6

Taking Action: Connecting Through Vision, Value, and Voice

There is a broad range of practices that help create a connection culture. The pages that follow describe 15 building blocks, a collection of actions for building and maintaining a connection culture—five each for the three connection culture elements of vision, value, and voice. After that, you will find a five-step process to operationalize a connection culture.

Vision: Inspiring Identity That Produces Shared Identity

This element is present when everyone is motivated by the mission, united by the values, and proud of the reputation.

Develop an Inspirational Identity Phrase That Connects

Research shows that people who experience a sense of well-being from meaningful work exhibit gene-expression profiles that are associated with a lower risk of cancer, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease (Fredrickson et al. 2013). Connecting employees to your organization’s vision, mission, or values of serving others and making a difference (practices also referred to as being prosocial) boosts employee productivity and protects people from burnout. To increase connection, I recommend leaders take an additional step beyond articulating the vision, mission, and values and develop a brief, memorable, and inspirational identity phrase that unites people and makes them feel proud.

An identity phrase could be based on vision or mission. Examples include Charles Schwab’s “to provide the most useful and ethical financial products in the world,” MD Anderson Cancer Center’s “making cancer history,” NASA’s mission during the Apollo program “to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade,” and Yale New Haven Health’s “healthier together.” Google’s mission is summed up here: “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” You might also consider an inspirational identity phrase based on core values, which are discussed in more detail later in this chapter. To generate ideas, read through the 24 character strengths in appendix I for a list of values that inspire people. Costco’s “do the right thing” and Tata Capital’s “we only do what’s right for you” reflect caring, honesty, and courage; Lexus’s “the relentless pursuit of perfection” reflects excellence and perseverance; and Apple’s “think different” and General Electric’s “imagination at work” reflect creativity and innovation.

If your organization does not have an identity phrase, or it’s time to refresh or rethink it, you could spread engagement by involving your colleagues. Hold a contest in which people submit inspiring identity phrases for consideration, and then have employees vote on their favorites. You’ll be able to see which ones are most inspiring and make employees feel proud.

Set the Top Five Annual Priorities

Both individually and as a team, set no more than five challenging but achievable annual priorities that are aligned with your organization’s mission. If you go beyond five, it will diminish connection, focus, and effective execution by overwhelming those responsible for implementation. Take time to regularly review your weekly plans to make sure they are aligned with your top five priorities.

As much as possible, let your direct reports establish their own top five annual priorities. Talk through the team’s top five priorities with each employee to find shared priorities that will advance the organization’s mission and employee’s interests. It may not be possible to find a perfect set of priorities for each person, but if you make the effort you will be rewarded with people who feel more connected and execute their tasks with greater enthusiasm, energy, and effort.

Identify and Establish Core Values That Connect

If you asked your fellow employees what the organization’s core values are, could they tell you? Most cannot. To create a connection culture, employees need to be able to articulate the organization’s core values.

To identify core values that create connection, leaders should begin by taking time to reflect on the values they believe in and want to promote in their organization. Start by reflecting on your most memorable experiences, including those at and away from work, and write down any lessons you’ve learned from them. Then use the 24 character strengths in appendix I to reflect on what strengths are most important to you and your organization’s ability to achieve its mission.

Read what other leaders have written about their core values. Howard Schultz’s book Pour Your Heart Into It: How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Time provides an excellent example. Schultz, former chairman and CEO of Starbucks, articulates his experiences in life, how those experiences shaped his values, and how they became the values at Starbucks. In Fired Up or Burned Out, I included one of the best examples I’ve seen of a leader concisely articulating his core values. In the Montpelier Command Philosophy, the commander of USS Montpelier, a nuclear submarine in the U.S. Navy, describes the values he strives to meet, which ones he expects sailors under his command to follow, and why each value is important.

After you’ve completed these steps, organize your thoughts in a manner similar to the Montpelier Command Philosophy—name the value then explain why it’s important and what it looks like in your work context. Ask trusted friends to read the values and provide feedback about what’s right, wrong, or missing. Once your draft is in good shape, share it with your direct reports and ask them to provide feedback. Consider the feedback, make the changes that you believe improve it, then circulate the revised version to your direct reports. Have them go through the feedback process with their direct reports. Continue this process until everyone on the team has had an opportunity to voice their opinions and ideas. This process creates commitment and alignment with core values.

