Connection in the workplace is commonly thought of as a single dimension that prioritizes interpersonal relationships with co-workers. A recent collaboration between NLI and Akamai Technologies exploring the science of connection reveals there's much more to clarify about connections at work — and that's exactly what we'll do during this learning event.
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Shelby Wilburn: Welcome back to another week of your brain at work. Live! I'm your host, Shelby Wilburn. We took a break for a few weeks to host our annual summit, and it was a major success. And now we're here again for our regulars. We're happy to have you back, and for newcomers welcome. We're excited to have you here with us today. For the 1st time in this episode we'll explore a recent collaboration between Nli and Akamai technologies exploring the science of connection, and diving deeper into the research behind strengthening connections in the workplace.
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Shelby Wilburn: Now, as I quickly share some housekeeping notes, drop in the comments where you're joining in from today.
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Shelby Wilburn: we are recording today's session. So if you're interested in a replay, be on the lookout for an email later today, that email is going to include a survey for feedback as well as a number of resources aligned with today's conversation. And we suggest putting your phone on. Do not disturb quitting out of your email and messaging apps. So you can really get the most out of today's discussion. And it's also going to help with your audio and video quality, and lastly, we love interaction. So feel free to share your thoughts and comments with us in the chat. Now it's time to introduce our speakers for today.
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Shelby Wilburn: Our guest for today is a researcher at the Neuro Leadership Institute, where she helps clients achieve goals through targeted research and measurement design. Prior to joining Nli, she applied inclusion, research to develop leader tools to improve military force, readiness. She holds a master's of public health and a Phd. In community psychology, a warm welcome to our research team's subject matter, expert on diversity, equity and inclusion at Nli, Dr. Bridget Lynn. Thanks for being here today, Bridget.
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: Find it. Thank you, Shelby.
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Shelby Wilburn: Of course.
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Shelby Wilburn: and our moderator for today holds a Phd. In neuroscience from New York University. She leads the research team at the Neuro Leadership Institute, where she focuses on translating cognitive and social neuroscience into actionable solutions for organizations. A warm welcome to the senior Director of Research at Nli. Dr. Emma Saro. Thanks for being here today, Emma and I will pass it over to you.
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Dr. Emma Sarro: Thanks, Shelby. Well, hello, everyone! And Hi, Bridget, I'm so excited to be here with you. This is, I think, our 1st session together in the 3 years that both of us have been here, which is pretty wild.
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: I know I'm excited, too.
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Dr. Emma Sarro: Yeah, yeah, so welcome back. It's been a few weeks since everyone has been here. And for many of you. Hopefully, you joined us at our yearly summit. If you were there and saw any of the sessions, we'd love to hear your thoughts in the chat as well. We had so many great discussions. We had amazing speakers, and a lot of, you know, level 4 and 5 insights, I think, and hope. And hopefully. One of the topics we did cover.
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Dr. Emma Sarro: And we've written about this as well is our work in understanding the ways that we feel connected in our job. The many ways, and this is something that's been a bit of an Aha moment for all of us as we've dove into the research. And Dr. Bridget Lynn has been the primary one here, diving into the research. She is our subject matter, expert in all things connections, and has done many more things beyond just the research. And so this is what
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Dr. Emma Sarro: we'll be talking about today. It's an incredibly important topic, and still is, I can bring in so many current states of work where we could argue that building these connections could really help
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Dr. Emma Sarro: cover and solve for so anything from the quiet, quitting issues that we had last year, where statistics suggested, around 60% of individuals were really just doing the bare minimum in their job, essentially completely disengaged. Where anywhere, from 23 to 33% of individuals, or only 23 to 33% were engaged globally.
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Dr. Emma Sarro: which is a real issue, real problem to work. To understand. Another recent statistic suggested that about 51% of employees, even at the workplace, are looking for something better looking for those greener pastures while they're at work so clearly disengaged from the role that they're playing currently. And then the consistent return to office conflict that seems to keep
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Dr. Emma Sarro: keep keep rearing its horrible head every few months or so. But yeah, that's another issue. And and all of these things. And I would suggest that all of these things could be solved, for by understanding how to strengthen the connections we have in the workplace.
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Dr. Emma Sarro: And the one thing that I just want to, you know, toss over to Bridget just at a high level. And in your initial research, what did you see thinking about building these connections? What did you see
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Dr. Emma Sarro: doing so would help solve for.
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: Yeah. And
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: so one thing that's interesting to me about connections is that there's a power for connections to influence outcomes across multiple levels. So we're talking across individuals, teams and organizations. So even at the individual level, you see things with strong connections, an increase in job satisfaction. You see greater
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: physical and mental well-being and increase in memory and focus.
