Category Archives: Connection Culture

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The Role of Business in the Pursuit of Happiness

Delivering Happiness is the rare book that gives us an inside look at one individual’s journey to find happiness and as a leader in business. Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos, has written a thoughtful account of what he has learned from experiences in life, in business and from his studies of the fast growing field of positive psychology.

I highly recommend this book to leaders and others who want to see what an engaging work environment — or “Connection Culture” as I’ve described it in my writings — looks like. Not only will you learn about Hsieh’s thinking, you’ll see how he puts ideas into action.

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John Wooden and the Power of Virtue in Leadership

Many thanks to Michael Hyatt for featuring my guest post entitled “John Wooden and the Power of Virtue in Leadership” on his blog. Michael’s blog was recently recognized and the #1 leadership blog. Not bad considering his day job is CEO of America’s 7th largest trade book publishing company, Thomas Nelson.

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Research: Employee Engagement = Connections

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This month Jason Pankau and I will be speaking to leaders at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, Johnson & Johnson, the Internal Revenue Service and to church leaders at LifeSpring Network’s Conference on Connection Culture & Discipleship.

In recent presentations, we’ve emphasized the importance of research from The Conference Board that concluded after studying 30 definitions of employee engagement used by consulting firms, the best definition is as follows:

“Employee engagement is a heightened emotional and intellectual connection that an employee has for his/her job, organization, manager, or coworkers that, in turn, influences him/her to apply additional discretionary effort to his/her work.”

This definition is consistent with our research at E Pluribus Partners where we frequently heard respondents use the terms “connect” or “feel connected”  to describe the emotions they experience in relation to their organization’s identity, the people they work with and their day-to-day work.

In our book Fired Up or Burned Out and in The Connection Culture Manifesto, we identify and describe the “force of connection” as

“a bond based on shared identity, empathy and understanding that moves self-centered individuals toward group-centered membership.”

After defining connection, we identify the “Connection Culture” as an environment producing emotional and rational connections that, as The Conference Board’s definition says, “influences [people] to apply discretionary effort to [their] work.”

The Connection Culture meets universal human needs for respect, recognition, belonging, autonomy, personal growth and meaning. When these needs are met, people thrive individually and collectively. The Connection Culture is ultimately grounded in character strengths and virtues.  Learn more by reading the manifesto or go even deeper by reading our book.  For the latest developments and examples about how to boost connection, stay tuned to blog posts here and consider following my tweets on www.twitter.com/michaelstallard.

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John Wooden: What the Obituaries Missed

John Robert Wooden, the legendary basketball coach, died yesterday. He was 99 years old. This morning I read Wooden’s obituaries in The New York Times and the Associated Press and felt they missed important aspects of his story that reflect the essence of the man and his legacy.

I profiled Wooden as a role model who we can all learn from in my book Fired Up or Burned Out.  Wooden’s favorite saying was “a life not lived for others is a life not lived.”  He said his heroes were his father Joshua Wooden, Abraham Lincoln and Mother Theresa, each of whom lived a life of service to others.  In John Wooden’s honor, I’m posting the following excerpts from my book:

Connection and the Legend

So often in life, good things bloom from the seeds of hardship. The personal character of a young teenager who went on to become a great leader was immeasurably shaped during the Depression when his family lost their farm in Indiana. His father’s reaction to the loss was unusual. He wasn’t bitter about it. Instead, his dad focused on the future and told his children that everything would be all right. And it was.

During those impressionable years in this leader’s life, he learned that, like the Depression, some things in life are not in our control. His father taught him that he should always strive to do his best at anything he chose to do and not worry about the outcome. He would later spread that philosophy to countless other.

Another perspective he gained during those formative years was to value people. By watching his mom and dad and hearing the stories of faith they taught him, he learned the joy that came from making people and relationships his focus in life.

The young boy grew up to be an outstanding high school and college basketball player in a state that was rabid about the game. After college he married Nell, the love of his life and the only woman he had ever dated. He taught high school English and coached basketball until 1943 when he enlisted to serve in the Navy during World War II. When he returned from the war to the high school in South Bend, Indiana, where he previously taught, he was offered his old job. Other returning GIs were not, however, and so he refused the offer because he felt it was wrong for the school to deny veterans the jobs they had left to serve their country. Instead, he accepted an offer to become athletic director and head basketball coach at Indiana State Teachers College.

A Caring Coach

For the 1946-47 season Indiana State received a post-season invitation to the National Association of Intercollegiate Basketball (NAIB) national play-offs. After the coach learned that a young African-American, second-string guard on his team, Clarence Walker, would not be allowed to participate in the tournament because of the color of his skin, he declined the offer.

