. Neuroscientists have been ignoring loneliness too. And the research is only about six, about six years ago, they really started to figure out how loneliness is impacting our brain, and how it’s impacting our physical health as well. Yes. And so we’re all it’s all kind of new to us. And so we’re still trying to wrap our heads around, what does it mean? How do we define it? How do we sense it in our bodies, and so all of this awareness is going to help us to really put a get our arms around it, so we can start tackling it. But you know, it’s going to take some intentional effort and some more focus. And we’re excited to be brought to that topic.
Sue Bethanis 6:45
Yeah. So before we get into how we deal with it, I really want to go back to before the pandemic for a second, there’s a book that was written god it probably has been written about 15 years ago, Alone Together. And she talked about how, because of technology, and this is before even Facebook, I think, we’re in the same room together, you know, you can imagine we’re sitting at dinner, and we’re together, but we’re really feeling alone, because we’re not connecting. The classic is, you know, you look around a restaurant, and you know, they have two people on their phones and trying to eat dinner, right? I think the technology has already started to drift. I love what you said about drifting, we are drifting apart. It’s been a hallmark of our practice, of course, and just a hallmark of my own personal legacy to connect people. I mean, it’s always been my important, what I feel deemed to be super important in my life. But besides, I mean, would you agree with that, like the technology was already causing some of this drift? And and pandemic has just made it worse? Or tell me, that’s too simple.
Ryan Jenkins 7:46
No, no, I’ll give a good example here in a minute. But that yeah, according to the research we did, we asked folks, you know, what do you believe contributes most to yours and or others, loneliness. And the top two responses, number one was technology and social media. And number two was busyness. And those are two things that aren’t going away anytime soon. So again, that’s additional cause for us to focus on this and make sure that this doesn’t get away from us. But in the in the book, we use the example of ATMs and then we chronicle the journey of the individual that that that that invented the ATM, his name is Donald Wetzel. And he actually had the idea for this piece of technology while standing in line at a bank. And he was standing in line for over 20 minutes. And he thought there’s got to be a better way. And thus, the idea of the ATM was born. And when they brought it to market, and you know, these lines went away, and people stopped going into the banks, this is what happens with humans, right? We gravitate towards the convenience. And oftentimes what’s the cost is social, and it’s our connections with one another. And I was giving a talk recently, and I was telling the story about the ATM and there was a gal in the audience who came up to me afterwards and said, I used to be a bank teller, before we had an ATM. She said before ATM, people would come in and it would be a social event every Friday, you know, cash in their checks? She said, as soon as the ATM came in, everyone, just started to no longer show up. And she said, we lost track of people. And we have some people who never saw again. And, you know, this is, you know, the ATMs now are in many forms our lives, right? It’s it could be email or mobile devices or, you know, contactless delivery, all these things now are convenient. And we’re naturally drawn to these things because we want to save time. And we, you know, go towards the least resistance avenue.
Sue Bethanis 9:45
Right. Right.
Ryan Jenkins 9:46
But we you know, my hope is that if we’re going towards these more convenient items, then that should leave us with more time and that more time we should prioritize with more connection. And I think what’s happening here, Sue is that you know, These conveniences are great. And I’m not making the case that they should go away. And I don’t think any of us would push a button that says delete the internet or, like, yeah, yeah, these are useful things that enrich our lives. So it’s a balance, it’s not a problem to solve, it’s attention to manage. But what’s not happening if we’re not having the conversation about connection, and I don’t think I don’t think collectively we understand how important connection is. And in the book, we make the case that while connection, and belonging is not the most dire and most urgent need that we have, it is the most significant need. And that’s tied to a number of studies, we can go into if you want, but that’s what we’re up against. And so while we’re going to continuously go towards the convenience, we need to start really thinking to ourselves about the connection standpoint. And I think organizations need to be having this conversation too, that hey, are we just doing remote work? Because it’s convenient, or, you know, individual professionals,
Sue Bethanis 10:54
It is convenient because of the commutes. Right, obviously. But let me ask you, I’ve got two questions. Before again, I want to get into like, what do we do about it, but I have all these other things I want to ask you first, if connecting to other humans, but feeling connected to animals to ideas to a lot of ways feel connected? What’s the problem? I mean, I’m being a little devil advocate here, because I know what the problem is. But I but I want to know what the science says. It’s like, okay, so what does it do to our, you know, our physicality? For example? Was it due to our psychology or psychological being? Our safety that kind of thing?
