Connectable: How Leaders Can Move Teams From Isolated to All In

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In this episode of the HR Leaders Podcast, I'm joined by Steven Van Cohen, a Wall Street Journal Bestselling Author and Partner at SyncLX. Steven brings valuable insights from his extensive experience as a leadership consultant, particularly in the context of creating cohesive teams and addressing workplace loneliness.

Steven points out a concerning statistic: 69% of employees feel socially disconnected at work, impacting both productivity and mental health. This challenge is further intensified in remote work environments, highlighting the need for a shift from traditional leadership models to ones that focus on emotional intelligence and empathetic engagement.

To address this, Steven suggests strategies like 'Boosters and Blockers', personal appreciation notes, and 'Crush' sessions for peer recognition. He advises leaders to provide specific, meaningful feedback and to cultivate an environment that encourages openness and vulnerability. These practices aim to ensure that each team member feels heard, valued, and connected.

Steven's insights underscore the importance of combating workplace loneliness not only for employee well-being but also as a crucial aspect of organizational health. As leaders, our pivotal role in nurturing a supportive work culture is instrumental in instilling a sense of belonging and purpose among our teams.

Episode Highlights

Proactively recognize and address the prevalent issue of loneliness to enhance team dynamics and productivity
Adopt leadership styles that are empathetic and understanding, emphasizing meaningful engagement and employee welfare
Promote a sense of community and belonging through practical, consistent actions like 'Boosters and Blockers' and peer recognition.

Recommended Resources

Follow Steven on LinkedIn
Grab a copy of Steven’s book - Connectable: How Leaders Can Move Teams From Isolated to All In
Learn more about his services - lesslonely.com
The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups - by Daniel Coyle
Influence is Your Superpower - by Zoe Chance

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🎙️ Automatically generated Podcast Transcript

Steve 0:00

69% of employees say they don't have enough opportunity for social connection at work. And we know three and five employees say that their leaders are not doing a good enough job of trying to build strong community and connectedness within the organisation.

Chris Rainey 0:22

David, welcome to the show. How are you?

Steve 0:23

I'm doing well. Thanks for having me.

Chris Rainey 0:25

Before we jump in Steven telephone a little bit more about your background, and then your journey to where we are now.

Steve 0:31

Yeah, so I've spent the last 14 years as a leadership consultant, HR consultant, do a lot of work in learning and development. The Journey essentially started when I was 14. And when I was 14, I played competitive soccer. And as a competitive soccer player, I spent, you know, basically all of my time at practice and games, and I was really into it. I used to be very good, right pre beard, I was really fast and really slim. Now I'm kind of slow. And my skills aren't what they used to be. But when I was 14, my brother, who at the time was eight, was playing soccer. And none of the parents wanted to coach my brother soccer team. So they asked me as the big brother who was playing soccer, do you want to coach a bunch of eight year olds who are in Park District soccer, and I was all over it. How old were you at the time, I was 14. So I was a teenager, right? Eighth grade. And I spent a lot of time working with these eight year olds and putting them through drills and being in charge of practice and being on the sideline during the games. And I loved it. I loved every single second of coaching of mentoring, teaching. And that was my my first taste of what that experience feels like to be in that kind of a role. And that experience as a 14 year old has stuck with me all the way through my career. So when I graduated from college, got into grad school, wanted to be a consultant really was interested in leadership and people and engagement and culture and got my master's degree in organisational development. And I've spent the past 14 years working with a lot of the world's top companies to help them build up their leaders create the right kinds of culture. And through that and met a guy named Ryan. Ryan is a future of work thought leader speaks about millennials and Gen Z has a lot of really good research on how to engage, develop and retain young talent. And when we started to collaborate, he was writing a book on Gen Z. And he came across this statistic that 79% of Gen Z years, and 2019 sometimes or always feel alone. And that statistic really grabbed him. And when he shared it with me, it really grabbed me and we thought holy smokes, you know, you have 80% of the fastest growing working generation flooding into the workforce feeling socially disconnected and lonely. That's a problem. So we started to put together all these materials to help our clients understand, how do you reconnect a disconnected workforce, right, these young professionals coming in COVID hidden, we had all this stuff about feeling lonely at work, and we went to client after client. And everyone said, we want to talk about this. And then we reached out to some agents for a book deal. Every agent one we represent us, we went to the biggest publishers in the world. And we chose McGraw Hill to publish our book. And last year it hit the wall street journal bestseller list. And I've been knee deep and just doing a lot of work with clients to help them understand why building really strongly more meaningfully connected teams is super important to business's success and longevity. So that's the journey. And that's where a lot of my time is being spent right now.