Finally, take your direct reports through the final core values you decide upon. Discuss and identify which values are most important to your team’s success, which values your team is strong in, which values it needs to develop, and what can be done to develop and live by each value. Follow up with a written summary of your plan to live out the core values. It should include action items, responsibilities, and due dates.

Continuously Reconnect People to the Inspiring Identity

Connection to an organization’s identity diminishes over time, so look for ways to keep people connected to the vision, mission, and values. This is important for all employees, and especially those who telecommute. Consider taking employees to visit customers or bring customers in to talk with employees about how they use and benefit from your products and services. Make videos of these conversations so that people who work remotely and future employees can view them. Internally circulate any press materials about your organization that reinforce your mission, values, and reputation.

Hold “continuous improvement” meetings three or four times a year to identify innovative ways to improve and achieve your mission. These meetings could be focused on ways to increase revenue, reduce costs, improve quality, or improve efficiency. You might also look at the frustration level of people who work on the front lines of your organization to identify ways that any issues can be addressed. List the ideas, prioritize them, select a manageable set to focus on, assign responsibilities, and track their completion. Make this information available to the entire group. Such meetings get people thinking proactively about how to improve.

Meet periodically with your direct reports to review and revise your plan to live out the core values; ask your direct reports to do the same with their direct reports. Consider having the core values printed on a small card that can fit in a wallet, like Alan Mulally did when he was CEO at Ford. When researching and writing Fired Up or Burned Out, I learned that each Ritz-Carlton Hotels & Resorts employee received a card with the organization’s core values (then called Ritz Basics) printed on the front and back. When teams met briefly every day they would review one of the Ritz Basics, and each week the company highlighted a Ritz-Carlton employee who lived out a value (Stallard 2007). In recent years it has expanded to three times a week that a “WOW” story is shared of an employee who went “above and beyond to delight a guest, in a way that directly aligns with the … values” (Harris 2015).

Don’t forget to celebrate your successes. When your team accomplishes a major goal that helps achieve your mission, celebrate with a party, meal, or outing. Ask people for suggestions about how to celebrate, and if you can afford it, invite them to bring a significant other to join in. And don’t forget to include employees who telecommute. For instance, if you are celebrating with a team meal, pay for remote workers to get take-out delivered to their home so they can join in virtually.

Celebrate culture carriers who embody your culture because they contribute to achieving your mission while behaving in ways that are consistent with your organization’s values. You might create a blog or book to share stories about these people and their practices; see the annual Zappos Culture Book or Smile Guide: Employee Perspectives on Culture, Loyalty, and Profit from Beryl Companies for examples. Reading these stories will encourage others to become culture carriers and give them some ideas to try.

Hire, Develop, and Promote for Competence and Connection Skills

Most managers hire and promote for competence but are not as intentional about assessing connection skills. Involve many individuals in your organization’s hiring and promotion processes. Have them compare notes by taking into consideration your organization’s values and the 24 character strengths listed in appendix I before making hiring and promotion recommendations.

New employee orientation and new leader training must also address connection. Creating a connection culture requires developing a certain mindset, especially in leaders. Education is essential. In order to gain the support of your leaders, they must understand what a connection culture is, why it’s important, and how they can contribute to creating and sustaining it. This information must be communicated to all current leaders during leadership training sessions and incorporated into new leader orientation.

People need to be encouraged to think of themselves as connected members and connected leaders. To do this, leadership training should include stories that celebrate connected members and connected leaders and describe how they contribute to a connection culture. This will spur people to develop their own character strengths. The inspiring stories presented in the Profiles in Connection sections in this book are excellent examples.

When training people on connection, remember to teach new terminology, including the definitions and descriptions of connection, connection culture, cultures of control, cultures of indifference, vision, value, voice, connected members, and connected leaders. Employees also need to learn about important frameworks that help them develop mental models and guide behavior, such as the Connection Culture model (Figure 3-2) and the Character > Connection > Thrive Chain (Figure 3-1). Presenting leaders with applicable research studies is another way to support a rational argument. Finally, creating a successful connection culture depends on whether practices that connect are acted upon by every individual. The practices must be taught, serving to both educate people and help them become intentional.

