We are Built for better Workplace Connection

Prefer to Listen to our Article? Watch below:

I don’t think my experience with team meetings in the past was unique.

I'd watch the colleagues who would lean in, pumping energy and drive into conversations. Their feelings of frustration, over things that weren’t moving or changing fast enough, would gently turn the volume up on their voices and get them jumping in over other people’s comments. I probably sat in this camp quite often myself. Letting my voice be driven by the rising energy in my chest and the voice in my head saying, “oh come on!”.

Another set of colleagues, triggered by the big energy would slowly begin to retreat into themselves. Resenting the dominant energy in the room that failed to stop and really listen in to what was being said. Their silence stewed with, “There is no point to me saying anything”. I’ve been that colleague too - though not as frequently - watching as my voice disappeared deep within me and checked out because there was so little value in being present.

And in those meetings the two would bounce off each other, driving them deeper into their respective corners. The louder camp getting ever more frustrated at the quiet camp who were not bringing any energy to the table. The quiet camp getting ever more resentful of being stomped on by the louder ones.

If you make sure the meeting lasts at least an hour, you’ve often achieved more disconnect in a team than connection. The complete opposite of ‘a meeting of minds’.

Incivility Isn’t Just a Vibe—It’s an Economic Crisis

Last year, incivility in the workplace was rising fast. According to a Society for Human Resource Management survey:

• 56% of US workers had experienced one or more acts of incivility at work.
• Simply witnessing incivility cost employees an average of 37 minutes of lost productivity per act.
• A quarter of employees who witness incivility say they’re more likely to leave their job.

The total cost?
A staggering $2 billion per day in lost productivity and associated absenteeism.

And let’s be honest, this cannot be just the US.

What We’re Doing Differently at The View Looks Good

As a small but growing business, creating safety to connect is now the foundation of how we work because we didn’t want to build a business where incivility was just normalised, shrugged off or ignored. It made us so deeply uncomfortable and unhappy that we chose to understand what was going on in those moments, recognising our nervous systems are all at play and running the shop.

So we built our way of working around this core truth:

We make it safe to feel all the feelings of being human, the big feelings that arise with the Sympathetic nervous system activated and the small feelings that arise with the Dorsal system activated, and we support each other to move through them back to a balanced state, not act from them.

What That Actually Looks Like

Here’s what a meeting looks like at The View Looks Good when emotions show up:

We pause.
We name what’s here.

We might say something like,

“I’m noticing how frustrated I’m feeling about our progress - there’s a ‘come on, let’s go!’ voice shouting in my head.”

“I can feel my body wanting to shut down and avoid this - t’s just too much right now.”

Often, someone laughs. Someone lets out a sigh. The tension breaks just a little.

And it is received, without any judgement. The emotions that are there are acknowledged: "Ok, that is how fear and insecurity are showing up in this moment."

And then we ask the question:

‘What is needed to bring us back into balance and feel a sense of safety in the moment?” (Ok, if I’m honest this is just done on autopilot now).

Sometimes that is a moment to sit in quiet and just sense the feeling a little more.

Sometimes it is a request to take a break, release a little of the excess energy from the adrenalin and cortisol building up and come back.

Sometimes it is gentle words of kindness to each other that begin to wake us back up out of resistance and return to connection.

It varies, but always the step is,”Lets find a way to reconnect to ourselves and each other and create solutions from there”.

The Impact?

A deep, steady trust in our culture.

We’re not just more productive. Work has become a place of repair and growth.

We say this a lot, but it still surprises us how much clarity our nervous systems bring to the chaos.

Want to Learn More?

If you're curious about how your nervous system shapes connection (or disconnection) at work, check out our overview , courses, coaching or consulting or drop us a note.

Let’s build workplaces that feel good to be in.