Making time to connect
Over the years, we have noticed just how much of our time is spent connecting people and connecting with people. This is not always done for a particular purpose. It may just be we feel some sense that it might be valuable. And not valuable simply for us. We may not get any obvious value from it at all.
Often we just feel that two people we know might have an interesting conversation and we connect them with no expectation of any return and may never know the outcome.
We may not be guided by a goal or specific objective in how we connect people. At the same time, it is not a random process. We have some sense, often quite intuitive, that the connection might somehow be valuable.
Perhaps this is why we make a point of spending time with people when it might appear to make no sense to do so. We spend time responding to students writing dissertations, meeting people from other sectors whose work is only tangentially connected to our own. We listen to people who have retired from the fray, hurt by the negative emotions that human systems can sometimes hold quite powerfully and vent on those who dare to name their issues.
We consistently find that it is the quality of connection that matters most. So our connecting carries a gentle curiosity. We try to meet people where they are. This helps us understand what they are seeing in any human system that we are missing. And perhaps our unique vantage point allows us to see what is not visible to them.
