Michael Lee Stallard

On October 6, I’ll be speaking about leadership, employee motivation, productivity and innovation at the Human Capital Institute’s Employee Engagement and Retention Conference in Boston.  The conference has scheduled a book signing for Fired Up or Burned Out.  You can learn more about the employee engagement conference at this link.

We recently committed to other public speaking engagements.  In January I will be speaking at Texas Christian University as part of its Tandy Executive Leadership Series.  In May, Jason Pankau will be speaking at the HR Summit in Singapore.  The summit is Asia’s largest leadership and HR conference with more than three thousand attendees.

Many individuals and organizations today are in a funk.

Employee engagement is at a low point and the slide down began long before the Great Recession. Research generally shows that 90 percent of employees don’t feel connected to their supervisor or colleagues at work and are either not engaged and giving their best efforts or not aligning their behavior with organizational goals.  Is it any wonder that our economy is struggling?

Research shows that many individuals today are lonely, anxious and depressed.  Depression medication is now a 10 billion dollar business. Even more children report feeling anxious and depressed.  They sense that something is wrong although though they don’t understand why.

The problem today is hidden in plain sight. We are sorely deficient of what I refer to as connection (also known as community, social capital, belonging or meaningful relationships).  How did we get to this state?  Over the last century we grew myopic and obsessed with increasing efficiency and productivity and forgot that human beings need time for relationships too.

If you’re skeptical, I invite you to take a look at The Connection Culture Manifesto, the Hardwired to Connect report by the Committee for Children at Risk, and The Lonely Society report by the Mental Health Foundation in the UK. Several excellent books also address the issue of declining connection in society including Bowling Alone, The American Paradox and The Loss of Happiness in Market Democracies.

What can you do?  Although it’s simple, it isn’t easy. Take time to connect. Reach out to the people in your life, set up times to meet for coffee a walk or a meal and then slow down and focus on being present with those you spend time with.  Find out what’s going on in their lives at work and outside of work.  Do this daily, if at all possible.

It used to be said that an apple a day keeps the doctor away but research from a variety of fields makes it clear that connection with others and with meaning in life is the real daily requirement that helps human beings survive and thrive.

So what are you waiting for?   Just connect.

When individuals feel like valued members of a group, it boosts a host of positive outcomes including superior decision-making, employee engagement, employee motivation, strategic alignment, organizational learning, cooperation, productivity, innovation and overall performance. This applies to groups of all sizes including classrooms and schools, families, business and government organizations, hospitals, sports teams and the social sector.  Strong relationships are key for any group to achieve the benefits enumerated above.

In an earlier post, I wrote about the University of Chicago research on relational trust that I learned about from my friend Parker Palmer.  For those of you who are interested in relational trust and the wisdom of crowds, I encourage you to check out this fascinating interview my friend Robert Morris, the freelance writer, did with Alan Briskin, co-author of The Power of Collective Wisdom. In the interview, Briskin and Morris discuss relationship centered networks that tap into collective wisdom.

For those of you who read Robert Morris’ book review and interview, you will see why I believe he is among the very best at what he does.  In addition to being a well-organized, clear writer, Morris is a Renaissance man who always sprinkles his writings and interviews with thoughtful insights drawn from remarkably diverse fields of knowledge.  Check out his book reviews and interviews at this link and you’ll see what what I mean.

Joe Nocera, one of America’s best business journalists, describes in his column today the real reason HP fired its CEO Mark Hurd.  The bottom line is that Hurd managed with fear and his style was unsustainable.  Stated another way, he was focused on developing task excellence but failed to develop relationship excellence the way that we describe it in our recent Leader to Leader Journal article entitled, “To Boost Performance, Connect with the Core.” Connecting with employees boosts employee engagement, alignment, productivity and innovation.  Pushing hard to achieve task excellence may work for a while but absent developing relationship excellence, task excellence is unsustainable.

Two stories in The New York Times this weekend reminded me that good often blooms from gloom.  In “Detroit Goes from Gloom to Economic Bright Spot,” Bill Vlasic writes that the American automobile manufacturers are emerging from a near-death experience as leaner, more grounded, humbler, and more long-term oriented organizations.  In a different field altogether, that of men’s professional basketball, Scottie Pippen was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame yesterday.  Read about it in “Stepping Out of Jordan’s Shadow, Pippen to Enter Hall.”   I was inspired to learn about Pippen’s remarkable climb from humble origins and how he came back from an embarrassing episode that occurred years ago when he refused to play in a crucial game. Pippen learned from his mistake then moved on to become an even better player, leader and human being.

There is real wisdom in these stories.  As human beings, we are imperfect.  Good times often puff us up and develop hubris in our character (i.e., over-confidence, arrogance and the negative aspects of pride).  This applies to organizations as well as to individuals.  Tough times, on the other hand, as hard as they may be, are opportunities to develop the humility we need to thrive over the long-term.

How does humility help us thrive?  When we are humble, we are more likely to seek, listen to and consider the opinions and ideas of others.  Facing difficulties, we are more likely to reach out to God and to our family and friends for help rather than see ourselves as self-sufficient.  In a state of humility, we are more likely to develop a number of other character strengths such as kindness, graciousness, gratitude, patience and perseverance or fortitude.

