Ep 94 Connection Intelligence w. John N Cooper

In this episode of The Chief Psychology Officer Podcast, Dr Amanda Potter and Caitlin Cooper are joined by occupational psychologist and Chief Connection Officer John Cooper to explore why human connection is essential to performance at work.

Together, they discuss why great teams are not built through harmony alone, but through the quality of connection that allows people to challenge, support, trust, and understand each other. John shares why the “chemistry” between people matters, and Amanda reflects on how this connects to psychological safety, belonging, resilience, and the environments organisations create.

The conversation also explores how AI and new ways of working may be changing the way we connect. As work becomes more efficient, remote, and technology-enabled, there is a risk that we turn to tools before we turn to each other.

This episode asks an important question for leaders and organisations: are we building in the conditions for people to continue to build trust, strengthen relationships, and perform well together?

Tune into Episode 94: Why Great Teams Need Friction with John Cooper.

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Transcript

Welcome And Why Connection Matters

Caitlin Cooper 0:04

Welcome to the Chief Psychology Officer Podcast, the show where we dive deep into the psychology behind leadership, business, and success. I'm Caitlin Cooper, and on today's podcast, I'm joined by our very own Chief Psychology Officer, Dr. Amanda Potter, and our guest John Cooper. Today we'll be discussing the importance of creating real human connection at work, particularly in the AI revolution we find myself in. But before we jump in, make sure you hit subscribe so you never miss an episode. And if you want to keep the conversation going, please do connect with us on LinkedIn. Just search for Caitlin Cooper, Dr. Amanda Potter, or John Cooper. Hi Amanda. Hey Caitlin. We seem to be having a bit of a pod fest at the moment, don't we? It is. This is our second podcast of today, but it's been made even better because we've got John joining us. So hi John.

John’s Work And Chief Connection Officer

John Cooper 0:51

Hello, Caitlin.

Caitlin Cooper 0:52

Well, that's probably a nice place to start then. Is John, would you like to give our listeners a bit of introduction of who you are?

John Cooper 0:58

Yeah, sure. Caitlin, it's great to be here. Uh by background, I'm an occupational business psychologist that's worked in a number of places, both in the employment services and the government and in the private sector. And nowadays I have a private practice which does coaching and leadership facilitation. And I work with Thomas as the chair of their science board. And just very recently I've taken a role there as chief connection officer.

Dr Amanda Potter 1:25

Nice. Did you make that title up, John?

John Cooper 1:28

No, uh it actually came from our fantastic uh chief executive, Luke McKeever, who's an inspiration. And he spotted that my natural style is to connect with people, and that given that the Thomas proposition is now all about connection intelligence, this would be an ideal descriptor for my role, I suppose, which is a combination of getting the backbone of science right around what we do with human connection, but also practice and application.

Dr Amanda Potter 1:56

Love that. And that's exactly what we're here to talk about, isn't it? It's all about human connection. So very fitting.

Caitlin Cooper 2:01

I believe, John, did you approach Amanda to suggest this episode? So, how did that come about between you two?

John Cooper 2:06

I did. So I'm an avid listener. I was a judge on the Association of Business Psychologists awards panel a year ago, and was one of the people that voted for the Chief Psychology Officer's podcast as the winner. And Amanda will remember receiving the coveted award last year. And so since then I've been listening properly, and I sort of felt that the community that use IO and business psychology and HR practitioners and leaders would benefit from thinking about the humanity of the workplace and the importance of human connection at a more sort of grassroots level and sort of approach to Amanda because I think it's an important conversation to be had, particularly as AI is changing the way we communicate and the way we do work, and humans are responding in many different ways to that change, uh, both positive and negative.

From Emotional Intelligence To Human Needs

Dr Amanda Potter 3:04

It is true, isn't it? Very timely. Where did you get the idea of focusing on human connection? Because I know you, John, as the emotional intelligence guru, the guy who brought the JCA emotional intelligence tool to the market.

