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Hi, this is Matthew Bradsky with Knowledge at Wharton. We're here to talk with Erica Dewan, co-author of Get Big
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Things Done: The Power of Connectional Intelligence. Um, Erica is a strategist and researcher and a former Wall Street
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banker who comes to us with degrees from Wharton, Harvard, and MIT. In her new book, Erica describes a new 21st century
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skill that she calls connectional intelligence, where people can combine the power of ambition, knowledge, and
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human capital to achieve great things. My first question for you is about the concept of connectional intelligence.
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Um, I gather you've been researching it perhaps since you graduated Wharton as
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an undergrad. Why did you come to connectional intelligence and how has your understanding of it evolved over
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time? Great question, Matt. So, I uh grew up in a family of immigrants. I'm the daughter of two Indian immigrants
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and um like many immigrant children, I wanted to check off all the boxes of the of success. I went to Wharton undergrad
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and I um went into a great job on Wall Street afterwards. And during that time I also worked through the 2008
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recession. And uh through that experience I really began to witness uh a sense of disillusionment, confusion
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and burnout among the millennial generation which was the generation that I was a part of. And like many other
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millennials I worked incredibly hard. But at the same time I saw that there was an underlying desire for greater
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meaning in our work and finding new ways um to find passion and purpose. And that
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led me to actually entirely switch gears and I spent a series of years studying uh the next wave the next generation's
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desires and how they were desiring to work in today's world um both in the midst of the financial crisis but also
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at a time where we saw a rise in social technologies like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. And what I began to see is
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that from um someone who worked in private equity to an NGO leader, many of the struggles were quite similar. And
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they were really struggles related to how to navigate the noise of social media in our overconnected world and and
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cut through and really find purpose and meaning. And at that point, I really began to dig in into this idea of how we
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could connect intelligently in today's world. And that led me um to meet my co-author renowned business strategist
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Saj Nicole Jonai uh in who's also a CEO adviser. And together what we realized
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is that there is this underlying capacity what we call connectional intelligence that anyone really can
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harness in today's world. And the key question today is not about how do we obtain more networks and more
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connections but the key question today is how do we connect intelligently and harness the connectedness available to
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all of us to get big things done and that's what led to the journey of writing the book with Saj Nicole Jonai
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interesting um you you mentioned in the book that connectional intelligence has been with us for generations uh you know
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historically great thinkers like Ben Franklin and folks like Florence Nightingale had connectional
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intelligence. Um, why is it more relevant than ever? Great question. So, connectional intelligence as we
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described in the book isn't new. The great leader of our time from Ben Franklin as you said, Florence
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Nightingale, Mahatma Gandhi, uh, all had great connectional intelligence. But what we discovered is that the scale,
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depth and breadth of our connection is radically different in today's world.
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And that has not only allowed great inventors, artists, social activists to create change using connectional
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intelligence, but it has allowed young people, um, farmers, plumbers, um, surfers to use their connectional
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intelligence to bring together communities, ideas, and disciplines in ways that never were imaginable just
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even 10 to 15 years ago. And it it's really that rise of connectional intelligence that really led us to write
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this book and really show how anyone anywhere can leverage the connectedness available to us to get big things done.
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How is the concept different than you know what business people think of as their networks or as networking?
