Michael Lee Stallard

This last week I was in Boston for several meetings and to teach a seminar for the Institute for Management Studies (IMS).  I always teach that there are hundreds of ways to connect with others and the challenge facing leaders is to get to know the people they lead and identify ways to connect with them given who they are and the context of their work together.

Following are a few of the ways I learned that people and organizations are connecting.

• At Bose Corporation, new employees learn “The Essence and Values of Bose,” including that “we treat others with respect.”  At Bose, these words are more than window dressing.  All new employees take a course on respect that help them bring this value to life in Bose culture.
• At Amica Insurance, serving customers is an all-consuming passion.  Amica is a perennial winner of customer service awards.  Inside the company, when an employee is identified as having served a customer well, his or her team is recognized too.  This motivates the team to support one another’s efforts to serve customers.
• Elizabeth Dole, when she was president of the Red Cross, took the time to learn something significant about each person she would meet so that she could affirm each individual a personal way.  In subsequent meetings, Ms. Dole was very good at remembering and mentioned the significant fact when she saw the individual.
• David Gill, a professor at Gordon Conwell College, told me that we connect with the Divine when we “help people fulfill their dreams or overcome their nightmares.”  (We also connect with others when our organization’s mission accomplishes these ends.)

The importance of creating Connection Culture also came to my attention this week as I was doing research on Alan Mulally, Ford’s CEO.  Ford just announced its third full year of profit.  Frances Hesselbien, a friend and leader whom I much admire, has praised Mulally so I decided it’s about time that I take a closer look at his leadership of Ford.  In this splendid interview he did with The New York Times, Mulally recounts how he learned the importance of giving people autonomy, being inclusive, keeping people in the loop and connecting them to their organization’s “Inspiring Identity.”

In the coming weeks I’ll be speaking and teaching in Houston, Amsterdam, Brussels, London and Edinburgh.  As I travel, I’ll post new things I learn about connection.

Several writers at The New Yorker understand how important the force of human connection is to help people thrive.  I’ve previously written about Ken Auletta’s masterpiece “The Howell Doctrine,” and, of course, there’s Jim Surowiecki’s The Wisdom of Crowds.  Two other writers at The New Yorker have made significant contributions on this topic.

In Atul Gawande’s The Checklist Manifesto, we learn that disconnection (the failure to communicate and connect) is the primary cause of aircraft accidents and a major contributor to medical errors.  Gawande, a surgeon, prescribes checklists to help improve performance as the work we do becomes increasingly complex.  Here’s one example.  Doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital learned that surgical teams performed better when, prior to surgery, each member of the team introduced him or herself and shared any foreseeable concerns.  When surgical teams did this, lower status members were more likely to speak up if they saw mistakes being made.  This became a step on Gawande’s checklist he and his team developed for the World Health Organization.

In Malcolm Gladwell’s most recent book, Outliers: The Story of Success, connection is a theme throughout.  In the introduction, we learn that several research studies found residents of the town of Roseto, Pennsylvania were healthier and lived longer solely because they were a more relationally connected community.  In the next chapter, we learn that 10,000 hours of intentional practice is required with coaching (i.e. connection) to achieve expert level performance.  Although Gladwell doesn’t explicitly make this point, the support of family and friends is necessary to persevere through the inevitable difficulties of  practicing for 10,000 hours, which is 10 years of practicing for 20 hours a week.

In a chapter on geniuses, Gladwell concludes they are often not very successful because they fail to connect with other human beings and it renders them less effective at getting things done.  Similar to Gawande’s book, we learn that the key to airline safety is to reduce human error by making sure pilots, co-pilots and air traffic controllers are connected in both a rational and emotional sense.  Gladwell describes how the crash of a Columbian Airlines flight a few years ago because it ran out of fuel was attributable to a failure of communication between the co-pilot, pilot and air traffic controller at JFK Airport in New York.  The problem was that the plane’s co-pilot used “mitigating speech” to be respectful to those he perceived as having great status and authority.  When he needed to communicate the urgency of the situation he should have been screaming like a New York cab driver to make his point clear.

