7 questions that may boost your relationships at work

Will you and your life benefit by asking these questions?

Excerpt: "A company can offer all the free snacks and on-site massages in the world—but if the people don’t make you feel supported, you’re probably still not happy at your job. To an increasing extent, “the corporate world is understanding that relationships and the culture of relationships at work is the new competitive edge,” says Esther Perel, a psychotherapist who hosts the popular couples’ therapy podcast Where Should We Begin?

In May, Perel shifted her focus from improving relationships at home to bettering those at work. She released a 100-question card game with prompts designed to get people to open up and share stories, in hopes of improving team dynamics and fixing a workplace’s culture. Each prompt targets one of her four pillars of healthy workplace relationships—trust, belonging, recognition, and collective resilience—and it’s designed to be played at an off-site meeting, while onboarding a new employee, during a one-on-one check-in, or at an after-work happy hour.

“This goes way beyond your typical icebreaker,” Perel says: Telling personal stories at work can make people feel less siloed and improve collaboration. At the average all-hands meeting, for example, “You see where the eyes go, you see who's listening, you see the blank stares, you see people on their phone,” she says. “Once a person starts to tell a story, everybody's eyes lift. Now you come to life, you're interested, and you elicit curiosity.”