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So about 10 years ago, Malcolm Gladwell actually uh described the concept of there are three types of um people that
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help create great networks and create a vibrant social epidemics. And they're
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the salesperson, the mavens, and the connectors. And really now if we think about the word connector um it's often
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being labeled as really a term that's targeted towards building large networks
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or using networks as building relationships. But in today's world what we realized is that concept of a
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connector is in need of an update. And the concept is not just about how do you become a connector but really how do you
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use connection to get big things done in a radically different way. And the concept of connectional intelligence
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actually is broadening the idea of a connector to move beyond building networks just as building a a web of
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social assets or capital. And it's really allowing anyone to think about how how one can build that web to
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actually lead to measurable change to actually translate into outcomes. So what we're really guiding people to is
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not the question of quantity of networks. Um how many Twitter followers do you have, how many fakes Facebook
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likes do you have, but we're moving to the question of the quality of networks
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and how can you build the quality of networks to get big things done. In our book, we actually talk about that there
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are three types of connectors in today's world. We talk about Heather connectors
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that are thinkers. Thinkers are those that have high curiosity and bring ideas together in groundbreaking new ways. Um
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the second type of a connector is an enabler. Those are people that forge communities and create the structures
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and forces to get big things done. And the third type of a connector is a connection executor. These are the
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people that mobilize all the resources to get to get big things done. And so what began 10 years ago as a concept
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around networking and building networks has now emerged to a much more broadened
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view of how connections can be leveraged from many different levels. You use the
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term bewildering store of knowledge in the book and and how we're able now to
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access that store of knowledge and wisdom, humanity's collective um wisdom and knowledge. Um what would you say to
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somebody though who argues that that might not necessarily be a good thing that having all this access can create
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too much noise um too much confusion or that say the internet is you know bears too many risks than rewards.
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So I think it's an incredibly important question and the we are living in an
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unprecedented time in history where we are all connected through social media, through mobile devices, through online
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communities and like any human capacity, the rise of connectional intelligence is
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allowing for greatness and it's allowing also for a lot of crowd noise um and a
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lot of distraction many times from what might matter most. And what I would say to that is when we think about
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connectional intelligence, what we're really talking about is a human skill that anyone can use. And I the best way
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to uh to describe this is the difference between collective intelligence which is
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really this idea of leveraging crowd wisdom and all the wisdom available to us to as compared to connectional
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intelligence which is the I the idea that we have an ability to combine knowledge, ambition and human capital to
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forge connections on a global scale to create unprecedented value and meaning. And so as we think about our world that
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can be very noisy at times um and um and the idea of crowdsourcing is allowing us
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to scan and source lots of ideas. Um that doesn't necessarily mean that they'll be the right ideas or they'll
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help us achieve our goals. What we actually need is to combine the crown wisdom with connectional intelligence
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which is the idea that we actually many of the greatest breakthroughs come from small interconnected teams that may not
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actually um be connected with the largest crowds but may have enough diversity of interests of disciplines of
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worldviews to get something big done. Why would you say millennials are best positioned to take advantage of this?
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So I would say that in today's world we are um as as we've seen in the past 10
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to 15 years um the millennial generation has been raised of an in an age of only
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hyperconivity and this has really allowed um the millennial generation to not only be able to be native to new
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ways of working to connective capacities but also use it in really unique ways to
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scan and source ideas to solve problems um through disperate networks to leverage ideas like social media. Um but
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what I would also say is that connectional intelligence is not uh specific to the millennial generation.
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What we found in our book is that this capacity and this force is available to all of us. And in my work with my
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co-author Sashnikol Jonai, we found stories of a pumpkin farmer um who in his 60s grew the world's largest pumpkin
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using connectional intelligence in ways uh by connecting with small groups and leveraging a website called
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bigpumpkins.com and connecting with a community of scientists. Um, we also talk about a story called the Granny
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Cloud, which is a community of grandmothers in the UK and a Australia who Skype weekly with Indian children.
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And what's really interesting about that is they're working with these children
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across the globe around fluency in English. But more interesting, something that really is interesting that came out
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of that is that these grandmothers feel connected to each other as part of this comm community in as part of this
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community in ways that they never were before. Um, and we've also looked into
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studies that show that video interaction can make a huge difference for elder populations as cognitive abilities
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decline. So what we found is that while millennials may be native in connection,
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we can all use connectional intelligence. But what what also is key is that we have to leverage millennials
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connectional intelligence oftentimes in our workplaces to generate new ideas to solve problems and make sure that we
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don't squash their connectional intelligence um to adapt to more traditional ways of working.
