It takes at least seven minutes to have a true, Connected conversation. In an age where technology buzzes, pings, and interrupts us on a nearly continual basis, this finding by social psychologist Sherry Turkle inspires us to think about how we can practice Connection. She discusses conversation and gives us some ideas about how to make it happen in this podcast from the Note to Self series “Infomagical.”

What does it take to have a truly human, face-to-face interaction for seven minutes these days? Why seven minutes? It takes that long to get past the settling in – the initial chat – and really dig into the meat of the conversation.

As leaders, when we encourage our team members to truly connect, and take the time to do it right, we create a Connection culture–a culture where Connections are sought after because they create valuable interactions. We know it’s not easy to remove all of the dings, mental distractions, and alerts urging us to send a text. It seems so much easier to shoot off a quick note and be done with it. But creating human Connections opens the door to so much more –and is truly time well spent.