Category Archives: Connection Culture

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Message of “Christmas Carol,” “Wonderful Life” Critical Today

The 1951 movie “A Christmas Carol” is based on Charles Dickens’ classic novel.  It’s the fictional story of  Ebenezer Scrooge, a business owner who idolizes wealth and mocks charity.  Scrooge’s values, and the behavior emanating from them, isolate him from family and friends and make him miserable. Scrooge gets a wakeup call in the form of a nightmarish visit from the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future.

“A Christmas Carol” highlights how certain character vices lead to relational isolation which results in dysfunction and death.  This is in contrast to virtuous character that leads to human connection, thriving and life. Charles Dickens understood just how powerful human connection is and that it comes from the character strengths of compassion, empathy, generosity, kindness and magnanimity. These are character strengths and virtues we celebrate during the holiday season (and hopefully live year round).

The same themes of connection and character are explored in the 1946 holiday classic, “It’s a Wonderful Life.”  

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NY, NJ & CT Last in Happiness, Why?

The New York Times reported that a recent research study rated the tri-state area (New York, New Jersey and Connecticut) dead last of the 50 states when it came to the self-reported happiness of state residents.  The survey points out there is a high correlation between self-reported happiness and objective measures of happiness such as congestion, time spent commuting, housing prices, air quality, etc.  No doubt there is some truth to this.  I have another theory, however.

The tri-state area is the achieve-aholic capital of America.  Remember Frank Sinatra’s ode to New York: “if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere.” New York attracts the ambitious and often, ambition is about status.  People with a burning desire for status come to New York to prove themselves as media stars, bankers and traders on Wall Street, performers on Broadway, etc., etc., etc.  The problem is that chasing status is a never ending game.  There’s always someone above you and the achieve-aholic can’t get enough.  Personal wealth is the primary measure of status on Wall Street.  Many Wall Streeters have a number — referred to as the “F— You number” — they want to reach so they can tell their firms “I’m outta here.”  Research has shown that the FU number is always going up because they need more houses, more art in their collection, more money for philanthropy to build their legacy.  Of course they don’t really need these things but a sense of continuous status anxiety makes them feel the never ending need to boost their status relative to others.  Once again it comes back to status and having more than the next guy.

Psychology research has shown that extrinsic motivators — doing something to impress someone else such as status-chasing — fail to provide happiness.  Only intrinsic motivators such as meaningful work that contributes to society and meaningful relationships (i.e. connection) produce happiness. With so many people in the tri-state area working such long hours and commuting to and from work, it’s no wonder that they’re not so happy. The wise perspective is one of balance. The good life includes meaningful work and meaningful relationships. At times there will be imbalance among the two needs. If imbalance becomes chronic, however, it’s a recipe for disaster. This applies to individuals and organizations.

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Michael Lee Stallard speaks, teaches and writes about leadership, employee engagement, productivity and innovation at leading organizations including Google, GE, NASA, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics and the Darden Graduate School of Business at the University of Virginia. Most recently, Michael and his colleague Jason Pankau filmed a 90-minute program for Linkage’s Thought Leaders Series that will be released in January of 2010. Michael wrote the guest editorial for Talent Management magazine’s January 2010 edition and last month his article on how the force of connection boosts productivity and innovation was featured as the lead article in the UK’s Developing HR Strategy Journal. Click on these links to learn more about Michael and Jason in the media and their speaking engagements.

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Why “Up In the Air” is a “Must See”

The issue of human connection at work and in life takes center stage in the hit movie “Up In the Air.” The plot follows a business executive played by George Clooney who is continuously traveling to fire people. He views meaningful relationships as excess baggage and his primary aspiration is to become a 10 million mile traveler on American Airlines. A new, hot shot, young, female co-worker proposes virtual firing rather than in-person. Ironically, this same woman confronts Clooney’s character for his vacuous life style that lacks meaningful relationships. It’s a must see movie that is hilarious and tragic. It criticizes the values of today that idolize task excellence but give short shrift to the human need for relationships (or to achieve “relationship excellence” in organizations as I written in the past).