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you you shared a lot of great stories in the book um to illustrate how individuals are accessing that
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connectional intelligence and you you mentioned a couple uh earlier in in the previous question.
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Um are there one or two other favorite examples you can share? Absolutely. One of my favorite stories is the story of a
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woman named Jeanie Peeper. Uh Jeanie for many years struggled with a very rare disease called FOB. And for a long time
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she um scoured um many different doctor's offices to try to diagnose the illness. But about 10 years ago, Jeanie
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decided to do something very different. She created the first ever Facebook group and email newsletter for anyone
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around the world that had FOB. This brought hundreds of people together that had this illness. And for the first time
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ever, Genie was able to create a knowledge network around this very rare disease because patients were globally
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connected in a way that they had never been before. Uh soon enough from that um Genie and this small interconnected
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group was able to fund medical research for the rare disease and also um they've
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created a community now that is teaching doctors ways to better diagnose the illness. And what I find so powerful
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about the story of Genie Peeper is that connectional intelligence is not a tool just for the rich or the business people
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or for the most successful. It's really a tool for anyone that has an idea or a
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passion or wants to make meaning around something and is willing to open themselves up to new people and ideas.
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And by doing that, amazing possibilities emerge. And what we found through so many stories just like genies are just
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that when we open ourselves up to new ideas, to new communities, to new ways of working, oftentimes some of the
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greatest ideas are from the places we least expect it. You know, that said, um you mention in the book how companies,
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corporations, big organizations can also benefit from connectional intelligence.
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Um for instance, Green Exchange was one example. Um can you go a little bit into
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that um specifically as well as in general how big organizations can benefit? Absolutely. I think there is a
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huge opportunity in frontier for organizations to harness the connectional intelligence of their
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employees. One of the great examples uh that we featured in the book is the story of innocent and Colgate. A few
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years ago Colgate had a big science problem. and they had a new fluoride that they were trying to mesh in their
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toothpaste and all the best chemists were working on mixing the fluoride and the toothpaste together, but it wasn't
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mixing well and it was getting clogged up in the equipment. And while all the best chemists were trying to figure this
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out for months, for some reason it was not getting fixed. And so what uh uh Colgate decided to do is they decided to
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post this question, this problem onto a crowdsourcing site called Innocentive, which is a community of inventors that
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are scouring um the the website to help solve problems that companies are facing. And so they posted this question
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onto the site and within days a physicist named Ed Melkerik uh posted an answer and his answer was that this
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problem wasn't a chemistry problem. It was a physics problem. It was about charged particles. You charged the
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fluoride, charged the toothpaste and instantly the problem was solved. And so what began as a month-long monthsl long
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problem for Colgate was solved in such a short span by leveraging a new community
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in a very different way. But the flip side to that story is that Ed Melkarik the physicist was someone who may not
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have typically ever been hired by Colgate. So a big piece of understanding connectional intelligence is
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understanding one how to use it to acquire and find great talent but secondly how to access networks outside
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your company's existing ecosystem to reach customers in new ways to solve scientific problems to mobilize and sell
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a product in new categories and beyond. What's the story of green exchange? So
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the story of green exchange is green and Nike had decided to release 400 patents
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um to companies that would be willing to use those patents for environmentally sustainable use um and non-competitive
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use. So, an interesting um story that came out of Green Exchange is that when Nike launched Green Exchange, one of the
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things that happened is a mountain biking company decided to use one of Nike's rubber patents in their tires.
