It's time for me to come out! As much as I love the corporate space, and the training I do helps businesses with service, sales and leadership, my TRUE passion comes down to one word!
Relationships!
So, of course we are all in a relationship of some kind - with ourselves, our loved ones, our friends, our colleagues.
But I want to talk about the relationships with your loved ones.
Because lets face it, these relationships are often the ones that impact us in every aspect of our lives. If things are not going so well at home, or in our personal relationships, this can really affect how we are at work.
Let me give you an example. Over my 7 years of corporate training, there has not been a training room where there has not been some discussion about what was going on in peoples personal lives.
And why would there be? Human beings bring the whole of them to the workforce, no matter how much we are told to "keep our business and our personal lives separate". The truth is, we can't! And why would we?
People who feel like they can share (appropriately) on how they feel about their personal lives at work, often build very strong relationships with their team mates, and share an understanding with them that creates a strong and supportive environment at work.
So why I am I saying its time to come out?
Over the past 6 months I have been grappling with the idea of talking about personal relationships in the corporate space. And everyone I have spoken to has been super supportive of this "coming out". The reason they have supported this, all the way from executives, to friends and family, is for the very reasons stated above.
About the same time I did a survey which was a very personal and confidential survey asking people about their relationships at home. This survey ranged from the very comfortable questions such as "If you could have more in your relationship, what would it be?" to the more personal and risque like "What are you most concerned about when it comes to your sexuality and sensuality"
I had 125 people complete the survey, which was no easy feat, as I was under cover you see!
But after getting back the responses it dawned on me that the 125 people who responded were all past, current and future corporate clients of mine! These are people who are reaching out and saying they need and want help and support with their intimate relationships!
So, here it is, I suggest, that if we want more happy people in the workforce, we start to explore how we can support them with their relationships on a more personal level, and we make it okay and acceptable to talk about our needs in an open and honest way.
Of course, there are boundaries that we are mostly highly aware of, and for the most part, people are generally sensible about what they will and won't talk about at work. But lets give people at work the chance to talk about how things are for them at home, and I can hand on heart say, it could be directly related to business success, profitability, less complaints, and an overall happier workforce.