Providing a good variety of content in training makes it easier to reach people regardless of their learning style. Some people will be most receptive to research and hard data, whereas others will be more drawn to visual diagrams, stories, and case studies.

Value: Human Value That Produces Shared Empathy

This element is present when everyone understands the needs of people, appreciates their positive unique contributions, and helps them achieve their potential.

Make and Encourage Connections That Are Personal

Organizational behavior professor Ashley E. Hardin (2018) has found that greater personal knowledge leads to a more human perception of a colleague, which results in increased responsiveness and decreased social undermining. Take time to connect with people on a personal level and resist the inclination to skip time spent in conversation getting to know the people you are responsible for leading. This is an important step.

If you work at the same location, meet with employees over a meal or coffee. When team members who work in a different location or telecommute are on-site, be sure to set aside time with them for this purpose. For those who work entirely remotely, let that person decide whether to use a telephone or video call, because introverts can be overstimulated and uncomfortable with video (Grant 2020). Be open and share from your life outside work. Ask questions that are unrelated to work, such as “Where were you born?” “What are your interests outside work?” or “What are you looking forward to in the future?” Psychologist James Pennebaker (1997) has found that when you get people to talk, they feel more connected to you, like you more, and believe they learn more from you.

Leaders should schedule regular social time for people to connect. Genentech has a weekly Friday afternoon social time where they serve drinks and snacks. I know a manager who orders pizza and salad for his team every other Friday. During the warm summer months, organize an ice cream social to bring your team together for conversation. Consider helping serve those in attendance and make sure to say hello to everyone. Avoid talking about work; instead ask people about their interests or what they are looking forward to during the remainder of the year. If your team includes people who work remotely, plan a social hour via videoconferencing to encourage face-to-face interactions.

In chapter 4, we explained how discrimination—whether it is based on gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age, political opinions, or other differences that affect how a person might view or treat another person—is a cause of disconnection and a source of stress. We noted how many women report stress is on the rise and that they rely on social connection as a way to manage stress (APA 2010). Furthermore, we noted that research found many people of color use social resources to reduce race-related stress (Utsey et al. 2008). In your organization, establish and support employee resource groups and mentoring to connect with and protect individuals who are at risk for discrimination-related stress.

Finally, like Pfizer Corporation, communicate and enforce a “no jerks” policy (Stallard 2015). People who are consistently disrespectful to others undermine connection. Also, when people passively stand by and allow jerks to act out, it communicates indifference. Stanford University management professor Robert Sutton’s research has found that the behavior of jerks harms not only their victims but also others in the environment, the organization’s performance, and themselves (Sutton 2007).

Get People in the Right Roles

Most leaders identify the roles and responsibilities of people who can help achieve their organization’s mission. To increase connection, leaders must help the people they lead get into roles that fit their interests and strengths and provide the right degree of challenge. If leaders can’t get people in the ideal role, they should at least try to assign them responsibilities or projects that fit them well. Both hiring and promotion decisions should incorporate alignment with employee competence, connection skills, and the requirements of a particular job.

To learn about the interests of the people you are responsible for leading, take time to get to know them. Ask questions like these to learn about their lives and what’s important to them:

These questions provide insight into how employees are wired, including what they value.

You might consider using the core motivations inventory (MCORE for short), a tool our chief scientist, Todd Hall, helped to develop. MCORE asks people to write brief success stories and answer questions about the stories. It then provides a report that lists what motivates you as an individual. For example, my top three core motivations are explore, make an impact, and improve.

As you learn more about the individuals you are responsible for leading, write down what you learn and identify specific actions you can take to get them in the right roles and help them make progress toward their aspirations.

Create Personal Development Plans

People are more engaged and feel more connected when they are learning, growing, and experiencing a sense of progress. Work with your direct reports to create personal development plans addressing areas that require growth in order to achieve their potential. Help them make wise goals to advance their careers and put steps in place to help them achieve these goals. To evaluate progress and provide feedback, establish objective, quantifiable benchmarks whenever possible. Doing so will boost their effectiveness and connection to you.

When providing feedback to help someone improve, communicate in private whenever possible, be respectful in your tone of voice and volume, and consider beginning with three positive traits you like about that person’s work or character. After sharing the three positives, you might say, “I believe you would be even more effective if … [insert what you want the person to do or stop doing].” Kindness matters and the approach you take will affect how the person receives the feedback.

