Next Tuesday – Election Day here in the US – you might find yourself experiencing similar feelings to those seemingly-endless moments following the slow climb of a roller coaster: a mixture of terror, anxiety and guarded excitement as you wonder what’s going to happen next. And if this election follows the pattern set by the 2020 election, we may not know definitive results in the presidential race for several days. Regardless of whether you are voting in the US elections or not, you might experience similar feelings in lots of different scenarios – many of us experienced them in an ongoing form throughout the Covid-19 pandemic. Such moments of uncertainty, discomfort, and – not to be forgotten – opportunity, are known as liminal spaces, and we experience them throughout our professional and personal lives.
Like hallways, lobbies, waiting rooms and other physical liminal spaces, these liminal spaces are transitional and sometimes transformative: a threshold into an unexplored territory. But these spaces can last for a while before moving into the next stage: think of pregnancy, divorce, a reorg at work, a new product launch… and, yes, an election season. (Sometimes, as was the case with Covid-19, these spaces have an undefined beginning and/or ending, adding additional emotional complexity as you sit in the tension of “no longer” and “not yet.”)
The heightened emotions and awareness that comes in these liminal spaces often leads to something revolutionary – brand new ideas, new insights, and new perspectives that were not available before. The massive cultural shift to working from home, which irrevocably changed the way people think about work, came from companies’ (forced) innovation during a liminal space. On a more individual level, an employee who’s leaving an organization will sometimes drop an eye-opening idea or insight that impacts how their team works together way after they have gone.
So, as we sit in the liminal space of the 2024 Presidential election, how can this be relevant for building community in your workplace this week?
This Week’s Tip:
Honor the “liminal spaces” that you, and people around you, are in.
- Take notice of tension, discomfort, and other emotions you are currently feeling. Pay attention to ideas you get during this liminal space, and devote some time to exploring those ideas more than you might usually.
- Pay attention to team members and colleagues who are in liminal spaces themselves (above and beyond the election space we are all in). Listen closely to their ideas and comments, ask them to expand on their thoughts, and take some time to reflect on them yourself. What are the ideas and pieces of wisdom that could be the seeds of some new growth for you, for them, or for your organization?
Try these out this week, and let us know how you honor the liminal spaces in your life. We’d love to hear from you!
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Building Bridges Leadership 