The Connection Quotient: How a Culture of Understanding Transforms Teams and Organizations

By Marco Buschman

In this world, interconnectivity is in crisis. Functionality and financial rewards guide our working relations and are affecting our ability to relate to others and ourselves. The human perspective seems to be lost, leading to divided and less productive teams and organizations.
The Connection Quotient enables an honest, courageous and humane interconnection to form, while still focusing on financial outcomes and results. The CQ enables us to illuminate our human qualities and use these to connect with others, discuss differences, expand insight and encourage the development of new ideas. The CQ will introduce a new workplace culture where organizations and teams can approach the personal and professional through a more transparent and inclusive style.
Ultimately, the CQ makes it possible to play "hard on the ball, and soft on the individual".

• Language: English
• Publisher: LID Publishing
• Release date: Jun 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9781911687849

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

Your CQ is not based on working with functional teams or the functional managing of others within the organization. As we saw in the general introduction, it has another starting point. Your CQ starts with being in connection with yourself. This is also the starting point for creating lasting work relationships. But what exactly does it mean to be in connection with yourself?

THE CONTEXT OF 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. Neither is it just about optimizing the factory and the production processes. More and more, it’s about people: about what you have to offer to the other, what the other has to offer you, how you can work smarter together and to what extent you’re prepared to grant each other favours.

In other words, employees, clients and suppliers are first and foremost people. In all your contacts with them, you are primarily a human being. The more you are your true self in these situations, and can continue to be, the greater the chance that a true connection will take place between you. And based on this connection, ‘business gets done’ and results are produced.

On the content side, of course a written quotation has to be correctly drawn up, the technical data of services supplied must be accurate, and you have to deliver on time. But at the same time, contact comes before contract. The bottom line is that before a potential customer, a new employer or a new employee engages in a professional connection with you, he will be looking you in the eye. Even though you might match perfectly in terms of your profiles, and the collaboration may seem right on paper, if there’s no click and the connection doesn’t get established, the deal simply won’t go through.

The moment the other looks you in the eye, he will establish: if I encounter problems in the future with this project/this product/this service, do I trust you to resolve those problems for me?

And what applies for clients also applies for employees: are they prepared to follow you? This is partially to do with wanting to follow you as a leader, with respect to the content you present and represent, and also with wanting to follow you as a person.

You work with employees (people). You ask them to be sincere, to be transparent. You want them to voice their opinions and express themselves, even if the insights are at times painful or difficult. And so, you need to act as a role model in this context. It’s impossible to learn how to be authentic, but you can re-learn how to be authentic, if you have somehow drifted away from your core. Remember: you are more than just a functional role. You are more than just your formal function.

All leadership starts with self-leadership, which is why connection with yourself forms the pearl in the framework of the Connection Quotient (Figure 3 on p12). All trust starts with self-trust. All exploration starts with self-exploration. All observations start with self-observations. All respect starts with self-respect and all doing starts with doing it yourself. My invi-tation to you is to explore your whole self (the leader as a role/human doing and as a person/human being) and to take your whole self with you to your work. Don’t leave your human being at home.

ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS CONCERNING CONNECTION WITH YOURSELF

Not only rational

Engaging in a connection with yourself is never purely a rational process, but we live in a world that is largely governed by cognition and logic. You need to stop asking yourself whether you are competent or not. Of course, the content side of your work has to be in place and the foundation has to be solid, but the knowledge level of the majority of people/leaders is generally adequate. They keep up to date with knowledge about their field and the managing/leading of people, as well as having an extensive network.

In his book, The Speed of Trust (2008), author Stephen M.R. Covey covers four core themes of trust. Two of these lie in the field of competencies: having sufficient capacities and achieving results. These will continue to be important; you still have to deliver. But that’s not all. Your development as a leader is more than just taking courses to maintain your specialist knowledge and management techniques.

Your true development as a leader does not rely on content, but rather needs to be internally driven – it is the development of your character. It’s only when your internal parts are interconnected that you can become complete.

In this context, Covey refers to integrity and intent. Intent is about our motives, our agenda and the behaviour that flows from this. In the above mentioned book he writes: Trust grows when our motives are straightfor-ward and based on mutual benefit – in other words, when we genuinely care not only for ourselves, but also for the people we interact with, lead or serve.

