The Secret to Leading Effectively in the New Way of Work

It’s not your grandfather’s world of work, when everything was connected, from the factory town to lunch breaks at Mom and Pop’s on Main street.

What’s the secret to bringing people together to work with passion toward a common purpose, vision and goals in the new way of work?

The answer: Depth of Connection.

I’ve been speaking about Depth of Connection in my talk, Who Dunit? How Hollywood is Killing HR from stages in Pittsburgh, Dallas and Charlotte. I even opened one night in front of a Comedy Improv audience in Dallas, which is hilarious because you, my friends and colleagues, all know that I’m not actually funny.

What is Depth of Connection?

It’s the human glue that brings effective teams together—when people find the win-win in the NeXus between the needs of the organization and the person. Communities fit in there too, but we’ll talk about that another day.

You—the leader—create Depth of Connection in the workplace when you create the conditions for people to find the three things they crave most from the work experience:

• Purpose: For some, this means a project or task that is personally meaningful; for others, it’s a paycheck they can live on.
• Relationships: Everyone wants a boss who has their back; colleagues who care. Everyone.
• Development: In a world changing at a pace 300 times faster than any point in human history, professional development enables people of all levels to take charge of their lives by taking charge of their careers.

How can you, the leader, create Depth of Connection?

Use my 4-EQ’s. To bring more Depth of Connection into your team, ask people to share their answers to my 4 Easy Questions, which I shared when I keynoted at this year’s Mass Bay Project Management Institute 40th Anniversary Conference:

1. Which role do I tend to play on teams?
2. How do I prefer to contribute and be included?
3. What is something I would like to learn or experience as a result of being part of this team?
4. What do I need from this team to be successful