Relationship Building the Power of Connectional Intelligence

Anita Brick: Hi, this is Anita Brick, and welcome to CareerCast at Chicago Booth. To help you advance in your career. Today we're delighted to be speaking with Erica Dhawan and she is the founder and CEO of potential, a global innovation firm, and coauthor of the book Get Big Things Done. Great book, by the way. Erica. Erica speaks for organizations like the World Economic Forum at Davos and PepsiCo.

She writes for Harvard Business Review, Forbes, Fast Company, and The Huffington Post. Previously, she worked at Lehman Brothers and Barclays Capital. She has an MBA from Harvard, an MBA from MIT Sloan, and a B.S. in economics from the Wharton School. Erica, thank you so much. I know that this is a very exciting time for you, certainly with your business, but with the book. Thank you so much for writing about it.

Erica Dhawan: Thank you Anita, and it's just such a delight to be here on Career Path today.

Anita Brick: I'm very excited and I know the students and alumni around the globe are very excited to hear what you have to say. Let's give a little context, because I know the whole book and your consulting practice, really the way you view the world is around conventional intelligence. So first of all, what is connection intelligence, and how can an individual leverage this to advance his or her career?

Erica Dhawan: Absolutely. It's a great question. And the way I'll describe it is connection. Intelligence is in many ways my life's work. But to give you some context, Anita, over the last years and years, I've worked in the corporate world, in startups and spent a series of years at Harvard doing research over this time period. What I've noticed is we've seen the typical rise of new innovations and new waves.

But in the last five years, what we've seen is something really radically different than ever before. For the first time in history, humans entirely are ubiquitously connected, and they're not just connected through digital, social and mobile technologies. But in my research at Harvard and in my new book, Getting Things Done, I've noticed our connections have actually shaped and changed our human intelligence.

They've changed how we're curious. They've changed how we're more courageous. They've changed how we've mobilized resources and built communities. All of this has led to research that I saw that I call the rise of conventional intelligence. And what conventional intelligence is, is the ability to combine knowledge, ambition and human capital, forging the connections on a global scale that create unprecedented value and meaning.

Anita Brick: It really is amazing, and it's mind boggling in a way, if you think about it, what the potential is. And that all said, the students and alum alumni who submitted questions have some maybe not concerns, but they have some personal concerns about themselves. So I do want us to focus on how that whole approach that you're taking can help individuals with their own careers.

So here's the first question from an evening student. And she said building relationships can be time consuming and a bit intimidating. How does someone make this simpler and easier? By leveraging networks in the way you approach them.

Erica Dhawan: It's a great question. The first thing I'll say is many people in today's world actually feel over connected, and one of the biggest challenges is how to cut through the noise of social media. more Facebook likes, more Twitter posts to really drive and create value and answer the question how can someone really make this simpler and easier?

It's actually funny enough, no pun intended. Quite simply in that if we think about it, there's sort of two key ways I would describe this. The first is to find interest based communities on issues that you really care about. The way that I would describe that is to not just focus on finding every professional community that you need, but also personal communities around issues that you really care about.

What often begins as seeming tough and difficulties. Okay, I have to network with more people. Really starts with you. What do you really care about and how do you bring people together around the issues you care about? The second thing I'll just mention on that note is to really also think about the fact that you may already be as close to the network that you want to reach as you may need to be, and that's to look at your weak connections just as much as your strong connections. So I think the biggest thing is to look at personal, not just professional, and leverage the weak connections just as much as the strong connections.

Anita Brick: Totally agree Robert, who is a professor at Booth, has been talking about the weak connections and the value of them really for decades now. But how do you then translate those interests? So let's just say I love to run, and let's say that I look for other people who love to run. But really, I want to get into private equity. How do I take those personal interests and really build connections in my area of interest? Because otherwise it's a nice thing to do. But where is really the utility if I am looking for career advancement?

Erica Dhawan: Yeah, it's a great question. I need to have some of my work with clients that has actually touched on this very point. One of the examples of this is I'm working with a fortune 500 company right now, and when they think typically about communities or networks in their company, they typically think about a diversity network, you know, a women's network, an African-American network.

