What C-Suite Professionals Need To Know About Human Connection

I hate to be a Debbie Downer, but thought I’d shake things up a little bit by starting with a startling statistic about human connection:?

Less than half (47%) say they feel connected in the important relationships in their life. And only 27% say they believe “most people can be trusted” today, a decline from 50% measured a few decades ago in this country.?

Regardless of all the skills you’ve acquired over the years to elevate your impact, unless you’ve learned how to form solid relationships, the work you need to achieve will be an uphill battle. Investing in human connection is about building trust for which civilizations, villages and family units depend on this to survive. I often ponder why in the work environment we have lost the realization of how important this is and focus on transactions vs interactions.

I, like many of you, am a high achiever, but struggled with trying to influence change. As soon as I learned the art of building trust, I struggled less and performed better. Wouldn’t that be a worthy investment in yourself and in others??

In a past life, when I would approach a plant manager about an initiative that needed to be driven downhill, I was met with deflection and delays, causing me much grief. When I built the skill to look them in the eye, empathize and align on the most important things I could help them with, effort was reduced and ROI increased.?

I’ll keep this short and sweet, but I encourage you to listen to my podcast coming out on Friday 12/1 that gives you more in depth examples.

Here is the general framework:?

?Step 1: Set the Main Agenda – What do you want from the relationship?

How are they doing? How is their personal life? How are they feeling about their day, their week? Start with a little humor? What are points of commonality that brought us together?

Step 2: Set the Business Agenda – what do you you want to achieve at a transactional level

Step 3: Move through the business agenda, but be ready to pause at anytime.

Step 4: Revisit the relationship – if they’re feeling uneasy about the content of the conversation, they don’t feel supported, lack Stakeholder support or alignment, revert back to the human connection – you understand how they feel. What would help them to get to a place of being able to move forward? Be ready to stop the discussion

Step 5: Agree to what we accomplished on the business side and share with them gratitude what they appreciated about the interaction. This can also be done in a follow up communication to show commitment and respect to the relationship.

Step 6: I’ll repeat this from other episodes, but when you approach the world this way, miracles happen, people get right back to you, they engage and bring others into the conversation, you become top of mind for other interactions… all because you lead with a relationship agenda vs. a business agenda.

Do you? have challenges with building solid relationships? Do you believe if you invested more, your work would be easier? Do you have this skill nailed, but find others lack this making the work environment less efficient? Could you be the one to help them or let me be your partner? I’m here to listen and perhaps we can have a conversation and unlock your future!

To hear more about This topic please tune into my podcast that is releasing this Friday 12/1/23.?

Would you rather have a quick 1-2-1 to discuss your specific challenge??

Could The Drop In CEO be your support system? Direct Message me on LI or contact me by schedule a short call and let’s have a conversation. Until then, I wish you much success.?