A VIM Executive Coaching “telecommunications moment!”
At the fitness center this morning, we observed a man of about 35-years-old seemingly walking the perimeter of the basketball court carrying on a wide-ranging conversation with himself (complete with hand-gestures for emphasis). The initial observation: “The stress must have finally gotten to him!”
However, as he passed us, we were somewhat relieved to see that he was wearing ear buds and was obviously talking into his smartphone. So, even at the gym and at 5:00 a.m., his executive mode was well-activated. But was he heard?
Just a few days ago, we saw a post on a social media platform. The post showed a photo of a 1980s “cell phone” slightly smaller, it appeared, than a shoebox. The caption of the post was: “Look how far we’ve come!”
Moving Target
Obviously, the post was one of those many Clickbait sites encouraging people to comment and vent and then get led to another site that tries to sell something or other. However, it raised an unintended point about how far we’ve come.
We can keep reaching back of course, to earlier steps and missteps in tele-communications. Seems the earliest portable communications technologies were the kids’ games where two, frozen juice containers were connected by a taunt string!
The juice cans never seemed to work, of course, and as kids do, we wound up yelling back and forth, “Can you hear me?” “No!” In our long-ago attempts to communicate with one another in a rudimentary virtual sense, we were forced to have a face-to-face conversation!
Clearly, society had no choice but to evolve to modern technologies. Naturally, “today’s smartphone” will look as silly in 30-years as the shoebox phone appears in Clickbait posts. It is another one of those moveable targets.
No one at VIM Coaching is suggesting a return to clunky shoebox machinery or Ma Bell wall phones with hand cranks. That said, we are signifying that a return to the ancient art of mindfulness is long overdue.
Executive isolation
In a recent article (among many articles) appearing in Complete Mind Care, entitled “Unmasking Executive Loneliness: Navigating the Silent Crisis in Leadership,” we come face-to-face with the modern problem of isolation in the work place.
Executives at all levels are becoming increasingly isolated. Despite smartphones, video-conferencing tools, texting, social media outlets and email, executives are increasingly being forced onto islands. Whether virtual, remote, hybrid or in-person, complaints abound about executives feeling mis-informed, lonely, dis-engaged and disconnected.
While executives no longer walk around with shoebox-sized phones, many are as cut-off from interaction as kids trying to whisper into repurposed orange juice cans connected by string. Frankly, it falls on their shoulders to correct the problem. Executives have lost the most basic of abilities – communication. With that loss is a concomitant loss of mindfulness.
Up and down virtual or actual corporate corridors, executives have become less mindful, increasingly inauthentic and frequently dis-connected.
The pandemic is often blamed for these problems however, the loss of mindfulness has been eroding for decades. Executives regularly react rather than respond, as they rely on all-things-digital far above human communication. The problem will clearly get worse, not better, with AI.
The resulting problems inherent with a lack of mindfulness manifest themselves in numerous ways. When executives lose the ability to reflect, respond, examine and most importantly, communicate, everyone in the organization suffers. Organizations need to become less isolated, impersonal and closed.
How ironic that despite digital interconnectedness, communication skills themselves have suffered. Executives are more intelligent and better trained in technologies than ever before, however mindfulness training, an ancient concept, has proven elusive. This problem is why so many frustrated executives are yelling at one another through the equivalent of orange juice cans connected by string.
VIM Executive Coaching works with executives at all levels and in all industries to increase and improve their mindfulness skills. It is our privilege and passion to help executives gain greater awareness in their workplaces.