The links formula

I've only discussed written communication so far, and it's time to shift my attention towards interpersonal communication between team members. This is by far the trickiest form of communication for you as a leader. By definition, it mostly happens without you being involved.

How can you help a group of people have productive conversations with each other?

The problem is hard, so I have a mental model for it. It's built upon a concept I call the "links formula". A link is a line of communication between two distinct team members. Here is one way to formalise this concept:

links n = div (n * (n -1)) 2
links(2) => 1
links(3) => 3
links(4) => 6
links(5) => 10
links(6) => 15

The visual representation of this formula is even more striking:

flowchart TB
   subgraph six
    a6((a)) <--> b6((b))
    c6((c)) <--> a6
    c6 <--> b6
    c6 <--> d6((d))
    d6 <--> a6
    d6 <--> b6
    e6((e)) <--> a6
    e6 <--> b6
    e6 <--> c6
    e6 <--> d6
    f6((f)) <--> a6
    f6 <--> b6
    f6 <--> c6
    f6 <--> d6
    f6 <--> e6
  end
  subgraph five
    a5((a)) <--> b5((b))
    c5((c)) <--> a5
    c5 <--> b5
    c5 <--> d5((d))
    d5 <--> a5
    d5 <--> b5
    e5((e)) <--> a5
    e5 <--> b5
    e5 <--> c5
    e5 <--> d5
  end
  subgraph four
    a4((a)) <-->b4((b))
    c4((c)) <--> a4
    c4 <--> b4
    c4 <--> d4((d))
    d4 <--> a4
    d4 <--> b4
  end
  subgraph three
    a3((a)) <-->b3((b))
    c3((c)) <--> a3
    c3 <--> b3
  end
  subgraph two
    a2((a))<-->b2((b))
  end

As you can see, the number of connections grows fast, really fast. This growth trajectory makes any attempt of working on interpersonal communication at "link level" impossible. In other words, it doesn't make sense to work on this channel from the perspective of all your team members at once. It's too complicated; there are too many links.

This is where my mental model comes into play. The idea is to leverage the concept of a link and maintain a visual representation of these links. To build this model, I use the following strategy:

• I ask people in the team how they feel about their interpersonal communication with other people. This is a private conversation, so I find one-on-ones to be the best space to check in on this.
• I use colours to visualise the links. My approach: a "red link" means something is wrong, a "yellow link" means that I need to pay attention, and a "blue link" means that everything is fine.
• I draw a graph for each team member with the relevant links.

Such a graph gives me a sense of the team's communication well-being. Sometimes people are stressed out in their life and that reflects on their interpersonal communication. As a leader, you are less likely to experience the impact of such a situation compared to the rest of the team. In such cases, you can see that the links connecting to that person change colour. You can spot patterns and that can help focus your attention.

The links formula also tells us that you can't use it for a large team. The picture becomes too colourful and the problem is again too complicated to solve. In When to split teams, I discuss the implications of this limitation and how to handle them.