Category Archives: Connection Culture
Reducing employee anxiety
What can managers do to reduce the anxiety workers feel these days? Anita Bruzzese, award-winning journalist and workplace columnist for Gannett News Service, recently interviewed me about this topic for her nationally syndicated column. The article, entitled “In gloomy times, good management becomes essential,” has appeared in Gannett papers across the country.
Changethis.com: Free e-Book on the Competitive Advantage of Connection
“For those of us who write about business, every once in a while, a book or an article comes along that seems so simple on some levels and yet communicates great wisdom. The Connection Culture: A New Source of Competitive Advantage is one such work.”- William J. Holstein of The New York Times (on his BNet blog)
Fired Up or Burned Out will soon go to its second printing which will include new endorsements from thought leaders such as Marshall Goldsmith and leaders from such prestigious organizations as Goldman Sachs. If you’ve not read it, you can do a test drive, so to speak, by reading my free e-book entitled The Connection Culture: A New Source of Competitive Advantage. The e-book was published by changethis.com, a website that includes contributions from best-selling authors such as Malcolm Gladwell, Tom Peters, Tim Ferriss, Guy Kawasaki, and Bob Sutton.
Get the free download in pdf format at changethis.com.
Communitelligence’s Employee Engagement Conference: Social Networking Tools Inside Organizations
Research Insights from Communitelligence’s Employee Engagement Conference
Communitelligence’s Outstanding Employee Engagement Conference
Last week I gave a presentation on Connection Cultures at Communitelligence’s Employee Engagement Conference in Chicago. While attended the conference I thoroughly enjoyed hearing the speakers who were for the most part responsible for internal communications at some of America’s leading companies.
Thank you John Gerstner, Communitelligence’s president, Rick Sauter, vice president for partnerships and community development, and Shelia Williams-Gerstner, vice president, for inviting me to speak and for orchestrating such a productive conference. I found your conference was especially valuable because the agenda included breakout sessions for participants to meet and learn from each other. This format was more stimulating than the traditional speakers-all-day format. I learned more about what other organizations were doing and met more people. It was a format that encouraging connection.
In the coming days, I’ll be posting fascinating insights shared by conference presenters. Here are a few tidbits of what I learned:
Chief Learning Officer Magazine Online: Employee Engagement Removes Knowledge Traps
In the current edition of Chief Learning Officer Magazine Online, Associate Editor Lindsay Edwards Wickman interviews me about how employee engagement and Connection Cultures remove knowledge traps in organizations. The interview is entitled “Connection Cultures Keep Workers Engaged.”
MIT Research: Employee Connections Improve Performance
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!
Building Connections in a Disconnected Iraq
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.
Employee Engagement Conference in Chicago July 31-August 1
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.