Chris Rainey 3:26

It almost feels like you know, obviously dependent was an awful moment in time, but it felt like fate, you kind of met had that conversation. And all of a sudden, Little did you know how important that your work would become.

Steve 3:40

Timing is everything. But it's really interesting, because when I think about the work that I've done as a leadership development consultant, and a thought leader in that space, and as a coach, you know, when you think about leaders and what you can teach them and focus on as it relates to their development, there are so many things you can focus on, right, like a leaders role and responsibility is massive. And the part of leadership that I've always really gravitated towards is the element of how leaders are able to really connect deeply with their teams. Even before I started to do the work on loneliness, write the book partner with my partner, Ryan. I've always just had a affinity and I guess a passion around that specific part of leadership. And I've seen it firsthand what happens when leaders are really good at building those dynamics into their teams. And I'm a big believer that you can't have a really high powered super functioning team. If the relationships with those team members are frayed. And you know, there's there's missing opportunities there. So, in 2019, it exploded, but I've been really focused on that world of work for over a decade. Now. What

Chris Rainey 4:48

Why is it so important to address workplace loneliness? Write that down.

Steve 4:52

There's so much to break down. Well, we'll start with the biological sensation that occurs when someone feels lonely. My favourite study that I came across when we were doing research for the book was the study more in 2011. Researchers put the subjects through an experience of exclusion. And the subject subjects were wearing an fMRI brain map, and they wanted to figure out where does this sensation register in the brain. And they found that the part of the brain that registers feelings of exclusion is the same part of the brain that registers physical pain. Oh, wow. And that means that when someone feels lonely, excluded, disconnected, rejected, etc, their brain is actually flashing a fight or flight response. And that fight or flight response is releasing very harmful and very dangerous stress hormones. And a chronic release of the stress hormones is really bad for us physically and mentally. And it's why this statistic around chronic loneliness is the equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes a day is regularly well known statistic is because our brain is an under fight or flight, and it's harming us with all these different responses. So from just a pure biological standpoint, when someone shows up to work under fight or flight, under a chronic state of stress, and their body is responding in this way, and the brain is on fire, it's impossible for them to do deep meaningful work, to show up as the best version of themselves to be really engaged with their colleagues or their clients or their customers. They're just surviving. And that, in and of itself, is a pretty big alarm to say, like this matters, we should be aware of this and do something to help people not come to work and feel this way. So just starting there, I'll stop and answer any questions you might have. Because physically, emotionally, and mentally, the stress that is put on employees when they show up feeling socially disconnected is it's a big deal. The

Chris Rainey 6:45

lot of people that you speak to today no, no, that they're feeling lonely.

Steve 6:51

The word lonely is a weird word Chris, people would not openly admit or be aware of those sensations as being loneliness. Loneliness is almost misconstrued as being this very embarrassing, almost shameful emotional response, right? People don't want to admit that they're lonely. Because when people admit that they're lonely, it almost as an admission of being on mobile, or being or not having the ability or capacity to make meaningful connections with others. That's just simply not the case, when someone feels lonely, it's the equivalent of them feeling hungry. Like when I feel hungry, that's my brains way of saying you need nourishment, like you need to go out, get some food, and replenish, when I feel lonely. That's just my brain's way of saying, You need to forge a connection, like you need to go do something right now, that is gonna give you that sensation of a pull towards another human being. And even though it's that simple, with why those feelings of loneliness kick in, it is a very charged word and a very charged sensation. So what happens is when I talk about loneliness, and I talk about the feelings of social disconnection, and I explain what it is, and why it happens, and I give the science and the research, people lean in and go, Yeah, that's it. Like, I didn't know, that was why I'm feeling the way that I'm feeling. And when we think about loneliness, in the context of work, it's really interesting, because at work, there's all of these connection points that contribute to our feelings of loneliness, there's connection to ourselves, there's connection to our work, you know, colleagues, there's connection to our boss, to the culture, to our clients to the work and how that work makes us feel. So if we look at this spectrum, with all of the different connection points, if there's gaps, and our quotas for some of these points are not being met, I'm gonna go to work feeling like, hey, you know what, something's off. Yeah, I'm not getting the sensations I need with some of these connection points. And people will start to feel removed, disconnected, and not necessarily as tied into the threat of the team or the work as they possibly could.

