Can you Heal at Work?

I was speaking at an event with John Maxwell a few weeks ago when he said, “One is too small of a number to achieve greatness.”

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I absolutely loved that quote because no one creates success alone. We all need a team to be great and we are better together.

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Patrick Lencioni and I hosted A Day With Jon and Pat this past week. It was an intimate and interactive gathering of 75 top leaders from around the country and the vision we had for the event was surpassed by the special reality of what everyone experienced.

The common feedback we heard was, “You and Pat complimented each other so well and the way you connected and supported each other created a special atmosphere in the room that allowed for powerful connections to happen.”

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Even though the room was comprised of mostly business leaders, and Pat and I are considered business authors most of the questions we received involved relationships, family, personal struggles, wounds and healing. Business leaders with 50, 500 to 5000 employees who were there wanted to talk mostly about non-business topics to grow and get better.

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I believe the pandemic made people realize that the statement “It’s not personal, it’s business” is dead. The truth is, it’s always personal. When you grow, you can help your organization grow. When you heal, you create a healthy organization.

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For years I’ve been telling coaches that the future of coaching is healing. Student athletes join a team, and they bring their wounds with them, but with a loving team and coach, a person and team can find healing. Healed people don’t hide. They take on the challenge and overcome. They thrive.

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The same goes for business, schools, and every workplace.

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Relational Psychology research shows that we heal in a loving relationship. This means that every environment where people work provides an opportunity for caring relationships to develop and healing to happen.

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And every challenge, disagreement, and issue with a co-worker is an opportunity to address and heal the wounds that you have. It’s easy to spot the wounds and when they surface you can use this as an opportunity to heal yourself and grow stronger together.

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You can believe this is “soft” and “fluffy” and “hogwash”, or you can see the truth that everyone has a wound from their past and in every relationship, you bring your wound with you. You will either live from your wound or from your healing. You will either bring your worst to work or work with others to become your best.

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With so much divisiveness and strife happening in the world, people are feeling a lot of painful emotions. Many are struggling with their mental health. As leaders we can’t ignore this and pretend the problem doesn’t exist. The key is to bring awareness and create an opportunity to create connection and healing.

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One is too small of a number to achieve greatness, and I would add that when two or more unite together and become one, connection and healing leads to growth and great results.

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Pat and I believe that healing at work will be a common topic in the future because, YES, you can heal at work and leaders and teams who build caring relationships and transform conflict into growth will create organizations that thrive.