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: At the team level, you really start to see that people are building trust, and that allows them also to be more agile, and adapt faster, and this often leads to higher performance over a longer period of time.
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: and then also at the organizational level, which I think is is really where we try to impact, is that you see lower turnover rates and higher organizational commitment. You see higher engagement with employees.
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: better performance and people interacting together better, which leads to higher innovation and more learning. Because there's this openness among people. So in general, I think, looking at connections in the workplace provides a really powerful lens to say, how are people connected, and what is? What are those connections influencing in the workplace.
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Dr. Emma Sarro: Yeah, I think that's great. And and when I think about connection, you know, I immediately think about the human connection. And I know from from our understanding of the brain and humans that we've evolved to connect and and be associated with others, and, you know, find our group essentially and always look for that right? We've talked about this so many times, and I would love to really invite. We love chats right? We love interacting with you all. So
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Dr. Emma Sarro: if you especially if this is the 1st time hearing about our research on connections, the 1st thing that comes to mind when you think about workplace connections. What is it? What's the 1st word that comes to mind? And and for those that have heard us talk about it, what would you think? What have you been thinking about? As you've been kind of, you know, like mulling our connections
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Dr. Emma Sarro: clear model around. And I see a lot of chats coming in. What are you thinking about these coming in, Bridget? Love.
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: Yeah, I know. I thought that was interesting to me. Love. And so psychological safety trust. You know, and and belonging and
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: what I think about those is, yes, and I think yes and so a lot of times when we think about connection, we immediately think about like how we connect with our colleagues at work.
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: and what our research actually found when we were digging in is that there are 4 types of connection at work. So the traditional kind of and that's where our clear model comes in. Right? So the C being colleague. And that's that traditional connection we think about. It's
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: how you connect with people that belongingness piece that trust piece. Yeah, thanks, Emma, exactly. And then the L is leader. So Emma put clear in. The thing. So colleague is the CL. Is leader, and that's that connection between managers, employees to their managers, their supervisors, and their senior leaders.
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: And then E, which is employer. And that's the connection people have to the organization they're working with. And we're going to go through what each of these like, what indicators are, and what's the neuroscience behind each one? But I just want to kind of introduce those. And then you have R. The day to day work you do. Which is your role. So again, it's clear colleague, leader, employer.
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: and role connection. And what's interesting is that all 4 types of these connections are linked with how engaged and motivated we are in the work environment, which is what we were seeing coming up in the chat, and it is a little bit hard to pull them apart.
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: even though there are overlapping aspects. We also have found that each connection also has unique aspects. And so that is just like how they show up the underlying neuroscience and what outcomes that they're influencing. And so I think that's been a really interesting part of our research.
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Dr. Emma Sarro: Yeah, absolutely. Because I can imagine that when we're able to pull them apart because they are while overlapping, they are distinct pieces that might engage us, or disengage us in different ways, that we can then maybe add a little bit to one or the other, and you know what's coming up for me as I'm hearing you speak about this and thinking about the that, the 51% of individuals who are currently looking for something else.
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Dr. Emma Sarro: I think many of us have been in this situation at that, you know, thinking about, you know, there's something, maybe off about where I am right now, and maybe I'm not getting something, and I can't put my finger on it. But I'm not going. I'm not going to necessarily leave so easily, because I really love my team, or I really love my leader. I just love. I love what this organization does in the world. But there's something missing. And I think what we
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Dr. Emma Sarro: essentially built out is and started to understand is where where that push and pull comes from, and that there are these different pieces. And you, you really do need to have a satisfaction of all of these to really feel embedded and engaged within the role that you're playing, that there and then this speaks a little bit to while. We won't talk too much about the scarf model. It speaks a little bit to that as well is that there are these different
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Dr. Emma Sarro: drivers or levers that you can pull to, you know, increase engagement and work and collaboration. All of those great things that we need in the workplace.
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: Yeah, absolutely. It allows you to take kind of that more nuanced view of what's happening with connections. And when you're able to see that there's these certain patterns or variations that are happening. It provides you like an initial kind of indicator of where investment of resources might pay off the most so I and it provides everybody with this kind of common language.
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: as well of how to discuss connections and and connections is similar to the scarf model which we'll talk about are about the context, right? They're dynamic. It's not just. You have this one thing, and it never changes. No, it changes. And so, being aware of what might be influencing you at any given moment, is important for shaping your own experience.
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Dr. Emma Sarro: Yeah, absolutely. So I think, let's just talk about this and talk about the research that we've been building and starting with the 1st one, maybe the the one that you know. I would have initially thought as being the connection which is with your your teammate, your colleague. What does that look like?
