Work is often described through plans, meetings, outputs, and decisions. Yet what happens between people may shape what can be understood, questioned, and acted upon. The question is whether connection, and the conditions that shape it, should be seen as the work itself.
Knowledge Café
Is Connection the Work?
Date: Thursday 4th June 2026
Time: 14:00 to 15:30 BST (London time)
—it might still work for you if you’re open to an early start or a late night.Host/Speaker: David Gurteen and John Hovell
Location: Online Zoom Event
Price: Free
Introduction
This event is part of a series of online Knowledge Cafés on Conversational Leadership, held on Zoom.
Each Café explores a theme drawn from my online blook on Conversational Leadership.
Ahead of each Café, I may invite you to read one or more related posts from the blook to help prepare for the conversation.
If you’re new to the Knowledge Café concept, please note that this is a participatory event, not a webinar.
Theme: Is Connection the Work?
In this Knowledge Café, we will explore a deceptively simple question: is connection the work?
In organizations, we often think of work in terms of plans, meetings, documents, deliverables, and decisions. Yet the real work may lie in the quality of the interactions through which those things are understood, questioned, and acted upon.
A team may have the same agenda, the same data, and the same decision to make, but reach very different outcomes depending on who speaks, who holds back, what can be challenged, and what remains unsaid.
So perhaps connection is not just something that helps the work happen. Perhaps connection and the conditions that shape it are central to the work itself.
The question for our conversation, not surprisingly, will be:
Is connection the work?
John and I will discuss the Café’s theme and pose a question to initiate the conversation. Then, in Café style, we will divide into small groups for three rounds of discussion, followed by a whole-group conversation.
Reading Material
If you have time, please read this post on the theme in my blook. It provides a helpful background for our conversation.
Upcoming Events
Event: Is Connection the Work? Thursday 4th June 2026 14:00 to 15:30 BST (London time) - Work is often described through plans, meetings, outputs, and decisions. Yet what happens between people may shape what can be… 
Event: Conversational Leadership Workshop 2026 7 - 11 September 2026, Warbrook House, Hampshire, England - We are living and working in conditions of uncertainty, complexity, and rapid change. Many leadership approaches still rely on control,… Image Credits: Midjourney
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