Finally, we learn from Gladwell about the success of the KIPP charter schools in low income urban neighborhoods.  Eighty percent of KIPP students go on to attend college.  KIPP students learn a protocal called “SSLANT” which stands for smile, sit up, listen, ask questions, nod when being spoken to, and track with our eyes.”  All of these behaviors help kids connect with others.  Brilliant, isn’t it.  KIPP teaches its students academic competence and relationship competence.  It was so inspiring to read how KIPP was giving these kids hope for a bright future, I wanted to stand up and cheer.

I very highly recommend both of these books.  They are utterly fascinating and well written, so much so that I couldn’t put them down.

Americans are connection deprived. A quarter of Americans live alone and the number of Americans who haven’t had a conversation with a best friend over the previous six months has tripled since 1985 to nearly 25 percent of the U.S. population.  This also likely means Americans are running low on oxytocin, a molecule that is associated with empathy, trust, morality and connection.

TCU is on a roll.  It has been recognized by U.S. News as one a top 100 colleges in America.   Its athletics’ teams are generally among the top teams in Division I college sports.   More recently the Chronicle of Higher Education named TCU as one of the “43 best colleges to work for.” I could go on.

This is no accident. TCU has benefitted from having a string of great leaders over recent decades.  These leaders developed a vision for the school that inspired the TCU community.  They raised money to fund a sizable endowment that gives the school financial flexibility to weather the ups and downs of the economy.  They improved campus infrastructure.  They invested in identifying and attracting the best “teacher-scholars” who love teaching and connecting with students and also share a passion to advance the pursuit of truth through research and scholarship.

The current leader of TCU, its chancellor, Victor Boschini, is an impressive leader.  He’s brimming with energy and optimism while being grounded in reality.  He combines a passion for excellence in tasks and in relationships (Boschini refers to fundraising as “friend-raising.”) He’s curious, always seeking people’s opinions and tapping their  knowledge.  He has surrounded himself with a team that has the energy and intelligence I can only compare to the White House staff in Aaron Sorkin’s West Wing.

At present, Boschini’s focus is to strengthen TCU’s culture of unity, community and connection.  This is one reason I’m thrilled as a parent that my daughter Sarah is a junior at TCU, and beginning next Fall, my youngest daughter, Elizabeth, will be a freshman there.   Sarah is co-captain of TCU’s cheerleaders. She describes TCU as “a small school with big spirit.”  Like many students at TCU, she’s involved in the local community.  Sarah is the cheerleading coach of Nolan Catholic High School where she coaches and mentors girls to develop their competence as student-athletes and their character as human beings.

Culture and leadership matter.  Most academic cultures are indifferent to students as human beings.  Not TCU. That’s why I’m writing an article about TCU and spending a healthy sum to send my daughters there.   My hope is that more colleges will become Connection Cultures, especially during this time when research shows college freshman are experiencing record levels of stress according to recent research by UCLA.

To learn more about Victor Boschini, check out this great article entitled “Far from Normal” written when he was appointed chancellor and this inspiring convocation speech he gave earlier this year on TCU’s Connection Culture.

Another leader to keep your eyes on is Dr. Ronald DePinho, president of the University of Texas’ M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. Dr. DePinho has declared that M.D. Anderson, the world’s largest cancer center, is “in a moonshot moment” in the war on cancer. Take a look a at this inspiring article about him entitled, “Leader in Cancer Fight, and Son of an Illegal Immigrant.” My prediction: an highly-motivated leader who knows how to connect with people + the competence and resources at M.D. Anderson = very big things in the years to come.  (Full discosure: Both TCU and M.D. Anderson are clients of my leadership training and consulting firm, E Pluribus Partners.)

Finally, Ruth Simmons, president of Brown University, is yet another leader who looks promising based on what I’m reading. Check out this great interview she did with The New York Times entitled “I Was Impossible, but Then I Saw How to Lead.“

Here’s some advice for the new year: improve your relationships.  Why, you might ask?

Consider this. Sports Illustrated just named the “Sportswoman of the Year” and the “Sportsman of the Year.” (Read the announcement here.) They are, respectively, Pat Summit, head coach of the “Lady Vols” basketball team at the University of Tennessee, and Mike Krzyzewski, head coach of the Duke men’s basketball team.  Each has more wins that any other coach, active or alive, in her or his respective Division I sports.

