Confessions of a Chief Dot Connector

Many of us carry preconceived notions of what it means to be a leader. We read business publications that tell us the best leaders are the smartest guys in the room. We look at leaders like Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, and Elon Musk and assume we need to be obsessive experts in very specific areas like financial systems, coding, or engineering to be considered visionary. We may even get the impression from people within our own organizations that to be better leaders, we must know how to do everything and be the person with all the answers.??

I have a confession to make.?

As the National Industries Lead of Project & Development Services here at JLL, an executive leadership role in our company…?

…I am no subject matter expert. I am hardly the smartest guy in most of the rooms I sit in day in and day out.

Yet, I hold executive oversight for a variety of industries, from biotech and life sciences to industrial, healthcare, data centers, and hospitality. So how then does an architect and designer by training possibly lead people to understand the diverse and highly technical needs of each client to build out the scope of their capital development projects??

Here’s the thing.?

As a leader, you don’t need to. The secret to the success of my team, and one I offer to you on your own journey of becoming a leader, is focusing less on being the Chief Executor and more on being the Chief Dot Connector.?

?‘Chief Dot Connector’ has always been this clean label I use to quickly describe my role in the company, but quite honestly, it’s transformed into my style of leadership. The way I see it my role is to connect the dots. To drop the right people into the right marketplaces. To play matchmaker between the needs of a client and the people within the organization who can get the job done. To create the ‘rooms’ where the smartest guys can meet.?

Of course, this requires a general understanding of each of our core areas. However, the real skill behind connecting the dots in this way, and one that I’ve made my life’s work, is becoming an expert on cultivating talent and people. It’s a skill that is really threefold: knowing who you need, how to get them, and how to keep them motivated.?

Rather than spend most of my days ‘doing’, my time is focused first on gathering facts about the market, upcoming trends, and the competitive landscape before strategizing on how we can help our clients and their businesses navigate these. Having this context in turn informs me of the level of expertise that will be needed to meet their goals. Or, to put it more plainly, it lets me know all the big questions that are in the way.

At this point, the real work begins…finding the people with the answers so I can start connecting the different pieces and dots of the puzzle together. This heavily involves recruiting the best and brightest people who can help us dig deep and beyond the surface. I can proudly say that JLL is unmatched in how thoroughly qualified and knowledgeable our people are in each of the specific industries that we serve. When a biotech company comes to us, not only do we have the capabilities to assist them in buildout, but we also have our brokerage team, and our capital market teams, who can all come together to provide end-to-end services.?

However, anyone will agree, it’s never enough to get the right people on board. You need to know how to how to bring the best out of them, and how to do so on a consistent basis. For this reason, the third large component of my work as Chief Dot Connector is understanding how my people think, interact, and work. I’m a huge fan of profiles, like DISC, Working Genius, and Myers Briggs because they make me aware of the situations in which my team will thrive as individuals and where they’ll need more support and understanding. This ensures that no one is stretched beyond their limit and that the best and brightest can focus on their zones of genius that provides maximum value to everyone around them.

At the end of the day, leadership is not a matter of knowing everything. It’s a matter of connecting people to the right clients, to the right projects, to the right resources, to the right networks that will enable them not only to serve your clients but also feel inspired each day in their work.?

If anything, the age-old saying still rings true. It’s not what you know. It’s who you know. And, I’ll add, how well you know how to make the connections the ‘who’ needs to thrive.?