Provide Training and Mentors to Support Personal Development

Do you ever wonder why all world-class athletes have coaches? It’s because no one becomes great at anything that requires skill unless they undergo training and have coaches or mentors who help them grow. We need coaches and mentors to help us develop competence and excellence in the tasks that we undertake. Additionally, we all have blind spots—things we say or do that are disconnecting—and we need coaches and mentors to help us see them and then advise, encourage, and hold us accountable so that we grow to become connected members and connected leaders.

To support personal development, provide people with training and mentors or coaches. It would be beneficial to provide mentor training to all supervisors. Make peer mentors available for any direct reports who want to improve in a specific area of competence or character, and select a mentor who is strong in the given area. One way to match mentors and mentees is to use a flash mentoring format, which asks participants to commit to meeting once to see if both parties connect, and if the mentor has the knowledge, expertise, and time available to meet the mentee’s needs and expectations. If both parties agree to continue, they should set a finite number of additional meetings, rather than leave the term open ended. Unless both mentor and mentee agree to the arrangement, there is no commitment to meet again (Derrick and Wooley 2009).

Larger organizations should implement integrated leader training and development. For example, Yale New Haven Health (YNHH) develops leaders using a combination of high-quality classroom instruction delivered by the Yale School of Management faculty, as well as coaching, action learning through critical strategic projects, and mentoring from senior leadership. YNHH creates cohorts of high-potential directors and vice presidents from across its system of hospitals (nurses, physicians, and administrators) who complete the eight-month program together. The program uses the Center for Creative Leadership’s 70-20-10 learning guidelines: 70 percent of the learning comes from using the strategic projects and working in teams to identify recommendations, 20 percent comes from coaching and mentoring, and 10 percent comes from classroom instruction. It also includes feedback from Korn Ferry’s Lominger 360 and the Hartman Value Profile. The program’s objectives focus on strategic thinking, interpersonal relationships, interdepartmental relationships, dealing with ambiguity, developing others, and breaking down organizational and departmental silos. Participants are selected through management succession. The program is offered every two years, and of the 92 participants who have attended so far, 36 have been promoted at least one level and eight are currently at the senior vice president level (Morris 2020).

Help People Develop Connection Skills

Everyone in your organization needs to develop connection skills, especially leaders. Managers lead from authority, whereas leaders lead from a combination of authority and connection. It is not unusual for managers who are good at organizing tasks to require help developing the personal leadership skills necessary to better form and maintain a connection with people. Weak connection skills hold many managers back from becoming leaders who people want to follow. Here are some attitudes, language, and behaviors that will help facilitate connection.

Recognize varying connection needs. People have different predispositions when it comes to their sensitivity to connection or lack thereof. People also respond differently to actions; one action might make one person feel more connected while it leaves another person cold. Learn about the people you are responsible for leading, and tailor your behaviors to connect based on what you’ve learned about each individual.

Be present in conversations. It has been said that attention is oxygen for relationships. When meeting with people, whether in person, by phone, or over a video call, get in the habit of being present by giving them your full attention. Show that you are engaged and interested by asking questions, then asking follow-up questions to clarify. Listen carefully, observing facial expressions and body language. Don’t break the connection by checking your phone, looking around the room, or letting your mind wander.

Develop the ability to empathize. Mutual empathy is a powerful connector that is made possible by mirror neurons in our brains. Mirror neurons act like an emotional Wi-Fi system (Goleman 2006). When we attune to the emotions of others, it makes them feel connected to us. When we attune to their positive emotion, it enhances the positive emotion they feel. When we attune to their pain, it diminishes the pain they feel. If someone expresses emotion, it’s OK, and natural, for you to feel it too. Because it is easier to attune to another’s emotions when we see their facial expressions, video calls are generally preferable when interacting with individuals who are working remotely and are comfortable using video.