Ryan Jenkins 11:29
Yeah so, recent research was done, where they took a group of individuals, and they put them through an experience of exclusion. And they monitored their brains and their brains lit up, which wasn’t surprising, but where the brain lit up was really telling. And it was the same part of the brain that actually registers physical pain. So when we are excluded, when we have, we are disconnected from all the things that you mentioned, if we’re feeling that disconnection, our body goes into fight or flight mode. And so we are then distracted, we’re not able to show up fully for those things that we care about or wanting to be connected to. So that’s why this is such an important conversation at work. Because if folks are feeling disconnected and isolated, then they are distracted at best and debilitated at worst. And so then we’ve got to bring them in. Because if you know, if they’re feeling isolated and alone, then it’s as if they’re showing up to work as if they’re someone’s being punching them in the gut, right. And that pain is going to get all the attention and they’re not going to show up fully for team members and clients and customers. And so that’s why this is an important topic. And you know, lonely workers, according to the research, lonely workers are seven times less likely to be engaged at work, they’re five times more likely to miss work due to stress, and then they’re twice as likely to think about leaving their employer. So this is definitely got some bottom line business impacts that we have to be aware of.
Sue Bethanis 12:58
Totally. So about a week ago, I was taking my 16 year old to school, and he says to me, out of the blue, you know, the existential moment, he says, “Mom, what’s the goal?” And I said, well, you know, what do you mean? I thought he was talking about today or the assignment he was doing, I don’t know what he was talking about. I go “honey, what are you talking about? What do you mean, the goal?” “Like the goal, like what am I doing? Like, what are we doing here?” He was very, it’s a very existential question.
Ryan Jenkins 13:26
I love that.
Sue Bethanis 13:27
I know. And I was like, wow, okay. Okay, mom, like put your like, decide make a decision, like, what are you gonna say? So I said, “Well, honey, that’s a really great question. And what do you think the goal is?” And he didn’t, he said, “I don’t know.” I mean, he was actually really, like he wasn’t crying, but he was just, like, kind of bummed out, you know, so that this response I gave him was about connection, I think, I think the goal is to connect to other people, I think, because the goal is to do something for the world through that connection. So that’s kind of what we settled on. And he was he was good with that. Now he is a strong extrovert, and I am too, like big time. I think that I suspect you are too. I suspect that some of this has different. There are differences between introverts and extroverts. And what an introvert would feel lonely about what might be different from what an extrovert might feel lonely about. And then there’s a thing around solitude, too, that I think plays into this. Can you speak to that a little bit?
Ryan Jenkins 14:24
Yeah, I am actually an introvert. I just play an extrovert in that in other certain aspects of my life. My co-author Steven Van Cohen, he’s an extrovert. It’s been nice to have these kinds of dueling perspectives in the book. But look, I mean, loneliness is no respecter of person. It’s a universal human condition. And yes, we all are experiencing it differently and biologically, some of us are more predisposed to experience it more intensely than others. But at the end of the day, we all experience it. And loneliness isn’t shameful. It’s simply a signal that we belong together, just like hunger is our signal to eat something, loneliness is our signal to connect with others. And so that’s a big goal of ours is to bring loneliness into the sunlight and say, not a big deal. We got it, we got to, I mean, it is a big deal. But you know, it’s not shameful as we all once thought.
Sue Bethanis 15:24
It’s a really, really good point, especially with COVID. And people thinking, oh, yeah, I should be able to handle this should be able to handle this solitude this lack of connection. I think that’s a lot of what people are dealing with.