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And it led to immense savings for the company. But what it also really led to is an entire community that was coming
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together in a very different way and really shifting the notion of what intellectual property has meant for so
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many years. The other great thing that happened out of Green Exchange is many other companies like Best Buy and
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Creative Commons began to follow on and began to also share some of their patents for sustainable use with other
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companies. Interesting. Um, you know, you hear the word disruption a lot in the the business media these days. What
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traditional power structures and industries will connectional intelligence disrupt? I would say that
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connectional intelligence is a capacity that when used well uh by employees, by customers, by manufacturers can disrupt
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any industry truly. And the way that I'll describe that is um actually the best story, one of my favorite stories
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from the book is a story of Ben Kaufman who was the founder of Quirky. Um and quirky um originated when Ben Kaufman
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asked the question, why does it take two and a half years to design and manufacture a potato peeler by a kitchen
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wear company in today's world? Why is the why is the length from the beginning
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design phase to the distribution uh so long? And what he created was a community called Quirky where they it's
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a large community of inventors that every month they they vote on two inventions that they are going to design
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and manufacture that month. They have inventors from all over the world that vote for these ideas that come together.
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Um they have an entire community in New York uh that designs and manufactures these inventions. And then today they
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have partnerships with companies like Home Depot and General Electric to actually accelerate the supply chain in
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a way that wasn't possible ever before. And what I think is the real powerful
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connectional intelligence aspect to that is how Ben Kaufman really asks the question, how can we open up the this
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process to a community of inventors that typically aren't asked by a large company to help solve a problem to help
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bring in an idea to help manufacture the idea and bring it to scale and I think that just that story is is one small
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example but there are many others that we're seeing in how businesses is disrupting
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when people are using their connectional intelligence in new ways. It's very
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inspirational stuff. Um, and the last part of the book is a handbook where people can take what they've learned in
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the earlier sections of the book and apply them to their own lives, their businesses. Um, you know, for our
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viewers now, what are a couple of the takeaways that after reading your book and learning about connectional
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intelligence that they can apply right away to their lives and their businesses? Yes. So, the handbook is my
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favorite part of Get Big Things Done. And it's a mix of a quiz, a manager guide, an application, set of tools for
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you to assess how you can use your own connectional intelligence at work and how you can leverage a group of people's
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connectional intelligence to get something big done. I would say that the the biggest impact of the handbook and
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and lessons for readers are one um to really think very critically about the quality of connections that you're
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building, not just the quantity. And the idea that networks don't simply lead to
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measurable change. And so one of the first things in the handbook is we help you assess what type of connectionally
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intelligent person are you? Are you a thinker? Someone that brings together ideas? Are you an enabler, the person
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that likes to build community around those ideas? Or are you a connection executor? Someone that really can
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mobilize resources in action to get big things done. And once you really understand how you are a connector in
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today's world, because I truly believe that we're all connectors in many
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different forms, then you can understand how do you build the resources around you to help leverage both your strengths
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and also leverage areas where you not might not be as strong in. Um, so one thing we found is um if you you might be
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an introvert and if you're an introvert that doesn't mean that you're not using
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connectional intelligence but you might be using it in a different way. You may be using it um to write blogs or share
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on Twitter or to connect ideas um together and by doing that you may be a thinker but what you could do is maybe
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connect or reach out to connection executors that may have a different set of resources and tools to get something
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big done. So I think on the highest level it's one think critically about the networks that you build the quality
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uh not just the quantity two assessing what type of connector you are and three how you can use and leverage those
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around you that have different skills in order to get big things done. Erica it's
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been a pleasure to talk with you and I just have one last question for you. How do you plan to use connectional
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intelligence to promote your book about connectional intelligence? That is a great question and I would say
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that we are using connectional intelligence entirely in in our work to promote the book. One of the big ways
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we're doing it is we're doing a Twitter series where we're doing a countdown
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where we're asking people to share by take the quiz and actually share back with us what type of connectionally
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intelligent person they are. Um, so we can really have a dialogue online both through blogging and on Twitter to talk
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about how people are not only assessing their own connectional intelligence but using it in action. And we hope to
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continue to build stories of those that are using their own connectional intelligence and featuring these stories
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on the web. Erica, again, it's been a pleasure to talk with you and and thank
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you for for the interview. Best of luck with your book release. Thank you. [Music]