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: Absolutely. And so
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: the colleague connection, as you mentioned, is probably most familiar to people, and it's often studied as social connection, and focuses on how colleagues support each other professionally and personally, and our research indicated that there are other components
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: in addition to support that are very important, and that includes opportunities to collaborate and how people's work really depends on each other. So that's that piece of task interdependence.
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: What I do influences what you do and what you do influences what I do, and we can't make a really powerful complete
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: product or achieve a goal without each other's work. And that's that interdependence thing which psi actually feel like that with you. So I love working with you. And so, colleague connection definitely strong there. But also this. This piece of the support and interdependence and collaboration are strongest when people communicate and I'm gonna throw it over to you because a lot
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: that has to do with neurosynchrony. And I'm just wondering from your perspective, how does neurosynchrony kind of play into calling connection.
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Dr. Emma Sarro: Yeah, and I and I will say you stole the words right out of my mouth. I was thinking the same thing. I feel like very strongly connected on the colleague level with you, with many other levels.
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: Right, yeah.
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Dr. Emma Sarro: And I see our distinct roles, and I can see how we can collaborate together. And so I I can see personally the benefit of having a really strong colleague connection. And I can see that across my whole team as well. But neurosynchrony is a really interesting area of research, and I think it speaks very well to this connection. And it. And it's recently been getting a bit more attention because we can actually record it. So essentially what neurosynchrony is is
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Dr. Emma Sarro: is the synchronized electrical activity across brains of individuals working together. So our brains actually synchronize a bit when we're working together, when we're looking at the same story when we're communicating and when we're learning from each other. And it's been kind of recorded and looked at in different contexts. So a lot of times it's been looked at in the education context. So
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Dr. Emma Sarro: how synchronized our students with their teacher when they're learning. You can see this synchronization, and that predicts learning, and it also predicts shared understanding. And and so when when Bridget and I work together and we're collaborating, I'm sure that even across in a virtual environment. Our brains are synchronized a bit, and that indicates that we
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Dr. Emma Sarro: understand each other. We have a shared understanding, shared expectations, and and it leads to more collaboration, and there are so many, so many things that have been linked to that. But I would imagine that when you are satisfied on that level when you're working as a team, your brains are a bit synchronized.
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Dr. Emma Sarro: and it feels good, and it's been linked to all sorts of things like pro-social behavior, and the social brain areas are a bit more engaged and involved in in this environment. But I would say that that when you have better or higher neural synchrony. Your team is, is aligned, and you probably feel that strong, that strong connection. And yes, Liz, the electrical activity
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Dr. Emma Sarro: involves just like higher level brain activity. You can record it with an Eeg cap, and that's how they're recording it across like brains of many, many individuals and their brains in the same room. And so we're seeing how cool this is, and how this is kind of like a new new opening of research that were not me personally. But those researchers are uncovering. It's really fascinating.
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Dr. Emma Sarro: And there are all sorts of ways that individuals are are looking at this and and really interesting question coming in from.
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: Yeah, I saw that.
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Dr. Emma Sarro: Does do unconscious biases play a role in this connection? What would both.
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: Absolutely. I mean, when it comes to people interacting together. The answer to that question in my mind is, yes, and I think it's an important piece of reflecting on. Who am I interacting with? Why am I interacting with certain people over and over again? Who do I listen to the most. And I and I definitely think, when you're critically reflecting on your colleague connection, absolutely, that should be a part of it.
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: That also goes alongside of Rob's question is, is, yeah, like, when you're
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: connecting with people more often and more frequently, your neurosynchrony is going to be higher as well as your task, interdependence and the support of each other just because of that natural way of things coming together, and that this the connection between
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: what you're doing on a day to day basis, and who you're working with. So yeah, I think those are all critical pieces to be looking at.
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Dr. Emma Sarro: Yeah. And I'm I'm imagining that you can work on that, too. And you can work on your communication. And it can change over time. So that's definitely I, I can really see how that can that can support teamwork. And and just like that, that sense of connection with your with your team? Yeah, a lot of amazing questions coming in. I'm not.
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Dr. Emma Sarro: I'm not sure, Eric. If these connections differ across in person versus remote. I mean, I I would say, from personal experience. Our company is completely virtual, and I feel a a very strong colleague connection with so many people that that we work with, so I can imagine that it. I would predict that
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Dr. Emma Sarro: it isn't. I could be wrong, and it's a great thing to study.