Integrity here is not only about honesty, but above all about ‘integrated-ness.’ This means having the courage to act in alignment with your values and beliefs. So now it’s about activating all the different layers you house within yourself: head, heart and hands. This wholeness allows you to work on deepening a connection with yourself. It’s about asking yourself bigger, or deeper, questions, such as: What are my fears? What do I find difficult? What are my needs? What are my personal values? What do I want to contribute to? What is the bigger task I have to do in life?

The art is then to make these questions even more concrete: How am I dealing with time, with relationships, with energy, with my work and my private life, with my own emotions and the emotions of others? And how do I want to deal with these matters?

The place of emotions

Many leaders find emotions complex to grasp, even scary or taxing. The search for the connection with yourself is sometimes dismissed as silly, but that doesn’t have to be the case.

Experiencing emotions and being yourself are part of your birthright. Emotions and our instinct: that’s what we come into this world with. After that, under the influence of upbringing, school, training and work, we develop the side of rationality more than that of emotion. We learn to analyse. We are seduced into stepping into a normative straitjacket of good and bad. Or we are rewarded to stay watching at a distance. That’s when emotions suddenly become awkward and complex, or we feel clumsy or even at a loss.

But when you were born, you were already a complete person, with the most basic emotions of sadness, fear, anger and joy. Embrace these emotions.

An important lesson here is that of normalization. At work, just as at home, arguments or grief occur. This occurs partly in the form of a redis-covery, when you engage with the connection with yourself. The drive of each individual to be in contact and in connection, in whatever way, is immense. It appeals to a primeval instinct. We are a social species.

Sincerity

The Connection Quotient is, among other things, about sincerity. The person who applies his CQ but without being sincere will achieve results only for the short term. The person who looks within himself and does not fully engage with what he encounters there is deceiving himself. Trust in your own ego and believe in yourself. But be sure to accept both the sunny and dark sides in yourself. In the spirit of the celebrated psychoanalyst Carl Jung, I would say, Life is not about becoming perfect or enlightened, but becoming your whole self.

You can’t fake sincerity. The person who simulates sincerity is not in connection with himself. Everyone can feel that. Anyone who has worked with the Connection Quotient and with the source of sincerity for a period of time also sees whether or not someone else has been moved emotionally.

We see ourselves often purely as human doings, but we are above all human beings. It’s important to realize that each one of us possesses both sides, and that it’s important to be able to integrate them both.

Especially when you find yourself caught up in the heat of your emotions, reflect how you wish to respond in each situation based on your own values. What are your values? How much integrity and sincerity do you have? And can you be honest with yourself?

Courage

It’s often necessary to link courage with being sincere. To what extent do you have the courage to look in the mirror and see your true self? If you can succeed in being 90% okay with all your good sides as well as all your dark sides, you’re doing well. Whatever you encounter then will produce many wonderful moments, but it can also be painful. On some occasions you will have to grit your teeth or overcome something.

If you see a mountain standing in your way, and you can’t go around it, you probably also realize you can’t jump over it in one go. You will have to conquer that mountain step by step, day after day. This book can help you do that. You can already take the first step today. Do you have the courage and the motivation to see your patterns, your difficulties and also, ultimately, all the sources behind your successes and beautiful moments? This way you may suddenly discover that the mountain you thought you couldn’t jump over is already largely behind you.

PUTTING THINGS INTO PRACTICE

Getting started

Putting your CQ into practice is anything but a superficial exercise. It goes further than networking, conducting discussions or making connections on LinkedIn. In addition to courage and inspiration, working on your CQ – and particularly on the connection with yourself – is largely a question of perspiration. Think of it as a muscle that needs to be trained. In other words, it’s hard work. A lot of practice and training. Carrying on and persevering. Clenching your teeth and continuing.

You will need the courage and the willingness to look into what it means in your specific case. In my coaching, my rule of thumb for such a process, in which the focus lies on an aspect of the Connection Quotient, is between six and ten sessions. And as a coach, I am aware that I am rarely in the company of the subject at the time of his breakthrough moment. Do not expect to achieve the breakthrough and to see your world transform completely simply by engaging in coaching sessions and reading this book. That breakthrough will be the result of experimenting in practice, by doing it yourself.

