Is it really lonely at the top?

How communities can combat loneliness - part 1

I normally save reflection for the end of the article, but this time I’m flipping this on its head because I want you to think about how you’re feeling and currently approaching communities within your own roles. Take a minute to reflect by filling in this form (anonymously) and sharing your thoughts. This will feed directly into part two of this article.

Filled it in? Let’s continue…

I had already planned to write an article on loneliness in L&D and how communities could be an effective way to combat this, when I saw Henry Coutinho-Mason’s LinkedIn post sharing a quote from a live recording of Secret Leaders podcast he attended: “The real existential threat from AI is loneliness”. And it struck me that I’d not really been thinking about this topic in the face of AI, only through the need for human connection. Henry’s post continues: “Humans are messy. And we’re all different – some will use AI to improve their relationships, others will use it as a substitute for human connection.” And I think this is a great jumping off point, so thank you Henry.

Unless you’ve had your head buried in the sand, you will be well aware that with the influx of AI has come a flood of focus on human skills, and how the two will go hand in hand in the future. So it shouldn’t be a surprise to be thinking about how new technologies can offer opportunities to alter - for better or for worse - the way we experience our worlds and those around us. But taking a step back from this for a moment, there’s something else that’s worth highlighting here.

As an industry we’re very good at telling L&D teams that they’re not good enough. That they’re doing things wrong. That they could be doing more. Or better. That they need to upskill themselves. Or that they’re not doing a good enough job at upskilling others. Or that L&D really needs a seat at the table. Why haven’t you got that seat yet?

It feels like there’s a real lack of empathy across L&D as an industry. And let’s face it, no one wakes up in the morning and thinks “I’m going to try really hard to be terrible at my job today.” It has made me wonder how this all contributes to potential isolation or loneliness in roles. There’s a definite perceived sense of isolation, even if you have a team around you, when you constantly feel like you’re facing an uphill battle both internally and externally.

So when I started to think about:

• How often do people feel isolated in their roles?
• What steps can people take to connect more with others?
• How can people help themselves?
• How can organisations recognise and support L&D teams more effectively?

The thing I kept coming back to was: Where does community fit into all of this?

1 in 5 people feel lonely at work

This stat from the British Red Cross is a stark reminder that loneliness is an issue outside of L&D itself. The same study found that 84% of onsite workers agreed that they felt a close connection with the people in their shared workspace, compared to 44% of homeworkers surveyed who said the same. So not only are a high proportion of workers feeling lonely, this loneliness may be exasperated due their working environments. However, this isn’t cause and effect, and multiple elements play into this bigger picture - including your relationship with your manager.

If we think that a large part of an organisation’s culture is formed by how its people interact with each other, yet many businesses struggle with effective comms, it’s not surprising that there are challenges around this. Ultimately, being encouraged to make connections and collaborate effectively can lead to a greater sense of inclusion.?

So it’s not too far off to suggest that we can imagine a world where loneliness in the workplace was combated through purposeful community building and engagement.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Andy Lancaster for the CLO100 ‘Meet the author’ series this week, and he’s certainly the guru when it comes to all things community. His next book, Organisational Learning Communities, is due to be released on the 3rd June and provides practical advice, case studies and actions that L&D teams can take to truly understand the value in community. One thing that was really clear in this conversation was communities that are organic, find form by themselves and are sustained from grassroots up are often the most successful ones.?

There’s an element of motivation and curiosity that is required from those involved in organisational communities that is crucial to their success. It’s no surprise that learning and growth mindset are two of the biggest things I’m seeing spoken about across the industry at the moment. When it comes to fostering a learning mindset within a business, one of the first places I would look is at the groups and subgroups that are ‘naturally occurring’ - to borrow Andy’s term.

Who is most affected by loneliness in Lamp;D?

Although loneliness can affect everyone, I’d focus on two key groups here: learning leaders, and those consultants and freelancers who support the daily grind of a business. Although both situations are very different, there’s a certain level of isolation that exists in each space which ironically unifies these roles in a shared experience of loneliness. Being a decision maker. Being a strategic thinker. Taking ownership and accountability. The list goes on.?

Communities foster shared experiences and offer resources that can improve both personal wellbeing and professional performance. Engaging with peers through communities encourages collaboration, innovation, and continuous learning, which are crucial for maintaining enthusiasm and relevance. This connectivity is especially vital in environments where day-to-day interactions may be limited.

Where could AI feed into this?

Back to the original quoted reference: “The real existential threat from AI is loneliness”, I’d like to take this in a different direction and suggest that there are ways AI can ultimately enhance the human experience. Through things like community matching, virtual assistants, enhanced communication tools, personalised learning and feedback opportunities, AI can create a more holistic sense of work and therefore wellbeing. The deeper question asked on the panel takes this one step further to insinuate that through an AI-assisted future, there may be less opportunities for human to human interaction, and ultimately one of the consequences of that might be loneliness.

It’s certainly possible. Never say never, right? But at what point would an individual be able to realise they are truly lonely, if they are surrounded by technology designed to work as your ‘team’? And even on a broader scale, how would an organisation be reticent of this? Maybe we won’t be so mad at all that technology, like Microsoft’s Insights, telling us whether we were engaged in a meeting or not, because it might actually start to tell us how often we’ve interacted with other humans as opposed to AI and then link it back to productivity.

What’s next?

Community building and understanding the efficacy of it is certainly something we’re going to see picking up pace across the industry this year. And at a time when companies are really struggling to make a dent on their skills gaps, I would encourage businesses to look within to see what hubs of skill development are happening right under their noses, and then continue to create environments which foster it.

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