Sincerely, "Thankful for my team holding space for my feelings"

[Christine P_ Dela Rosa]

New prompt to share team practices we like

Our popular Dear Work Therapist posts feature member questions, and in response, this group weighs in. We've even cut up short versions to share on social media (like this one featuring a question from Martin or this question from Fadoua.

In contrast to focusing our discussion on how to solve problems, I'd like to flip the script and focus on solutions to problems that didn't exist (but could have existed). It's a way for us to prompt the sharing of lessons we've learned in past lives.

And instead of calling it "Dear Work Therapist - [insert topic here]," we could name the series after what we liked, "Sincerely, [insert profile name of person here]." 

I'll start us off with an example.

Once upon a time, but in reality and not based in a fairy tale...

I worked for a company that prioritized safe spaces for questions and comments immediately after big events. The events could have been a structural re-organization across the company, a change in leadership, a change in employee benefits, a decision to change organizational goals, or even world events or the anniversary of internal company events.

While I just listed a lot of scenarios, this only happened every three to four weeks. And the space spaces were created at the following levels:

• There would be a staff-wide town hall where one of the senior-most leaders gave a short speech and opened the floor for questions.
• Either immediately following town hall, or after a short period of time to digest, later that same day we'd meet in our immediate teams for more intimate discussion.
• Later in the week, managers would make more space in 1:1s with their directs.

I really appreciated the open dialogue offered, even when I wanted to say I didn't feel good about the change. I also liked that the dialogue happened on multiple levels. For those that think it can be risky to invite such a wide range of chatter, I think this approach reduced false gossip and promoted improvements by identifying staff concerns. Perhaps most importantly, I felt like things were going to be okay because I knew what others thought and they knew how I felt. Somehow, that was better to me than no surprise change but not being in the know or able to critique the current situation.

Sincerely, 

Thankful for my team holding space for my feelings

[Patrícia Fortunato Montenegro]

Great initiative to share this insight with all of us @Christine P_ Dela Rosa

Thank you! 😃

[Dave Liao]

Love the idea of having smaller breakouts (after an all-hands) - I've never seen that in practice at any of my past companies!