You’ll probably never see a project proposal with a line item for “human connection.” And yet, this idea of human connection is one of the intangibles that play an essential part in both the success of a project and the satisfaction of everyone involved.
What is human connection? For the purposes of this post, we’re talking about fostering strong relationships between people. This helps teams improve communication, align visions and goals, and weather misunderstandings. This connection provides the foundation for successful projects as well as long-term partnerships. And let’s be honest, even the most introverted of us need to connect with others!
Why Human Connection Matters
In tech-centered projects, it’s easy to bury human connections. There’s research to do, code to write, and tests to run. And much of this work happens in isolation. Working remotely or with outside teams compounds the issue.
But in any organization, compassion and empathy play an important role. As you build relationships, each party discovers what motivates the other and can better work together to meet their goals.
Think of it this way: developing these relationships is like changing the oil in your car. You don’t own a car in order to change the oil, but rather to drive it. However, the more careless you are about regularly changing the oil and nurturing your car, the higher the risk of your car breaking down. And, of course, your car usually seems to break down right when you need it most!
Just as you own a car to drive it and use it, your ministry exists to faithfully pursue its vision. The amount of intentional care you add to both—whether by changing your oil or building human connection—will affect how smoothly your car, or ministry, will run for years to come.
For us, getting to know clients through an on-site discovery can be an important part of creating that connection. This time together allows us to dig deep into what drives our clients’ organizations. It also helps us identify their goals for both a specific project and their organization as a whole. And it lays the foundation for open communication and understanding.
The Consequences of a Lack of Human Connection
Without a focus on interpersonal connection, partnerships will be shallow and fragile. This makes it difficult for individuals to wrestle with ideas and challenges without emotions or conflict. And it can lead to warring factions who fight only for what they need as an individual or group without concern for what the rest of the team needs.
The lack of connection also leads to a lack of communication and trust. And both of these can slow down and weaken a project. They also lead team members to make poor assumptions and overlook ideas and opportunities.
It can also leave the people on your team looking toward an exit strategy. This can include trying to catch one another in a mistake or put the blame on the other party. This isn’t healthy for the relationship or the people involved. Not only that, but it also affects the long-term success of the project and the health of the ministry as a whole.
3 Common Pitfalls That Undermine Human Connection
Unfortunately, these common pitfalls can undermine your efforts to create human connection among team members, especially as teams grow and work with outside parties:
1. Siloing different parts of the process.
There is a temptation to isolate different parts of a project from one another. Some leaders assume the board only needs to sign off on big decisions, or developers don’t need to hear about certain user experience (UX) considerations on the design side, or the overall strategy won’t impact the backend data handling.
But working in these silos can lead to misunderstandings, wasted time, and extra work.
2. Sheltering parties from one another
Similarly, there’s a temptation to shelter different parties from one another. While you don’t want to bombard each person with every little detail or conversation, it’s important to strike a balance. Each person on the team needs a complete enough picture of conversations and decisions to best do their job.
Whether through a shared Slack channel, Basecamp project, or Jira board, having conversations “publicly” can help facilitate this awareness without overwhelming individual team members with meetings or emails. This keeps everyone aware of what’s happening in other areas of the project so they are better able to ask questions and work together on solutions.
3. Failing to recognize personality differences, skills, and weaknesses
On any team, each individual will have specific personality traits, skills, and weaknesses that impact the way we work. Encouraging strong relationships across the team is valuable. But it’s also important to note where two people might struggle to work well together. Similarly, you want to put people in positions that make sense for their skills and experience, i.e. not elevating a junior staff member if it means they’re likely to fail.
And the opposite is true as well: Putting people together who collaborate well can increase their productivity or creativity. And slotting team members into the roles that fit their skills allows them to shine and benefit the entire team!
4 Ways to Create Human Connection
There’s no Webster’s definition for “human connection.” For us, it means prioritizing relationships right up there with the work that’s being done. The work is still important (so, so important), but the relationship can’t get lost in the project plan.
We’ve found these 4 principles help relationships grow into true partnerships:
1. Involve everyone early and often
It is not uncommon for a small group of people to lead a project, with others joining on a “need to know” basis. However, involving everyone early—and keeping them engaged throughout the process—benefits the team and the project in many ways. It adds additional perspective and ideation to the work you’re doing. And it helps each person feel more invested in the work they’re doing, not just as individual tasks but in the overall project as a whole.
That isn’t to say everyone should have an equal say or the team should make decisions by a popular vote. But hearing the perspective of many team members and including everyone in the process that leads to important decisions makes the process and the final project better.
2. Build a shared understanding of success
What does success mean for your organization as a whole and for this particular project? Aligning everyone on the team around a shared understanding of success:
- Creates a bond as everyone works together toward that goal.
- Centers everyone on the ministry goal rather than just the technical goal.
- Builds anticipation for how the project will impact that ministry goal.
- Gives everyone a sense of their role in achieving the larger ministry vision.
- Helps each team member feel like part of the larger team beyond just the immediate project.
3. Be real and transparent
A partnership takes time and effort to build. Anyone can start off a honeymoon phase with a positive attitude and expectations. But you create a high level of trust over time by working together and communicating openly—both in what you say and in how you listen.
Through this learning period (and beyond!), it’s important to be real, authentic, and transparent. This is the only way the people you work with can trust that what they see is what they get. Being authentic from the very first interaction ensures there are no surprises down the road in how you work or communicate.
4. Work through conflict
With a strong foundation, everyone on the team will be better positioned to assume the best of each other at all times. When deadlines are tight, something isn’t working as expected, or there’s an unexpected roadblock, everyone is able to approach it as a team and figure it out together. (And let’s face it, when technology is involved, something will inevitably surprise us.)
It also means the frustrated party is willing to pick up the phone to bring it to the other party’s attention. For both parties, it means pushing through awkward conversations to resolve the issue and strengthen the relationship. (Most of us don’t enjoy pointing out where someone has messed up or hearing where we ourselves have messed up!)
Human connection is important to us as a team, but it also impacts the way we work with clients. It’s our focus on human connection that takes our role with our clients from a contracted vendor who delivers code to an active partner in their ministry.
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