Chris Rainey 8:59

I love the fact that you brought up the point of, you're helping organisations and leaders by giving them the science and the language to have the conversation. Yeah, because for me, that was a struggle for a long time, I didn't have the words to silence the language, to have a conversation.

Steve 9:17

Part of our goal of writing the book was to de stigmatise, the feeling of loneliness, because it's not shameful. It's just a signal. And when we think about it as a signal, and we think about how amazing loneliness is the feeling of loneliness is incredible, because that is our biological way to make sure that we're connected, that we are giving reminded that hey, like our relationships matter, our community matters, the people we surround ourselves with, and how they make us feel that matters. And if they're not giving me what I need. That's my body's way of saying like, you gotta go figure this out and get it from somewhere else because it's that important to our species, right. It's that important to the success of anybody that we interact with and And when I've reframed how I think about these sensations and how I talk about them, it's pretty powerful. And I'm a big believer that, you know, we are the accumulation of the connections we have in our life,

Chris Rainey 10:13

what are the main things that are driving sort of pervasive levels of loneliness at work? What are some of the major things that you're seeing?

Steve 10:20

There's a few that are really obvious remote work is very much a driving factor. And it's not because remote work in and of itself doesn't allow for feelings of connection to take place. It's because when we're working remotely, and we're communicating through digital mediums, the way in which we communicate is just different. And unless we're really intentional about changing some of the ways we communicate, it typically just doesn't happen in a remote working environment. And we'll talk about the difference between communication and connection. As we get into our session, you said there's different the way we do it, what's an example of that? So when we communicate, usually through zoom at work, our conversations are tactical, we're figuring out who's doing what by when, and where we're solving problems, or coming up with plans for brainstorming, all of the tactical information is frontal lobe processed, that's a part of the brain that is able to register data and information, I feel connected to someone that happens in a totally different part of our brain, the feeling of connection happens when someone feels really listened to and someone feels really interested in when you ask me meaningful questions. And I get the sense that you really care when you provide empathy. So connection requires communication. But it requires way more than the pervasive work communication that we tend to engage in all day long. And if we're going from zoom call to zoom call to zoom call, oftentimes, those opportunities for connection, just aren't there. Whereas if we're together in person, and we're sharing a meal, or we have breaks in between meetings, and we're just sitting around a table, or if I'm bored, and I stand up, and I go talk to someone in their cubicle down the way, that's when we we see more of the like interpersonal connective activities, that now in a remote working environment aren't happening happening organically. So if we're working remote, we have to be really intentional about how do we bake in time to do some of the connective exchanges versus just going from thing to thing to thing, and keeping things really tactical in nature. So that's the difference. Yeah,

Chris Rainey 12:27

you see, a lot of people don't do the will spend five minutes before the meeting saying how are ya? No, I thought you would say that, like, what are your thoughts on that? Yeah, when

Steve 12:37

you do anything, and it comes across as a check in the box, people think this is garbage, just this is BS, I was doing this, because you think we have to, when you are doing things that are really structured, and we know, hey, we're going to spend, let's just say 30 minutes, doing something that is really connective, or we're going to have some kind of a team bonding, or we're just gonna focus on checking in with each other. Like, there's all kinds of things we can do. And we'll get into some of those strategies in a bit. It has to be dedicated time and there has to be intentionality. And it has to mean something. If it's not intentional, and if there's not a real reason behind what you're doing, people are gonna see through the fluff, and they're gonna be like, let's just get on to our meeting, because we're here to do that. Not this.

