Feelings in the workplace

Important signals

In our trainings we emphasise that feelings, whether pleasant or unpleasant, are important signals pointing to underlying needs. Recognising and fulfilling those needs is crucial for standing in your own strength.

It works! And yet it’s not always easy.

Solution or connection?

Colleagues talk to each other to understand one another better, to discuss ways of working more efficiently with data and situations, to name tensions and make agreements.

In that spirit, we encourage managers and employees to give direct feedback to colleagues when they’re frustrated and their important needs aren’t being met.

But when the pressure to find a watertight solution is greater than the willingness to be in connection with each other, things get difficult. In those moments, people’s needs are being bypassed. When important needs aren’t recognised or sufficiently addressed, frustration, discouragement, disappointment or fear arise. This can lead to personal clashes, people withdrawing, or demotivation.

Example

Tension and distance

Chris is a veteran in a values-driven organisation. He’s been through just about everything within the company, witnessed all kinds of evolutions and carries the organisation’s mission in his heart.

Although he trusts the current developments, he regularly freezes up when new ideas replace established ones or when he’s asked to share the workload and free up time for new projects.

That tension can come out quite forcefully: from criticism to shouting, headaches and sleepless nights.

His colleagues meanwhile do everything they can to prevent these outbursts. After all, few things are more frightening than a colleague who loses it. But this restraint takes its toll too: new ideas are held back, contacts become cautious and nobody dares to address him or go around him anymore.

Connection takes courage

During a training day, we zoom in on needs and feelings, observations and requests. Gradually the team members gain clarity about the themes that occupy them. The insight also grows that they need to involve Chris in this, if they want to take themselves and him seriously.

The biggest obstacle for the colleagues seems to be the fear of making things uncomfortable for him when they stand up for their own need for progress.

And for Chris too it’s a confronting day: realising that you can also make your point in a different way, if you take the time for it, and feeling the embarrassment that this had barely worked until now.

By giving everyone’s feelings and needs room to breathe and by listening to each other, the team and Chris find a way back into dialogue. By pausing and recognising what’s important, they lay the foundation for a calmer approach to challenges and projects.

Getting started

If you want to connect with colleagues, you need to take the risk of making your own needs known and being open to the other person’s response.

• Bringing in your feelings and needs is an important step toward making that connection.
• Listening to the feelings and needs of the person you’re talking to is a next step.

When you manage to keep caring for your own needs without overlooking those of the other person, you contribute to everyone being able to be more themselves within your organisation. Nonviolent Communication makes it possible to make that feedback very specific and personal, and to invite the other person to take concrete action.

This way, team members stand more in their strength and working together becomes enjoyable again.