World Vision Connects!

IMG_1389
















One of the relief organizations my wife and I support is World Vision. These people are AMAZING and they do remarkable work that Nicholas Kristoff of The New York Times raved about in a
recent column he wrote.

What I love about World Vision is that they are a force for connection.  They connect their employees, volunteers and donors with people in desperate need around the world. The result is a fired up organization that is making a difference.

The last two evenings I served as a volunteer to help out with the World Vision AIDS Experience that is presently in Greenwich, Connecticut through next Sunday. The experience takes you on a journey to see the lives of four African children affected by aids. The stories are both heartbreaking and heartwarming.  Everyone attending said they were moved and inspired.  Many become child sponsors or purchase a kit or bycycle to help one of the 77,000 World Vision Caregivers in 20 countries. (You can learn more about attending at no cost, which I very highly recommend, by clicking here.)

IMG_1387While volunteering, I met Kristin, an enthusiastic, motivated, bright young World Vision employee.   Speaking with Kristen made me see how well World Vision connects its workers and donors with those who are in need, not only financially to meet their needs for clean water, health care and education, but also relationally. Here’s an example.  At the end of the World Vision AIDS Experience, donors can sit down in an area where materials are available to write a letter (or, for very young donors, to color a picture) that is sent to the donor’s newly sponsored child.  Notice in the picture at top, above the young girl writing a letter to her sponsored child is a sign that says “Connect with Your Child.” How great is that!  Our family has connected with our child in Rwanda by periodically writing and sending gifts to her, and we’ve received letters in return.

As you may know, my blog is primarily about the power of connection in organizations and in life as part of what I refer to as a “Connection Culture” that I wrote about in Fired Up or Burned Out. World Vision’s ways are relevant to all organizations, including for-profit corporations. World Vision is more effective because they are intentional about connecting people to a cause greater than self and in doing so the people who are part of World Vision want to give their best efforts and align their behavior with the organization’s goals. Just to mention it, another benefit from connection that accrues to philanthropic organizations was identified in recent research conducted by Indiana University.  The research identified the #1 reason people stop giving to a philanthropic organization is they no longer felt connected.

How is your organization doing connecting your employees and customers to a cause greater than self?  If you don’t know, get some of your most fired up employees together and ask them “when have you felt proud about your organization” and after they tell you ask them to explain “why they felt proud?”. You will hear stories that will help you identify ways you can fire up people by connecting them to a cause greater than self.

Employee Engagement Network Webinar and Slides

Employee Engagement and Connection from David Zinger on Vimeo.

Yesterday David Zinger and I held a webinar on Employee Engagement and Connection.  You can see a recording of the webinar above and here is a link to the slides used during the webinar.

The webinar was hosted by the Employee Engagement Network, a 3,500 member online community founded by David.  It was my good fortune to be the first speaker for the Employee Engagement Network’s inaugural webinar! If you are not a member of the Employee Engagement network already, I want to encourage you to join.  David will be the host for future webinars on employee engagement-related topics that you will not want to miss.

New Research: Relationships Make Hospitals Great

The New York Times recently had an article entitled “What Makes a Hospital Great” that described new research concluding a hospital’s culture and the quality of relationships were the most important factors determining patient outcomes. This finding is consistent with our research that concluded leaders must be intentional about developing both “task excellence” and “relationship excellence” in order to achieve sustainable superior performance.  If leaders focus on task alone the eventual failure of relationships will sabotage excellence.

Character Strengths of Your Business

“…while there are indeed great, often unfathomable forces in history before which even the most exceptional of individuals seem insignificant, the wonder is how often events turn upon a single personality, or the quality we call character.”

Historian David McCullough

“Ability may get you to the top but it takes character to keep you there.”

— Legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

— Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

This morning I’ll be a guest on my friend Jim Blasingame’s Small Business Advocate radio show.  Jim and I will talk about developing character strengths in your business such as passion for excellence and beauty, kindness, persistence, creativity and citizenship. Strength of character makes us better leaders in business, government, education and the social sector.  It also makes us better human beings.

On the show I will mention downloads available on my blog. Here they are below:

List of the Character Strengths and Virtues

Character > Connection> Thrive Chain

Fired Up or Burned Out: How to Reignite Your Team’s Passion, Creativity and Productivity.

Employee Engagement Webinar: The Power of Connection

David Zinger and I will be doing a 45 minute webcast on the power of connection to boost employee engagement.  David is host of the Employee Engagement Network. During the webinar, we will include:

  • a five minute presentation on connection;
  • 3 poll questions for participants;
  • dialogue between David and your’s truly;
  • invited text questions from the audience; and,
  • 3 tips for connection action.

The session has limited enrollment but will be taped for future viewing. Sign up for the webinar at this link. Better move quickly though.  Half of the webinar capacity was filled in the first day it was posted on the Employee Engagement Network website!

At Google, Starbucks (and Life Outside of Work), Success = Connection

IMG_0655

The New York Times has had a number of great articles related to connection and how it leads to success at work and in life.  In an article about what Google discovered from Project Oxygen, a rigorous study of its successful managers, Laszlo Bock, the leader of the study stated:

“In the Google context, we’d always believed that to be a manager, particularly on the engineering side, you need to be as deep or deeper a technical expert than the people who work for you…It turns out that that’s absolutely the least important thing. It’s important, but pales in comparison. Much more important is just making that connection and being accessible.” (italics mine)

Attend (Virtually) HCI’s National Human Capital Summit

HCI_Logo_color_black-1








This afternoon I’ll be speaking at the National Human Capital Summit in Atlanta.  You can attend the event online at no cost by registering at the link below. Online attendees will be able to see my presentation as well as those of consultant and author Gary Hamel, Liane Hornsey of Google, Dr. John Fleming of Gallup, author Dan Pink, Vineet Nayar CEO of HCL Technologies and Suzanne Gordon of SAS Institute.

To sign up for this special complimentary pass into the live streaming conference, click on this link.

  • If it’s your first time visiting the HCI conference registration site, click “register” and create a new account by entering your information in the required fields and choosing a password (again, there is no cost to do this).
  • Please take the time to click the “Test Your System” icon and install Silverlight if you haven’t previously. If you need any help you may click “Live Chat Now” for instant, live support.
  • When you exit the virtual conference, re-enter by following the same link but click “login” instead of “register” when you return and enter your username and password.

And because it is a live streaming event, you then will come back at the time of the talks that you want to see. Click on this link to see the virtual conference agenda. There are MANY great talks to choose from. All times listed are Eastern Time.

Tomorrow night I will attend the awards ceremony for the Management Innovation Exchange’s HCI Human Capital M-Prize.  Congratulations to the ten semifinalists, three of  whom are friends of mine: Lisa HanebergSteve Todd and Drew Williams, my pastor at Trinity Church in Greenwich, Connecticut.