TECHNOLOGY
"THE WORKPLACE USED TO
BE WHERE WE GATHERED,
FORMED FRIENDSHIPS, AND
FELT CONNECTED TO A
LARGER COMMUNITY."
smartphones between two and five
years of age. Psychologists will tell you
that face-to-face interactions are the
primary way kids learn and bond, so
what we do with technology matters
more than ever. Kids who grow up
communicating through screens are
less intimate with human emotions;
now there are even classes to teach
them how to read emotions.
Social media is how preteens and
teens relate to one another, again
behind a technical interface. Their
next stop is the world of work, where
we leaders are deploying technology
to save money and time, which means
communications between co-workers
are again through interfaces and
behind screens. Remote workers
might never see another co-worker.
The workplace used to be where we
gathered, formed friendships, and felt
connected to a larger community. That
social bonding has been important to
our emotional well-being since the
first homo sapien walked the earth.
Communities of belonging helped us
stay safe and feel connected.
BUILDING TRUST WITH
COWORKERS
At HGTV, the company I most
recently helped to build, we tried
to consider the emotional health of
our organization. We began with
a central location but had regional
offices, and individual, remote workers
too where it made sense. However,
remote workers had a regional office
or our central location to come to
as well; they weren’t isolated. They
had a choice. When human beings
feel separate, they can begin to feel
endangered. We’re no different from
wooly mammoths that way.
A gathering place matters.
How do we experience the precious
lessons we learn through looking at
someone eye to eye, interacting face
to face, heart to heart? When do our
screens become walls?
Building trust with your co-workers is
incredibly important, so you can work
with speed and focus. I interviewed
Dr. Andrew Moore, who runs the
Computer Science Department for
Carnegie Mellon University, for my
new book, Fully Human. Before CMU,
he worked at Google for 12 years
remotely, out of their Pittsburgh
office. Much of his communication
with his colleagues was through video
conferencing and email. He said if he
wasn’t in Mountain View at least once
every couple of months, the emails
became ‘us’ vs. ‘them’. Trust broke
down. This is a guy who will tell you
every company of distinction in the
future will be run by technologists.
He adores technology. Trust must be
built face-to-face. It can be sustained
through screens but that comes
later. The emotional health of our
companies will always precede their
economic health. That’s probably
a good thing to remember. +
Susan Packard has been on the
ground floor and helped to build
powerhouse media brands like
HBO, CNBC, and HGTV. She was
the co-founder of Scripps Networks
Interactive and former chief
operating officer of HGTV. Under
Packard’s helm, HGTV became
one of the fastest growing cable
networks in television history. Today
HGTV is available in more than 98
million U.S. homes and distributed
in over 200 countries and territories.
Packard helped to build Scripps
Networks Interactive to a market
value of over $14 billion.
Susan’s first book, New Rules of the
Game, was written to help women
navigate and lead in the workplace.
Her second book, called Fully Human,
Three Steps to Grow your Emotional
Fitness for Work, Leadership & Life,
offers a fresh, new framework for
growing one’s emotional intelligence.
SusanPackard.com
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