What they share in common is a passion to achieve task excellence and relationship excellence.  Building strong relationships is instrumental to their success.  In describing Summitt, Tyler, Pat’s son who plays for the men’s basketball team at Tennessee, observes,

“people get caught up in the numbers [but] if you want to know to my mom best, look at her relationships. How many who grew up under her are successful? And when life hits, who are they making that first phone call to?”

Sports Illustrated goes on to observe that “Coach K has “forged the same kinds of bonds” with his players. Coach K agrees and explains that connecting with people “is what it’s ultimately about because there are so many systems that work” for great teams. He says he wants to feel about his players what “my mom felt for me.”  This esprit de corps helps the team “play as one, with spirit and courage, [so they have] the best chance to win” says Krzyzewski.

For those of you who want to learn more, I encourage you to read about the surprising and wonderful story of Coach K’s secret of success.

A benefit that comes from improving your relationships is identified in new research from two Princeton professors who conclude that relationships are the most important contributor to happiness.  Check out an article about their research at this link.

A factor that is presently diminishing happiness is that we spend too much time online.  Norman Nie’s research at Stanford has established that internet use is linked to social isolation. Daniel Gulati recently chimed in on this topic in a HBR blog post entitled “Facebook is Making Us Miserable.”  I also commented on it in a post entitled “The Subversive Side of Technology.”

Now that I’ve spent too much time online this morning, it’s time for me to unplug and spend time with my family and friends. As I bid you adieu, let’s make it our new year’s resolution to be intentional about investing time to improve our relationships.  Better yet, let’s get a head start on it this holiday season.

This post is a continuance of my prior post on evil in organizational cultures.

The “dark triad” — psychopaths, narcissists and machiavellians — represents a small part of the population. What unties this group of destructive personalities is that they lack empathy for other human beings and care only about themselves. Some end up in correctional institutions while others end up in leadership positions where they create dog-eat-dog cultures or cultures that are indifferent to human beings (this is opposed to Servant Leaders who create “Connection Cultures”).

For some interesting thoughts on psychopaths in the C-suite, see this post by Larry Kahaner of the McGowan Fund and the link in his post to an article entitled “The Corporate Psychopaths Theory of the Global Financial Crisis” that appeared in the Journal of Business Ethics.  The book and movie entitled The Corporation make the argument that organizations that care only about profit have effectively become psychopathic.

The way to keep members of the dark triad out of positions of leadership and out of organizations is to educate everyone so that they understand what a healthy culture is, how it’s based on character strengths and virtues, and how organizations develop people with both character and competence.  One project we are working on with Scotiabank is creating a monthly piece for leaders entitled Leading with Character. Each month’s piece highlights a particular character strength, explains how it’s relevant to the organization and how to strengthen one’s leadership in ways that reflect the character strength.  If you are interested in learning more, please email me at mstallard@epluribuspartners.com or call me at 203-422-6511.

For the second year in a row, 84 percent of American workers intend to actively look for a new job, according to new research by Right Management. Workplace incivility is also on the rise.  According to research presented at the 2011 American Psychological Association annual meeting, up to 80 percent of workers have experienced incivility.   Workers are struggling and have been for some time.  In 2009, The Conference Board published a report with the subtitle “America’s Unhappy Workers.”   The report concluded that employee satisfaction was at its lowest point since The Conference Board began surveying it more that 20 years ago.

The good news is that is doesn’t have to be this way. Leaders can develop workplace cultures that engage people. Engaging people makes them happy because they benefit from the positive emotions that come from being productive, learning and growing and working together with others to accomplish something of value.  This is what the Greek’s described as eudaimonia, the joy that we experience when we do good work.  The other type of happiness is hedonia.  It comes from pleasurable experiences such as when we see a beautiful sunset or enjoying a great meal. Leaders need to create work cultures where people experience eudiamonia. That’s the type of happiness that affects employee engagement, productivity and innovation.

Here’s another way to think it it.  There are three types of workplace cultures: Dog-Eat-Dog Cultures, Indifferent Cultures (cultures that are indifferent to people and treat them as human doings), and “Connection Cultures” where people experience eudiamonia because they feel connected to their organization’s identity (i.e. mission, values and reputation), they feel connected to their colleagues and supervisor, and they feel connected to their role in the organization (because it fits their strengths and provides the right degree of challenge).