Ryan Jenkins 15:38
Yeah, and so the introvert extrovert, I mean, what we found study after study after study is both, there’s really no differences as far as the benefits of connecting with others. There was a great study by Nick Eppley, out of the University of Chicago. And he’s he was fascinated by studying people that traveled in and out of Chicago on the train, the public transit, and he always noticed that people weren’t connecting. He actually decided to put together a study that would that created three conditions. One was people were asked to keep to themselves. The second one was the control conditions where they could do whatever they want. Spoiler alert, they kept to themselves. And then number three was they were asked to forge a connection with someone you hadn’t connected with before. And here’s what’s so fascinating. Most people predicted that they would be less satisfied if they were forced into connection with somebody. But at the end of it, the most satisfied folks, for the folks in that connection condition, whether they were introvert or extrovert didn’t matter. And what what’s fascinating too, is we explore solitude in the book, and you mentioned at the top, that isolation itself isn’t really positive or negative. The negative state of isolation is loneliness, the positive state of isolation and solitude and solitude, how we define it is the freedom of input from other minds. So you could be in a crowded coffee shop. But if your thinking is self-directed, that can be a form of solitude. And obviously, introverts are typically better suited to engage in solitude and solitude can be insurance against loneliness. Because again, loneliness isn’t the absence of people, it’s the absence of connection. So if you have a strong connection with oneself, again, that kind of serves as insurance against loneliness, Mm hmm. So that serves individuals or introverts, well, but of course, they tend to widely underestimate how much they need connection and how much their well-being will be boosted by pursuing those. And then extroverts are kind of the opposite, right? They what they can fall victim to, is having too many superficial or surface level connections and not having that quality, deep connection. Right? There’s a lot of different elements at play here. But at the end of the day, just know that loneliness is no respecter of person. We all experience it not shameful, simply a signal.
Sue Bethanis 17:59
Yeah. Okay. That’s great. I do want to get some folks to jump in here. But let me just ask you one more question. And then we’ll do that. And you have a four-step model in your book called less loneliness framework. Could you go through that with us? And that would be an antidote to some of this, for sure. So I want to hear from you a little bit more about it.
Unknown Speaker 18:19
Yes, the four steps in the model is a circle. And the reason it’s a circle is because we have to constantly forge and nurture and reconnect, I like to think of, to think of your well-being like the battery of your phone, right? Like we get your phone is constantly depleting. So you have to connect it to a charger. Same thing with humans are well, beings constantly depleting and we have to connect with others. And really, connecting with others is the wellspring of our well-being. And so we’re all I like to think of all of us as well-being sources for everybody. Right? So connecting with somebody can really be that replenishing. And so back to the loneliness framework gets four steps. Number one is to look at loneliness. So it’s this kind of gain awareness, understand the science of it and appreciate the impact it has on people’s health and their well-being and how it’s impacting businesses. And then the second step is to invest in connection. So we identify investing in personal connections, investing in professional connections amongst a team, but then also investing in safe connections, creating safe spaces for folks to connect at work. The third step is narrowing your focus. So you know, confusion spurs alienation, but it’s really clarity that cultivates connection. And so, you know, think about it if you went on a hike and you didn’t have a map and you got lost. That’s very isolating. It’s very lonesome, and you know, if you’re lost, so clarity is something that’s really underappreciated as relates to loneliness. So how do we help folks gain more clarity on what’s important and what they what’s right in front of them? And then fourth and final is the kindle the momentum. So it’s really about this. You know, if you’re doing those first three steps, how do you continuously keep that momentum going? And if you can, you know, start greasing the wheels with some of these connections, then it really just doesn’t take much else to keep the those wheels turning.
Sue Bethanis 20:19
And that spells LINK.
Ryan Jenkins 20:20
LINK Yes.
Sue Bethanis 20:22
Look, Invest, Narrow, and Kindle. I like it a lot. Okay, and so, in this is good an example. So sticking with the teams you’re working with inside organizations. How are they using this? Is it like a? Do they use it in workshops? You teach it workshops, and then they apply it with each other? And they help each other do it? Or how are you using it?
Ryan Jenkins 20:47
You know, big thing right now is just awareness, right? Because people aren’t quite, they feel the isolation. They know it’s impacting their team, but they haven’t thought about it in depth. they don’t have the vernacular around it. They don’t there’s no data there. Right. So it’s kind of nebulous. So we’re finding more and more, it’s just takes, it’s just more of an awareness and starting to get folks to think about it. But yeah, I mean, it’s anywhere from, you know, keynote presentations that we’re doing, workshops, we also, we developed something that we’re really excited about, it’s called the team connection assessment. So we worked with researchers out of Harvard, in the University of Alabama, and the University of Canterbury, to develop the first assessment that it’s empirically validated to actually quantify and measure the strength of connections across the team. And so the, the idea is that we’ve got leaders and team members will take the whole team will go through it, and take it and it spits out a aggregated report that measures how strong the connections are with the with between the team members, the team members in the leader, and then the with the folks, the team and the organization itself.
Sue Bethanis 21:52
And is it anonymous, so like if people aren’t gonna get called out?