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: Yeah. And we will talk a little bit about this initial data we have, we have a few sources of data. And what I would say is, we're exactly what I'm saying. We're not completely sure yet, but there are some trends that we're gonna talk about. For sure.
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Dr. Emma Sarro: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So let's let's go on to the next one, the leader relationship. Because because I think my 1st thought before going into the research is, oh, well, do I like my leader? And is that enough? Or do I have shared understanding? So it how is that different.
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: I I think you're absolutely right. A lot of times people think about
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: is my leader, somebody I like, and I think there's so much more to that right? We have. These leader connections is a very important connection within the workplace, and we dug into Leader Member Exchange research, so to help inform us and guide us. And essentially leader member. Exchange theory
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: is a research model that helps us deeply examine the quality of relationships between leaders and their followers, and how that
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: critical relationship influences outcomes. And when it comes to connection, we actually identified 3 important aspects that influence that leader member relationship quality. So the quality of that relationship and the 3 things are autonomy.
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: communication and access to opportunity. And just in general, the idea is that, regardless of whether or not someone likes their leader as a person, the relationship also has to feel important and valuable to me as an employee, and I think that is a really important part of that leader connection.
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Dr. Emma Sarro: Yeah, absolutely. And what's coming up for me is, and this is something we talk about so often is is how powerful the sense of feeling valued is kind of linked to the sense of relatedness like my leader, cares about me, but I think more strongly here is that
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Dr. Emma Sarro: my leader values me on this team. My leader values my role and what I'm producing, and that is so powerful in the brain, I mean, it's as powerful and maybe even more so than receiving a salary. Let's say it is your brain tracks that sense that I am valued here. My work is valued, and that, and the more you feel that the more likely you're going to be engaging in that work and leaning in.
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Dr. Emma Sarro: and also the sense of autonomy, I mean having having a choice in how you in anything, and this can be something that the leader can decide to provide in different ways. So how are you as a leader providing autonomy to your team? And do they feel like they have a bit of control over how I'm getting my work done, how I'm reaching my goals like, how am I setting up my day and and
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Dr. Emma Sarro: And in in all of that access to to opportunities for the day to day, and in the future, you know.
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: The future.
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Dr. Emma Sarro: A role.
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: Absolutely, and I see a few questions coming in. And susan actually answered a question with the question. So the 3 things were autonomy, communication and access to opportunity. And so I align those with feeling valued because autonomy is I have the ability to complete my work in a way that
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: I feel best. There is a piece of like expertise in there. Additionally, I think that the valued part is when I have access to opportunities, and I am chosen for key development and opportunities. And I get that information. There really is that sense of I am valued here. People want me to invest. I'm being invested in.
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: And I think that's where the value piece definitely comes in. And I see some things about sense of purpose which we're getting to. So I'll keep on moving and talk about then the next
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: type of connection, which is really the employer connection and that is how we connect with our employer. It's about alignment. So what is the alignment between the employer and employee values? How do those values really align with the organizational mission or vision
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: and the alignment between everyday work employees engage in, and how much it contributes to the achievement of the organizational goal. So really, in the end. Employer connection is about the why people do what they do and matching it with an outlet for how to get it done effectively. So this is that piece of I am contributing to the world
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: in some way, because this organization holds these values. And my work then connects to those values. And when I'm talking about all that, what kind of comes up for you, Emma.
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Dr. Emma Sarro: Yeah, absolutely. And and the sense of purpose relates really well with this, because it is this higher level kind of higher, construal level of of why your individual, why and does it align with what the organization is doing? And it's just. It is something that for years research has shown that, having a sense of purpose individually, can increase the likelihood of action towards some goal, and reaching that purpose, and in driving forward like continued forward movement.
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Dr. Emma Sarro: and having, you know, a sense of, and I'm losing my train of thought, but being able to get up when grit and all of that resilience. Those are the words I'm thinking of, and and in the face of challenges having a sense of purpose allows you to achieve all of those things. And and when it in this case, when that sense of purpose agrees with the mission of the organization.
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Dr. Emma Sarro: how the organization is working in the world, that that increases that connection. If there is a disconnection there, you might just not necessarily always choose to do the work towards your organization, because you don't see that the value there, and and you might be a bit more disengaged, and we'll talk about those. You know. What are the different kind of markers of a lost connection. But
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Dr. Emma Sarro: but this is really more of like a high, level, individual value system and sense of purpose
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Dr. Emma Sarro: that aligns with that higher mission of an organization.
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: Yeah. And I think that it really comes down to this piece of reflection that we're. You know, we're seeing a lot. It's it's a a trend for people to say.