Artists always have their finger on the pulse of culture change. The favorable response to this movie is yet another sign to me that people feel the pain from diminished human connection in the workplace and in life. The evidence is overwhelming that connection = thriving and life, disconnection = dysfunction and death, for individuals, families, organizations and nations. It’s why I believe Connection Cultures are the next step in the evolution of organizations and civil societies. Do you agree? If so, why? If not, why? Do you have meaningful relationships in your life? If not, reach out to others this holiday season and begin the new year by developing more and deeper relationships in your life.
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Michael Lee Stallard speaks, teaches and writes about leadership, employee engagement, productivity and innovation at leading organizations including Google, GE, NASA, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics and the Darden Graduate School of Business at the University of Virginia. Most recently, Michael and his colleague Jason Pankau filmed a 90-minute program for Linkage’s Thought Leaders Series that will be released in January of 2010. Michael wrote the guest editorial for Talent Management magazine’s January 2010 edition and last month his article on how the force of connection boosts productivity and innovation was featured as the lead article in the UK’s Developing HR Strategy Journal. Click on these links to learn more about Michael and Jason in the media and their speaking engagements.

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Connecting Up: Our Need for Transcendence

What do many scientists at NASA and engineers at Google have in common with a doorman at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC)?  The answer: they are fired up about the importance of their work and have a passion and energy that drives them to be a force for the cause.  Employees at NASA are fired up that they are exploring space.  Google employees are fired up because they are organizing information and making it accessible to the world.  I learned  this when I met employees at NASA and Google.   I spoke at both organizations earlier this year.

The doorman I refer to at MSKCC is named Nick.  When my wife Katie and I were walking down 53rd street in NYC in 2004 and we got within eyesight of the MSKCC  entrance, Nick locked his eyes on her and greeted her like a returning friend.  This in in Mid-town Manhattan where no one makes eye contact! Nick knows cancer patients when he sees them, probably from the wigs they wear.   It felt like the healing began within eyesight of MSKCC.

Katie was at MSKCC for high dosage chemo treatments she needed to treat advanced ovarian cancer.  Late last year her oncologist told her it that given favorable test results and five years in remission it was unlikely she would have a recurrence.  Words can’t express how overjoyed we were to hear that news. When we told Nick, he gave Katie a big hug and said how proud he was that she persevered.  We learned that Nick was a cancer survivor too and he attributed his survival to the treatments he received at MSKCC.  Is it any wonder then that this man is so passionate about his work at MSKCC.  You have to see Nick to believe it and you can if you stop by MSKCC’s entrance on 53rd Street across the street from the Citigroup building.  He’s a big guy with a dar complexion and blue eyes. Tell Nick you read about him.  Don’t worry that it may seem strange.  Former cancer patients and their family members regularly stop by to say hello to Nick. That’s how beloved he is.

Nick’s example shows that people are fired up if their work reflects the eternal values of the transcendent: truth, beauty and goodness.  MSKCC’s work reflects goodness and is expressed in it’s tagline “The Best Cancer Care, Anywhere.”  Apple’s passion for the aesthetic design and ease of use of its products reflects beauty. Work in the fields of journalism, research, theology and the academy reflect truth-seeking.

Truth, beauty and goodness are eternal values that reflect transcendence.  Human beings need the truth, beauty and goodness of transcendence to meet our need for meaning in life.  If you can find time over the holidays, reflect on the need for the transcendent values of truth, beauty and goodness in your own life. Below are links to some of my favorite essays, speeches and articles that touch on transcendence. Let me encourage you to print them out, read them and consider their relevance to your life and the lives of those you love.  

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Connection Preserves Brain Power

Evidence continues to mount that social connections help us survive and thrive from the time we are infants to the twilight years of our lives.  This excerpt from an article I recently discovered that appeared in The New York Times earlier this year suggests that it may be the degree of cognitive function used during social interactions that strengthens and preserves cognitive ability:

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Closing the Reputation-Character Chasm

Frank Rich, The New York Times’ columnist, wrote in his column today that Tiger Woods should be the person of the year because so often we’ve been “spun silly” into believing that a leader or organization’s character is stellar only to discover it wasn’t.  Tiger, Enron, Eliot Spitzer and athletes on steroids are a few of the examples Rich sites.