Ryan Jenkins 21:56
Correct, it’s anonymous. And then the leaders get an aggravated report that’s got then specific recommendations on what they can do. So we’re really excited about that. Because so much of the time it’s that we’re getting that a lot as well not sure how connected or unconnected we are. And so now there’s a tool that actually quantifies it. So really excited about the work that we’ve done there. And then we’ve got a digital course that folks can put in their LMS system. And then we even created these cards, which is, which is fun. It’s just a deck of cards, there’s 30 activities on them, that folks can do. So the goal there was, you know, if you’re a remote worker, every day you pull a card, it’s got a two to three minute activity on it. And it’s the goal is to reconnect with humanity and your team. Because again, if we’re not intentional about it, if it’s not in front of us, if we’re not thinking about it will just drift away from each other, which is so unfortunate.
Sue Bethanis 22:46
I talked with an HR person this morning, an HR leader, and we’re talking about she used the word intentional, I use the word, I said, I’m gonna go a step farther and say deliberate, we have to deliberately create this cohesion, this connection. And I think I don’t think anyone’s gonna argue with that. No one’s going to argue about like whether we should be more connected. I think it’s this is how we do it. So what kind of community like in our case, we talked about the kinds of their meetings and the I mean, even org design in terms of, you know, how are they bringing people together? This is executive teaching we’re talking about. And how can we bring people together to the office, if they’re going to be if everyone’s remote? How to bring people to the office, every in our case every five weeks? How do we linger after meetings? So that we’re not just having, you know, having boxes all day and zoom? And how do we you know, get someone on the phone or slack them real quick or dissident, there’s a lingering so a connectedness to person one on one, what other ideas you have in terms of how people can connect?
Ryan Jenkins 23:49
i love that what you just said there lingering after meetings, there is so much-
Sue Bethanis 23:54
One of my clients told me that it’s actually he gets credit for that.
Ryan Jenkins 23:58
And then is this done in the virtual setting where you know, meetings done, and then folks can jump if they want? but anyone else can linger?
Sue Bethanis 24:06
Essentially linger on the Zoom, but also linger as he’ll pick up the phone and call somebody like us actually use the phone? Or slack or slack, right? Or text? I mean, just like the other In other words, it’s like you’re, you have a group meeting, but then you’re just gonna it’s just like in a meeting regular meeting you’re walking someone off to their next meeting or you linger with them. Hey, did you get my email about blah, blah, blah. That happened a lot in pre pandemic where people would linger after the meeting. So we’re trying to create that same feeling and so it’s not a water cooler thing. It’s more of a lingering thing.
Ryan Jenkins 24:39
Hmm. I love that. Because it’s so true because it’s all the, those little nuances, you know, with when we were in person, it was the overhearing of a conversation a couple desks over or, you know, sharing something personal right before meeting started, like all those little moments or you know, going to lunch together, right, those were all the moments you start to build context. Yeah, share non work-related things. And then now in the remote world, the digital world, those things are now nonexistent unless we deliberately build them in.
Sue Bethanis 25:11
Yes, yeah. So we have a question on chat about how this can build trust, you started talking about that a little bit. So how, what are some ways that we can this connection builds trust?
Ryan Jenkins 25:23
Yeah, that’s so funny that this question came up, because I listened to a podcast yesterday from a trust expert. And I was so fascinated, I don’t think I was thinking, gosh, there’s got to be such a clear connection here between trust and loneliness, and connection. And I was and I said to myself, I should explore that further. Now, here we are. Yeah. I mean, I, you know, I’m no trust expert. But of course, you know, when do we feel the most trust with someone, it’s usually when we have context and we have, you know, there’s, there’s a long-standing relationship, we’ve seen the ins and outs of this individual. And so I think that becomes hard in a hybrid world, or in a world where we keep surface level conversations, because we don’t get to actually know the individual. So let me give you a good example, that also relates to what we’re just talking about. So one organization that we highlight in the book, they do what’s called an inside scoop. So it’s, every week, on their all hands meeting, they have one person share one thing for just five minutes, the top of the meeting that and the only rule is it can’t be work related. So it has to be non-work related. And there was one individual that one point that she showed a picture of her training for a marathon, and no one had any idea that she was that athletically inclined. And it actually she had, in the past had qualified for the Olympics. So the whole team had seen this individual as a very detail oriented researcher, and now this whole new world, a new perspective, are opened up just by her sharing that one picture. And I think, you know, giving a framework giving permission for folks to do these things can help grease the wheels, right? To your point, again, we got to be deliberate about these things. So I imagine the trust, elevated amongst that team now that they can see a human behind the job. And you know, the more that we can share some of these non work-related things, we create data points that people can start connecting to right. And if we’re, again, if we’re not deliberate, and intentional, these opportunities won’t surface. And so, we’ve just got to be extra mindful that
Sue Bethanis 27:35
We will continue to drift. What I’ve gotten most more than anything out of this conversation is this idea of drifting. And as someone who loves the ocean, and who’s somebody who loves the ocean, not in Maui, but I at least pretend I am right now. He’s like, that is it is a drifting it’s a feeling when we think about drifting, driftwood drifting, drifting away. It’s just it feels. Yeah, it doesn’t feel very good.