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: we spend a lot of time at work, we invest ourselves in work. And so we want to make sure that our investments are contributing somehow to a greater good right. And so people are looking to make sure that their personal values are aligned with their organizational values more often, and I think it gives work really that sense of of meaning and fulfillment. And exactly like you said.
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: when you get in the grind you have the like kind of motivation to say, I'm doing this for a reason, and you can connect to that. Why.
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: yeah.
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Dr. Emma Sarro: Absolutely. And I, yeah, I kind of think it's it's something that's been coming up more and more often. And I wonder if maybe the more people reflect on this and talk about it, the more people question themselves. And so I do see this as an increased conversation.
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: Yeah, I do, too. And you know, there's this that's kind of like the higher purpose piece and and connected in that which is, you know, part of the overlapping piece is that
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: your day to day work matters in how you're able to kind of express those values and how they contribute to the achievement of the mission and the goals. And and that's kind of within that last connection of of role connection. And that's how an individual relates to their workplace role responsibility and tasks.
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: And this is really about
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: how we find motivation, and satisfaction in our work. It really includes and how well we understand what we are and aren't responsible for what's expected of us and the ways we can grow and develop in the positions that we hold. And really all of these
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: are about clarity. And clarity just at a basic level means that something's easy to understand, with little need for interpretation and
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: clarity helps provide that aspect of certainty which really starts sending reward signals and helps. People engage in a way that allows them to use their cognitive energy in the work they're doing versus navigating relationships.
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: And this is something we were talking a little bit about. You know, in our preparation of of what does this mean when people have this kind of motivation? And and how they kind of reflect on what they do every day? And and how does that relate to that role connection.
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Dr. Emma Sarro: Yeah, yeah, this is, it's a tough one, because but I but I think we can all relate to this. I mean, when you think about the role that you're playing. Do you see, you know, able? Are you seeing your role as matching? How you view yourself like? What is your ideal sense of self. And are you working towards that? And and is your ideal sense of self in that role, or a role that you can move into. And
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Dr. Emma Sarro: and if that there is that alignment and the clarity helps with being able to see that and not have to be on, you know, have any uncertainty about what am I doing, and how does my day to day match that sense of ideal self? And there's plenty of research showing that when individuals
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Dr. Emma Sarro: are working towards a goal. If that goal achieves some kind of ideal sense of self, they're more likely to choose that task to get there to reach that goal than if they and if it doesn't match that, so it's a bit more of a maybe deeper level of control than than kind of like the employer, the organizational level. This is, you know, what am I doing in my role? And do I feel like my
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Dr. Emma Sarro: role matches? How I view myself.
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: Yeah, which which I think is important, right? We spend so much time at
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: at work. And you know, I hear all the time like work work doesn't define who you are. And my response always is. Yes, and right, because we spend so much time at work that I think it is an important defining environment of our life. And and for me personally, it's difficult to separate out that like, because I invest a lot of my myself in my job. And so I think that alignment is an important piece.
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Dr. Emma Sarro: Yeah, so many great comments coming in. I love this one from Michael that talked about working remotely. And how do you feel when you come face to face with people that you've worked with remotely, and I mean, I will know just from experience. It is building that connection virtually is enough to feel like you've already had that collaboration. I feel like it's just as easy to collaborate in person after you've built the connection.
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: Virtually
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: I I totally agree with that, and and I will use our example like we. We didn't meet for the longest time right?
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: And then I was going to a wedding close to where Emma lives. And it's hysterical, really, because I came with my entire family. I felt like I had been like meeting with Emma in person forever. I introduced her to my like 96 year old, Aunt Mary. Like my brothers, my sister, my mom like, and Emma was just there in the crowd, and we were
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: drinking coffee, and it was it was awesome, and it didn't feel as if it were the 1st time I was meeting you up for sure.
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Dr. Emma Sarro: Right? Yeah, we started right from. So it didn't have to. We didn't have to start from scratch to build that that.
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: Yeah.
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Dr. Emma Sarro: I would say.
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: Exactly. Now do I love in person hugs absolutely. I think it is a great part, and it's like being strategic about when you come together and bring people in, and I think that is a part of the conversation we've been having with the return to office is that
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: when you are not considering all of these connections, you can misstep right? So there is, join in person, and if we force in person, sometimes we are neglecting some of the other connections that are important to people. And it's not a 1. Size fits all.
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Dr. Emma Sarro: Right, absolutely. And I think that really leads really nicely to the next. So we've talked about. You know what each of these connections may look like how it really engages the brain. But but I think, and we're going to lead. There eventually is. Sometimes we're not getting all of those connections met well enough or satisfied enough. So what does that look like? What could each of these, you know, disconnected connections look like in the workplace? How would it show up.