What we're actually implementing right now is a network based on passions and interests. And one of them is around marathon running and particularly marathon runners that are coming together across the company to launch a wellness initiative. But what's really interesting is that, you know, the younger 25 year old employee is connecting with the 45 year old male partner in a more personal way. That's actually building a much deeper, informal relationship. That's allowing them to actually build the connections, to ask better questions, to engage, to understand what they're doing, to actually build the relationships, build better cross-pollinated relationships across the company.

Anita Brick: I get that I try not to interrupt you, but I get that. But that doesn't really explain to me or to the listeners. How do you do that when you don't already have that network inside your company? What if you are someone who has a lot of listeners in the X field? They code, they're doing it. They really want to do venture capital. They really want to ultimately raise a fund. How do you translate interests into career transitions? That might be actually a radical career change. I guess the idea that you want to build these cross generational relationships, you talk about that in the book, but how do you do it when you're an outsider? How do you then build a bridge so that you're not wasting time?

Erica Dhawan: The way I would describe it, any of that is in today's today's connected world, you just start. And that might sound like, okay, what does that really mean? And what it means is that in today's world, one of the most central ways to become knowledgeable in an area is to actually become the hub of knowledge for that area.

So if you care about food and agriculture, I know a woman who became the TEDx organizer in her local city for the food event. If you care about private equity, the first step could be joining every single linking group that's related to private equity, but then starting your own and becoming curator and aggregator of knowledge. Not that you have, but some other people.

And then what starts to happen as people start to come towards you, because they see you more as a hub of connection rather than being just the expert yourself. And that I've been, is one of the best ways to actually build relationships in a specific field that you may not be in before. And in today's world, whether it's launching an event or hosting a Twitter chat, or joining a LinkedIn group, or even just starting a blog about an issue that you might not know much about, or commenting on blogs that have a specific expertise that you care about. Those are some of the best ways to start.

Anita Brick: I agree, because there's some value that is attributed to the person who is curating and doing that. Okay, so you do that, you get that start. You become known as someone who is a hub of information and contacts, but then how do you take it the next step? So now I am interested. In fact, there was someone this morning from India who had reached out to me and wanted to leverage his industry knowledge in the automotive parts for OEMs into a private equity role.

So how do you go from being someone who is knowledgeable and brings people together to actually encourage others to help you? Because it's one thing to be knowledgeable and it's also one thing to be a hub of contacts. It's another thing for someone to want to spend some of their social capital on you. So what is the bridge from making this? Just a nice, informal but not deep connection into a connection where someone is actually willing to help you? This actually came from an MBA student.

Erica Dhawan: Great question. The way that I would answer is also reframe the question a little bit from how do you get someone to help you to what resources do you have that others need, and how can you frame and engage in sharing those resources in ways that you really build a mutual, beneficial relationship with them? I'll give you a little story to really put this into practice.

There is a well-known surfer named Ben Thompson, and Ben Thompson is also really creative. He's also an engineer, and one of the things that he created was a sensor that surfers and his surfing community can put under their surfboards. So when they're surfing the sensor can track the temperature, salinity and acidity of the water as well as the surfer's location.

He's an engineering guy. He's really interested in this, but what he did is he's now built partnerships with climate change researchers across the world that are now using the sensor data to actually address the climate change crisis. Particularly what he's done is he's bridged two communities, the surfer community and the climate change researcher community, two communities that would have never been connected before because he really asked the question, how can what I'm currently doing as a surfer and the knowledge that I have, the resources that I have actually be beneficial to another community.

I think the first step is reframing the question and finding connections in ways that you might never have imagined before. I think the second step, you know, involves I talk about sort of five skills in connection intelligence, and one of the skills is this idea of courage. And I'll be honest that I think courage, the courage to ask different questions, to share ideas, is oftentimes the first step in finding out how I might be able to leverage my experience in the automotive industry for private equity. What are the resources that they really need right now that I can leverage? I would start there as the first step to really think about how to turn being a knowledge aggregator or an expert in one area to be useful for another area altogether.

Anita Brick: I love that because if something that may be the norm in one function or industry, you bring it to a new function or industry and you're a genius because they've never used it before, what would you recommend that someone does to open their minds? I was talking to someone yesterday who was feeling a bit discouraged about his current situation, and we were talking about the value that he could bring to other organizations in other industries, etc., etc. but he was so stuck he felt like he brought very little value. What advice would you give someone who's kind of stuck in like, well, I don't really have any value for this other function, for this other industry, for this other company. What would you advise someone to do to open up their mind a little bit?

