Marco Buschman: The Connection Quotient

The connection quotient

We now find ourselves in a relationship environment that is open, transparent and immediate for which the ‘continuous evolution’ is an important driver.

We don’t need managers who are solely focusing on result and rationality anymore. Manager’s new role and new ways to focus both on:

Functionality, rationality and getting results.
Leveraging the human being, capabilities, emotions and relationships to create the best team possible.

This new capability – the power of connection – is the fundamental of new management and is at the core of being a good or bad manager in today’s environment. The Connection quotient can help you learn to integrate new people-driven ways of working, thus helping people to grow around you. The Connection quotient seeks to base a new work efficiency on the Emotional quotient. Combining and integrating IQ and EQ is what CQ is all about.

The Connection quotient is about more than just maintaining your business network. It’s an ability to understand other people’s position and expand your own capacity to discuss differences.

No contact, no contract. Your CQ is a prerequisite for doing business successfully.

Connection Quotient is simultaneously about:

Connecting with yourself.
Connecting with the other.
Connecting with your team and your organization.
Connecting with the rest of the world.

A completely new domain of social entrepreneurship – with growing numbers of people working in the sharing economy, facilitating the rise of the connection economy and contributing to a circular economy – is currently unfolding and allowing people, planet, profit and purpose to flourish.

The Connection quotient works in such a way that the leader is primarily concerned with connecting the different circles with each other.

The conversation isn’t about the relationship, but the connection is the relationship.

Think about growing your leadership as a person (human-to-human) and as a role (function-to-function).

In connection with yourself

We are increasingly living and working in a service society. In such a society, you can no longer view the other as just another paying customer.

In his The Speed of Trust, Stephen M.R. Covey covers four core themes of trust. Two of these lie in the field of competencies (Human Doing): having sufficient capacities and achieving results. Other two are integrity and intent. They are connected with your character (Human Being). Intent is about our motives, our agenda and the behavior that flows from this. Integrity here is not only about honesty, but above all about “integratedness”.

Experiencing emotions and being yourself are part of your birthright. Emotions and our instinct: that’s what we come into this world with.

The Connection quotient is, among other things, about sincerity. It’s often necessary to link courage with being sincere.

A special form of self-reflection is writing a shadow path.

Mortality could be our source of inspiration; it encourages us to think about what is important in life. We have become action-oriented doers. Gandhi said: “Be the change you want to see in the world.”

There are always enough reasons to think up for not doing something. Do you allow yourself to be driven by your fear or by your desire?

Every journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step. Chinese proverb.

Albert Einstein: “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you always got.”[1]

If you really want to change a dysfunctional ‘That’s just the way I am” pattern, you will need to break the vicious circle of experiences, interpretations, decisions, behaviors, responses, which circle back to experiences, and so on.

The results of mental emigration are visible in three areas: the impact on results, the impact on the social environment, and the impact on your-self.

Think about the Spiral of Creation by Marinus Knoope, when you think about changing your behavior. The spiral goes through these phases: wish, imagine, believe, communicate, research, plan, decide, act, preserve, receive, appreciate, relax. Develop a vision, feel self-confident, make a connection, make strategy tangible, commit to work, celebrate consciously.

The fact is that everyone has feelings. Whether you recognize them and can express them verbally is another matter. Your feelings determine partly how you behave.

Chain of action: event leads to thoughts & feeling that leads to behavior that leads to impact.

The unique Portuguese word saudade. It is a mood state of the soul in which various emotions are experienced all of whose origins can ultimately be traced back to love.

Happiness is a feeling that occurs in the here in now.

Lyubomirsky developed 12 strategies that can contribute to producing more happiness in your life:

Express your gratitude.
Cultivate and reinforce your optimism.
Avoid overthinking and comparing yourself with others.
Practice acts of kindness.
Nurture social relationships.
Develop coping strategies.
Learn to forgive.
Create flow experiences.
Savour life’s joys.
Commit to your goals.
Practice religion or/and spirituality.
Take care of your body.

Being able to say no is an essential skill for true connection. Say no to the good things, so that you can say yes to the best things.

Soren Kierkegaard wrote: “Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.”

In connection with the other

Moving from one person to two has more impact on your CQ than the tenfold increase in the team context at a later stage, or the hundredfold increase in the scale of a whole organization. The connection with the other is therefore the most elementary and smallest entity to which many other and bigger collaboration can be traced back.

Working on a healthy form of self-orientation is a key factor in achieving a good and lasting connection with the other.

In the connection with the other, for the first time, a relationship arises in which you are no longer in total control. In the connection with the other, by definition, a dependency exists.