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The Connection Edge Webinar

Jason Pankau and I are presenting a 60 minute webinar for Communitelligence about the “Connection Edge” that leaders such as Steve Jobs, Ed Catmull and A.G. Lafley employ to boost strategic alignment and employee engagement.  The 60 minute webinar will be held on June 9 at 2:00 PM Eastern.  You can sign up at this link.  Use the promotion code “smallbiz” to receive a $100 discount.

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Sustainable Organizations: The Ideas of Martin Seligman

In an earlier post, I wrote that the ideas of thought-leader Dov Seidman, CEO of LRN and author of How, are likely to have a profound effect on organizations in the years to come. In this second post on thought leaders affecting the evolution of organizations, I highlight the work of Martin Seligman.

Seligman, a psychology professor at the University of Pennsylvania, founded the positive psychology movement when he became president of the American Psychological Association.  There isn’t adequate space in this post to provide an overview of positive psychology, so for those who are interested in learning more, I highly recommend reading an article co-authored by Seligman entitled “Positive Psychology: An Introduction” and a New York Times’ Magazine article entitled “Happiness 101” that describes how the positive psychology movement is growing.

Positive psychology has identified 24 character strengths that it believes — and a growing body of research shows — affect human flourishing. These character strengths are universal. Religious thinkers and moral philosophers throughout the ages have advocated them. Political, social and economic cultures that have been sustained for long periods of time have these values and systems that don’t (i.e. coercive utopian systems such as communism and fascism), fail because the  values they promote work against human flourishing.

Our research at E Pluribus Partners identified a “Character > Connection > Thrive Chain” (see below)  that posits organizations and individuals thrive because they are comprised of people who embrace and behave in ways that reflect the character strengths and in doing so create “Connection Cultures” which meet universal human needs such as meaning, respect, recognition, belonging, autonomy and personal growth. Learn more about positive psychology and the Character >Connection>Thrive Chain on pages 116-130 of the free digital book download of Fired Up or Burned Out.

Recent research from The Conference Board and the Corporate Executive Board make it clear that employee engagement is at dismal levels but eventually leaders will discover that embracing and behaving in ways that reflect the 24 character strengths creates Connection Cultures and develops the corporate character strengths necessary to produce sustainable organizations.

(To enlarge the diagram below, click on it once until it appears then click on it a second time for an enlarged version.)

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Leaders of the New Century

On June 23, I’ll be filming a few video segments for the Leader to Leader Institute’s “Leaders of the New Century” project that includes Allan Mulally of Ford, Sir Richard Branson and Tony Hseih of Zappos. Next week the Summer edition of the Leader to Leader Journal comes out. It includes an article that Jason Pankau and I wrote entitled “To Boost Productivity and Innovation, Connect with the Core.” The article is about how great leaders don’t just focus on star performers, they are intentional about connecting with employees at large. Examples in the article include Ret. U.S. Chief of Navy Operations Admiral Vern Clark and Bono, the lead singer for the rock band U2.

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Summer: A Season to Connect

Summer is an excellent time to be intentional about strengthening the relationships in your life, including your relationships at work. Think about the people you need to have good relationships with to perform your job well (I call these “Critical Connections”) then consider the present state of each relationship.  If some of these Critical Connection relationships are not strong, you need to take action to strengthen them.

Once you’ve identified your Critical Connection priorities, spend time with these individuals over meals or coffee. Ask them questions unrelated to work so that you get to know them as human beings. Asking questions of another human being, then listening carefully to their reply so that you can understand and empathize with them, demonstrates that you value them as human beings. Understanding and empathy reflect the essence of connection.

Here are are a few questions to consider asking when you meet with your Critical Connections:

Where did you grow up?
What are your interests outside of work?
What are your favorite movies and television shows?
What are you favorite books?
Who are your favorite musicians?
Who are your heroes?
Where did you go to college and what did you study?
What events in your life shaped you as a person?
Who has had the greatest impact on your life and why?
What is the best advice you received?

These questions should give you plenty to talk about and help you strengthen your connection with the people you rely on at work.

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SkillSoft to Film Videos on Employee Engagement, Strategic Alignment

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This summer I will be filming training videos on employee engagement, strategic alignment,  productivity and innovation for SkillSoft, the largest public company in the world that is solely focused on e-learning.  Skillsoft has 10 million licensed users that represent 55 percent of the Fortune 500 and 24 percent of the Global 2000 organizations in business, government, and education. Jason Pankau and I are excited about this opportunity to work with yet another world-class partner to take our work and ideas on The Connection Culture from our book Fired Up or Burned Out to a new audience.

Organizations today are in desperate need of improving employee engagement and strategic alignment. The Conference Board released a report in January 2010 saying its research showed employee engagement is at its lowest point since the organization began surveying. Another well-repected organization, The Corporate Executive Board, released research last year that showed 90 percent of employees are either not engaged and giving their best efforts or they are not aligned with organizational goals.