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: Yeah, I think
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: for me when I think about colleague connection. And if that is a connection that is not being fulfilled with someone for someone. I think they would feel the sense of kind of isolation. They may feel a sense of
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: competition with the people they're working with versus this piece of cooperation of us working together means we're making something better. And instead, you might see, like a Us. Versus them, like, I need to get the credit for this versus the we part of it. In leader connection. If that is not a connection that's being fulfilled. I see that kind of coming out in disparity of opportunities. Right? So
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: people feeling as if only certain people get opportunities. I also think there would be a bit of kind of disgruntled rumbling amongst employees.
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: possibility about like favoritism or something like that for employer connection, I would imagine, if that is not being fulfilled, you would see a really strong sense of disengagement, and possibly that feeling of people just kind of clocking in and clocking out, and not that degree of investment and motivation
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: and then, if role status role connection weren't met
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: or fulfilled, I think you would see low job satisfaction. And basically, people don't like what they do and so you would not see a lot of growth and innovation and creativity, because people wouldn't want to kind of invest themselves in that.
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Dr. Emma Sarro: Yeah, yeah, I mean, I'm this is really hitting hard for me. I think that reflecting on previous jobs and things like that, what was kind of missing. You can kind of see each of these
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Dr. Emma Sarro: pieces really coming out, and I'm sure it's hitting home for a lot of individuals as well, which brings us to. How would we even find this out? Right? So this is a really important thing to kind of pull apart. And we saw that as we started diving into the research, and as you were promised, we are going to be talking about this assessment that Bridget really was the mastermind behind. So I'd love for you to give us just
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Dr. Emma Sarro: a brief overview of this relationship, and then and how we built it. And then we'll talk about what we've been finding.
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: Absolutely. And so this idea started at last year's summit. Which is also just another shout out of why coming together at Summit is so important. So Khalil Smith, who is at Akamai and our CEO. David Rock sat down and had this conversation about connections, and Khalil said, hey? I'm I'm noticing
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: that people are talking a lot about connection at work. And what does that mean? And and I, Khalil said, I started talking to people like. What do you mean by connection when you say you're wondering about connection, what comes to mind? And it was not only that kind of social connection piece, but also the organizational and somewhat of
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: the role. And so Khalil came to us. And I started working with him and really dove into the research. And that's where we saw that 4th
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: piece of connection come up as that leader piece which is actually bit different than the organizational one. So you know it was just really going into the research talking to Khalil, talking to people at Akamai talking to amongst our research team. And then we said, All right. These are the 4 types of connection. And
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: and why we think this, we justified it with all of our research. And so we from there generated items for an assessment, and when we did that we then did a subject matter expert review, and then we did a pilot with the refined measure, and that pilot led to deep data analysis, and we
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: refined the scale and the wording and made it crisp and clean. And now we have a validated measure that we are doing a little bit more validation work. But it's really anchored in not only like existing research, but also in our like rigorous methodology and our ability to say, Hey, this is unique from existing constructs, like psychological
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: safety. We know that there is a relationship there. But our data showing us that actually, it's a bit different. So it can add to the explanation. And so that's kind of where we are. We've got a few initial sources of data, and we're looking to kind of begin this collaborative relationship with people to say, Hey, this is a really useful, rigorous, validated
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: measure that can help with organizational discovery.
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Dr. Emma Sarro: Yeah, absolutely. And I know this is really leading to us, you know, looking at what what did these kinds of assessments mean? And I, and I'm sure that individuals out there are imagining well, what would it show for me? Maybe already predicting? And I would love to hear, maybe in the chat
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Dr. Emma Sarro: where you think maybe you're not getting like super fulfillment in each of these connections like, where do you predict you might you might be missing out on? Or do you feel completely fulfilled across all 4 connections? And I can imagine, though, that if an organization was to look at this, that the culture within that organization that, like the one, the culture that it creates, can have a huge
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Dr. Emma Sarro: impact on what the assessment would show. So if all employees took it that culture is going to dictate what the assessment shows. So it's likely to be context dependent. And with that in mind, we do have some of this early data that Bridget is mentioning from a single organization and keeping in mind that this, what she's going to share is really not suggesting anything about other organizations. But this is a single organization. So
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Dr. Emma Sarro: really telling them, you know, what do we need? What could we maybe change? And what what are we doing? Well?
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Dr. Emma Sarro: So what have we been? What have we been showing or seeing.
