Connecting the Dots: A Leadership Communication Technique
Whether you're leading a small team or an entire organization, the skill of "connecting the dots" is essential for building and maintaining alignment. You need to be clear and strategic so that your team members can follow along with where you're trying to lead them. For that, you can add the skill of ‘connecting the dots’ into your leadership communication.
The skill of ‘connecting the dots’ is simple. When you're describing something, you simply begin by connecting it to a previous or widely accepted 'dot' so that your team can come along with you on the evolution of your thinking.
Here are three contexts where leaders like you can connect the dots more:
1. In a conversation
Recently, in a team coaching session, the team practiced this skill. We set it up at the beginning of the session: anyone who spoke simply had to reference and connect what they said to the point that had just been made
The connecting the dots activity was not a limitation in what could be said, because the dot getting connected could reference how the new point is opposite from the one before, for example. "You make a good point, Shanay, about the state of the market right now. My mind was going to yet another risk factor on this project, the supply chain, because...."
At the end of the session, the team said that they liked this exercise because they listened much more closely to each other. Win!
2. On a project
Leaders can use the skill of connecting the dots at the project level too. As you guide the team through the project, you're naming the structure and teeing up where in the project plan the team is at in each new phase.
On a recent conference planning project, I led the team meetings and would say things at the beginning of the meeting to anchor the team in where we were on our journey. "Ok, we've got our speakers nailed down and now it's time to turn our attention more fully to marketing."
On projects, leaders can tie where the team is now to where it’s been or where it’s headed.
3. For the organization's strategy
If you're the COO and you've decided that this year you intend to start building a coaching culture, that might include a few different programmatic threads. Naturally, when the leader rolls out a program like this, they would make the case by connecting the dots with what's going on in the organization that this effort would improve, support, or address. Or the leader can speak to where they see this effort taking the organization in the future.
The leader might also connect vertical dots: how should this piece of the strategy affect management behavior or team decision making at the day-to-day ‘ground’ level?
Connecting the dots is a leadership communication skill that is simple and so powerful to bring your team members along with your thinking, your vision, and even the way you listen to them. Practicing connecting the dots makes leaders better listeners and better strategic thinkers.