John Cooper 3:20

Thank you. Yes, I mean that that feels like a different lifetime now. And we were lucky enough to do some great work and practice around framing a model and developing emotional intelligence in leaders, which uh went viral and became very successful, and we passed that on to Talogy back in 2018. I think for me, part of EI is how we connect and do relationships, and my interest professionally has moved now towards the deeper stuff. So having looked at the work of the human givens and some of the more psychotherapeutic approaches, I suppose deepening my own practice as a coach, it's become really clear to me that human needs are at the center of performance and they predicate really and they come before, they're downstream from the sorts of things we psychologists and HR people measure like engagement. So, for example, I think it's very difficult to get an engaged person at work if they don't feel connected at a human level to themselves and the people that they work with. So for me, it becomes very interesting to think about the basic human aspects of work and to shine a light on that.

Caitlin Cooper 4:31

At what point did you pivot to that then, John?

Trust Belonging And Psychological Safety

John Cooper 4:33

So it was really over the last couple of years, having joined Thomas to found and drive their science boards, we started to zero in on how we could leverage improved human connection in organizations. And you know, it's been a journey of science and practice to build a platform which enhances human connection. And so over the last two years, with my great esteemed science colleagues and the science board that we've set up, we've really got to what I call the CP effect, which is a brass tacks, if people feel connected to themselves and each other, there is a performance effect. And that's my mission now, I suppose, is to explore that, but in a plural way. So it's not about a product, it's about thinking around this from the point of view of what really matters for people at work and what leaders need to do and managers could enable to improve relationships and connection, and what organizations, as they inevitably go through massive, massive change and fast with the impact of AI, how they build in human connection or connection intelligence, as I now call it, as part of their infrastructure.

Caitlin Cooper 5:43

Did you say connection intelligence? Is that what you call it?

John Cooper 5:46

Yeah, that's what we've sort of coined that phrase now. So it's the idea really that you can be mindful and build into an organization human connection as part of the design, as part of the infrastructure.

Dr Amanda Potter 5:59

It's interesting that you've kind of gone there over the last couple of years, because that's a similar place to the one that we've gone to. So all the research we've been doing for the book that I've been writing and very close to finishing. Well, it's finished, it's being rewritten at the moment, just some few sections. Actually, the book is all about what matters at work, in order to drive a high-performing environment. So the book's all about psychological safety, but it's the precedence of psych safety. And it is exactly that. So whilst we haven't coined connection at all in the book, we talk about interpersonal connection and our model of psychological safety is one of the core foundations. But we start with trust and the first chapters on trust and second chapters on a belonging as the foundations of psych safety and what really matters in order to drive success and high performance in organizations. So it's really interesting. We've gone down different paths, but we've kind of almost arrived at a really similar destination.

John Cooper 6:52

It's interesting. I was talking to an old client yesterday in America who's CEO of a business called Alant, which is a sort of digital media data insight organization, is in the States. You know, he's been on a journey, has an amazing track record of turning businesses around and shooting the lights out in terms of their performance. And he's just written a book called From the Boardroom to the Barn.

Dr Amanda Potter 7:17

To the Barn.

John Cooper 7:18

Yeah, to the Barn, which is a great title. And it's his interest in horses and horse whispering, in the sense of it's a metaphor for understanding that just in the same way as horses are tribal, social, emotional creatures, so are humans. Yeah, so are organizations, and so are leaders, custodians really of the tribe. And you know, human connection works at multiple levels, really, level of self, level of team, level of organization. And in the end, trust can't exist on its own, it needs to be in the context of the dynamic between the people, and that's human connection. Or disconnection, I suppose.

FIRO And The Three Core Needs

Dr Amanda Potter 7:58

Our language has always been about the fact that in order to create trust, you need to create interpersonal connection, you need to have strong personal relationships rather than professional, where we just talk about work. You mentioned that Fairo had some insight that you found helpful when you were thinking about human connection.

John Cooper 8:17

Yeah, I think the work of Will Schutz, the American psychologist, who was foundational really to the humanistic psychology movement in the US, is absolutely profound in relation to understanding human needs and relationships. I've been lucky enough to work quite a lot with it, and it is very much a foundation of the way I look at human connection, and I think it's a model that's really worth looking at. How much do you know about it, Amanda?

