Connectional Intelligence: A New Key to Teamwork and Excellence

We have many a times discussed the role of social media and networking in our lives. The benefits which we reap out of it are immense. The only key lies in the correct usage of our networks and relationships. It is an art that could be inbuilt but in many cases it needs to be cultivated through proper training and guidance. Merely networking may not help any individual to reap benefits from it, rather it is a well-structured and planned team of networks built keeping the objective in mind. This is what is called a “Connectional Intelligence” (Dhawan, E). We started off in a world of Intelligence Quotient (IQ), reached Emotional Quotient (EQ) and now without Connective Quotient (CQ) both EQ and IQ may not bear the expected fruits for the managers.

Dhawan along with her co-author described the whole process of connectional intelligence, which is being followed by many companies like Deloitte, Colgate, L’Oreal to name a few. These companies have built in a structure to implement CI effectively in their system and thereby excel in productivity. The corporates are now looking for their employees to be possess connectional intelligence (CI). To have CI one needs to explore his network on the knowledge, skills, abilities and values required to build a perfect team.

Five Cs of Connectional Intelligence

As managerial communication moves around 7 Cs, connectional intelligence also needs certain Cs in order to be perfectly executed. There are 5 Cs of CI, which make it reap benefits are curiosity, combination, community, courage, and combustion.

Curiosity: *Curiosity helps one to design the questions that make others get associated with him/her and also help one tap the expertise of the people outside one’s network.

Courage: *Courage is the most important Cs of CI. It is the willingness to move out of one’s common beliefs and collate different perspectives to solve challenges.

Combination: *As courage is the willingness to come out of one’s common beliefs, combination is the willingness to pool with different networks, groups or ideas for mutual benefit.

Community: This helps one to find the variety of people to come together and the ways by which they can team up for the common values and causes they care for to bring about a change.

Combustion: The final step to teaming up is take the action for the cause people have come together. Combustion is the step where all the efforts are converted to action and derive result.

CI harnesses the power of ‘Influence’ in a team rather than the ‘Authority’. In the corporate world it is the ‘Authority’ of the team lead which has so far worked and kept the employees moving, now with CI in the picture one can use ‘Influence’ to subdue the ‘Authority’ and make things work their ways. It is the key for being successful in one’s tasks. The only thing one needs to keep into consideration is what to do, how to do and who all should be included in the task (keeping their KSAs in mind along with the value system they follow). These all aspects seemed to be working in an informal group in the formal set-up but now an extensive research found that these informal groups when team up for a task they are more productive than the formal teams formed by the managers. CI also helps one to build their brand in an organization as well.

CI is one of the key skills to be learnt for the millennial managers and the management courses running in the country especially the PGDM courses ought to imbibe the imparting of this learning in their curriculum.

GNIOT Institute of Management Studies (GIMS), Greater Noida under the flagship of GNIOT Group of Institutions, Greater Noida is on its way to guiding its millennial managers to learn, imbibe and follow Connectional Intelligence to build their own brand in an orgnaization and reap maximum benefit from their teams.

By – Dr. Shalini Sharma