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: I love. I love this because I love kind of digging into the day data. And I'll say to everyone, spoiler alert, we are going to give you access to the clear connections profile so you can take it yourselves as well. So I'm excited for that, and I also am excited to hear feedback and things. But anyway, we do have data from a few different sources. And
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: as you mentioned Emma, we're gonna really focus on data from a single organization, because it kind of gives us the freedom to talk about what it looks like in a specific context. Because as we've been talking about, it is context dependent. And so in this organization, what we're seeing at like the very high level
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: is that role connection is rated as being really important to many people.
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: and is the least experienced type of connection.
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: So really, what we're doing with this assessment is, we're coming up with fulfillment scores. And that fulfillment score is the relationship between how important something is to me and how much I experience it in my environment. So what we're seeing at this organization is that there's a low fulfillment score in role connection.
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: And the cool part about this is that we're able to look deeper into the data. And we can see that the role connection
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: results really are tending to be lower. And again, this is initial data. They're tending to be lower among people holding senior individual contributor positions and people holding manager and supervisor roles. And so, you know, we ask, like, from entry level, individual mid level Senior level manager, senior leader.
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: Then c-suite. So like there's lots of different options for that. The other piece we're seeing is that in organizations that are. Excuse me in this organization, which is hybrid, that people working in person are actually having less of a role fulfillment
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: role connection fulfillment than people that are working remotely or hybrid. So it's just interesting. There's many layers that we're going to be able to peel back. And this initial data shows us that it is going to matter. That context is going to matter, and there's going to be pieces that we can look at, that help us determine where we might intervene.
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Dr. Emma Sarro: That's so interesting. And I love data just as much as you. I think this is fascinating. And one thing that maybe this organization could take away is, you know what we're we're doing well at providing or allowing the environment for a colleague connection. They feel connected to each other. Our leaders are doing a great job in building and fostering that connection. They feel connected to the mission like what works
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Dr. Emma Sarro: thing in the world all of those things are great. So so then, if we think, okay, so this is this is the the piece that seems to be, you know, unfulfilled at on like the larger level for individuals, and specifically those individuals. So they what could they do then, with this.
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: Yeah. And I really love the way that you frame that, because that's absolutely right. And I think that's an important piece of just kind of discovery in general is that a lot of times organizations, we're focused on the deficit because that means that there's a challenge or a problem. And a lot of times when people come to Nli they come.
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: They've sought us out because there is something they want to change, or a challenge or something that's come up. And another piece of that is what are the things you're doing? Well. And I think that's the beauty of this assessment is that, in addition to kind of identifying areas that are challenging or could use improvement. You also get to identify assets like, Hey, we're actually doing this stuff really well.
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: And and that gives you that ability to have a more comprehensive conversation. Of how do we play off of our strengths or how can we apply what we're doing here to somewhere else. So just I think that is is such a a wonderful reminder. And you kind of made me think about that when you were talking, but
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: at to talk about
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: addressing challenges. So what we're saying about the clear connections, profiles that really it is about that initial discovery place honing in on a place to lean in, and the results can be used to understand what's most impactful for client engagement, which really informs the design and implementation of like practical actions to get to a desired state. And so, as we were talking about
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: this particular company has a low fulfillment in role connection. And one way that can be addressed is, if you have a more constructive conversations with your employees about their performance, and where they see themselves currently and in the future. You know, we have solutions like connect or improve, that
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: can help leaders have those high quality, productive conversations and provide useful and balanced feedback and
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: thinking through. Something like develop like those career conversations to say, what motivates me? And how can I make sure that I'm connected in a way that allows me to have satisfaction in my job.
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: And there's aspects of all of that developing and nurturing role connection in our lead solution, which really helps leaders engage in a way that may improve role connection. And again, it's these things are interrelated. And
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: you know there's overlapping parts. But as you kind of think, through the relatedness as well as the uniqueness, you can see how something like lead and leader connections could also influence role connection.
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: And while these things really kind of hinge on scarf and ways to provide clarity, it really also helps leaders understand where an individual sees themselves in the future and can give clarity and think through ways to get there.
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: And then, just like if somebody's having an organization, seeing patterns of low calling connection. We can really think through crafting a social strategy for connectedness. If they're seeing low employer connection, it might be refreshing or refining a mission values. Vision type of work. Or possibly
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: you know, employee value proposition. If you're seeing low leader connection, it could be about leadership principles. So really, I think it's in the end about a conversation with organizations and saying, This is what's coming up.
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: What can we do, or where should we invest.