Dr Amanda Potter 8:45

A FIRO B model. I'm trained and I don't think you trained us, because you used to accredit organisations, didn't you, in FIRO? I think it was Team Focus that trained me years ago. So I'm trained. Do you know what I still refer to the model? And Sarah and I both use the model in theory. We don't use the psychometric, but we often think about inclusion, affection, and control, whether it's wanted or expressed. The actual concept of FIRO and wanted and expressed needs, I think, is actually really helpful sometimes to understand the differences and dynamics between people.

John Cooper 9:15

Yeah, I think it makes very simple what really goes on between people. And similarly, I was trained by Roy Charles at Team Focus back in the mid-90s, I think it was. And I loved it so much, I went to America and did the sort of full training and trained a trainer. But the the way I understand it, it really simplifies for any leader the importance of interpersonal relationship. And so it breaks down really that probably 90% of what goes on between people is down to three things: the extent to which someone wants to feel significant and included, the extent to which someone wants to feel competent, and the behavior around self-determination and control. And finally, in terms of quality of relationship, the extent to which a person feels accepted and liked or valued for who they are, and that behavior of sort of warmth. And what I like about it is it gets to the give and take of human connection. So there's what I express or give out to you, and there's what I want back. And this really helps us understand, you know, why is it sometimes that when we work with somebody early on, it's really easy. It's because we connect well, because we meet each other's needs. It also explains, you know, where things break down. So why is it sometimes that we set up a team and we just can't get to doing the work because we're incompatible, because perhaps one person wants to be in control and another person wants to be in control. And so we never really get to doing the work. We just trip up around our interpersonal needs and feelings. And so it's a really powerful lens to unpack how to improve relationships to be more productive.

Dr Amanda Potter 11:00

We talk a lot about climate being how you feel. Psychological safety is climate, not culture, and therefore how you feel in a team or in your interactions can really depend on all the dynamics around you. That was one reflection. And the other reflection is around reciprocity because we're quite simple human beings. Our brains are quite simple. We look for predictability, control, and so on. If we see Caitlin, for example, being high on expressed warmth, then we will assume that Caitlin wants that warmth back in return, but that's not necessarily the case. And I think that's what's quite interesting around that whole model of FIRO about how to build human connection using your language, is that we can make assumptions on the basis of what we see and the way people express their behaviour versus actually what they need and want in return.

Resilience Data And The Chemistry Effect

John Cooper 11:48

Yes, and humans are weird and wonderful creatures, aren't they? You know, sometimes I think our behaviour is driven, if I take an emotional intelligence perspective, I know this is something you're interested in, Amanda, from a mindset of survive and cope. So they're a bit self-disconnected and they can be a bit rigid and defensive in their behaviour, a bit brittle, and perhaps have a distorted awareness. They're picking up things they expect to see in a biased way, and they're trying to defend themselves to feel competent or okay. And other times individuals show up in a thrive, you know, the Carol Dweck sort of mindset stuff. You know, they have a growth intention, and their behaviour is coming from a place of productivity, collaboration, learning. And they're very different places that those behaviours are driven from. And I think from a human connection point of view, it's really, really interesting because at some level, most of us have a filter or an unconscious awareness, whether somebody is coming from a good place, a place of good intention, or another place with a different agenda that you can't make sense of or you can't quite relate with. And that for me is a sort of acid test of you know, when we feel connected, we know we're collaborating. There is a sense of psychological safety, but it comes from the chemistry of the trust in the relationship in that dynamic.

Dr Amanda Potter 13:12

We were talking earlier, weren't we, Caitlin, on the other pod we were recording about microexpressions and how you may say one thing, but actually you're giving quite different signals away in that moment, and it's the signals that we pay attention to. But interestingly, our research around resilience, because it's an affect model, so our model of resilience is all about nine aspects of affect, so they're positive and negative affect. And what we found is people who get a sten 10 on any of the scales, are people who experience extreme positive emotions and rarely experience extreme negative emotions. But what we have found with some of those people who get really high scores is that they are very dismissive and discounting of people who experience low affect and they just do these throwaway, just cheer up, don't have the app. Just turn your frown upside down, stop being so grumpy. And they can't understand or acknowledge actually what it feels like to be low, and therefore that human connection is broken because they can't empathize with what the experience is. Where we found people who score quite low on the questionnaire, arguably, if you took it at face value, could say they're low on resilience. Actually, often they're the opposite. They're people who have learned incredible techniques for coping. The neuroplasticities come into place because they know how to face into challenging moments, challenging feelings, and they're really attentive and thoughtful and considerate of those who also struggle. High score on our resilience questionnaire is not necessarily a good thing.

