Outlook Business magazine in India and HiringSmart.com in Toronto published articles on connection, employee engagement and alignment. The articles are entitled, respectively, “Connect With Them” and “The Case for Connection at Work.”
This week I did an interview with Nathan Ives of StrategyDriven about leadership, employee engagement, productivity and innovation. You can hear it at this link.
Congratulations and happy birthday to my friend David Zinger, founder of the Employee Engagement Network. David’s book entitled Zengage is off to a great start and he’s already donating profits of $2,160 to flood relief and a women’s shelter. Here’s what I wrote earlier about the book: Read more »
Michael Lee Stallard and Jason Pankau
In a recent post, I (Michael) wrote about a leader who imparted his values to the people he was responsible for leading at work and to his children. In this post, we’ll address the “pride paradox” that relates to values.
Imparting one’s values to others and judging them based on their values has the potential to create a culture of self-righteousness and legalism. Mark Twain alluded to this when he described some people as “good in the worst sense of the word.”
Don’t get us wrong, great leaders impart their values to others and judge others by their values. Herein lies the paradox. Some leaders who do this fail to develop what is arguably the most important character value: humility. Read more »
A couple news items to report.
Our publisher, Thomas Nelson, just informed me that the Korean language version of Fired Up or Burned Out is now available (see cover above). Author, speaker Mark Thompson recently emailed me a video of an interview I did with Mark and his wife Bonita for the Leader to Leader Institute’s Leadership Dialogues series. You can view the video on Facebook at this link.
Last week I attended the 2010 Business Innovation Factory Collaborative Innovation Summit in Providence, Rhode Island (referred to as BIF-6). There were so many thoughtful presentations that I hesitate to merely highlight a few. After taking a couple days to mull it over I’ve decided to select a few presentations that will be most relevant to the themes I typically write and speak about i.e. leadership, connection, employee engagement, productivity and innovation. Below are brief descriptions of several presentations from the conference. For those who want to hear these or other presentations, you can access them at this link.
On September 29 at 7:00 PM Eastern I’ll be joining hosts Angelo Fernando and Derrick Mains on their Triple Bottom Line radio program that addresses issues related to people, planet and profit. Check out their website at this link. You can listen to the program in the Phoenix area on KFNX 1100 AM, listen to it streaming live, and even participate by calling in at (866)536-1100 or tweeting @your3bl.
Life is good! Today began with a drive East from my home in Connecticut to Saul Kaplan’s wonderful Business Innovation Factory Conference (called “BIF-6″) in Providence, Rhode Island. Driving into the sunrise on this sunny, clear day with a hint of Fall in the air was simply stunning. It’s hard to sustain the momentum from an inspiring start like that but the day just kept getting better as I arrived in this historic city, dropped my bags off at a marvelous old hotel, entered the beautiful Trinity Rep Theater where the conference is being held, saw old friends, made new friends, interviewed Zappo’s CEO Tony Hsieh (for an article I’m writing), and heard interesting speakers with innovative ideas. To sum it up, it was a day of connecting with stunning sights, interesting people and innovative ideas.
I’m a big fan of attending conferences like BIF-6 because it refreshes by helping me step back from the day-to-day rhythm to consider the big picture, think strategically, and connect with people and ideas. (Just to mention it, you can enjoy the presentations tomorrow that will be streaming live at this link. I understand that some of the BIF-6 sessions will be available online so if and when they are posted I’ll blog the links to some of my favorites.)
On another topic, stay tuned for details on new public engagements Jason Pankau and I recently committed to including for the Singapore HR Summit, TCU’s Tandy Executive Leadership Series, The New Talent Management Network and the Corporate Executive Board’s Toolbox for HR. Also, later this month we’ll be posting a link to the article I wrote for India’s Outlook Business magazine.
(Pictures: Top – In front of the Trinity Rep theater this AM was the Delivering Happiness Bus that promotes Tony Hsieh’s book of the same name. Below – Sayantani DasGupta, a physician and expert on narrative medicine, telling a story at BIF-6 inside the Trinity Rep Theater.)
A thought leader whose work I follow closely is my friend Joshua Wolf Shenk. Josh wrote a remarkable book entitled Lincoln’s Melancholy and he has written many thoughtful articles. Check our Josh’s new series on creative pairs for Slate. The first article in this series is entitled “Two is the Magic Number: A New Science of Creativity.” I would also encourage you to check out a brilliant essay Josh wrote for Belifenet entitled “Comes Wisdom to Us.”
For those
Michael Lee Stallard is President of
E Pluribus Partners.
Find out about Michael's latest book, Fired Up or Burned Out.
