We now live in both a wired and wireless world, with connectivity literally surrounding us and bathing us in information.  In a world like this, how can it sometimes feel like you’re alone ‘on an island’?

Perhaps the answer, at least in part, is that connectivity is not the same as community.  And it’s community that makes us feel part of something beyond ourselves.  Immediate family, extended family, friends and associations can provide a sense of community in parts of our lives.

In business, however, finding community can be more elusive.  Well-formed local work teams can provide it for some of us, but certain roles make community harder to find.  Leaders may find themselves lonely and so may others that work mostly independently, such as sales representatives.  A virtual island can form around them, without a means to get connected to the mainland.

How can an individual business person find community and gain perspective when working in an independent role?  For the leader, it requires getting out from behind the desk and discovering the ground truth within operations; it also requires seeking out others who share a similar role in other places.  For the “Hunter” sales representative, it requires finding others who do what they do and making mutually-beneficial connections there.  Both instances require proactive outreach and thoughtful engagement.

Peer groups and professional associations exist to facilitate such connections.  They are useful to a point, but they come up a bit short of family status.  It’s when companies are forged with a strong set of guiding principles and purposefully develop a “Shared Consciousness” within, as described by Gen Stanley McCrystal in Team of Teams, that it becomes possible to create the type of connection that feels personal and generates active collaboration.

When such a transformative event actually happens, we discover that what appeared to be an island was merely a mirage.  Community replaces isolation and “Empowered Execution” fills the void as relationships link professionals wherever they physically operate.

Tempus Maximize!