John Cooper 14:40

Yeah, it's so interesting. I'm thinking about Mike and the conversation we had yesterday about boardroom to barn. He said, the funny thing is, he's also um sort of business leader and lecturer in a business school in Chicago. He said, The funny thing is, my team always want to come with me. He said, you know, we've been through thick and thin in turning around organizations. And he said, you know, we're not perfect, but we really know each other. We're deeply connected, we trust each other, we know where we have our own weaknesses, but together, because of our experience and our history, we're so deeply connected that the relationship almost overtakes the organization that we work with because we know we're effective.

Dr Amanda Potter 15:23

I really like that. I think I see that in our directors actually, because we've been together so long and we know each other so well, albeit in the organization. Unlike Mike, who's been in many Mike.

Angela Malik 15:36

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Caitlin Cooper 16:02

I think I've also seen in businesses particularly where people are going, well, teams are going through a really kind of challenging period. We did some research actually with one organization when we're looking into high-performing teams, and one of the things that they were saying helped that team be high performing was when they were going through that tough time, they were really there to support each other. And they almost felt they were all going into the office at the same time. They were in it together. And so I guess that also then probably opens up another tangent around hybrid working potentially and face to face. But it was just it's interesting you said that because it's made me think actually, yeah, it's that really kind of understanding what each other are going through and supporting each other is such a pinnacle for also just creating that connection and thinking when you know, when we do finish the project, we can look back and we can say, Well, we got through that, we can laugh about it.

Dr Amanda Potter 16:48

Clarity and purpose, that's really important.

John Cooper 16:50

And and really the predicate for the research we've been doing was the Schutz FIRO and latterly the human element, expanded FIRO theory, which in essence showed through evidence-based research, really, particularly in the military, that when you get compatibility in terms of behaviour and feelings amongst teams, then you get about 25% higher performance output from those teams than teams who have low compatibility interpersonally. So that compatibility performance effect or connection performance effect is essentially saying it's not about the capability, the intelligence, the personality. This is about the chemistry, the connections between people to work together and build something bigger than the sum of its parts. And so that's the exam question for me is how do we grab hold of that? Because not only is it about performance, it's also about feeling good, feeling human, feeling part of something and feeling healthy. It's extraordinary, really, as you look at some of the recent science around social prescription, for example. It turns out connecting with your neighbours, being part of local organizations that are doing good is a much better way to manage your health. In other words, connecting with people is really good for your state, for your hormones, for your immune system. And the opposite is also true. The science shows that people die younger if they're disconnected and their health problems escalate if they don't have human connection in their lives.

Dr Amanda Potter 18:30

I think you've just articulated that so beautifully. I love what you just said because I couldn't agree more. I like your language around chemistry, it's the interconnections between people that's the most fundamental. As a business, we talk a lot about we're not a personality house, we're not an aptitude business. There's a good reason for it. We don't believe they're the differentiators of success for organizations. We actually believe it's about the things that we're focusing our energy on, which is around the environment we create, the teams we create, the health of the people, hence resilience, what energizes them and what brings them together, and also that cognitive diversity. One of the things that's quite interesting about what you have just said is that connection almost felt like a bit like harmony. One of the things we always talk about is that we don't necessarily want harmony. We want to actually be uncomfortable quite a lot in order to challenge each other. So that cognitive diversity is really key. But you can't have that unless you've got trust, of course. So can I take us down another part? I was gonna do that too.