It is wise not to consider the relation between the other and yourself as purely two-way traffic. Add the context as a third factor.

As a leader you are expected to create and maintain both your functional and your emotional connections.

The academic Otto Scharmer has plotted out four levels at which conversations take place. These levels – downloading, debate, dialogue and presencing.

Downloading. An example of conversation at the first level is a meeting where questions are asked with the specific aim of extracting information.
Debate. At this level participants say openly what they feel and think, rather than simply going along with the prevailing idea of the other person.
Dialogue. The third conversation level is that of the dialogue. Here again, there are various viewpoints, but this time you will be listening with the aim of understanding the other person.
Presencing. At this level, all parties let go of their own opinions and self-reflections. The conversation is about what the group considers important without the topic of discussion necessarily being explicitly mentioned.

Stephen Covey specified 13 behaviors that create trust in relation to another person:

Talk straight (character).
Demonstrate respect (character).
Show loyalty (character).
Create transparency (character).
Right wrongs (character).
Get better (competence).
Confront reality (competence).
Clarify expectations (competence).
Practice accountability (competence).
Deliver results (competence).
Listen first (combination of character and competence).
Keep commitments (combination of character and competence).
Extended trust (combination of character and competence).

Give people responsibilities that match their interests.

Some advices to create powerful interactions:

Getting from ‘but’ to ‘and’.
Getting from ‘why’ to ‘what makes’.
Getting from ‘would not’ to ‘would’.
Getting from ‘we’ to ‘I’.
Getting from passive to active.
Getting from behavior to intention.
Getting from the general to specific.
Getting from compliment to acknowledgement.

Body language is an important aspect when it comes to genuine connection with the other.

The message from study about verbal and non-verbal part of communication from Albert Mehrabian is that when you talk about your feelings and opinions, the person you talk to tends to primarily believe you based on what they think they’re observing in your non-verbal behavior.

A technique from neurolinguistic programming (NLP) is called modelling. First you observe, then you code (the pattern) and then you install.

Our perception is or reality. Our brain converts the spoken or written language from the external world into meaning and images, while attaching an emotion to it based on experiences.

We can strive to understand each other as well as possible. What can help is the notion of ‘LSD in and OMA out’. Listen, summarize and deepening questions in; opinions, my truth and advice out.

John Gottman distinguishes for types of toxins in relationship: criticism, defense, stonewalling and contempt.

Marc Lammers is an innovative coach who led the Dutch Women’s Hockey Team to a world title in 2006 and on Olympic title in 2008. His coach foundations that can be directly applied to the development of organizations: focus on qualities, encourage conflict, assign responsibility and dare to innovate.

It’s a theory on ‘the art of listening’, that it’s possible to listen at three different levels.

Internal listening. Instead of listening to the other person and trying to understand what it means to him, you’re too involved with your own story.
Focused listening. Here you constantly ask questions because you really want to understand the other person’s situation.
Intuitive listening. You listen to what the other person is saying, while listening between the lines to what isn’t being said, and what the likely meaning is.

Attention, non-judgmental listening, putting yourself in another person’s shoes and acknowledging their viewpoint are the first steps on the path to true understanding.

Many collaborations are characterized by actions based on unvoiced assumptions and existing routines.

There are seven styles that were developed by the Artgym leadership academy and they provide insights into how you think and act when managing others.

The visionary.
The magician.
The emperor.
The warrior.
The orator.
The guru.
The giver.

We sometimes allow ourselves to be influenced unconsciously is known as the halo-and-horn effect (‘halo’ in the sense of angel and ‘horn’ in the sense of the devil. Psychologist Edward Thorndike demonstrated that we tend to attribute characteristics to a person based on just one character trait, and we assign that person a label.

Asking someone a question doesn’t necessarily mean that it will lead directly to an appropriate action. Between thinking of an action and it actually being executed by the other person lie a number of intervening steps.

Thinking something doesn’t mean that you have said it.
Saying something doesn’t mean that the other person has received or heard what you said.
Hearing or receiving something doesn’t mean that the other person has understood it.
Understanding something doesn’t mean that the other person has agreed to do it.
Agreeing to do something doesn’t mean that the other person will execute it.

How do we listen:

Not listening
Pretending to listen
Listening selectively
Listening attentively
Listening with empathy

Daniel Goleman is talking about three forms of empathy: cognitive empathy, emotional empathy and empathic concern. Empathic concern is about finding the balance between what’s good for the other person and what’s good for yourself.

In connection with your team and your organization

You make use of the Connection quotient here as kind of lubricant to add depth to the dimension of rational collaboration: emotional collaboration.

