How are you really doing?

"Yeah but Sandra, this isn't what I trained for, is it?" "When I hear bad news, well, then I have to solve it and I don't know how."

In conversations with supervisors and frontline managers, these 2 remarks are far and away at the top. I have truly heard this said so often. Tough men, brilliant at the technical side, at their trade, working in dangerous and sometimes extremely explosive environments doesn't faze them (apparently) one bit. But asking a colleague how they're doing (how they're really doing, that is), ooh, all of that is really quite nerve racking. Let alone talking about non everyday work related subjects like mental well being, stress, and so on.

It isn't even a matter of not wanting to. But of not really knowing how.

Unfortunately, people just don't come with a checklist or manual, which personally I actually find very strange. With the most simple objects you get, upon purchase, an instruction leaflet out of nowhere. Often with, as the showstopper: "not suitable for consumption." Seriously. As if something in me would even consider eating that cactus. But apparently it's necessary. Which is, again, a disturbing thought. Anyway, I'm getting off track.

However scary asking how someone really is may be, it does matter. A matter of life and death, I dare say. With high risk work you want the installations to function optimally, you want everything monitored sharply from the control room 24/7. So surely you also want to know how someone's upstairs is doing? Because how is that person in the game? Is someone able to get that complex job done? Is full focus possible?

But yeah, then you do have to enter into the conversation. At the right moment. With the right attention and intention. Without wanting to fix anything right away. Because really, spoiler alert: that usually isn't necessary at all (little tip, this also applies in conversations with women :)).

What does help? Just a bit of quality time and attention. Listening (and with bells on, for the advanced). Being heard and seen. In the end this is what everyone wants. It doesn't get a whole lot more nerve racking than that..

It was in working with supervisors and frontline managers that my passion for mental well being really came about. As far as I'm concerned, they are the backbone within organizations, in direct contact with their crew, and with the hierarchical layers above them. Yet they often barely realize what a special key position they actually hold. And that's such a shame.

There's so much more in them, and therefore in organizations too. But for that they do need to be supported and guided.

For them I've created a lovely (even if I say so myself), interesting, instructive, interactive, practical, fun, sometimes confronting training about mental well being. So that they are better equipped for themselves, their teams and crews, and thereby the whole organization. But also for at home.

And then those 2 remarks I opened this blog with are, for them at least, no longer an obstacle or a theme.