Chris Rainey 13:23

So if you're going to do it, you're separately separate from the frontal cortex work. Don't don't mix it in the same like everyone out, Nitin. Absolutely. Why no dig. Oh, yeah, check in with a team in the first 510 minutes at a call. And then we jump into the work. And I even I, when I do it myself, with my team, it just feels forced. It feels, I feel and then you're right, you can see everyone's everyone the rooms are saying, Okay, well, I'm gonna get on with the meeting is, which is very

Steve 13:50

different than us saying, hey, once a month, for an hour, we're going to do this exercise, and we're really going to check in and we're gonna go around the room, and we're gonna share where we're winning and where we're having a hard time. There's an activity that I like called boosters and blockers, boosters, and blockers is just opportunities for teams say, where are we winning? Like, what are we really having a lot of success? And then the blockers are we having a really hard time and let's dive deep into why we're having a hard time and for each individual, were you having a hard time and let's talk about these things, and it's really explore. And that dedicated time, which is really just for checking in is a very different sensation than everyone you good? Yeah. How's your weekend? Good? Yeah. Okay. Do you guys do anything fun? No. All right, let's dive into the meeting. That's not connected. Right? It has the opposite effect. Because then what happens is leaders think, Oh, I'm doing these things. Yeah. Like I'm creating opportunities for connection. And if they think they're doing it, they're missing huge opportunities to actually do it correctly. And that's why you know, we see these big gaps. We know that 72% of people feel socially disconnected at work on a monthly basis. This 55% People said they feel socially disconnected. Every single week. 69% of employees say they don't have enough opportunity for social connection at work. And we know three and five employees say that their leaders are not doing a good enough job of trying to build strong community and connectedness within the organisation. So this is something that most people are going to work in like, I'm not getting enough of this, my quota is not being met. Because I'm just working. I'm doing thing after thing after thing. It's not a one off Happy Hour every year. It's not a one off team building retreat. It's not these big things we we do on a very spread out continuum. It's how are we every single month or every single week, doing some of these little things that make a big difference. And that's the key to having a really strongly connected group.

Chris Rainey 15:50

I love boosters and blockers. I'm going to use that. Next, we're going to set up meeting the calendar once a month. That's a really really good idea.

Steve 15:56

And I stole it from Salesforce. Salesforce is one of my clients and they do this boosterism blockers. So now, Salesforce, I steal, you steal from me, that's all coming back to Salesforce, Salesforce, the credit shut out. While I mean, you just take it and run

Chris Rainey 16:12

it on LinkedIn, when we posted a comment, when we when we posted this clip, we would tag them in what some another big thing is that companies can do to strengthen the connection that was at work, one

Steve 16:23

of the big things so one of the reasons why we're seeing with a huge increases in loneliness. And it's one of the big reasons why Gen Z is the loneliest generation on the planet, is because we've seen this massive dependency shift. And dependency shift is this phenomenon where you know, 20 years ago, if I needed help, or if I needed an answer to a question, I had to find a human like someone had to show me now, I don't need anybody, like, I just go on to YouTube, I go on to Google, I go into my LMS I find a course the opportunity to really teach and guide and help and you know, provide some of those opportunities to learn is just gone away. So one of the things that is really connective is when somebody asks somebody else for help, or when somebody asks somebody else, can you show me this? Or hey, you're really good. At A, B and C? Can you give me like 15 minutes to show me how you do that feeling? Like you matter, feeling like you have knowledge and skills that are contributory. Feeling like you know, you're desirable, is really important, and really connective in nature. So one of the things that we talked about in the book, and I talk about when I do workshops with clients is this idea of the significance effect. If I can make you Chris feel really significant by asking for advice, asking for help, saying like, I need you. You're so good at A, B and C, to go do this for me versus saying Chris, can you go do this for me? There's a very different phenomenon. When I am explicitly trying to make you feel like you really matter. And when I make you feel like you matter, that's connective and you're gonna feel good. You're gonna want to be around me. And there's this idea of becoming connectable, right, like someone's likeable. They're easy to get along with when someone's connectable, that easy to connect with. And making somebody else feel good is a very connectable thing to do. So if you think about work, there's lots of opportunities to lean into those significant effect moments and leaders who are really good at that tend to have really close teams with a strong sense of belongingness.