Develop the habit of emphasizing positives. Psychologist John Gottman (1994) first observed that marriages were less likely to survive when the positive-to-negative ratio of interactions dipped below five-to-one (or five positive interactions to every negative interaction). Psychologist Barbara Fredrickson found that a positivity ratio also applied in the workplace (Fredrickson and Joiner 2002). When it comes to positives, small things can make a difference. For example, maintaining appropriate eye contact, periodically using people’s first names during conversations, and connecting with people on a personal level in conversations before bringing up business tasks and issues all count as positive interactions in the five-to-one ratio. People need affirmation and recognition, so get in the habit of looking for ways to affirm and serve others. Do this by looking for task strengths and character strengths, which reflect the excellence of their work and the way they go about their work, respectively. For example, you might affirm a colleague by saying, “That was an outstanding website you created. The navigation design was easy to use, the writing was easy to understand, and the color scheme was beautiful.” You might affirm their character strengths by saying, “I appreciate the way you persevered to make our new website happen. You showed wisdom in seeking the ideas of others and applying the best ideas to the design of our new website. Very nicely done.”

Control your tone of voice. Recognize that people will instinctively react to the delivery of your message before they hear its content. They may put up a wall and become defensive or feel threatened if your tone of voice is booming, shrill, or strident.

Negotiate with the mindset to solve a problem rather than to win. You can build connections with people during negotiations if you adopt and maintain the right mindset. Thinking of the people you are negotiating with as competitors leads to disconnection and distrust. Instead, think of them as holding knowledge that you need in order to identify a win-win solution. Negotiating requires probing, patience, and perseverance to understand other people’s objectives, perceptions, and sensitivities.

Provide autonomy in execution. Monitor progress and be available to help your direct reports but refrain from micromanaging. Favor guidelines rather than rules and controls, and let people know that you are available if they have questions or would like you to act as a sounding board. This meets the human need for autonomy and allows people to experience personal growth.

Learn and apply the five languages of appreciation. According to Gary Chapman and Paul White in The 5 Love Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace: Empowering Organizations by Encouraging People, the languages of appreciation are words of affirmation, quality time, acts of service, gifts, and physical touch. (Note that physical touch is not a primary language of appreciation in the workplace and should generally be avoided.) Ask your direct reports about the times they remember receiving recognition at work to find out what their primary and secondary languages of appreciation are.

Apologize when you make a mistake. We all make mistakes but not everyone says they’re sorry. Apologizing is an important step that will help rebuild connection.

Develop social skills and relationship skills and recognize the difference between them. Many individuals develop social skills, which make them excellent networkers who impress and connect with others in casual interactions. However, in addition to social skills, it is essential to develop relationship skills, which help create deeper connections with a few people who have your back. Consider the skills you use when meeting someone for the first time versus nurturing your relationship with a best friend. Relationship skills—regularly spending time with an individual, being open to sharing your struggles, sharing someone’s joy and pain, being there in times of need, and so on—help develop the deeper connections that are necessary for individuals to thrive in life and achieve sustainable superior performance.

Encourage remote workers to get the connection they need to thrive. Because they don’t have the formal and informal interactions that happen when working with colleagues in the same location, remote workers are more prone to loneliness. For the people you are responsible for leading who telecommute, let them know that you care about them and want to be sure they are getting sufficient connection in order to thrive. Encourage them to get out of their home office to have lunch or a coffee break with a friend. If it’s not disruptive to your organization, let them know it’s OK to engage in other types of connecting activities during normal work hours, such as volunteering in their community or taking an exercise class, and that you trust them to get their work done.

Voice: Knowledge Flow That Produces Shared Understanding

This element is present when everyone seeks the ideas of others, shares their ideas and opinions honestly, and safeguards relational connections.

Create Forums for Organization-Wide Communication

Hold meetings periodically that bring everyone you lead together to discuss how the group is making progress toward achieving the mission. In addition, communicate the opportunities and challenges your organization is facing and how you plan to address them. The meetings should address progress in quantitative, measurable terms, while also connecting the mission to how it serves others and brings greater beauty, goodness, or truth to the world. Include stories that show how your organization is achieving its mission.

Make time for questions and answers at the meeting, or in separate meetings, to give people a voice. You can have people anonymously submit questions ahead of time or simply ask them during the meeting. Howard Behar, former president of Starbucks North America and Starbucks International, called the sessions he held Open Forums. Jim Goodnight, CEO of SAS Institute, holds Java With Jim sessions. Vineet Nayar, CEO of HCL Technologies, has people email questions, which he answers on his blog so everyone can see the question and his response. The founders of Google also do this at each Friday’s TGIF meeting.