AI At Work And Relationship Risks

Caitlin Cooper 19:31

So you might be stealing. Yes, you stole, I was gonna say. We're on the same page though. Um we are, we are. I guess the question, yeah. Well, I was just I'd love to hear your perspective, John, in terms of you know we are in the age of AI and what are you seeing and what are you thinking in terms of human connection and how AI is inhibiting that.

John Cooper 19:49

I'm thinking as a consultant, as a practicing psychologist, I'm thinking it is absolutely extraordinary and unprecedented what's happening. I think it's absolutely radical, and I think many of us haven't quite got our heads, hands, and hearts around what this really means for us in life and in particular in work, how we do work, how much trust we put into using AI, what it means for us in terms of the way we do relationships. It's just extraordinary.

Dr Amanda Potter 20:24

And what do you think are going to be the biggest impact, John?

John Cooper 20:27

So I've thought about this quite a lot, and I'm lucky enough to work with some people in the space who know a lot more about it than me. One of the colleagues I've got in the Thomas faculty, which we sort of we're building out this ecosystem of many partners that are interested in human connection in the workplace, is Mark Zaya Saunders. So Mark wrote the famous book Time Boxing, which is all about how you use your time well to be productive. And latterly has bless him, he's moved to uh Spain, partly because of his interest in playing competitive paddle tennis, partly because of the climate. But he has a an outfit now called AI in the wild. And what AI in the wild does is get a gauge on monitor through vast amounts of data what are people actually doing with AI. His Harvard Business Review article last year was about this, it's the one that went viral. So it was the revelation that most people use AI for mentorship, companionship, friendship. And he's just about to publish one year later what's happened, and it's not dissimilar. So people are leaning into AI, weirdly, as if it's a friend, as if it's it's a relationship, which is another thing in itself.

Dr Amanda Potter 21:45

That's so interesting. I've never used AI in that way. I use it to check my thinking, to build on my thinking, to expand. Have you ever used friend? Um I mean to share one all the time, all the time.

Caitlin Cooper 21:59

No. Um I do actually have a very close my one of my best friends uses it for that reason as a friend or just a soundboard, you know, various situations outside of work. And they find it quite useful because I guess it's sparking some different perspectives or ideas and things like that in a different way to obviously how you wouldn't work. But yeah, I think I use it more in the work capacity rather than outside. To be honest, I use it a lot and just to say, you know, how long do I need to boil my egg for? That sort of thing.

John Cooper 22:30

Critical questions. It's like an extra pair of hands, isn't it? Sort of in a box, Google. It's an extra brain. What I think is also really interesting is how organizations are talking about AI and their desire for people in the business to use AI is incredibly varied, from very unsophisticated to super sophisticated and prescriptive. But in the end, people are doing exactly what they want to do with AI under the radar to make their working lives easier. It's a really curious cocktail, I think, that's emerging.

Dr Amanda Potter 23:09

It's interesting that I would have thought people would have been more embarrassed about using AI, or organizations would have been more prescriptive in saying we don't want you to use AI. And the opposite has been the case. Actually, our clients are encouraging us to use AI, and they're looking for us to be progressive and have AI in our solutions. And it's not seen to be a dirty thing or an naughty thing to be using AI. Actually, it's seen to be sensible. Strategic strategic to actually challenge our thinking. So that for me is the biggest surprise, I suppose. I think the fear, my fear, and I said this on a previous pod when we were talking about AI with Simon from Vodafone. My fear is that because our bodies adapt to the environment and to our situation, that one day we're going to be walking around as pinheads, we're going to have tiny little heads on big bodies. Because actually our brains have shrunk because we've given all of our knowledge to Claude or to Gerald. And we have none left ourselves. We can't answer a question ourselves. We can't think about it.

Caitlin Cooper 24:07

No creative thinking there.

Dr Amanda Potter 24:08

No creative thinking. We just go, oh, I've got a question. I don't need to think about it. I can just answer it through one of my systems.