Are you going through tough times?  If so, I suggest the following:

1. Devote time each day to prayer. When I pray, I like to focus on thanking God for the many blessings in my life and I pray for the needs of others as well as for wisdom in the important decisions I must make.

2. Make a list of things for which you are grateful. My wife’s list might include M&Ms, the color red, video chatting with our daughters, reading the newspaper in her pajamas, and having survived both breast and advanced ovarian cancer.  Counting our blessings gives us perspective.  The negativism of today can influence us so that, without our even being aware, we get caught up in it (a condition that sociologists describe as “emotional contagion”).

3. Spend time each day conversing and connecting with family members, friends and colleagues at work. Find out what’s going on in their lives.  If you face important decisions, talk them over with others to gain a balanced perspective.  This is a huge energizer for me (and I’m somewhat introverted).

4. Regularly reach out to help or encourage someone in need. Serving someone else is one of the best ways to lift your own spirit and the spirit of the people around you.  Just try it and you’ll see!

I know from experience that these four simple practices can make a difference in your attitude and behavior.  They will help you persevere through tough times, after which you will most likely emerge even better than you were before.  While these practices may or may not make you economically wealthier, they will most certainly bring you a wealth of even greater value.

The New York Times recently had an article on rising burnout among clergy entitled “Taking a Break from the Lord’s Work.”  The article was followed by a thoughtful op-ed entitled “Congregations Gone Wild.”

Effective leadership, employee engagement and employee motivation are closely linked to the alignment of behavior with personal values. In the case of clergy, putting a muzzle on pastors so they are unable to preach in a way that is consistent with their values is a sure path to burnout.

This is a very important issue that everyone should spend time thinking about. Set aside time this month to list your values.  Ask yourself, “what do I believe in and what’s important to me in the way I live my life?”  Then compare what you wrote down with how you presently live.   During the Depression, a young financial analyst working in London did this exercise. Years later reflecting on it he wrote that “people, I realized, is what I value and I had no desire to be the richest man in the cemetery.” That young man, Peter Drucker, left his well-paying job and went on to become the father of management consulting. In “How Peter Drucker Changed My Life” I wrote about how Drucker’s writings affected my own career decisions.

What if you discover there are differences in your values and how you are presently living?  My advice is to invite 2-3 people you trust and respect to meet with you, discuss your analysis and thoughts about how you might take action to close the values gaps.  You may find that all that is necessary is to speak with your supervisor to make changes in your present job or something more may be required such as moving to a different job or business unit in your organization, or, the the most extreme instances, changing careers altogether.  Whatever the case, ignoring the present stressful state is never wise because if affects your mental and physical heath, your relationships and your job performance. Having conversations with people you trust will help reduce the stress you feel and also help clarify your thinking so that you can develop a clear plan to move forward to a better state of work and a better life.

Chris Dorobek, the well-respected talk show host of Federal News Radio in Washington, D.C, recently interviewed Jason Pankau and yours truly about employee engagement and strategic alignment based on an article Jason and I wrote for the award-winning Leader to Leader Journal entitled “To Boost Performance, Connect with the Core.”  You can listen to the unedited radio interview at this link.

Everyone experiences difficult seasons in life. Although storms come to our lives in many different forms including health problems, death of a loved one, divorce or job loss, one thing is certain: it’s difficult, if not impossible, to get through the stormy seasons in life alone. We need family and friends who “have our backs.” Unfortunately, as this thoughtful article that recently appeared in USA Today suggests, true friendship may be dying.

In a video interview I filmed for the Leader to Leader Institute’s Leadership Dialogues website, I speak with leadership experts Mark Thompson and  Bonita Buell-Thompson about what I learned from my wife Katie’s successful battles with breast and advanced ovarian cancer. You can read about it and watch the video at this link.

The lesson I learned is about the importance of connection and relationships.  It applies to organizations as much as it does to individuals and families. When difficult seasons arrive, an organization’s culture often makes a difference to whether the organization survives or doesn’t. Dog-eat-dog or cultures that are indifferent to people and relationships often spiral down into relational isolation, anxiety, distrust, blame and finger pointing. On the other hand, Connection Cultures that value human beings and relationships tend to pull together and work through the challenges.

My question for you is, who has your back in life and at work? Are you intentional about taking the time to build strong relationships with individuals who you trust and who trust you? If you lead an organization, do you invest time to develop relationship excellence in your organization?

My friend David Zinger, founder of the Employee Engagement Network, organized a number of leading thinkers and experts on employee engagement and asked each to provide 10 ideas to increase employee engagement.   The results were compiled in an e-book entitled The Top Tens of Employee Engagement.  It’s a great resource to get actionable ideas that will boost employee engagement.  Check it out.

A trusted friend and former colleague of mine at Morgan Stanley recently praised Andy Chan’s work at Wake Forest University to help students understand and develop character, then discover their passion and a career path to match it. Here’s a great article about Chan’s work from the Chronicle of Higher Education entitled “Finished College. Now What?”

Chan’s work fits well with our mission to develop strength of character and connection in organizations (you can learn why we believe character strengths are so important for individual, organizational and societal health in the Connection Culture Manifesto that was published by changethis.com). I’ll be learning more and writing future blog posts about Andy Chan and Wake Forest’s work so stay tuned.