During meetings, be sure to listen actively. Jane Dutton (2003), professor of business administration and psychology at the University of Michigan, has several suggestions. For example, you might paraphrase by expressing what you heard in your own words (“Let me make sure I’m hearing you correctly. You are saying …”) or summarize what you heard (“Let me summarize your points to see if I fully understand. I hear you saying …”). A third approach is to clarify by asking questions (“Tell me if I’m hearing you correctly. Do you mean… ?”).

Hold Knowledge Flow Sessions for Decision Input and Idea Development

Holding knowledge flow sessions is a practice that promotes connection through open communications—listening to others’ opinions and ideas then considering them before making decisions. Team knowledge flow sessions should occur regularly to keep the team aligned and accountable (one organization I know calls their weekly operational knowledge flow session the Sweat the Details meeting).

Begin meetings with positive comments. This boosts energy and creativity. Share your vision—your thoughts about what actions need to be done, by whom, and when each action needs to be completed.

Make sure to ask people who are quiet to share what they think. Listen and consider the ideas put forth and implement good ideas, giving credit where it’s due. This practice reflects the character strengths of integrity, humility, curiosity, and open-mindedness.

The Knowledge Flow Process

1. Frame the discussion. “Here’s what I’m thinking.” This is where you are putting your cards on the table by presenting what you believe to be true. It must be grounded in reality, and supported by facts, data, and analysis.

2. Grant permission for knowledge flow. “No one has a monopoly on good ideas so tell me what’s right, what’s wrong, and what’s missing from my thinking.” This step reflects humility.

3. Share ground rules. “Let’s share actionable ideas and avoid personal attacks.”

4. Follow up. Affirm in writing the people who gave useful ideas, what you heard, and the actions you plan to take.

5. Appreciate the truth teller. Be sure to personally thank people who had the courage to speak up and share a differing point of view.

In addition to group knowledge flow sessions, you can hold one-to-one knowledge flow sessions. Begin by making a list of the people you interact with in order to perform your work well. When meeting with individuals, share your vision for what relevant actions need to be taken in your work, whom you see as responsible for each action, and when the action needs to be completed. Ask them to tell you what’s right, what’s wrong, and what’s missing from your thinking, and consider their ideas and opinions to learn from them and show that you value them. You may also want to hold a skip-level knowledge flow session periodically, in which you meet with a direct report and their direct reports.

After each group or individual knowledge flow session, follow up in writing to summarize what you heard, what actions are necessary, who is responsible for each action, and when each action should be completed.

Conduct Knowledge Flow Sessions to Evaluate Events and Activities

Every completed event provides an opportunity for learning and improvement. Post-event knowledge flow evaluation sessions give people an opportunity to identify what went right, what went wrong, and what was missing. This practice gives people a voice and helps them make continuous improvements.

Another type of knowledge flow session is the start-stop-continue meeting to evaluate and review your team’s activities. Identify any activities your team should start that they are not presently doing, current activities they should stop doing, and activities they should continue doing.

Provide Training to Safeguard Relational Connections

Communicate that “creative friction” is desirable. People will often have differences of opinion, and leaders should assure them that this is healthy. With this understanding, holding and voicing opposing views shouldn’t lead to combat. The key to maintaining healthy creative friction is to make sure you are trying to “get it right” to promote task excellence, rather than “be right” for the purpose of personal pride. Furthermore, civility should be encouraged, especially as individuals work through their differences.

Remind people to safeguard relational connections and avoid attacking individuals who disagree with them. If you disagree with someone, say so, but do it in a respectful manner. You could begin your response with, “I may be wrong, but is it possible that … ?” or “It’s just one person’s opinion, but I believe that …” If you offended or hurt someone’s feelings, apologize. If people apologize to you, give them the benefit of the doubt and forgive them.

Author and executive coach Marshall Goldsmith (2007) recommends that when someone offers an idea, suggestion, opinion, or plan, you should take the time to reflect before offering a suggestion to improve it. Many people are in the habit of quickly adding their better idea by saying “but” or “however.” Habitually doing this undermines connection, commitment, and engagement. People implement their own ideas with greater enthusiasm and energy, so consider whether your enhancement really matters before offering it.