Ian Altman is talking about top ten challenges for organizations today. Here is the summary of his first five points:

Organizations that perform excellently focus on creating lasting relationships with customers.
Smart companies embrace Millennials, a huge demographic born in 1980s and 1990s that is coming into its earning- and purchasing-power prime.
Innovative organizations invest consciously in supervising and involving employees who work offsite.
Top companies focus on the qualities of their employees.
While margins on commodity products will drop further, services will add value.

Working on innovations, embracing new markets, engaging in alliances or retaining rare talent can all be placed in the bigger context or leadership through the Connection Quotient. We are talking about bridging:

Hierarchical differences (vertical connection).
Distances between employees and teams (horizontal connection).
The boundaries between your own organization and other organizations (connection with external parties and stakeholders).
Differences in insight based on demographic (connecting subgroups).
Geographical differences (connecting different regions and ‘glocalization’).

If leader is able to give the necessary space to ten people as a group, he is able to realize massively powerful increase in the CQ. It’s necessary to apply ‘the small within the large’ – smaller units that can work independently within a bigger context.

Functions, teams and organizations are put in place to achieve results. Period. As a leader you are continually making trade-offs.

The best teams are one-third about intellect and two-third about emotions.

A team can only excel if you go for the same clearly defined goal; everyone is aware of their individual task and role, and takes responsibility for it; and everyone supports each other and collaborates based on camaraderie, trust and respect.

There is a clear difference between a group and a team. Differences are in:

Purpose
Role awareness
Conflict resolution
Collaboration
Governance
Development
Appreciation

Creativity is something we need to cherish, and you should give more space to the child in yourself within the business context. You’re the only one who can determine where your dream stops and where reality begins.

The five team strengths, as business management author Patrick Lencioni refers to them. In his book The Five Dysfunctions of Teamwork, he describes five dysfunctions that act to obstruct real teamwork:

Absence of trust
Fear of conflict
Lack of commitment
Avoidance of accountability
Inattention to results

David Kolb’s learning cycle is:

Having a concrete experience.
Reflective observation.
Abstract conceptualization.
Active experimentation.

Kolb’s research reveals that people differ in their preferences and their capacities with respect to the different activities within this learning process:

The diverger. He learns particularly via concrete experience and reflective observation.
The assimilator. He learns via reflective observation and abstract conceptualization.
The converger. He learns via abstract conceptualization and active experimentation.
The accommodator. He learns via active experimentation and concrete experiences.

Anthony Robbins: “Stay committed to your decisions but stay flexible in your approach.”[2]

Synergy is a process in which connecting the parts produces more than the sum of all the individual parts.

Martin Luther King Jr. tips to communicate your vision:

Believe in your vision.
Make it personal and concrete.
Visualize the end result.
Use metaphors.
Vary the speed/intonation/silence.
Speak in the ‘we’ form.
Repeat the core message and core sentence.
Use your whole body.

Business consultant Dr. Andre de Waal has conducted extensive research in the characteristics of High-Performance Organizations (HPOs). They are focusing in a disciplined manner on what really matters. The five factors:

Management quality.
Openness and action oriented.
Long-term orientation.
Continuous improvement and innovation.
Employee quality.

You need to create a culture based on high CQ, whereby attention is paid to decisiveness, goals and results (functional infrastructure), as well as to emotional elements such as pride, engagement and trust (emotional infrastructure).

Focus on developing the strong points of your employees instead of the competencies they are only moderately good at.

How to create a powerful organization story:

Tell stories that are genuine.
Dare to show your vulnerability.
Let your passion and admiration shine through.
Use upbeat words.
Give compliments.
Keep it short.
One core message, and one keyword.
Tell the story in the present tense.

The modern approach to team development is based on the system approach. This involves acknowledging that individuals have an influence on their team members. Six principles:

Reveal the system to itself.
Pay attention to the energy field in which the team is operating.
Highlight and develop values diversity.
Listen for the undercurrents rising.
Reinforce co-responsibility.
Increase positivity, reduce negativity.

James Kouzes and Barry Posner define powerful leaders in a way that they:

Model the way (set the example and clarify the values).
Inspire through shared vision (envisage the future and enlist others).
Challenge the process (look for opportunities and experiment and take risks).
Enable others to act (foster collaboration and strengthen others).
Encourage the heart (recognize individual contributions and celebrate the values and the successes).

The power of the Connection quotient

Seth Godin and Clay Herbert are talking about connection economy. Core concepts within the economy are ‘coordination’ (making contact), ‘trust’ (determining who will join us) and ‘permission’ (who has the mandate to proclaim himself an expert).

The domain ‘In connection with the universe’ is a fifth domain within the CQ.

[1] In the book on page 43

[2] In the book on page 210