Earlier I wrote about LRN’s Dov Seidman and his view (expressed in his book How) that in today’s connected and wired world it has become increasingly important for individuals and organizations to get their “hows” right.  In other words, it’s difficult to manage your public reputation these days so character matters more than ever.  Dov encourages organizations to out-behave the competition.  I couldn’t agree more.   (As an aside, reading the Times this morning I could see that the late Iranian cleric Ayatollah Montazeri was a fierce critic of Iranian hardliners because they were getting the “hows” wrong. Montazeri wrote “a political system based on force, oppression, changing people’s votes, killing, closure, arresting and using Stalinist and medieval torture, creating repression, censorship of newspapers, interruption of the means of mass communications, jailing the enlightened and the elite of society for false reasons, and forcing them to make false confessions in jail, is condemned and illegitimate.”  Read more about Montazeri in his obituary at this link.)

No doubt, the connected world is improving transparency and rooting out the bad behavior of individuals, organizations and nations.  It provides another much needed check on power.

Last week while having lunch with Jay Morris, the head of Yale-New Haven Health System’s Center for Excellence, the topic of Tiger came up.  

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‘Tis the Season

This morning I was a guest on Jim Blasingame’s nationally syndicated radio show “The Small Business Advocate.” You can hear the interview by clicking on the “listen now” button above. On Jim’s program, we talked about how a company interacts with its customers is becoming more important to competitive differentiation. I believe the past century was about achieving task excellence but the century ahead will be about developing relationship excellence in organizations, including strong relationships with and among an organization’s customers (more on that later).

At the heart of relationships is “the force of connection.” If ever there is a time to connect with people, it is now during the holiday season. I say this for my own benefit too. I’m an achieve-aholic who compulsively lists things I must do and who derives pleasure from crossing items off my list. Attending to the tasks in my life — writing articles, speaking, blogging, teaching workshops, making calls, meeting with people, reading articles and books, checking my email and iPhone (now with 100,000+ apps), etc., etc., etc. — develops an addictive rhythm.

Tomorrow afternoon when my daughter Sarah arrives home after completing her first semester in college at TCU, I want to break free of the rhythm of tasks and spend time with her, my daughter Elizabeth and Katie, my wife. My hope is that I can be present with them and not be seduced by the allure of thinking about my next article, speech, blog post, etc.

Katie talks about “making memories.” That should be the priority of this season. Being together. Doing memorable things together. Connecting with those we love.

That said, I want to wish you happy holidays. May the time you have this holiday season be well spent.

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Michael Lee Stallard speaks, teaches and writes about leadership, employee engagement, productivity and innovation at leading organizations including Google, GE, NASA, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics and the Darden Graduate School of Business at the University of Virginia. Most recently, Michael and his colleague Jason Pankau filmed a 90-minute program for Linkage that will be released in January of 2010. Michael wrote the guest editorial for Talent Management magazine’s January 2010 edition and last month his article on how the force of connection boosts productivity and innovation was featured as the lead article in the UK’s Developing HR Strategy Journal. Google just posted on YouTube a talk Michael gave at Google earlier this year. Click on these links to learn more about Michael and Jason in the media and their speaking engagements.

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What’s Your Work “Experience of a Lifetime”?

IMG_0449This 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.

My introduction to Morgan Stanley came in 1996 when it purchased Van Kampen Investments where I worked reporting to the firm’s president and heading business and product development. As part of the team to integrate Van Kampen into Morgan Stanley, I commuted weekly to New York for a period of time. I was also part of a joint project to assess business opportunities in Japan. In 1998, I accepted  an offer to become chief marketing officer for Morgan Stanley’s Private Wealth Management Group. I was slightly apprehensive about moving to New York and joining this firm whose employees were known for their blue blood pedigrees. After all, I had grown up in the industrial town of Rockford, Illinois; my grandfathers had worked for a coal mine in the Appalachians; and I was the first in my family to go to college. I was intolerant of any hint of favoritism based on privilege rather than merit. I would soon learn that my concerns were unfounded.

