I had a team meeting earlier today that started off with ten of the most interesting minutes I've experienced in a while. Depending on your perspective, the ten minutes could have been perceived as "wasted" or "unproductive" time since it wasn't necessarily "on topic" or on our meeting agenda. However, I believe they were ten of the most important minutes of my day. And it all happened because, in a time and place that was reserved to discuss work, someone decided to ask a personal question and check in on one of our team members.

This past Friday, one of our team members had to leave a meeting early to tend to a family emergency that cropped up. So today, before diving into our meeting agenda, we checked in with our team member and asked how everthing turned out and whether their family member was doing ok. This led to a round robin of sharing with every other meeting attendee sharing (voluntarily and unsolicited, I might add) about the difficult and challenging things going on in their life. The context had been set for the team to align around our common human condition; the reality that the line between "work" and "personal" time is blurry at best and the reality that we all have things going on outside of our work that weigh on us and impact our energy, our focus, and our (emotional, mental, and physical) health. Most importantly, it allowed us to align around the reality that although our work is important, in the grand scheme of things it's not that important.

Although this was a very organic and authentic moments shared between peers, it made me think that I need to be more intentional to create the time and space for that type of connection between team members. Especially in this new virtual and remote working environment in which we all find ourselves. Not only is it good for us to remind each other that we're all human but it also provide the opportunity to foster empathy for one another and to encourage one another. It was interesting; after sharing that time together, there was a discernible difference in how team members communicated and engaged with one another. There seemed to be an extra dose of compassion and patience weaved into every interaction throughout the rest of the day.

I know for some, this "kumbaya" moment would not be a welcome addition to their team meetings but for our team, in that particular moment, it was a very fruitful investment of time.