Ryan Jenkins 28:00
It’s so subtle, you don’t feel it until one day you pick your head up, and you’re going, Oh, my gosh, and you’re so far away, and yeah, and you feel lost, and you feel where do I start? And it’s that’s it, that was a terrible feeling.
Sue Bethanis 28:11
I think that we were seeing that we’re seeing people who are lost during the pandemic. Okay.
Speaker 3 28:16
So thank you really interesting. And I wondered, Ryan, have you got research findings on the distinction between, for example, having well, let’s just say having a one-on-one meeting via zoom versus being in person? What is the distinction? So I like Sue, I’m a coach. And people will often say, I just don’t like zoom. It’s not the same, we don’t get the same connection. You know, and everybody’s entitled to their opinion. I don’t feel that. Is that just me? What does the research tell us?
Ryan Jenkins 28:51
Yeah. So. So again, think back to the definition, loneliness, it’s not the absence of people. It’s the absence of connection. So we don’t have to be in the same room to cultivate a connection. You know, it’s not geographic specific. So we can create a connection digitally. Without a doubt. It usually takes more effort, right, we have to be perhaps more calculated with are the questions and body language and that sort of thing. But it can’t happen, no doubt. And I think, you know, thank goodness that we had this technology at our disposal when we all had to go away into our corners of the world, right. I mean, yeah, I mean, what would it have looked like if we had not had this technology?
Speaker 3 29:31
Imagine Yes. Horrific to think. Yeah.
Ryan Jenkins 29:38
But I’d say, you know, in person is going to – if your goal is to create enhanced connection, in person really can’t be beat. And you know, whether that’s one on one or a large group, but of course, you know, there’s all other elements to be thinking about. And so, you know, the level of connection that can be cultivated on Zoom should not be you know, discounted. So there’s, and there’s some and more research coming out about this, which is really interesting. Actually, the one research I think my you might find interesting. And I get a lot too is, you know, we don’t have a lot of folks that are turning on their cameras during these sessions like, Are these people disconnecting? Should we ask them to turn their cameras on. And I think there’s a time and place where cameras on is helpful. Like, you know, this conversation between all of us, like you’ve been able to see me is probably helpful. But there’s a lot of context to where it’s actually can be hindering specifically for introverts, it can be extremely taxing for introverts who have spent all day in virtual sections, because the stimuli of having all of these faces and different things to be looking at can be very intensive for this group. And so another video call where they have to turn on their camera will actually they’ll actually be less engaged at that point. And additionally, there’s some research showing that where they’ve put two people in a room, and they turn off the lights, right, so they can’t see each other. And they’ve assessed what happens then. And people are actually demonstrating closer listening and more empathy, when there’s no visual because they’re really focused on the meaning behind the words and the, the emotion intentionality. And I’m guilty of this when the cameras on and I’m zoomed, like, right now I’m looking at me because I want to kind of get my gesture, right. And, you know, want to make sure I’m smiling appropriately. And so, so sometimes it’s not as helpful to have the camera on. So those are all things to consider. But I think, you know, another tactic I’ve been adopting lately is I defer to the other folks that I’m interacting with. So if someone scheduled a meeting, I’ll typically turn my camera off and join. And if theirs is on, then I quickly turned mine on to kind of meet their what their preferences or expectation, because I, because if I if I have it on and someone joins, then I think they don’t have it on like, Okay, I better turn mine on, right. So, you know, this is all pretty new. We’re all still kind of wading through this, but there’s pros and cons of all of it, but still can’t be in person.
