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 anticipate what comes next. While this is a midterm rather than presidential election, the outcome could say a lot about what to expect over the next few years, on a national level and closer to home. Regardless of whether you are able to vote in the US election, we all experience similar feelings in lots of different scenarios. 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 (Montréal’s RESO underground city – a real-life Backrooms – comes to mind), these liminal spaces are transitional and sometimes transformative: a threshold into an unexplored territory, with a sense that you yourself might be different on the other side of it. Sometimes these spaces are short: a sudden layoff or replacement, a shipment on its way to you, and so on. But these spaces can often last 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.
Elsewhere we’ve written about team creativity in times of challenge, and quoted Joni Mitchell: “An artist needs a certain amount of turmoil and confusion, and I’ve created out of that. It’s been part of the creative force.” The friction of flint and steel creates something new: a spark of fire. In some ways, these liminal spaces bring their own friction: the friction of what was and what will be, or the now and not yet, or the both/and; Schrödinger’s Cat
So, as we sit in our own liminal spaces – election-related or not – 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. 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 navigate the liminal spaces in your life. I’d love to hear from you!
You can subscribe to our feed here, or sign up for our weekly newsletter to get these articles directly in your inbox.