Morgan Stanley was born as a result of the Great Depression. In 1934, the federal government forced the separation of investment banking and commercial banking pursuant to the Glass-Steagall Act and J.P. Morgan became two separate firms: J.P. Morgan and Company retained the commercial bank business and Morgan Stanley was created for the investment banking business. Both firms kept the values that J.P. Morgan himself summarized as doing first class business in a first class way.

From all I could see, this accurately described Morgan Stanley’s cultural DNA. The firm prized its reputation as first class. People at Morgan Stanley worked hard, were for the most part honest, and were typically engaged in philanthropic endeavors to help make the world a better place. Those who didn’t share the firm’s values weren’t considered to be “one of us” and they were thrown out if they lied, cheated or stole, or respectfully guided out if they didn’t live up to the firm’s standards of excellence. For me, Morgan Stanley’s values reflected my own and I was thrilled to be there and work alongside such outstanding colleagues.

The values that Morgan Stanley’s culture embodied included excellence in its every endeavor; open and, for the most part, civil debate on issues; and meritocracy in pay and promotions. It was a partnership culture in the very best sense and it had remained that way even after it converted from a legal partnership to become a publicly owned corporation in 1986. The energy and enthusiasm at Morgan Stanley was off the charts. I thought I had died and gone to heaven. My boss, John Straus, the head of Private Wealth Management, gave me the autonomy I needed to lead my department and get the job done. His door was always open when I needed his guidance or help navigating the politics that is part of every large firm. No one worked harder than John. My colleagues and I were inspired by his passion to create something great. I challenged the people I was responsible for leading to help Private Wealth Management reach its first billion dollar revenue year in history, a goal that we achieved  two and a half years later. It was one the best experiences in my professional life. Working at Morgan Stanley during those years was for me an experience of a lifetime.

Over time, as Phil Purcell and his loyalists exerted their control, that highly engaging environment soured. Former Morgan Stanley employees left in droves. John Straus left and, some months later, I did too. The experience was so eye-opening and disappointing to me that it was one of the catalysts for me to write the book Fired Up or Burned Out: How to Reignite Your Team’s Passion, Creativity and Productivity.

I’ve given a lot of thought to what made Morgan Stanley so successful. I know it was the firm’s people and culture. People were fired up because they worked in a Connection Culture. Another way to describe Morgan Stanley’s culture is that it was, as I wrote earlier, a partnership culture. David Sirota describes a partnership culture in his excellent book that I highly recommend entitled The Enthusiastic Employee and in this interview he did with Knowledge@Wharton.

How about you? Have you been a part of a Connection Culture or Partnership Culture where you felt connected to the firm’s mission, values, reputation, your colleagues and your day-to-day work? If so, what fired you up about it? I would like to hear about your work “experience of a lifetime.” Just post it in the comment section below.

(Note: on January 1st, 2010 James Gorman will succeed the retiring John Mack as Morgan Stanley’s CEO. John Mack will continue to be the firm’s chairman. To John Mack, I would like to say thank you for your leadership. And to James Gorman, congratulations and best wishes. Lead Morgan Stanley in a way that reflects the mindset of its founder who said  “…at all times the idea of doing only first-class business, and that in a first class way, has been before our minds.”  MLS)

Michael Lee Stallard speaks, teaches and writes about leadership, employee engagement, productivity and innovation at leading organizations including Google, GE, NASA, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics and the Darden Graduate School of Business at the University of Virginia.  Most recently, Michael and his colleague Jason Pankau filmed a 90-minute program for Linkage’s Thought Leaders Series that will be released in January of 2010.  Michael wrote the guest editorial for Talent Management magazine’s January 2010 edition and last month his article on how the force of connection boosts productivity and innovation was featured as the lead article in the UK’s Developing HR Strategy Journal. Click on these links to learn more about Michael and Jason in the media and their speaking engagements.

 

 

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LRN’s Dov Seidman: Inspiring Principled Performance

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.