Speaker 3 32:09
But still, the fact what you’re saying is, you know, even with Zoom, we because it’s human connection, we are alleviating the loneliness, to some extent, not as much as if we were in person, but it’s still pretty good, right?
Ryan Jenkins 32:28
Yeah, in the absence of anything else that we could do? I mean, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I remember during the pandemic, we we’d have zoom calls with other couple friends, and we’d play games digitally. And it was, that was better than nothing, right? We weren’t gonna all get on the same phone call and be able to play a game together necessarily. So yeah, we just have to be that much more intentional. And kind of back to what Sue was talking about, too. As far as, you know, all these little like the conversation you would have had before you started a coaching session with a client, you know, that sort of missed a bit in the digital session? Yeah. So there’s all these other little
Speaker 3 33:09
It’s like all the other little things isn’t it? the pre, and the after.
Sue Bethanis 33:17
Thanks for joining.
Ryan Jenkins 33:18
I’m reminded of a company Automatic familiar with the company Automatic? for the ones that create have created WordPress, which half the internet runs on WordPress.
Sue Bethanis 33:27
Yeah, I didn’t realize that I know WordPress, obviously. But yeah, that they’re assisted. Yeah, got it.
Ryan Jenkins 33:31
So Automatic is it’s got over 1000 employees, and they’ve always been 100% remote, and, but they know how powerful human connection can be. So while they have people all over the world, one week, every year, they bring everybody together, and they just it’s just a celebration. It’s just a time to create culture and really connect with other folks. And they do they’re so intentional about that one week, they’ve said that that carries them the whole the year. And it’s different, right? I mean, I’m sure everyone can relate. And we talked to so many organizations, we’re like, yeah, half the people that we have on our team. Now, we’ve never actually met in person. And it’s just different, right? It’s just not quite the same.
Sue Bethanis 34:11
It’s not and then what happens is you meet them and you’re like, Oh, God, you’re taller than I thought or shorter. You don’t have no idea how tall people are. Is we’re all sitting here. Um, yeah, totally. But the same HR person was talking with this morning, she, they’re going to have a 750-person team building, bring everyone together in May. And so we were talking about it and she says, I’m concerned it might be overwhelming for people I said, No shit, I said, you’re gonna have to have a lot of like space for people to go off to cubbies and be, you know, twos and threes and so that they don’t feel overwhelmed by too many people because we’re not used to it. You know, it’s just we’re not used to being in crowded places. So there’s safety issues and just feeling of that kind of feeling as well. So you want to kind of ease I guess the point is we want to ease people back in as we’re going back to more of a hybrid, or a lot of companies were working whether, you know, of course or tech and many of them were remote or hybrid before, and now they’re going to be remote only or if remote only they’re still want to be wanting people to come in and they’re doing it like with off sites every quarter or, or bringing the team in every Wednesday or something like that. And I think easy ended that I think is going to be important. Do you have any thing to say about that? It’s almost the opposite a little bit, because you don’t want to overwhelm people.
Ryan Jenkins 35:31
I think there’s a lot to be said there. And I think too, there’s a lot of our social skills is like a muscle. Right. And don’t exercise it. it atrophies. Yeah, so no doubt it’s. And that’s been proven to right. I mean, just as much as we exercise our mind, and our physical bodies, like social fitness is a real thing. It’s part of the reason why we connected the Connect Act Two is because it’s, you know, again, if we’re not intentional about it, we’re not building it, it’ll atrophy. And while we, we desire that connection, we’ll never be able to stamp that out. Because that’s just wired and humans are skilled to be able to navigate to the small talk or whatever else, the listening can atrophy. So it’s important to stay sharp.
Sue Bethanis 36:14
Yeah, definitely no question about it. So another question came in the chat. You mentioned about connect lifelines. This person wants to know what that is.
Ryan Jenkins 36:22
Yeah, I mentioned that. I’m mostly just because it’s loneliness lifeline. Sounds good, really. But it’s this idea that at work, I think the context I was using this at work lies the most loneliness lifelines. Because one, it’s where we spend most of our time, our waking hours is at work. There’s natural connections and relationships that that we encounter at work. But again, the other things that really help with lessening loneliness are things like routine, learning, lessens loneliness. So the same way that you can’t experience anger while you’re being grateful. Same thing, we can’t experience loneliness, if we’re enthralled in learning something new and then purpose, right finding meaning in our work that really helps to drive less loneliness. So there’s all these what we call loneliness, lifelines, that leaders and organizations can throw out there to the ocean of folks that are feeling isolated and alone. So that’s what we mean by loneliness lifelines. Yeah, yep.
