Small Gestures Create Climate Of Belonging

“I’m older than time.”

I laughed out loud at the unabashed comment my friend’s 80-something father made years ago as he gazed into a mirror.

I laughed at it again recently, this time under my breath and with a queasy sense of understanding, when the same thought crossed my mind unbidden.

Before me sat a group of Washington State University students attending an Alumni-Student Leadership Colloquium, which connected alums and student leaders for a daylong conversation about the responsibility of building community.

So earnest, so inquisitive, so hungry, so young they were. Their questions about life after graduation touched me, as did the words they used to describe themselves and where they are in life. “Write at the top of your notepad the words ‘I am,’ then make a list of 10 items to describe yourself,” I told them.

“Leader/activist.” “Easily amused.” “Me.” “Optimistic.” “Curious.” “Listener.” “Positive.” ‘Unsure of a lot of things.” They wrote from the heart, about possibilities, about being on the brink of life. They spoke both of what is and what could be. The questions they asked belied a charming mix of bravado and honest self-assessment.

“OK, I get my first job,” an advertising major began. “What happens if, you know, I’m there on the job and I forget everything I’ve learned at school? Will anyone help me?”

Others wanted to talk about a variation on that theme, competitiveness versus teamwork. Or about the relative merit of unpaid internships. Or about being sure they’d made the right career choice.

At 32 I’m not older than time, but suddenly I felt incredibly removed from just starting out, from wondering about what to wear, where to park, how to act and how to be. Emerging from the safe cocoon that is college can be a shock to the system, particularly for those who need a hand but instead get a boot, albeit a symbolic one.

“That’s my chair!” an angry reporter exclaimed my first hour on the job at an Oregon newspaper, literally yanking the chair out from under me. No one had bothered to warn me about the hothead’s “marked” chair, or advise me where to wait for the managing editor. To the lunchroom I hastily retreated, lugging my dictionary, thesaurus and AP stylebook.

Of course there’s much more at stake for new hires than sitting in the wrong place. And those of us who “been there, done that” have an awesome responsibility to help make the transition into the workplace as seamless and positive as possible, no matter the age or experience level of the newcomer. It costs little in terms of personal effort to welcome a new co-worker, to encourage questions, to value the insights of someone who sees longstanding company practices through the eyes of a logical outsider.

How many great ideas or innovations have been shot down when someone dismisses a legitimate question with, “Because that’s the way we’ve always done it”? Ideally, leadership and community start with a level playing field, a safe environment where ideas and people are valued, from the CEO to the person who makes sure the mail gets to the right place in a timely manner.

At the end of the leadership day, a student clad in a WSU sweatshirt and jeans thanked alums for participating: “It really means a lot to us that you’re here, that you continue to come back to campus,” he said. Students in the session thought that the alumni presence showed that we understood “Cougar Pride” even better than they did, he said.

Driving back to Spokane from Pullman, it occurred to me that he was talking about the gifts of time and attention, about connectedness. And his words, I think, expressed an unspoken hope that somehow, the world of work might be as kind, safe and welcoming as a Com-Law study group or an evening spent at The Coug, kicking around the issues of the day.

Every day, the smallest of gestures can create a climate of belonging, and a collective sense that nothing can hold us back. And they can encourage the kind of risk-taking that happens so naturally on campus, so awkwardly off.

I looked at my own list of adjectives under the heading “I am,” ashamed that none spoke of connectedness or community, and instead focused on the tasks of day-to-day living.

If I had it to again, with the shared perspectives of those on the other side, it might have read, “Interdependent.” “Affirming.” And, though longer than two words, “Eager to help you find your way.”

, DataTimes MEMO: Kathleen Gilligan is Lifestyles & Trends Editor of the Spokesman-Review.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Kathleen Gilligan The Spokesman-Review