3 steps to building Connection in your workplace

Last week I spoke about the concept of ‘connection’ – what it means and why it’s so important in the workplace, especially for leaders. Here I’ll take a more practical approach and show what you can do to enhance your ability to connect.

Not everyone is a born ‘connector’ or leader, but luckily these skills can be cultivated through conscious effort and action. Adult learning principles suggest a mix of:

• Experience – development through on-the-job experiences like self-reflection and stretch assignments. This should take up about 70% of your learning.
• Exposure – development with the help of others such as by shadowing, mentoring, coaching and informal feedback. It should take up about 20% of your learning.
• Education – development through formal learning, such as books, courses and conferences. This should take up the remaining 10% of your learning.

Here are some things you can do to build your ability to connect.

Experience

• When collaborating with others, focus on listening openly and make a genuine effort to understand other peoples’ point of view, especially if that person is from a different culture or professional background. Ask questions to better understand his or her perspective. Avoid the tendency to shut down a challenging viewpoint before it has even finished leaving the person’s lips. Instead, see the potential positives and what you can learn from their perspective.
• Travel is also a great way to build your social/emotional and cultural intelligence (don’t just stay in the resort)!

Exposure

• Seek out and engage a mentor who is very strong on interpersonal skills. Work with him or her to reflect on the different interactions you have with stakeholders, particularly those with very different opinions to your own. Your mentor can coach you and help you see what others’ ideas may have to offer. Develop strategies to incorporate those ideas if they have merit or find a middle ground.

Education

• Enrol in a short course or training program on emotional/social intelligence.
• Undertake an assessment to gauge your current level of social/emotional and cultural intelligence, and determine where you should focus your ongoing development. Hudson offers a range of assessment tools in this space.
• If you are working with a stakeholder from a different culture, do some research on that culture and learn some of its history.

Connecting is not about being ‘nice’ 

It’s important to remember that Connection is not just about being liked. When taken too far a leader risks becoming a ‘people pleaser’ who can’t act independently, make unpopular decisions or go against the status quo.

Instead, it’s about understanding and integrating people and their differences, to the ultimate benefit of the organisation as a whole.

The days when Connection was a ‘nice to have’ rather than a ‘must have’ are over. Former General Electric CEO Jack Welch understood this changing paradigm when he gave a speech to his employees in 2001. He said:

“The Jack Welch of the future cannot be me. I spent my entire career in the United States. The next head of General Electric will be somebody who spent time in Bombay, in Hong Kong, in Buenos Aires. We have to send our best and brightest overseas and make sure they have the training that will allow them to be the global leaders who will make GE flourish in the future” (Javidan & House, 2002).

Ultimately, the ability to connect helps you get the most out of your people, in all their glorious diversity. So grit your teeth if you need to (but don’t make it too obvious) and give that challenging viewpoint a chance. I promise it won’t be as hard as you expect.

Dr Crissa Sumner is an Organisational Psychologist with a PhD in the area of leadership, social intelligence and employee attitudes. Crissa is currently the Regional Assessment Solutions Manager for Hudson Talent Management across Asia Pacific, and is responsible for providing high-level technical advice to key clients and our talent management consulting teams across Australia, New Zealand, and Asia. 

The Hudson Leadership Model is based on a comprehensive review of leadership theory and principles by our registered psychologists across the globe, supported by our world class research and development centre based in Belgium.