Sue Bethanis 37:23
I love it. So this great resignations happening. I mean, it’s, it’s not surprising. I think that there’s a lot of people who were not happy before, feeling like you have to bring their armor to work and how I mean, I’ve talked to one of my clients. He’s a former client, but he’s been friends now. And he, he’s living in Hawaii now. And he’s, when we were there last, he just said, like, I don’t, I don’t want to work so much. Like he just doesn’t want to work as much. And I think that he’s not alone. And whether he’s in Hawaii or not, but it’s like, people don’t want to work as much, and they don’t want to commute. And they don’t want to put as much energy. It’s just it’s actually about the energy that that because there was so much energy being put toward it, like we’re talking, you know, 10, 12, 14-hour days or more during the commute. So people are burned out. So I think that there’s no, there’s that that to me is the is the middle you are the context for part of why there’s a great resignation. So how does loneliness fit into this? And how do we so there’s that for so the first question, and how do we help leaders help prevent their people from leaving and being part of the great resignation?
Ryan Jenkins 38:34
Yeah, great insights. You know, if you think about loneliness, you think it’s someone that’s, that’s isolated, they feel detached, they feel disconnected? Well, if you’re disconnected from something, you’re very susceptible to go somewhere else, right? There’s not a lot of effort, you’re not connected to the work the organization, the people, there the leaders, right. So if you’re very, it’s very easy to jump ship and go somewhere else. And so I think that’s a big issue. And of course, loneliness, lonely workers are twice as likely to think about leaving their e
mployer. And research after research shows, especially with the emerging generation is they’re looking for more environments that can help support mental health for you. They’re looking to their organizations to help them support with some of these things. And so to your point, yeah, if organizations aren’t thinking about this, if they’re not providing these things, which typically was things that were supposed to be done outside of work on your personal time, well, work and life have blended like we’ve never seen before us, we’re bringing more of our personal life into work and our work home with us. And so this point, it’s all just life. So these are so I think, you know, there’s a big shake up happening. And I think just like markets correct, I think the labor markets correcting too, and I think we’re going to start seeing some really healthy and vibrant organizations coming out of this. And so I think yeah, I think creating a sense of belonging might be one of the greatest talent retention levers you can pull because why would you ever want to leave a place that you felt connected, where you felt seen and heard and, and you had a voice and you could contribute. So I think that’s, that’s really important to start creating those. And again, it doesn’t take as much as we think. And one of the great ways to do this, we actually interviewed a gentleman by the name of Steve Cole, he’s out of UCLA. And he studies loneliness, and how it shows up in the body. And he says, one of one of the best ways to actually let me preface it first, he would say, one of the worst things you could do is if you want to lessen loneliness in a team, or individuals, is get two lonely people together and say, You guys are both lonely, get together, then you won’t be lonely. That’s just not how it works. I mean, that usually typically make things worse, typically, what’s the best thing to do in Steve Cole’s opinion, and based on his research, is to involve people, right? Ask them to contribute to something. So ask them to help, right? Can you help me with this, or, you know, in the language of what we use in the book is pull people into a compelling narrative into some meaningful work, and make sure that they have a clear understanding of the work that they do, and the people benefiting from that work. Right. You got to draw those connections. And that will keep folks connected to the organization?
Sue Bethanis 41:09
Yeah. Well, I think meaningfulness is when we look at the studies on why people leave or waiting for resignation, why people leave or stay, it’s the meaningful work is number one out, you know, then boss, then money is way down there. And connected to your team. That’s, that’s also up there. So, but they’ve got to have meaningful work. And in Teresa Amabile’s work around ‘small wins’ and The Progress Principle really just brings that home, it’s like, you know, you do meaningful work with the small wins you get from that, and the progress you make is really why people stay. I mean, that’s the mate that well, it’s, it seems obvious, but the work that their study that they did was they actually researched it and looked at the inner world of people, of employees and managers to see how progress made a difference in terms of their work. It was fascinating work. It’s really interesting work. Another plug for her, but yeah, so well, any last thoughts? Ryan, this has been wonderful. Any other key lessons that you hope that our listeners in our, in our readers come away with?