Chris Rainey 18:27

What does that look like? Is it just knowing seeing someone in the flow of work and comment on that? Like, what does that look like?

Steve 18:34

It looks like a whole bunch of things. I encourage my leaders to write letters, there's just something really powerful about taking five minutes to write somebody a letter, and really thinking about the words you want to share with them for why they impressed you, or why they did something exceptional. It looks like stopping someone and giving them very, very honest feedback. Say what you just did was amazing. And here's why it was amazing. And here's why you need to know that this is amazing. versus saying Good job well done. That was great. Be specific that we tend to speak. Yeah, we speak in superlatives. And we tend to think like, oh, yeah, I think my team, I tell them good job all the time. That's very different than having a one on one moment with someone to say, Chris, I really am impressed with how you just did this really specific thing. Significance is really like making sure that people understand the value and the impact of their work. And it's really clear, and leaders don't spend enough time diving a little bit deeper into what their people are doing to give them that feedback. And it's a big deal. The other thing that you know, significance effect you can do is I love having either weekly or monthly, the term is kind of cheesy, so you can change the term but they're called crushes. And the idea is every week or every month, the team gets together and they crush one another. I want to recognise Chris because this week he really wanted above and beyond with this client, I want to thank Jessica because she was amazing this week with this, this and this and Mariah, man, thank you Mariah for doing. And when you can get the team members to recognise each other and make each other feel really good and you know, crushed that makes them feel good and significant, right. So that takes 30 minutes, and you can do it once a week or once a month. And it's those little things that's intentional. Okay, we're going to do our weekly crush, who wants to share something really great about something

Chris Rainey 20:31

that we should do? And we're going to say it right now we're going to post this clip on LinkedIn. And everyone's going to be hearing this right now on LinkedIn, on LinkedIn right now when you watch this video, recognise someone in the chat below, crush them, crush them. I want everyone to comment below tagging, tagging your colleagues, friends right now on LinkedIn, and something you're going to recognise them for. Let's see how many how many crushes we can create right now on LinkedIn. 1 million crommelin. Witness Louis we call an hour right now right we make Miss might be a viral video.

Steve 21:01

Now. Crush million crush.

Chris Rainey 21:03

We want 1 million crushes in the comments. Who

Steve 21:05

do you want to recognise sooner? Who's important to you? Something awesome that you want to call out? Let's crush them.

Chris Rainey 21:10

Amazing. Yeah, I'm really excited to see everyone live and make sure you mark that as a clip. But the episode that I know I love about all the things that you're sharing. These aren't expensive, like, like, these are very simple things to do, but have huge impact. Oh, no, it's

Steve 21:30

interesting. So like, we go back to soccer, my oldest is six. And I'm coaching her soccer team. And it's like a train wreck. It's a real,

Chris Rainey 21:39

I kind of imagined my daughter five. So

Steve 21:41

our six right. So as a coach as a bunch of six year olds, I've noticed because I pay attention to the stuff. When someone on the team does something really exceptional. Like I had practice yesterday and one of the girls on the team tournament Sloane and Sloane had this really, really nice play. And I said Sloane that was amazing. Like that was amazing. And I saw her face light up. Like she knew that that message meant something. But all practice long as it girls Yeah, good job. Hey, way to go. That was great. Totally different, right? A totally different response when I say it like that. And one of the things that was really cool when we were writing our book is we came across this study that found two people can have what's called a restorative exchange, like me and you are together. And we feel really good after this exchange, where our connection quota is both have been increased, we leave with a increased level of happiness and our vibration level is higher than it was before we had this exchange. And what they found is two people can have this experience in less than 40 seconds. 40 seconds. That's all it takes for me and you to share a moment together and for you to leave the moment feel like oh yeah, he like I feel good. Like, that guy just made me feel good. Standing in line at the grocery store. Anytime anybody says anything about my kids, like, Hey, your kids are really well behaved or man, your two year old, she's so cute. One little comment makes me feel amazing. And seen and appreciated. And we don't do that enough. Because we got our noise cancelling headphones in, we're on our phones, we're not paying attention. And at work, there's all these little opportunities to really acknowledge, right? Sure laughs Your smile, say something nice. And that continuously is what fuels a lot of the levels of connection.