John Cooper 24:16

I think that's a very real risk that people get lazy and the quality of conversation thinking around the way it's used is lacking, and it sort of becomes a problem because you get sort of rubbish in, rubbish out. I've had the science board look at this quite a lot, and there's no doubt work is going to change very radically. I was with a client last week, and towards the end of this workshop, which was about organizational design, I found myself saying, I never imagined I would be in this sort of conversation. What you've just said to me is in essence, we've got two choices. We can rebuild this software platform using humans, and it will cost us about 1.5 million US dollars, and it will take about three months. Or we can use Claude, it will cost us $200, and we can have it done in 48 hours with the aid of two humans that will cost us about $100,000, and who will oversee it ethically. And I think every shareholder in every business around the world right now is waking up to the efficiency gains that they can get from deploying AI. And every worker is now wondering how can I use more AI to be more effective, or what's the risk to me personally and my future at work? It's an extraordinary thing.

Dr Amanda Potter 25:40

It is, and we're using it a huge amount in our business. We have a closed system, so we use it ethically, we use it appropriately, of course, because... blimey, Sarah would have our guts for garters if we didn't. But we're encouraging the team to because of that exactly that innovation, efficiency, challenging our thinking. But also it's just we are learning as well as we're going.

Using AI To Strengthen Connection

John Cooper 26:01

It's a brilliant way to learn because it democratizes everything, doesn't it? Really? And it it allows you to achieve so much more. I mean, I think about this a lot. So Luke McKeever, our CEO, is just releasing a paper now this week called Automated Capitalism. He's on the International Talent Forum as a speaker. It's a futuristic look at what could happen to humanity if the AI march goes forward without us building in the ethical frameworks and the human part into organisations. There's a doomsday potential scenario, but for me it's more about how could we use AI to enhance human connection and enhance human effectiveness. It can help us be more effective in the way we do human connection, but we have to build it in at the outset, otherwise it's likely to displace human connection because there are so many communications, aren't there, from so many different channels in an abundant way. The thing that differentiates us is the human relationship. And we have to think about building this in early, or the horse will bolt and we'll be left with something we hadn't planned for.

Dr Amanda Potter 27:09

Could you give me an example, John, of how AI could help with human connection? Because I would think it would do the opposite, because people are working in isolation, answering the questions themselves with the help of Claude or Gerald, as we call it, internally. Rather than me going to Caitlin, I'll just go online.

Caitlin Cooper 27:28

Or do you think? Or yeah.

John Cooper 27:29

Yeah, um, I can. Um I mean I use it myself now in that way. So if I do a coaching session, I get consent to record it, and then I will run it through AI afterwards and ask it to give me feedback on how I've come across, how I've connected, what I could do better next time.

Dr Amanda Potter 27:47

Self-development could you do better next time, John?

John Cooper 27:52

Have a clearer plan and stick to the objectives.

Dr Amanda Potter 27:57

Nice. Okay, noted.

John Cooper 28:00

Rather than iterate and go off in different directions according to the individual's energy. But I do think you know it can be used at a very pragmatic level. For example, if you ask an AI to tell you what it knows about you, about your personality, about your style, and how you could be better at doing relationships with colleagues, it will give you some sound advice and you can peg it up to the next level. Because if you've got a bit of data about your colleagues and you're meeting them, the AI will brief you. Last time you met, this is what happened. Remember, Amanda's style is direct and positive, and she enjoys an agenda, and your style is a bit more fluid, John, and ideas-oriented, and so a productive meeting might look like this. Or perhaps if we were forming a team for a project, we might get the AI to enable the team in a team bonding session early on, and to get us to think about how we can do connection faster, get there sooner, and where the blocks or obstacles might be in our styles based on our personality scores, for example, and our connection styles. So there are ways to sort of harness it as a pair of hands to think about how I do relationships better.

Dr Amanda Potter 29:16

I like that. I wonder if I would be able to do that now, put it in just from all the searches I've done, how we would be described.

Caitlin Cooper 29:24

But I also think it's funny because you could argue that if you ask the AI, there's almost a sense of you might not have a bad relationship with the AI, but this is assuming you've got a good relationship with the AI. So when it's telling you, okay, you know, think about how you can come across, you've got no kind of defensiveness. Whereas if you were speaking to a real person and there was maybe some history there and they're kind of guiding you, there might be more of a barrier because of that relationship you have with that person. So you might be less inclined to take their advice. So I think that's a roundabout way of saying that in a way, yeah, I guess with the AI, there isn't that history. You probably just think I like this AI. Does that make sense? Yeah, I mean, well, it's it's it doesn't, it doesn't.