Maintain Staff Connection and Development

Strong relationships are maintained by staying in touch. British prime minister Winston Churchill understood this. Historians have found more than 1,700 letters, notes, and telegrams that Churchill wrote to his wife so that they would remain connected (Soames 1999). Take a page from Churchill’s playbook. Stay connected with your direct reports by meeting weekly with them in person, if at all possible. If you cannot meet weekly, use check-ins—phone calls, emails, and text messages—to help you stay connected. For people who work remotely, regularly call them; do a video call if possible. Remote work can be lonely, and people should believe that you are on their team and want to help them achieve their potential. In addition to work issues, ask about how they are doing personally. There is much truth to the old saying that people don’t care what you know until they know you care.

The deepest connections are formed when you are open to communicate who you really are, what you really believe, and your struggles in life. Consider sharing lessons you’ve learned from past mistakes if it will help another person. This openness communicates humility and promotes connection and trust. If you are uncertain about when it is appropriate to be open in a particular context, seek the advice of trusted friends.

Encourage other people to tell their stories too. Have you ever asked how someone’s day went only to hear the standard reply, “fine”? If you really want to connect, try saying, “Tell me a story about your day.” This practice also works well with children, spouses, and friends. Another way to bring people’s stories forward is to hold Lunch & Learn sessions like they do at IHI (see the “Designing Connection Into Culture” profile). If the organization is providing the food for those who are gathering on-site, be sure to cover the cost of lunch for remote workers participating via videoconferencing.

You might also consider having your team periodically read a relevant book together. Meet to discuss and identify themes or ideas that could be applied to your work. Once you select the book, consider reaching out to the book’s author to see if they would be willing to do a Q&A call or video meeting with your team. I’ve enjoyed the exchanges I’ve had with groups that have read this book.

Whether you’re able to eventually implement all 15 building blocks or only a handful, the most important thing is to do what you can. Don’t worry if you can’t do all of them immediately—it’s perfectly fine to start small and work up from there. With each effort you and your team make, you gain momentum.

Five-Step Process to Operationalize a Connection Culture

Developing a connection culture involves changing from cultures of control or indifference. Effecting lasting change takes effort and consistency. Here are five essential steps to developing and maintaining a connection culture:

Step 1. Develop a “connection mindset” among the members of your group.

The first step is to help people understand what connection is; why connection is important to help them personally, and their group, thrive; the consequences of failing to develop a connection culture; and how to go about developing and maintaining a connection culture.

You might recommend that colleagues read this book or have an event on connection culture (see appendix III: Additional Resources). Other materials consistent with connection culture should also be considered, such as content on appreciative inquiry, dealing with conflict, emotional intelligence, diversity and inclusion, psychological safety, resilience, and servant leadership.

During this first step, it’s important for people to share their experiences and concerns. If we fail to engage people as they are developing a connection mindset and going through the process of embracing a culture of connection, fear may cause them to oppose change and work against it. By taking time to develop a connection mindset, you will be building a strong foundation for lasting change; however, forcing change is like building a foundation on sand that will make maintaining change less likely, especially during challenging seasons.

Step 2. Cultivate vision, value, and voice by intentionally developing habits of attitude, language, and behavior that connect.

This is the step in which you introduce and incorporate practices that increase vision, value, and voice. Why not model being a connected leader by asking members of your team to read the 15 building blocks presented in this chapter then discuss and identify which ones would have the greatest positive impact on your culture and which would be the easiest to implement? Select a manageable number of building blocks to start with and, over time, add more building blocks to strengthen connection in your group’s culture.

Step 2 also requires eliminating attitudes, language, and behaviors that are counter to a connection culture. For example, humor that puts another person down is a behavior that is disconnecting and should not be tolerated.

One of the goals of this step is to repeat attitudes, uses of language, and behaviors with sufficient frequency that they become habits. This process of forming good habits—in other words, good character—is supported by what neuroscientists refer to as Hebb’s Law, which states that “neurons that fire together, wire together.” This means that if you repeatedly think, say, or act in the same way, the neurons in your brain form connections that are strengthened and in time become habit.

Step 3. Measure connection in each subculture to identify connected leaders, connected members, and individuals who need help connecting.

