Michael Lee Stallard

This is the mother ship, or at least that’s what I’ve always called  the world headquarters of Morgan Stanley located in New York City’s Times Square. It was here that a significant moment in Wall Street history occurred on June 30, 2005.  John Mack had been reinstated as Chairman and CEO by the firm’s board. On that day, when Mack and his wife Christy appeared at a meeting with hundreds of Morgan Stanley employees, they gave him a standing ovation. They knew this was an inflection point in the storied firm’s history.   The man standing before them embodied their collective hopes that the firm would return to its former self by restoring a culture that was its greatest asset and the primary source of its competitive advantage.

Mack’s departure  in early 2001 had come about as a result of Morgan Stanley’s merger with Dean Witter in 1997.  Phil Purcell, Dean Witter’s CEO, became CEO of the combined firm and eventually pushed Mack out. Morgan Stanley’s reputation and culture suffered as a result of Purcell’s leadership style.  I experienced the culture  change first-hand. The book Blue Blood and Mutiny: The Fight for the Soul of Morgan Stanley describes this period in great detail and Joe Nocera of The New York Times wrote an excellent article about it entitled “In Business, Tough Bosses Are the Ones Who Finish Last.”  Thanks to the vocal opposition to Purcell put up by former and current employees of Morgan Stanley, he was thrown out. Read more »

Thought leaders such as Peter Drucker, W. Edwards Deming and Martin Seligman have had a profound effect on entire industries.  In this and coming posts, I’d like to bring your attention to a few thought leaders I believe will have a profound effect on business in the years and decades to come.

Dov Seidman is the CEO of LRN.  I’m going to see The New York Times columnist Tom Friedman interview Dov this Sunday coming evening at the 92nd Street Y in New York City.    You can purchase tickets for the event and see a video of Charlie Rose interviewing Dov at this link.  I highly recommend that you take the time to watch the video and, if you live in the NYC area, to attend the lecture/interview.

Dov argues that in today’s more transparent, hyper-connected world, maintaining a stellar reputation is critical to success.  The days of The Music Man — who behaves badly and then moves to another locale where inhabitants are unaware of past bad behavior — are gone.  Dov encourages organizations to develop a self-governing culture that out-behaves the competition.  His company helps organizations do this by providing, communication, education, certification and registry capabilities.

When organizations develop principled performance, it results in powerful connections among employees and with customers.  These connections are critical to sustainable performance as I have pointed out in The Connection Culture: A New Source of Competitive Advantage, a free ebook published by changethis.com.

To learn more about Dov’s views, I highly recommend reading his excellent book entitled  How: Why How We Do Everything Means Everything…In Business (and in Life) and checking out articles at this link to LRN’s website.

Last week I was invited to attend the World Business Forum in NYC with 50 other leading bloggers.  The presentation that resonated the most with me was Gary Hamel’s.  In it, he outlined three challenges facing today’s organizations:

1. How do we build an organization that can change as fast as change itself? Change is accelerating at this time in history and organizations need to act faster to deal with opportunities and threats.  Consider the changes in the last century including in healthcare, microprocesssors, transportation, computing power, the internet, telephony, gene sequencing, biotech, etc.
2. How do we build an organization where innovation is everyone’s job? The accelerated pace of change makes this a necessity.  Do employees understand their organizations innovation insights?  Is every employee’s contribution to innovation measured?
3. How do we build an organization that actually inspires extraordinary accomplishment?  This is the most important of the three challenges facing today’s organizations.  On average, seventy-five percent of employees are not engaged in their jobs.  We need employees who regard their jobs as the way to bring their passion in the world. Our job as managers is to build a work climate, a sense of purpose that inspires initiative because obedience, diligence and intellect are mere table stakes in today’s hypercompetitive marketplace.

These ideas are from Hamel’s book, The Future of Management.  In upcoming blog posts, I’ll comment on the challenges Hamel identified.  Do you think he identified the top challenges? If so, why?  If not, what did he miss?

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about healthcare organizations.  I recently spoke in New Haven to nearly 500 managers at Yale-New Haven Hospital and in Philadelphia to a group of CEOs that included several leaders from the Cancer Treatment Centers of America.  I’ve written from the patient’s perspective about my wife Katie’s battles with breast and advanced ovarian cancer and about Dr. Herb Pardes, head of New York-Presbyterian Health System, and how he is leading his organization to deliver patient-centered care. Recently, I interviewed Bill Shannon, Chief Wisdom Officer, at DaVita, Inc., the leading provider of kidney dialysis services and shortly I’ll be hosting a webcast with Pat Charmel, CEO of Griffin Hospital, a perennial member of Fortune’s best places to work list.

Two books I recently read reminded me again just how critical connection is to health care. Read more »

Recently I’ve been spending more time in Washington, DC.  Earlier this year I spoke at the General Services Administration, the Executive Development Exchange Network (EDEN) and at  Senior Fellows and Friends.  In the coming months I’ll be speaking at the US Treasury Executive Institute, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Government Accountability Office.

