Michael Lee Stallard

In this month’s Wired magazine, Clive Thompson wrote a fascinating article about PH.D student Benjamin Waber and the research of MIT’s Human Dynamics Group.  Bottom line: managers are out of the loop, friendships at work increase group creativity and organizations should be intentional about facilitating connections among people at work to improve performance.  Sounds like more empirical support for Connection Cultures to me!    

Last Thursday my wife and I attended the premiere of the new documentary Full Battle Rattle produced and directed by Tony Gerber and Jesse Moss. The documentary is about the U.S. Army’s billion dollar simulated Iraq in California’s Mojave Desert, complete with hundreds of exiles playing civilians and insurgents, terrorist suspects, grieving mothers, and innocent shopkeepers.  It’s an extraordinary work that gives the viewer a very real sense of the challenges faced by an occupying force in a foreign land.  A.O. Scott just reviewed the film for The New York Times. Here’s a clip about the movie from CNN.
Read more »

I’ll be speaking about how Connection Cultures help employees and organizations thrive at Communitelligence’s Innovating Employee Engagement Conference held at the Catalyst Ranch. The companies who have representatives speaking at the conference include Google, IBM, McDonalds, Allstate, Lowe’s, H&R Block, Servicemaster, Navistar, Aon, CVS Caremark and Sabre Holdings. It’s going to be a terrific group to learn from so I hope you’ll consider attending. Communitelligence is offering two-for-one admission if you register by Friday July 18.

Mike Kanazawa has written a terrific new manifesto for changethis.com entitled People Don’t Hate Change, They Hate How You’re Trying to Change Them.  In it he explains why change programs fail to gain traction.  Mike is the CEO of Dissero Partners.  He is also the co-author with Robert Miles of the excellent book entitled Big Ideas to Big Results.   Mike understands the importance of focus, of connecting with people and being inclusive by keeping people informed and giving them a voice in the change process.  After you check out Mike’s free, downloadable manifesto, I’m sure you’ll want to go deeper by reading his book.  

My blog is primarily about Connection Cultures in the workplace and how they increase employee engagement.  Connection is even more important at home.  I’ve had several friends who were so swept up in their careers that they ignored and lost connection with their spouses. Their lives drifted apart and their marriages soon ended in divorce.  

Maureen Dowd at The New York Times wrote a gem of an article entitled “An Ideal Husband” that infers the importance of relational connection in marriage.  There’s a lot of wisdom in this article.  I’ll be reading it soon to my two teenage daughters.   

It’s wise to begin your day on a positive note by saying “good morning” to your colleagues at work.  Failing to recognize them is to communicate indifference.  It’s also wise to begin every meeting with a positive comment.  Research has shown that beginning a meeting with a positive comment makes group participants better listeners and makes the group more constructive.  These benefits of starting your day and meetings off on a positive note are consistent with the findings of Professor Barbara Frederickson’s research on positive emotions.

I learned the foregoing from my friend Alex Kjerulf.  Check out his Chief Happiness Officer blog and his book entitled Happy Hour is 9 to 5: Learn How to Love Your Job, Love Your Life and Kick Butt at Work. 

Years ago when I attended a large church in Wheaton, Illinois, I remember the Asgedom family who came from a refugee camp in Sudan.  They were ever present members of our church community.  Mawi Asgedom was a young boy at that time.  I recently learned that Mawi went on to graduate cum laude from Harvard in 1999 and was voted by his fellow students to be one of the Harvard’s four commencement speakers.  

Standing before an audience of 30,000 Mawi gave a remarkable speech entitled  ”Of Snakes, Butterfies and Small Acts of Kindness.”  Read more »

Nelson Mandela recently celebrated his 90th birthday. I’m grateful for this man and the wisdom of his example. When he entered Robben Island Prison he was known for confronting his enemies. When he was released 27 years later, Mandela stunned South Africans with his magnanimous behavior toward former adversaries.  Read more »

Disconnection occurs when an acquiring company and the employees of its newly acquired company define excellence in different ways.  In this month’s Atlantic, Mark Bowden writes about this issue in an excellent article entitled “Mr. Murdoch Goes to War.” The article, as you might guess from its title, is about how Rupert Murdoch is altering The Wall Street Journal.

One of the three elements of a Connection Culture is Vision, which includes an organization’s mission, values and reputation.  Altering an organization’s identity is tricky business. This is especially true when the employees of an organization have a strong emotional connection to the organization’s identity.  In such situations employee engagement can decline and quality of execution along with it.  

This is a story I’ll be watching closely for possible inclusion in my next book. If you have any insights about changes at The Wall Street Journal, please post about them or email me at mstallard@epluribuspartners.com.   

A friend’s email just reminded me of Benjamin Franklin’s words to his fellow signers of the Declaration of Independence.  ”We must hang together, or we shall surely hang separately,” opined Franklin following the Continental Congress approval of the Declaration.  Franklin’s words conveyed a literal meaning in that signing the Declaration was treason according to King George III and therefore punishable by death.  Since that time, “hanging together” has kept America strong.   Adolf Hitler, Nikita Khruschev and, more recently, Osama bin Laden, proclaimed that America’s diverse ethnicities and creeds would result in disunity in the face of adversity.  They missed the real source of America’s unity. Read more »