Ask a Therapist - Building Connection with Remote Teams

(light music) This next question is from Omar, and we're gonna be talking about feeling disconnected at work. Hi there. I manage a remote team, and while I try to stay connected with everyone, I find it challenging to pick up on things when we're not in the same physical space. I wanna create a work environment where everyone feels a true sense of belonging, but I know that loneliness can sometimes go unnoticed. How can I recognize when someone is feeling disconnected, and what's the best way to help them feel more included and supported? Well, Omar, you have come to the right place. Building brave spaces and community is my jam. Okay? So let's talk about it. Well, Omar, when I talk about building a brave space, that's probably a new concept to many people because we talk a lot about psychologically safe spaces. And we also want psychologically safe spaces, but when you're building a brave space, a person feels encouraged and empowered to share how they feel, even if the space has not been safe yet. That means I feel empowered enough in my relationship with Omar to say, "Hey, it's a lot happening within the organization space that doesn't feel safe, but because I have this relationship with you, this brave space you've created, I'm gonna let you know I'm not feeling the vibe, okay?" So creating brave spaces empowers people to show up and be their bravest self. Something else that is very important when you are thinking about building a brave space within your team is how do they let you know they don't feel like they belong? How do they even let you know that they don't like it here? If you have not created a feedback loop for your team to come back and share with you information, then you might just be guessing. They might feel perfectly fine, they may love it there, but if you truly, truly wanna know, create a feedback loop for them. That could be asking them outright. It could be creating a survey for them that might be anonymous if you really wanna give them some safety so that you can hear back. And once they see you implementing the information that they have shared with you, that confirms that you're really out there trying to build that brave space, like this is so important to you, and they can see what you are doing to support the team. The heart of this answer is all about building community. You're sending this question in lets me know that you value community and what that feels like and looks like and the impact of being in connection with one another. I have found that you don't have to be in the same physical space to create a brave space for someone to feel valued, seen, and connected with each other in the space. So if that becomes the mission of your team and your goal as...