Connection is the force that transforms a dog-eat-dog culture into a sled dog team that pulls together. Without going too far into the psychology of connection, let me just summarize by saying simply that we are humans, not machines. We have emotions. We have hopes and dreams. We have a conscience. We have deeply felt human needs to be respected, to be recognized for our talents, to belong, to have autonomy or control over our work, to experience personal growth, and to do work that we feel is worthwhile in a way that we feel is ethical. When we work in an environment that recognizes these realities of our human nature, we thrive. We feel more energetic, more optimistic, and more fully alive. When we work in an environment that fails to recognize this, it is damaging to our mental and physical health.

And when you think about it, that makes sense. Let’s consider how this plays out in the workplace. When we first meet people, we expect them to respect us. If they look down on us, if they are uncivil or condescending, we get upset. In time, as our colleagues get to know us, we expect them to appreciate or recognize us for our talents and contributions. That really makes us feel good. Later on, we begin to expect that we will be treated and thought of as an integral part of the community. Our connection to the group is further strengthened when we feel we have control over our work. Connection is diminished when we feel we are being micro-managed or over-controlled by others. If we are over-controlled, it sends the message that we are being treated like children or incompetents, and it’s a sign that we are not trusted or respected. Connection is also enhanced when we experience personal growth. In other words: when our role, our work in the group, is a good fit with our skills, providing enough challenge to make us feel good when we rise to meet that challenge (but not so much challenge that we become totally stressed out). Finally, it motivates us to know our work is worthwhile in some way and to be around other people who share our belief that our work is important. To the extent that these human needs of respect, recognition, belonging, autonomy, personal growth and meaning are met, we feel connected to the group. When they are not met, we feel less connected, or even disconnected.

The bottom line is that connection plays a critical part in improving individual performance. People who are more connected with others fare better in life than those who are less connected. Connection, because it meets our human needs, makes people more trusting, more cooperative, more empathetic, more enthusiastic, more optimistic, more energetic, more creative and better problem solvers. It creates the type of environment in which people want to help their colleagues.They are more open to share information that helps decision makers become better-informed. The openness that emerges in a trusting and cooperative environment creates a robust marketplace of ideas that stimulates innovation. Connection among people improves performance in an organization and creates a new source of competitive advantage.

To learn more about connection cultures and employee engagement, listen to this podcast interview Jason Pankau and I did before we spoke at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. You can hear the interview at this link.

Update: In May, I’ll be speaking on the topic “Do Leaders Need to make Employee Happy?” in Denver at the annual conference of the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD). In addition, I’ve contributed a chapter to the soon to be published ASTD Handbook on Management edited by Lisa Haneberg who writes the Management Craft blog.

Here is a link to the article I wrote about Starbucks. The article is entitled “Have a Heart.”  It was published in Outlook Business for Decision Makers, a leading business magazine in India. In addition, below are links to three segments of a radio interview I did yesterday morning with Jim Blasingame, host of the nationally syndicated Small Business Advocate program.

The U.S.S. Montpelier Command Philosophy (below) is an outstanding example of values articulated in a clear and compelling way.  Remember that values at their best are a source of pride and guidance for employees.  To be the most effective, values must be communicated in writing and verbally because people usually learn by reading or listening.  A portfolio of simple yet compelling stories should be developed that can be told to help people remember your values.

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When I speak or teach, I’m nearly always asked if human beings can be “over-connected.” This question is typically in reference to an obsessive use and reliance on online technologies.

Technology is a double-edged sword.  On the one side, it allows us to connect with people who share our interests and with those who are not near us in a geographical sense.  On the other side, technology can overwhelm us if it crowds out in-person connection.

For an interesting take on this topic, check out this Krista Tippett, host of American Public Radio’s On Being, fascinating interview of Sherry Turkle, the professor at MIT who studies the subjective side of technology i.e. how technology affects human beings.  During the interview, Ms. Tippett mistakenly states the objective of Ms. Turkle’s work is exploring the “subversive” side of technology, to which Ms. Turkle responds that her work explores the “subjective” side of technology.  Personally, I was delighted by Ms. Tippet’s Freudian slip, especially in light of research that shows the dark side of the online technologies.  For example, consider Stanford psychology professor Philip Zimbardo’s TED video on the “Demise of Guys.”