Chris Rainey 23:34

You mentioned vibration level, I always jump into that. Because that's something that I have been obsessed with for a while. I'm not a religious person. But I definitely feel like the energy that I put out there massively dictates what I attract.

Steve 23:51

There are these things in our brains called mirroring neurons. And mirroring neurons are designed for us to get in sync with other people, right? So like, if you look really angry, my mirroring neurons are gonna say, Ooh, like he's angry, and it's gonna cause me to feel some of your anger. Or if I'm laughing and I'm really happy and you hear me and see me laugh, what do you do? Even if you don't know why I'm laughing, you get this sensation of like, oh, I should laugh also. So what happens is the emotions that we're emitting are very contagious. And if I'm around people who are emitting connective emotions and are happy and are trying to pull me in, and are smiling at me or saying nice things, we're both going to leave that exchange, amplifying each other's vibrations. And that's what I mean when I say vibration. I don't have like a measurement or some kind of like a technical Yeah, but there there is something to it. And I do my best whenever I interact with anybody to come in with as high of a vibration as possible, and I smile a lot and I do my best to like, really lean in to the conversation that I'm having and recognise any opportunity. I can when I'm with people that I can feel it like it's amazing to

Chris Rainey 24:59

present Like, there's quite a few people in my life that I immediately think of when you said that Chester Owen is one happy guy, when I hear when I speak to him is his level of overreach. And he's like, I don't, I'm smiling now just talking about him. You know, for sure you're smiling, just thinking because we both know his personality and how he is Donald Knight, if you're listening right now, Chief HR officer of a greenhouse software, whenever he walks in the room, you just feel this energy lifts the whole room. And this and immediately, just like to your point, like everyone just sort of gets energised by that, and it kind of creates a different dynamic. But the same goes for the opposite, though, right? There was a point where my team said to me, and I had to take that feedback, because sometimes we don't know who's gonna walk in the door in the morning, Chris, is it gonna be the happy energised? Chris? Or is it gonna be really stressed out? You know, upset, Chris, and Amelie affects the entire mood of the entire team? And everyone? individually? Here's the

Steve 25:54

thing, Chris, like, it's not fair. And it's not realistic to think everybody is going to be at a 10 Every day, I understand that. Yeah, you know, and there is something really connective, if you show up feeling whatever overwhelmed, stressed, exhausted, and you lean into that, and say, Guys, Rough night, last night, or rough week, this week, right? He's had this really brutal exchange with the client. And here's what's going on. All of those moments, also super connected, because you're being what most people would consider vulnerable, not in the sense where you're having to share all these really, you know, painful memories or experiences, but you're just able to be really open and raw and genuine and honest. And that is connective also. You know, I get I get oftentimes feedback when I do my workshops, people being like, a lot of your strategies are only for extroverts. And I'm like, No, they're not. We tend to introverts oftentimes think that when I'm explaining things, only extroverts can do them. But then when I break down some of the strategies, and I say you, can you do this? Can you like, help make somebody feel significant? Yeah, I can do that. Like, clarity is really important for connection. If people feel like they're wandering, and they're lost at work, that's disconnected. Who do I turn to? Where do I go? I'm not sure what to do. That sensation is disconnecting. So leaders were really good at being clear in the messages, checking and following up giving feedback. Introverts can do that, really well. You know, there's a lot of these things that we don't have to be these big personalities to be connectable, we just have to be mindful of how we're treating people, how we're making them feel, and how we're showing up in those moments.

Chris Rainey 27:27

I love that. I love the fact that you brought up the point of those moments of me feeling overwhelmed in the past, I thought by sharing it, it'd be a negative outcome. But to your point, I realised it's actually the opposite. So I so now I've been more vocal with the team literally, last week, there was a day where I had like, two hours sleep because my daughter was unwell. And I knew I had two podcasts that morning and all that and I just message the team and was like, I just can't, like, in the past, I would have just soldiered through, I wouldn't have told anyone and I would just, you know, it would win. And everyone's like, okay, Chris is really struggling, but he doesn't want to say anything, because I thought that was what you did, as a leader, you, you showed it your strength and your push through, but I was like, Okay, this is doing a lot more damage. And, and the moment I started saying to the team, like, Okay, I'm not feeling great, or like this right, and be communicating, they stepped up and they helped me and they also come to me when they're feeling that way. Now,

