What would you think if your employee or colleague told you that they are feeling “ALIENATED?”

Have you even considered this to be a possibility in your workplace?

What would it look like?

I recently delivered a “Map Your Emotional Culture Workshop,” for a team of leaders. When it came to completing the Emotional Culture Canvas and selecting “What undesired feelings we don’t want to feel (but might from time to time),” a third of the leaders had “Alienated” in their top five feelings.

Each person shared their story about what that word meant to them. Each person had a different story – a different interpretation of what it would look like to feel “Alienated.” It included things like missing out on meetings because of shifts, to sitting at separate tables because of COVID. For all of their stories, I would have chosen a different word – “Alienated,” to me, means DELIBERATELY excluding me from activities, events and opportunities to connect, on a regular occurrence, without my consent or awareness.

Whatever the interpretation – they all acknowledged it is sad to think of their employees feeling alienated and agreed they needed take measures to negate it.

Now, here’s where the magic happens…. By using tools in the workshop to elicit these conversations, we are able to plan actions and rituals as well as set boundaries to ensure we are doing everything possible to lessen the occurrences of certain unpleasant feelings in our workplaces and understand more of what our people need to feel valued, safe & happy to be at work.