John Cooper 30:08

And to Mark Zaunders' insights on this, you know, there are hundreds of millions of people using AI in this companionship, mentorship, therapeutic type way. I mean, a few weeks ago I was involved in the Cheltenham festivals and have an amazing, I'm a patron, a science festival and a literature festival, and I met an author of a book, a lady uh who's a single mum, and had written a book about how she'd incorporated Claude into the family.

Caitlin Cooper 30:36

Okay.

John Cooper 30:37

So in the absence of the father, Claude was very much part of their family unit. So two children, a mum and Claude. And the book goes on to describe how valuable it all was in providing facilitation for the family to have better conversations and better connection. It's really quite extraordinary.

Practical Takeaways And A Human Story

Dr Amanda Potter 30:57

Goodness. So, what does all of this mean then, John, for organizations? What's the practical takeaway for the people who are listening?

John Cooper 31:05

Well, clearly change is coming and coming fast. Humans need to think about how they embrace and use AI well, and how organizations need to think about how they recognize human talent, look after it, keep it connected and nurture it. And I think for me, at a practical level, the real issue is we know from Gallup surveys about engagement that the vast majority of the workforce are already disengaged. And I think the exam question really for organizations is how do I reduce the cost of disconnection? So, how do I understand it and how do I do something about it so that humans that are in the organization journeying through change become more connected? Because if they can be more connected, they are the differentiator that will keep the organization sustainable above and beyond the progress of AI. They are the heart, and I think at a practical level, therefore, we need to measure connection at individual, team, and culture level and diagnose, understand how we're doing and how we benchmark against other organizations. So, connection index, if you like. And at a personal level, I think we all need to remember that as we journey through change, we've got to keep human connection alive. My daughter yesterday came back after doing her GCSE art day- one, bless her, and told me just about at the start of it, one of her peers in the class was in a terrible state and essentially looked disconnected and anxious. And my daughter Lila went over to her and just said, Are you okay? And the response was no, I'm not, and tears. And my daughter literally physically connected with her, put her arms around and said, Look, it's gonna be okay. This came to light last night at dinner because the girl who Lila doesn't really know very well Snapchatted her and sent this lovely message all about human connection and how much difference it had made. So that human touch, you know, so important at a practical level. Remember, we're human, AI is gonna help you, but you've got to put time in, particularly managers and leaders, to the human.

Dr Amanda Potter 33:20

I love that. John, that's a brilliant way to the point of the story. I love the story to end. I think that's a great reminder, isn't it, to make sure we connect with people who matter, whether it's at work or at home. I think if we go back to that research you referred to at the beginning, that we are more likely to live happy, long lives if we have great human connections and friends. But the more we're isolated from our friends and family, the less likely that's to be the case.

Caitlin Cooper 33:47

I think it's a pillar of resilience.

Dr Amanda Potter 33:50

Yeah, I love that point about chemistry as well, you know, that the chemistry of the group and the connections that people have. I think it's so fundamental. So this has been a real something that's been great for me. It's really helped me think about what really matters for people. So it's been really good. Thank you, John.

John Cooper 34:05

Thank you, Amanda. It's great to connect with you both. I hope we can connect more around this human connection movement that I'm sort of sparking and a summit that we've got planned in 2027. Very much hoping that Be Talent and Zircon might be involved. Please.

Dr Amanda Potter 34:23

Yeah, that'd be great. Yes, please. Especially as our thinking so aligned. We may use slightly different language, but I think the essence is pretty much the same.

Caitlin Cooper 34:30

Well, thank you. Thank you, John, as well. From going from a listener to now being a guest on the podcast. I hope you enjoyed it. We definitely did.

John Cooper 34:38

Yeah, congratulations on the podcast. It's very cool.

Dr Amanda Potter 34:41

It is very cool. You're right. And thank you, everyone, who listens and subscribes, and shares, and shares feedback with us. I hope you all have a wonderful and successful day.