Erica Dhawan: Yeah. Great question. One of my always big tips around how to develop and grow your connection intelligence is often look at what you already know. And that's hard for people to see because they often see themselves as an expert in 1 or 2 areas. One of the best examples of this is a man named Mick Pearce, and Mick Pearce is an architect.

He was tasked with building one of the largest malls in Zimbabwe. One of the things that he did, it was a very difficult path because the resources were very limited and one of the things that he did and he had a hobby in was in, but he had a hobby for bikes and he used to study bugs and one of the things that he just happened to know a lot about was termite mounds and how termite mounds are created.

They're, you know, incredibly long and tall termites create this cooling system that allows them to navigate through the desert. And what he actually did is he took the idea of termite mounds and actually used a similar mindset. Was building this mall in Zimbabwe, which now has saved the mall over $2 million in energy costs because of the cooling system and how air has flown, which he modeled through a termite now.

And so it's completely kind of zany. How did he bring this into his own work? I would say two things or critical. One is to look at what are some of those quirky passions that you have or interest or stories that you might be able to bring to your day to day work that could really be beneficial? And then the second thing is also to build your own sort of learning connection, intelligence plant.

And what I often say there is sort of two key things that I urge leaders to do. The first is to spend ten minutes a day connecting to a source of news or perspective outside your own. So if you read the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times every day, maybe you should join Twitter and follow the private equity lead or join a LinkedIn group around the automotive industry.

Second thing I would urge you to do is to spend two conversations a month with people that think very differently than you. Maybe if you are a banker, you should have coffee with a poet or a jazz musician, and oftentimes, you know, our greatest learnings either happen when we're reading or connecting with ourselves or with others.

Anita Brick: It's true. And I think it's a practice because some people think they try it once. They try to like, think differently, nothing emerges, and so they give it up. The idea of ten minutes a day is a very nice line, because it causes you to build that pattern, which actually rewires your brain to do more of it. It's very, very good.

So there are a couple questions around, okay, it's great to build relationships. I'm all about adding value. One was actually from an evening student. The other was from an executive MBA student. They both asked something very similar and they wanted to know because there are tons of people out there. Literally there are millions and millions and millions of people out in the world.

How do you create some distinction so that someone sees that you have value? There are a lot of people who write blogs, and there are a lot of people who tweet, and not too many people even know what they have to say, because they haven't found a way to kind of break through the noise. What would you advise someone on how to be distinctive enough so that they get the connection, to actually build those relationships and have that transfer of knowledge across industries, etc.?

Erica Dhawan: This is a great point. And I do agree that there's lots of communities out there. There's lots of Twitter chats and Reddit chats and podcasts and such. The way that I would answer that question is the first step is really, you know, identifying what you really care about and what you're passionate about. And for some people, it's still a discovery phase.

And so that's fine too. So a lot of that might be more about learning and embedding yourself in all different types of existing communities. For someone who really wants to become more of a thought leader, expert, or noticed in a certain area, one of the biggest things I would really urge is to think about what are some of those communities that are not connected to this issue that could be interesting way.

And that ties back to the example I've been Thompson linking surfers and researchers and finding a new way to bring people together. You know, another thing that I think is important here is to not just connect different communities together that may not really know each other, but really figure out how might you be able to use different media in the private equity industry, if most people connect through physical events, what might be an interesting different medium, whether it's a Khan Academy style YouTube video learning, or it's a set of Twitter chats on a new medium that might engage more people in the conversation, that might want to be part of it, or may engage people

in the conversation in a different way than has happened in the past. So I would think of those two lenses. How do you reach communities that are not part of the conversation and actually become a linker in a new way? And secondly, how do you use new mediums or mediums that aren't the traditional mediums for the industry or the topics?

Anita Brick: I like that. How do you get people to care about you or care about what you care about?

Erica Dhawan: I would say that you don't do that. Actually, I would say that you find people that have underlying resources and interests and you align with them and you build partnerships. I think that a lot of the conversation today is, how do I get people to notice me? Or how do I get people to care what I have to say?

