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We only need one friend at work to prevent feeling lonely.
This is according to research conducted by Professor Sigal Barsade, who spent her career exploring the importance of having friends at work. Unfortunately, we’re often so busy collecting followers and likes on social media that we neglect the art of making “friends.” From 1990-2020, the percentage of Americans who said they had no friends quadrupled! [David Brooks, How to Know a Person] Surgeon General Vivek Murthy describes this as an “epidemic of loneliness.” As a solution, he suggests, “When we serve other people, we not only feel connected to them in the moment, but we actually remind ourselves that we have value to bring to the world.” Serving other people is the rock on which mentoring stands. Mentors volunteer to support someone’s success by offering advice, guidance, and ideas. When I first started MentorLead in 2005, I thought my job was to help strangers become friends so that advice-giving could flourish. But turning strangers into friends takes time – a scarce commodity in mentoring. So, I used to focus my mentor training heavily on building a trusting relationship. After running a few programs, I decided to try something new in my turning-strangers-into-friends mission. I brought the mentees together soon after matching them to ascertain their level of engagement with their mentor. Being only one month into the program, I was merely hopeful the mentoring pairs had made contact. To my surprise, a mentee eagerly shared, “I met with my mentor and enjoyed having a safe space to talk about my concerns.” Other mentees shared similar experiences, also referencing and appreciating the “safe space.” Wait! Safe space? A “safe space” requires trust and confidentiality, respect and inclusivity, empathy and understanding, and freedom from judgment and fear. Infusing all of that into a new relationship takes time! How could these strangers experience a “safe space” in their first meeting? Here’s what I have discovered… It’s the word “mentoring.” We instinctively project trust into a “mentoring” relationship. Why? Because we assume that if someone volunteers to serve in a mentor capacity – to be our work friend, to see us when we feel unseen, to offer us their time, advice, and resources, to guide us through some challenge or change – then they must be trustworthy. The act of agreeing to be our mentor cements the foundation of a safe space. Once in a while, a leader voices a concern that “formal” mentoring might feel contrived and synthetic. But if we can use a programmatic structure to help some people volunteer to serve and others to find that work friend they fiercely need, then does it matter that a meet-cute didn’t happen? What truly matters is that people connect with someone who brings compassion, confidentiality, an absence of criticism, and an abundance of championship. In that safe space, loneliness doesn’t stand a chance. © 2024. Ann Tardy and MentorLead. www.mentorlead.com. All Rights Reserved. |