Ryan Jenkins 42:16
Yeah, I’m gonna share this quote, it’s by the late Robin Williams, who was an actor and comedian. And it’s a really poignant quote. And I think there’s a direct call to action for all of us, so I’ll share it with you here it says. He said, quote, “I used to think the worst thing in life was to end up all alone, it’s not. The worst thing in life is to end up with people who make you feel all alone.” Ah, and I think, you know, as leaders, and as people, we’re constantly interacting with other folks. And I think his quote is just a constant reminder to all of us that, you know, universal human laws to just never make someone feel alone, especially if you’re with them. And that’s kind of our charge to leaders, and everyone that reads the book or listens to conversations like this, it’s just a subtle reminder that we are all the source of well-being for others. And if we can just help each other because we’re only as unified as our loneliest members. So if we can all play a little part in bringing each other closer, and I think we’re gonna have healthier teams, we’re gonna have healthier communities and ultimately, a healthier collective humanity.
Sue Bethanis 43:22
Yeah, that’s great. Thank you. Well I just want to honor Katie, she did ask one more question here in the chat. And she asked, how does loneliness show up in the body? And I think she said, I think we were going to go there but didn’t have the answer. I think you mentioned some of that. But you can maybe you give one more example.
Unknown Speaker 43:40
They’ve identified where it shows up in our brains. But as far as it shows up in the body, we’re not quite sure yet. And it’s really, it’s a subjective feeling. And it’s hard to know, does loneliness come first, and that leads to burnout? Or does burnout come first and that contributes to loneliness? Or do we experience depression, and that leads to loneliness? Does loneliness lead to depression? It’s really hard to say. And I just heard a podcast with Brene Brown, her new book, Atlas of the Heart just came out. Have you read that Sue? I haven’t read it either. But she was talking about it. And with all the research that she’s done, humans can only communicate three emotions. It’s basically sad, mad, and glad. So we don’t have the vernacular of what other emotions that we’re feeling. I think that mental health, of course, is becoming a growing conversation, which is fantastic. As more of these conversations start to bubble up, we’re all going to start to have a little bit more access to what we’re feeling and how it shows up and that’s going to be helpful for us to then communicate to those around us on how they can help us or us to fully express what might be the crux of our issue or how we’re feeling so and we do this with our kids, we have a chart that has all probably about 25 different emojis. And we asked them, you know, today what, you know, what was your kind of your general feeling of today? And we try to stretch them a little bit to think about this and that and I find myself doing the same thing like, okay, no, really, it wasn’t this, it was more of this. Right? And you think we’d be so much further along and we’d be all this much more emotionally intelligent, but it’s tough, and it’s hard work. So yeah, I don’t quite know, we don’t quite know how loneliness shows up in the body. But we the last thing I’ll share is Vivek Murthy, who is the two-time US Surgeon General, yes, the 19th. In the current one, he wrote a book called together and he used to he would travel the country, just to try to get a sense of the health of the United States. And he said that the underlying ailment of why people were having illness was loneliness was just this disconnection in this kind of languishing and so, again, yeah, so anyway, so not quite sure, but hopefully this conversation right, yeah, start to get a little bit more in tune with loneliness. And yes, when you experience it, and when you like, I’ve become hyper in tune with the highs of connection. So when I have a small connection with a barista or someone in an elevator like I can be on it was just incredible. Like, yeah, where where’s this been all my life?
Sue Bethanis 46:29
Yeah, I get it. It’s a high pressure. It’s ready. I feel the same way. Yeah, well, I’ve got a high from listening to you. So thank you so much for the connection. Ryan seriously. Your website is lesslonely.com and also Ryan-Jenkins.com. Your Twitter is @theRyanJenks as well as your LinkedIn. And the book, of course, is Connectable: How Leaders Can Move Teams from Isolated to All In. Again, thank you so much for being with us. It was wonderful to be with you. And I only wish you the best and want to stay connected for sure.
Ryan Jenkins 47:03
Let’s stay connected. Thank you Sue thanks, everyone. Have a great day.
Sue Bethanis 47:06
Yeah let me just say one more. One more question about how to get to know more about the team assessment. I assume if you go on Lesslonely.com You’ll be able to see more about that.
Ryan Jenkins 47:14
Yeah, lesslonely.com and then just click the Assessment tab. And you’re good to go.
Sue Bethanis 47:18
Perfect. Awesome. Aloha. And mahalo. We’ll see you next time. Bye now. Bye, everyone.