And I think that a key piece of connection intelligence is flipping that on its head and answering the question of what can I get? What do they care about? And what's the knowledge that I have or who I am connected to, or how they're thinking about the problem, or what tools they might need or who they're mobilizing that I can give them.

And when we really shift that question and answer, not with confidence, but with curiosity, that's when actionable intelligence, that's when value is created. And one of the stories in my book Get Big Things Done, I talk about is a 60 something pumpkin farmer who grew a 20 pound pumpkin and he won the world's largest pumpkin contest. And, you know, it's really interesting because his passion was to grow big pumpkins.

And he spent 20 years connecting with researchers and scientists to study the latest crop science, the latest in manure. And he created small pumpkin associations. And for much of his life, people laughed at him. Scientists. Wow. You know, we're really interested in working with him. But today, by really giving to them, I can give you samples. I can be your pilot.

He actually grew the world's largest pumpkin. And interestingly enough, one of the fungi that he used in his pumpkins is now being used by small scale farmers in India and throughout Africa who can't afford chemical fertilizer and are now using his techniques. And this is a pumpkin farmer in Rhode Island. And he asked the question, you know, what do they need that I can give? You know, that's why people care.

Anita Brick: I love that, and that's my personal philosophy, because it isn't about what you can give to me. It's what I can give to you. And then we can figure out what it is that we can build together. And maybe it's nothing, and maybe it's something big. I've been doing research for a while. When you look at people's success and you look at those who feel a sense of entitlement, they get very frustrated. They derail themselves in their brain and they don't get very far. But the people who aren't keeping score seem to get way, way farther.

Erica Dhawan: Yeah, you know, this isn't easy, but leadership isn't easy. Approaching problems in new ways, combining quirky ideas like termite mounds to a small architecture, right, is different. And when you're trying to make partnerships outside your industry or combining resources in ways that your community hasn't seen before, you may deal with resistance and you may deal with backlash. And that's part of that. You know, I talk about courage in my book as being a key critical piece of leveraging conventional intelligence.

Anita Brick: Right. Here's someone who's a little hesitant to do what we're talking about. And this is an exact MBA student. And he said, how do you develop the radar to know whom to trust so you can help others benefit from your knowledge and your experiences? Sometimes I hesitate connecting with someone or facilitating a connection because I've seen what happens when someone lacks integrity. There are a lot of people who aren't really what they seem to be, especially online. I mean in person too. But how do you develop the radar to discern who to actually build a partnership with and who to really stay away from?

Erica Dhawan: Great question. It's a noisy internet world, and there's lots of us out there, and some of it is really amazing and some of it isn't. I think this is a really important question, because trust is such an important attribute of creating real human connections. You know, the answer that I have to that is, first of all, trust has to be built over time.

It's not an instant process. And secondly, the best way to sort of develop that radar of whom to trust and when is to actually get people agency to be part of a solution or a problem in small ways at the beginning. So if you're creating a community, an online community, and you want to find partners online and people to join because they care about everyone in that room cares about patent law or whatever it might be, by really giving people in that community agency to say, why don't you write three blog posts a month, or whatever it might be, and seeing what happens?

In many ways, that's the way to build trust. It starts with actions, and the best way that I would describe this is to start in a small bit. This fascinating and amazing part of the internet is that many people in today's world are connecting online for years before they even meet each other. It's shifting the trust dynamic where you're able to understand and build trust with someone online in advance of actually meeting them.

So when you actually meet them, there might even be a much deeper relationship created. So I would use the digital world to actually develop that radar through small bits, through engagement in different ways. Then we'll guide how you work with people in the future. Does that make sense?

Anita Brick: Sense? It totally makes sense because they're probably doing the same thing. Yeah, we can tell pretty quickly if someone is really there just to take or if they are there to exchange it makes a big difference. You know, there was a full time student. This is an interesting question. I'm in the midst of starting a health tech venture, and I want to attract and retain an advisory board because of a diversity of skills, talents and experience. What would you advise me to do in leveraging your approach to create this really sustainable and effective advisory board?

Erica Dhawan: Oh, what a fun question. Creating an advisory board is such an important piece of any person, startup or initiative. I would say the first thing here is the most important part of a board is a group of people that can help you ask great questions and to help you guide to better answers. That is really, at the deepest root, the purpose of an advisory board, and also a network that can strengthen your connections in the community and such.