The key lies with you. The key lies within you. Or, more accurately, you are the key.

Enlist the help of others

But creating a connection with yourself doesn’t mean that you have to do everything on your own. Ask others to help you. Approach others for feedback and feedforward. Ask for social support – whether from your partner, friends or colleagues – when you take steps that may be stressful for you. Make use of your network.

Be aware of the fact that as you are developing, the world around you is developing too. The world will appear differently for you and you will stand differently in the world than before, both in your environment and in yourself. In this development, the people around you will start responding differently to you. Some will react positively, while others will react negatively. This will become apparent, for example, if you actively start breaking through patterns (see Chapter 5), or when you start learning to say no (see Chapter 11). Your colleagues, friends and your partner may become confused as a result of your new way of thinking and acting. This might happen when you stop turning in work weeks of 60 hours or more and start making more time for yourself and your family. Or, when you start talking back more often, instead of accepting everything meekly. Be aware that this change in the responses of others means that you are breaking down a pattern; that you are developing yourself; that you are effectively practising your leadership.

HOW TO READ THIS PART OF THE BOOK

In each chapter, I will offer you a mix of models, ideas, short theories clarifying specific points, and sources of inspiration and assignments, all designed to activate you and your inner compass more often and to get you to continually observe yourself.

All of the chapters in this book start with a personal introduction and are, therefore, written with the starting point: the leader as a human being. After all, you connect in the first place with other people (customers, suppliers, colleagues) based on yourself as a person. In parts II and III, I also make the distinction that there are chapters that mainly focus on the leader as a person and chapters that are written largely based on the leader as a role. In the case of the connection with yourself, this distinction is not so sharply defined, because it primarily involves you.

In each chapter in Part I, I indicate how you can translate your personal insights in the field of, say, deep-seated desires, happiness, trust, your life goal, and making conscious choices involving your day-to-day tasks as a leader. Ultimately, what meaning can you give to these personal insights for your work and for your functional role as a leader?

Figure 4: Overview of the chapters in Part I

Above all, I wish you the utmost connection with yourself!

CHAPTER 1

SELF-REFLECTION

PERSONAL INTRODUCTION

I have a special relationship with my father, Simon. We share a history of highs and lows. When I was younger, I enjoyed his humour and having him around. Then we drifted apart. My parents argued a lot and finally there was the bitter divorce, a phase I prefer not to be reminded of. I distanced myself from my father and refused to see him for the next eight years. We then got back in touch and built up our relationship again. I now consider him to be a good friend.

In 2010, Simon started up a special project: a book filled with personal stories that he wanted to write in collaboration with 66 fellow authors. He asked me if I wanted to be part of the project. Because the idea of revisiting that emotional period in my life didn’t appeal to me, I almost said no, but in the end I decided to accept the invitation.

I am so glad I did. Thanks to him, I have learned a new, playful and powerful method of self-reflection: writing a shadow path.

By writing my shadow path, I have once again learned a lot about myself. And that’s something I’d love you to experience too, because self-knowledge is the foundation for self-acceptance and for engaging in a genuine connection with yourself. And from there you can engage in strong connections with others, in both your personal and professional life.

MEETING YOURSELF

Through self-reflection, you increase your knowledge about yourself. By analysing the way you think, speak and act in situations, you become more aware of the beliefs, feelings and thoughts that accompany them. You discover what your deeper drives are and how they determine your identity and your behaviour. The more you practice self-reflection, the more insight you gain into who you are, what motivates you, what comes easy to you and what your challenges and hot buttons are. And that’s why self-reflection forms the basis for personal development.

You can practice self-reflection at any time of the day. For example, in your car on your way to work, at lunchtime or in the evening before you go to sleep. Whether you do it on your own or in dialogue with others is completely up to you. Whenever you take the time to reflect upon yourself, you will learn new things about yourself. For instance, ask yourself: Am I being honest with myself? Do I dare to confront myself with both my inspiring side and my dark side? By doing so, your self-reflection will certainly contribute to your development, both functionally and personally.

The famous speech by Charlie Chaplin from the film The Great Dictator forced me to think about the theme of tolerance. The speech convinced me even more that it is possible to create a connected and inclusive world in which there is room for personal preferences, non-conformist viewpoints and among other different religions. This is something I want to contribute