Second Circle: The Energy of Connecting

In Second Circle, your energy is focused. It moves out toward the object of your attention, touches it and then receives energy back from it. You are living in a two-way street – you give to and are responsive with that energy, reacting and communicating freely. You are in the moment – in the so-called ‘zone’ – and moment to moment you give and take […] In Second Circle, you touch and influence another person rather than impress or impose your will on them. You influence

them by allowing them to influence you.²¹

Patsy Rodenburg, The Second Circle

Building ensembles, getting ‘attuned’ or connected, or being ‘in the Second Circle’ is not rocket science.

We all know how to do this, but we often fail. We nod and smile when we are talking to people, but we’re not really giving them our full attention. We try to get the general gist of what they’re saying so that we don’t seem seriously rude or impolite, but we’re actually spending most of our time rehearsing the next clever thing we can say as soon as they let us get a word in edgewise.

Many managers are guilty of this – especially when they start out with the assumption they should not actually connect with the members of their team. They believe that they should ‘maintain a suitable distance’ and so, in most of their interactions with the team, it is clear they are not really listening and engaging. They may be noting things that are said as being ‘issues that must be addressed’, but it is clear that anything said to the manager will be viewed like an objection in a sales pitch: something that must be handled and overcome.

Team members, unsurprisingly, emerge from such encounters feeling belittled and manipulated.

Good leaders, on the other hand, are very good at connecting. They go out of their way to make contact with people, and when they do, they really are ‘there for them’. They show understanding and appreciation in a genuine interaction. It may be a brief encounter, but people leave feeling that they have connected.

Alan Mulally took over as CEO of Ford Motor Company in 2006. At the time, rising fuel prices and a slack economy were reducing demand for Ford’s vehicles, and increasing healthcare costs for an aging workforce were putting pressure on profits.

Facing a loss of $17 billion for the year, Mulally raised $23.5 billion in loans to fund his recovery plan, mortgaging many of Ford’s assets.

Bryce Hoffman, author of American Icon, Alan Mulally and the Fight to Save Ford Motor Company, talked to a Forbes journalist about Mulally’s policy of reaching out to colleagues at all levels:

Shortly after he came on board, he would respond to some emails by walking into the person’s office or calling them, even lower

level employees.

For two weeks, those people would tell everyone about their experience and how Mulally had inspired them. He singlehandedly boosted morale through individual acts of touching and connecting

with people.

His cheerleader-in-chief role meant that he would pick people up, dust them off, pat them on the back and get them focused on the

plan ahead.²²

Bryce Hoffman in conversation with Forbes journalist