When you think about how you can leverage connection intelligence building a board, there are three types of connection intelligence that people have, and I would actually urge an entrepreneur to think about having a couple of these different skill sets on their board. First is a thinker, a person that really is able to combine a lot of ideas, that's able to bring the quirky, you know, the termite mounds idea, small architecture, or, you know, specific fungi technique to talking, growing, finding a set of thinkers, big thinkers to bring on on your board is incredibly important.

The second type of connection intelligence that I urge them to bring on their board is the enabler. The enabler is someone who knows how to build the structures and forces to get big things done. They have a sense of who the different partner communities are to engage with. How do you invest and ask the right questions to them and build the aligned interest to get something big done in your health tech venture?

And the third type of connection, intelligence and person that I'd urge them to bring on their board is what I call the connection Executer. This is someone who's been there, done that, that has executed many times before, that understands what building a health tech venture is all about, and has done it in a grassroots way. And when you combine these three types of people on your board the big thinker, the inspiring big dreamer person, the enabler, the person who knows all the structures and forces to get big things done and the connection executer the person who really is grassroots knows how to make things happen.

Then you really are able to build a board that understands how to leverage connections in all the different facets and ways. And so there's actually a quiz in my book that you can use to assess whether you're a thinker, enabler, and connection executer. And it's also a great way to assess the team or a board as well.

Anita Brick: Excellent, excellent. Do you have time for one more question?

Erica Dhawan: Absolutely.

Anita Brick: Okay, great. We've talked about a lot of different things. I love your approach. Thank you for writing the book. I love the backstory that is in the book about your co author who is from a different part of the world, a different function, a different industry, different generation. So you and she really demonstrate what you're talking about. That all said, I love to kind of wrap things up with some key takeaways. So what are the top three things that you would advise someone who wants to develop and sustain connection intelligence for long term career success?

Erica Dhawan: Great question. And this is the most important connection. Top three things that I would advise someone who wants to grow their connection. Intelligence. Number one is open yourself up to new people and ideas. You know, this means connecting with people at different cultures, different backgrounds, different disciplines, different ages. You're younger. Often you may hang out with a lot of other young people, but connection intelligence is about bridging generations and bridging skill sets and recognizing that we all have something to teach each other.

And an idea that might be normal to you might revolutionize a normal way of operating for someone else. The second thing I would say is make connections and partnerships around issues that you really care about. So don't get obsessed with how many Twitter followers you have or how many views a video has. Get really focused on understanding and thinking about what you care about most, and how you might connect with people in a meaningful way on issues that they care about as well?

And that lends itself to communities with, you know, rare diseases that have come together or surfers that care about the environment. And third, I would say this in many ways is most important. I would say it's leverage. What you already know. You know, we don't all need to come up with the million dollar tech idea or business idea, and we might spend a lot of time thinking about that.

But I don't think that connection intelligence is always about being the bar. It's about understanding where your passion lies, what already exists, and what you're already involved with, and being open to various ways that people might learn from you and take action around things that you're already doing. So closing, I think these are sort of the three things I would say, but most importantly, connection intelligence is about bringing everything you have to the table. Your full heart, brain and mind power and understanding. How can I intentionally create impact in my life and in the lives of others?

Anita Brick: Clearly, Erika, that's what you've done. Clearly, this is a really deep passion of yours and making a change I can already see. I mean, from what you've done in the past, but bringing this to a much broader audience, I mean, you're changing things, you know, at the grassroots level, and you're also changing it at the global level. And being able to facilitate that kind of change is truly remarkable. So thank you for having the courage to do this, because not everybody, I'm sure, agrees with you. But this is such a very powerful way of looking at the world.

Erica Dhawan: Thank you so much, Anita. And I, you know, it's such a pleasure to be on the podcast today. And, you know, I hope to continue to build the movement at Erika online.com.

Anita Brick: And Erica has wonderful things on her website, really great whitepapers and other resources. I will also include the link to your website in your bio. So if you didn't catch that as we were just talking about her website, just go to the bio, click on her link and there are wonderful things there.

Erica Dhawan: Thanks again Erika. This was delightful.

Anita Brick: Thank you and thank you all for listening. This is Anita Brick with CareerCast at Chicago Booth. Keep advancing.