Washington, DC is abuzz with energy, enthusiasm  and a “can do” spirit.  Some government employees meet on their personal time in groups such as Senior Fellows and Friends and 13L to exchange ideas that  make government more effective.  They have come up with innovative practices and programs such as Flash Mentoring and FedPitch.  The private sector could learn much from these thoughtful civil servants who dedicate their professional lives to a cause greater than self.

Yesterday I had the privilege of joining Martha Dorris, the Deputy Associate Administrator at the GSA’s Office of Citizen Services and AM 1500 Federal News Radio hosts Chris Dorobek and Francis Rose in an hour long discussion about my book, Fired Up or Burned Out, and creating Connection Cultures in Federal Government.  Martha is a dynamic leader and an intentional connector who is developing a Connection Culture at the GSA.  Chris and Francis are outgoing, intentional connectors too.  Their radio programs are thoughtful and encouraging.  They inform, educate, inspire and help federal government workers feel more connected. You can listen to our radio conversation by clicking on leadership and employee engagement in federal government.

During this critical time in history when we are rethinking the roles of the government, private and social sectors, government is playing an increasingly important part in shaping our collective future.  To this end, President Obama is challenging federal workers to make a difference.  He inspires them with a vision of positive change, values their service and contributions, and gives them a voice by seeking their opinions and ideas. And I’m looking forward to spending more time in DC to encourage and advise leaders about how to develop Connection Cultures that will help release the genius of the dedicated individuals who work in federal government.

In my experience as a leader, a board member and an advisor to leaders, I’ve learned that all great leaders are “servant leaders,” a term first used by Robert Greenleaf in his influential essay “The Servant as Leader.”  Recently, I hosted several webcasts on the leadership and employee engagement channel at Brighttalk.com that have a link to the servant leadership theme.  

Howard Behar, the inspiring and wise former president of Starbucks International, spoke with me about his experiences as a leader and his outstanding book entitled It’s Not About the Coffee.  I loved this book.   Read more »

On Friday, January 23 at 12:00 PM Eastern Time, I hosted a 30 minute webcast with Tim Sanders, Author of the newly released book Saving the World at Work. Tim also wrote two other outstanding books entitled The Likability Factor and Love is the Killer App. Tim has deep experience in cutting-edge businesses and marketing. He was the Chief Solutions Officer at Yahoo! and later their Leadership Coach. Prior to his senior positions at Yahoo!, Tim created and led the Yahoo! ValueLab, an in-house “think tank” which delivered futuristic insight to the company’s partners and clients. To hear the webcast click here.

Every age has its prophets who observe the movement of social, political and economic forces then project what the future might hold. Tim Sanders’ new book, Saving the World at Work, represents the projections of a knowledgeable and thoughtful prognosticator. Sanders has observed the effect of recent events on the psyche of individuals. Events such as September 11, CEO scandals, and the environmental crisis are traumas that have shocked most individuals into re-examining the values they once embraced. Although the recent financial and economic shocks came post-publication, they bolster Sanders’ case. Read more »

Paul Spiegelman, CEO of the Beryl Companies, has written a wonderful book about Beryl Companies and its extraordinary culture.  Rather than write a review of Paul’s book, I’m posting the review written by the business maven and book reviewer extraordinaire Robert Morris (see below).  On Monday at 11:00 AM Eastern, I will be hosting a webcast with Paul Spiegelman and you can sign up for it by clicking on employee engagement.

Robert Morris review of Why Is Everyone Smiling? Read more »

  Laurence Ackerman wrote a brilliant book entitled Identity is Destiny.  The book is about the importance of identity to organizations.  I highly recommend that C suite leaders and those who aspire to be read this insightful book.

Identity is critical to employee engagement and the Connection Cultures my colleagues and I at E Pluribus Partners write and speak about. It is the first element in a Connection Culture which we describe as “Inspiring Identity” (or “Vision” for short).

Identity reflects the things that make a person or organization unique.  As brand experts know, relevant differentiation determines brand effectiveness and value.  Being unique or differentiated in a way that’s relevant to employees and customers is essential to an organization’s long term success.  I know of no other book that describes this force of identity as well as Ackerman’s.  Every organization should answer the questions Ackerman poses:

Who are we?

What do we stand for?

How are we different?

Where do I fit in?

In Ackerman’s book you will learn about his experiences as an identity consultant at Siegel & Gale, one of the world’s leading corporate identity consultants, where Ackerman helped organizations such as Korn Ferry, Fidelity and Alcoa discover their identities. Today, Ackerman is an independent consultant at The Identity Circle.   He is also the author of a book about personal identity entitled The Identity Code.  I’ll have more to say about The Identity Code in future writings.