Building Better Connections Is a Skill Business Leaders Cannot Afford To Skip

Small business owners who skip time for building relationships at work are making a huge mistake that weakens trust, teamwork, and their greater network footprint, organisational psychologist and author Adam Grant argues in his latest book.

Grant, whose earlier books Think Again and Hidden Potential focused more on individual growth, turns to workplace connection in Vibe: The Secrets of Strong Connections in a Lonely World. He compares social skills to muscles that weaken without training. Most people, he said, slightly overestimate how good they are at connecting.

For small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) owners caught up in day-to-day operations, the book makes a highly practical case. It challenges three common myths about how relationships form, sets out what Grant calls “planned serendipity” for meetings and gatherings and argues human connection remains a separate skill as artificial intelligence (AI) reshapes workflows. 

Adam believes the costs don’t always show up immediately, but long term, a broader and deeper footprint of high quality connections means more options when it comes to hiring, partnership, getting honest client feedback, and growth. 

Building the foundations for better connections takes time. In Vibe, Grant lays out how. 

Grant Says Workplace Connection Can Be Learned

Grant defines a “vibe” as the dynamic energy that emerges during an interaction: the sense of clicking with someone, of chemistry and closeness. He argues it underpins deeper relationships with colleagues, allies and clients, and it shapes both daily enjoyment at work and higher leverage business results.

“We often attribute vibes to specific people and places. ‘I love her vibe’. ‘This room has good vibes’. But a vibe isn’t just automatically there,” Grant says.

He traced the term back to its roots. “It comes alive in our interactions. It’s the quality of connection between people, and it’s more than a feeling, the word ‘vibe’ literally comes from ‘vibration’, which has musical connotations. And it is something that can be intentionally cultivated.”

The idea that relationships drive business success isn’t new. Dale Carnegie’s 1936 classic How to Win Friends and Influence People and Keith Ferrazzi’s networking book Never Eat Lunch Alone made similar cases decades apart.

Grant’s addition is a set of fun, research-based frameworks people can repeat across work and life. The project is also personal. Grant has described the book as a gift to his younger self, who struggled to connect with peers as a teenager.

Three Myths Shape How Teams Build Connection

“Vibe” challenges three common beliefs about how relationships form. Each one matters for employers managing diverse teams.

The first is that people must be similar to connect. Grant cites research showing people can build strong bonds and a sense of solidarity after one or two deep conversations, even when they come from very different backgrounds. That finding is relevant in workplaces where employees, clients and customers come from all walks of life.

The second is that chemistry is instant. Grant argues some early awkwardness is normal and chemistry develops over time. For that reason, he says, regular rituals of connection, from Monday morning team coffees to annual global conferences, have an important place in business planning. A Chief Vibe Officer may be one step too far, but business leaders should think about keeping their “personality hires” close.  

The third is that closeness takes years. According to Grant, closeness can form relatively quickly when both people are curious. Good questions and careful listening are central. His rule of thumb: start light before going deep.

Grant points to examples ranging from astronauts to comedy troupes, where trust built in advance changed what each group could achieve. And business owners don’t need to build networks from scratch, he notes. Existing employees, team members and customers are the natural starting point.

Planned Gatherings Build Stronger Workplace Connection

Grant’s approach is all about “planned serendipity.” The gatherings that best support connection, he argues, are planned, carefully choreographed and intentional rather than left to chance.

Purpose comes first. Grant cites research showing people get more out of a gathering when they know why they are there. Payments company Stripe, for example, runs hour-long user feedback sessions on Mondays and Fridays, while many professional services firms train staff to set clear aims for every meeting.

Smaller details count too. Name tags prompt people to introduce themselves. Warm lighting can support warmer interactions, according to Grant, who says people perceived as warm, a quality he calls “exothermic,” tend to connect more easily.

Conversation cards are another tool. Demand for hosts and event planners is rising at large companies as marketers renew their focus on in-person connection, and conversation starters have become a staple of bigger gatherings.

Sofia Echesortu, design strategist and event planner at Blackbird, organises events and branded gatherings aimed at building authentic business relationships. Echesortu, who is Argentinian-Australian, believes Latin American approaches could help counter loneliness: flexibility over formality, frequent shared meals and social life that spills into the streets. She has brought that approach to her work creating “magnetic spaces” for business leaders to gather in Australia, studying beautiful, buzzy locations like the Lille bakery in Copenhagen to see what she can learn. 

“All bakeries in Copenhagen have bread, they all have croissants, so why is [Lille] so much better than the others?” she muses on the topic. “Sometimes it’s the space, sometimes it’s the location, sometimes it’s the way it’s set up, or that the menu serves something special on a Tuesday. I like looking at the combination of ingredients in a space and bringing that back into my work.”  

Structure can also turn routine meetings into rituals. At Amazon, founder and former CEO Jeff Bezos required staff to write clear, concise memos to sharpen thinking and make meetings more effective. Meetings open with 6 minutes of silent reading before anyone speaks, giving attendees a shared starting point for engaging with colleagues’ ideas and planning next steps.

Human Connection Remains Distinct From AI Productivity

Grant acknowledges designing connection into a technology-driven workplace is a central challenge for business leaders right now. AI lifts productivity and is reshaping the economy. But building connection and keeping good relationships is a fundamentally different capability.

Other research points the same way. The Gottman Institute has studied methods for building lasting connections, from responding to small bids for attention to repairing conflict quickly. Research on “superconnectors”, people who bridge separate groups within an organisation, shows they gather information across teams and help those teams perform better.

For SME owners short on time, Vibe’s central argument is that workplace relationships are designed, not won by luck. Grant presents warmth as something any leader can build and get better at, with benefits ranging from more enjoyable workdays to deeper trust when the business stakes are high.