Connection for the win.

icon for all audiences: students, faculty, and staff

INCREASING CLOSENESS EXERCISES. Feeling you're just not connecting with someone, or your team?...

Building close relationships in adulthood can be challenging.

Try these exercises to increase your capacity to work with classmates or colleagues. Social situations often involve polite small talk, not heart-to-heart conversations, so it's difficult to really connect deeply with people. Research suggests that spending just 45 minutes engaging in self-disclosure with a stranger can dramatically increase feelings of closeness between you.

When everyone on a team can understand each member's point of view, shared goals can be reached with greater satisfaction since people are more engaged.