Most leaders are mistaken in their assessment of the engagement and connection levels of people they lead. As a result, they don’t recognize a problem until they feel the pain from underperformance in the form of poor operating and financial results, incidents of managerial failure (including accidents and product failures), low employee engagement, or high employee turnover.

Implement a culture survey to provide accountability. The culture survey should ask all employees how their team, department, and organization are doing when it comes to acting in ways that are consistent with your organization’s values. In the culture survey our firm has developed for the use of clients, which we refer to as the Connection Culture Inventory (CCI), we identify the extent of connection, control, and indifference in each subculture we assess.

Surveys can be designed to pinpoint where the organization’s values are being met and where connection cultures, cultures of control, and cultures of indifference are found within an organization. It is typical to have a mix of subculture types when organizations do not intentionally develop culture. While some outstanding senior leaders are able to rely on interactions with people (rather than surveys) to identify pockets of disconnection throughout the organization, it is rare to find a leader who has the time to do this well. Conducting culture surveys on an annual basis is a best practice that provides a systematic way to assess connection and hold leaders responsible for creating connection cultures. Issues that arise from a culture survey must be addressed or else employees will feel that their feedback has not been taken seriously and they will grow cynical.

The vast majority of leaders who don’t take the time to connect with the people they are responsible for leading do so because they don’t see a clear link between behaviors that connect and superior performance results. One way to demonstrate that link is to integrate culture survey data with operational and financial metrics to establish, with empirical evidence, that greater connection leads to superior performance and results. This hard data gets the attention of critics and encourages them to improve connection by creating connection cultures.

Assessing connection both within and between organizational units—where interconnection, interaction, and cooperation are critical to achieve results—is highly recommended. For example, connections should be assessed between sales and marketing departments, between sales and customer service departments, and between support functions and the departments they support. When interdepartmental connections are broken, it affects employee engagement as well as results.

Finally, surveys hold leaders accountable so that connection cultures are maintained. They recognize leaders who are good at creating connection cultures and provide an important early warning system to help identify leaders and units that have drifted away from connection cultures. In time, a decision may need to be made concerning whether a leader is capable of working within a connection culture or should be replaced. Before replacing a leader too hastily, give them an opportunity to change by providing the support described in the next step.

Step 4. Mentor and coach individuals to become connected members and connected leaders.

Culture survey results from step 3 will help identify connected leaders and connected members who can become peer mentors to those who are struggling. One CEO client of ours selected a highly regarded, connected leader in the organization to become vice chair of the global organization and made him responsible for mentoring leaders who needed help developing healthy workplace cultures.

You have likely noticed throughout this book that I frequently write about mentoring. In interviews my colleagues and I have done with connected leaders and connected members, we’ve learned that they have been primarily influenced to become better connectors by mentors who connected with them.

Step 5. Celebrate and disseminate acts of connection (both stories and practices).

As mentioned in one of the building blocks under vision, celebrate people who embody your culture—“culture carriers.” Culture survey results from step 3 will help identify connected leaders and connected members to be emulated. Celebrate these individuals through organizational communications such as the company intranet, social media, and print publications. This sends a powerful message and promotes best practices. This is particularly important because research has shown that standard practices within a culture have a higher probability of adoption (Dorsey 2000).

To make an intentional commitment to creating and maintaining your connection culture, you might want to establish a culture committee, office, or center to promote a connection culture across interdependent groups (such as groups within an organization that are dependent on each other to perform well). As I wrote in chapter 3, Southwest Airlines established a culture services department for the express purpose of “championing a culture through which every employee knows he or she matters,” and its Companywide Culture Committee, comprising employees from across the company, works to “recognize, celebrate, and appreciate” all employees.

Making It Personal

   An important point made in this chapter is that connection occurs within groups of people in a subculture. The group might be a committee, a team, or a department. Connection also happens between subcultures, such as two departments. Which departments or people are most critical for you to have strong relationships with? What is the current state of those relationships?

   This chapter gives many practical tips for implementing a connection culture within your organization. Which three actions do you believe are most important for your team at this point?

   Connection is not just for the workplace. It’s critical in all relationships, including community organizations, religious groups, families, and friends. What actions will you personally take to build connection in groups outside work?