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Dr. Emma Sarro: Yeah, absolutely. And things that are coming up to me is maybe it's just looking into your processes and your systems. And you know, is there a disconnect there with? Maybe you have it in place, but you're not communicating it well, and maybe, like the perception is just not there. And so. And is there a decoherence, someplace in your set of systems that is resulting in, you know, an unfelt, you know, value
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Dr. Emma Sarro: in their role or with each other, or you know things getting in the way, or if there's overwhelm, I know we Liz mentioned something about overwhelm, and having too many tasks, and that they don't necessarily feel fulfilled in. So there's a lot of really great comments coming up.
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Dr. Emma Sarro: Alan, a thought about neurosynchrony in work with clients or partners. I think that's really interesting. Thought, maybe you know definitely important when you're thinking about that relationship, I am absolutely sure that you know, needing a sense of neurosynchrony or building neurosynchrony between clients and partners. Obviously, it leads to shared understanding so absolutely.
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: Yeah.
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: And I and I, I really love the comments that are coming up. And you know, one thing we've been talking a little bit about is this idea of like the
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: organizational patterns? And one thing that comes up when we're talking about clear connections is. And and this came up internally as well.
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: is okay. So you have a new assessment. And yet all a bunch of people are experiencing survey fatigue. So why would you give them something else to fill out or something else to do. And for me, I really think about the clear connections profile as as
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: a developmental tool and not a survey. So I think about it as being the difference between a survey giving information to someone else to kind of think through. And this professional development tool is giving you individual results that can help you understand how your connections impact
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: your work experience and also what you can do to shape it. And so, if an individual wants to take it, there really is an opportunity to reflect, to think about.
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: what do I want my work experience to look like, how can I grow at in my job? How can I give myself kind of this purposeful direction, and what I'm doing? And so to me. That's the beauty of the clear connections is that people who take it not only have the chance to influence the organization level with their thinking and their thoughts and their experience. They also get this
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: results that allow them to reflect and think through. What do I want to do? Going forward? So I think that's that's really A great part of this as well.
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Dr. Emma Sarro: Yeah, absolutely. So you, as an individual, can use it for yourself, and maybe also reflect on, am I in the right place for me. And and also it's not just always about the organization taking action. You can also take action. If you are missing, you know something about your role. Let's say the individual can maybe ask about, you know, is there an opportunity
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Dr. Emma Sarro: to to get into another another role? This might not be. I love the organization. I really, I love working with my leader. But maybe there's something else that I can that I can learn and do. So. There is something, and that in action that individuals can take, too, by taking it. So it's really for for anyone as well. And and I would say beneficial for organizations or individuals.
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: Absolutely, I think to me the biggest part of benefit would be is if organizations use this clear connections profile as a discovery tool. So to invest in this.
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: to say, All right, what is happening at a large level.
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: and at the same time you will get not only those organizational patterns. But you also allow employees to feel invested in because you are saying, here is a professional development tool that allows you to reflect on your experience. It kind of gives you an idea of where to focus your energy. So to me, I love the idea of it being used at an organizational level, and people being motivated to
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: provide the data, you need to change your organization because they get their own results and can think through that as well. So to me, I think that's the the real benefit.
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Dr. Emma Sarro: Yeah, absolutely. And and I would love to hear if anyone on the line is is thinking about this as an opportunity for your organization. So you know, as as David often does, you know, if you'd like to maybe drop your your company name and clear in the chat, but also we will be dropping the the link itself for the survey in the chat as well. So you.
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: Do that right now, so we can drum, roll out, drop the link to the clear connection. I did my own drum roll in my head. There! There it is for everyone to take. And please. I I would love to hear from you the last question in there is asking for feedback, and I genuinely want your feedback and so you know, I know that
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: this audience in particular is is so thoughtful and engaging. And I I always love the comments that come up, so
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: please feel free to share those with me as well.
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Dr. Emma Sarro: Yeah, absolutely. So I think we're, we're just about ready to close up. This is a fantastic conversation. I'm so thrilled that we were able to do this together. We'll have to do this again soon.
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: I know I know it felt very easy, so thank you for that. Your level of kind of preparation and support is always makes my my life and job easier. So thank you.
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Dr. Emma Sarro: Thank you. And yeah, and I guess I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and we'll be back here next week next Friday.
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Dr. Brigid Lynn: Yup! Take care, everyone, bye.
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Shelby Wilburn: Awesome. Thank you so much, Emman Bridget, for today's discussion. We appreciate your time as always, and you both truly embody all of the qualities you spoke about today. Now for closing, we are going to have a poll. So let us know how analyze can help you. Also, if you enjoyed today's conversation, you'll love the podcast show. So make sure that you subscribe and listen to your brain at work wherever you listen to your podcast and on behalf of our team behind the scenes. We appreciate you always being here. Thanks so much, and we'll see you again next Friday.