Steve 28:23

there's oftentimes this misconception on what people think vulnerability is people think vulnerability is this requirement where I have to, like, open up the closet and tell you all have my deepest, darkest secrets, or I have to cry. If I'm crying, and really omitting a lot of emotion, then I'm being vulnerable. That's not vulnerability. It could be. But vulnerability can be as simple as saying like, I don't know. Yeah, I'm not sure we do. I need help. There is one of my favourite books is called the culture code. I'm not sure if you've read Daniel coils book, the culture code, and the three elements that he says are essential for really strongly connected cultures. One of them is leaders ability to be vulnerable. And he gives this example of the leader of Seal Team Six, right and Seal Team Six, high quality Navy SEAL military group, and the leader of that group is incredibly vulnerable. By being able to say, Guys, I'm not sure that's his line, I'm not sure what do you tell me like, I need help give me some of your ideas. Like we need to figure this out together. That's vulnerability versus a leader be like, here's what we do. Command and control. You do this, you do this, you do this,

Chris Rainey 29:30

even when, when you're unsure, which is crazy. I had this similar moment during the pandemic, where, obviously, we lost 90% of our revenue. We had a meeting, everyone was looking at me for the answers. And that was my answer. I don't know. Like, we're gonna forget it together. I don't know. And it was really hard. Like, I didn't sleep the whole night. I was like, I can't believe I'm coming to the team saying I don't have a plan. You know, they're, they're relying on me, their families are relying on me. I don't want to stress and I was like, Okay, I just got to be honest and walk in the room. Say, I don't have a plan. But yeah, together we can. And that's probably one of most powerful. Out of that came this whole business.

Steve 30:08

There's this really cool book it's called Influence is your superpower. And Zoe chances the woman who wrote it, she's a professor at Yale, and she's really smart. And oftentimes, when we think about influencing others, we think about how are we going to be convincing, persuasive? How are we going to get the words right, in order for them to go? Yep, I want to do what he's asking me to do. And in the book, she says, influence is oftentimes most powerful. When you ask what she calls the magic question. The magic question is, what would it take? Like, if I want you to go do something instead of me telling you what you should do? If I say, hey, what would it take for us to do XYZ? Or what would it take for you to achieve this, this and this? And by asking that question, it does a lot of things, right? Like it gets us into problem solving mode, it gets realistic ideas on the table, and gives off the impression that this can be done. And I'm not having to convince you of anything. You're giving me the little bit of, you know, breadcrumbs, and then I can pick them up and help guide the conversation to where it needs to go. And you did something like that, too. Like, what would it take? Like, what how are we going to get from here, and this really awful pandemic written, our business just blew up to wherever we're gonna go. When people can rally behind that and feel contributory. Man, that's connective.

Chris Rainey 31:29

Listen, before I let you go, we didn't even name the name of the book. So firstly, give the book a shout out like, what was the name of the book? Where can people grab a copy of your book? And then also, where can they connect with you? If they want to reach out? The book is

Steve 31:41

called connectible. How leaders can move teams from isolated to all in, it's all over the place. Right? So it's on Amazon, it's in Barnes and Nobles. You can listen to the audiobook on Audible. It's very accessible. You just type in connectable book, the best place to connect with me is LinkedIn. So Steven van Cohen, I'm pretty easy to find. The website I'm going to recommend you go to is not a dating site. It's called less lonely.com. Less lonely.com is where you go. Again, this is for all things, workplace connection. This isn't a dating profile place, but less lonely.com has videos and articles and all kinds of stuff from our book and some really good resources to help figure it out. How do we take our team's level of connectedness and enhance it to the nth degree? So that's where people can connect with me.

Chris Rainey 32:27

Amazing, man. Well, listen, I'm so happy we connected on that point, and I'm super excited to get the book into the hands of all of the HR leaders that listen to the show. And I think the impact is going to have on them and their teams and globally, that ripple effect is going to be huge. So I appreciate you for all of the work that you're doing. And I wish you all the best until next week.

Steve 32:47

Appreciate you Chris. Thank you