n WELLNESS
start to feel, No one here likes me. So then you think, I don’t feel
close to this entire company.” Thanks to the social exchange the-
ory, you tend to reciprocate the negative vibes, in something of
a quid pro quo. “You start thinking that, If I don’t get anything
out of this relationship, I’m not going to give much in return, ei-
ther.” You don’t work as hard. Your performance suffers. This, in
turn, impacts others, as “we catch emotions like a virus,” says
Barsade. “Loneliness is influencing their colleagues.”
The second mechanism: Lonely people are perceived to
be less approachable, and therefore their relationships suffer.
“Lonely people don’t have the network around them to get the
job done,” Ozcelik says. “For example, they might have a great
idea, but they need other people’s input, and they can’t get it.”
Curious about this dynamic, Ozcelik then hatched a fol-
low-up experiment to tease out why, exactly, lonely people
weren’t getting the help they needed. This time he turned to
neuroscience. Ozcelik and his team found a group of 20 volun-
teers, showing them photos of hypothetical coworkers with de-
scriptors like, “an employee who has no one to turn to in the or-
ganization” or someone who “feels in tune with coworkers in the
organization.” Ozcelik left the L-word out of the descriptions,
and “lonely” descriptions were not paired with “lonely” faces.
Volunteers mulled over the question, “Do I help this per-
son?” while Ozcelik used an fMRI to scan their brains. He no-
“As a trusted Act! software
advisor, the sound advice and
tailored customer service that
Chris provides has enabled us
to keenly track customers over
decades. And with his guidance
a
over the past year we have seen
g
significant increase in sales usin
to
email marketing. It is a pleasure
ticed something fascinating. When considering a non-lonely
coworker, two areas of the participants’ brains flared to life on
the fMRI: the amygdala and hippocampus, which help govern
our memories and emotion. “Lonely” descriptors did not trig-
ger any activity in these areas. Translation? “It’s like the lonely
person is invisible,” says Ozcelik, his voice brimming with ex-
citement. “It’s not that we hate the lonely person. It’s that the
lonely person doesn’t even register in our brains.” Perhaps in
the same way that we quickly walk past a homeless person on
the street, we simply choose to ignore a lonely coworker.
LONELY AT THE TOP
Loneliness might be an equal-opportunity problem. While
the Sacramento study (of just two organizations) was too
small to draw conclusions about CEOs, a 2011 survey from
RHR International (a leadership consulting firm) found that
half of all CEOs are lonely, and that of that group, 61 percent
say it impacts their performance. So there could be some
truth in the old saw, “It’s lonely at the top.” Sacramento-
based executive coach Barrett McBride says that among her
clients, “The more senior the executive, the more likely they
are to bring up loneliness,” theorizing that “the higher peo-
ple rise in an organization, the fewer peers they have to dis-
cuss issues that arise.”
More
than a
Utility
work with a consultant who truly
s
understands your business goal
s
play
and how your sales software
a role in meeting them.”
— ALICE BURKHARD
CES, INC.
CEO, A&A EDUCATIONAL RESOUR
CHICO CA
Contact Chris Pumphrey | Act! Software Coach
chris@actcoaching.com • 406.493.7047 • www.actcoaching.com
38
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