Michael Lee Stallard

Vistage, the world’s largest organization for chief executive officers, has established a course to help its members create Connection Cultures and increase employee engagement, productivity, innovation and profitability.   E Pluribus Partners will conduct the course for Vistage.  

On September 17, I’ll be giving a presentation  to members of the Wharton Alumni Club in New York City.   The presentation will be about how Connection Cultures meet universal human needs to thrive at work and in life outside of work.  Details can be found at this link. 

When seven year-old Sierra Boggess first saw The Little Mermaid, she fell in love with Ariel. After Sierra learned that the woman who provided the voice of Ariel studied performing arts at Millikin University in Central Illinois, she announced to her parents that’s where she would be attending college.  Sierra graduated from Millikin in 2004. Recently, she made her Broadway debut as the first actress to play Ariel in the Broadway production of The Little Mermaid. Read more »

An interesting article appeared in yesterday’s New York Times about the explosion of tech-enabled communication in our lives. My friend Dr. Edward Hallowell, the well-respected psychiatrist and former instructor at Harvard Medical School,  says that people need human, face-to-face connection on average about every four hours. Tim Ferriss in his 4-Hour Work Week book has some good advice on this topic too.There’s no question in my mind that Hallowell’s guideline in spot on.

I advise leaders to encourage the people they are responsible for leading to connect with their colleagues over coffee breaks and lunch. It’s a must to maximize employee engagement.

I’m very interested in learning how individuals manage the torrent of electronic communications and face-to-face connection in their lives. Any thoughts?

In this series of posts I’m identifying the traps that I warn leaders to avoid when they are involved in mergers or acquisitions.  Each of the traps I identify affect employee engagement.  By avoiding the traps leaders will also help develop the Connection Culture that all organizations need to achieve sustainable superior performance.

The Superiority Trap.  In all mergers, one party usually feels superior in status and reputation to the other. The subordinate party’s employees are likely to be hypersensitive to this status gap. Managers from the dominant organization who act the slightest bit condescending will offend employees from the subordinate organization.  These employees will be less likely to cooperate with members of the dominant organization.   On the other hand, managers from the dominant organization who look for ways to affirm their new colleagues and show that they have confidence and high expectations for their future performance will be rewarded when their new colleagues live up to their aspirations.

Over the course of my career I’ve had the good fortune to have been involved in several mergers. At first, I was fascinated by the process of identifying a compelling rationale for combining companies, negotiating the deal, planning the integration of people and systems and then executing the plan. The dizzying array of tasks that must be accomplished to complete a merger is challenging to say the least. In time, however, I learned that even greater challenges arose after the investment bankers and lawyers had packed up their briefcases and moved on to the next deal. Read more »

Thus far it appears that the Disney acquisition of Pixar has worked well.  Brooks Barnes wrote an excellent article about it in today’s The New York Times entitled, “Disney and Pixar - The Power of the Prenup. “There is an insightful quote in the article made by Disney’s CEO Bob Iger. He says “There is an assumption in the corporate world that you need to integrate swiftly…my philosophy is exactly the opposite. You need to be respectful and patient.” Iger’s view reflects his recognition of one of the Post-Merger Traps that companies frequently fall into. We call it the “Urgency Trap.” Read more »

This week I was the guest of Stephanie Weaver, the customer experience consultant and host of the Experienceology podcast.   We discussed Connection Cultures and how they increase employee engagement and customer engagement to improve the customer experience.  Stephanie is a connector, a wonderful interviewer and creative thinker. Click on the player below to hear the interview. 

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For additional information on Stephanie check our her website, blog, podcast and book.

 




Recently it was my privilege to be the guest of host Peter Clayton on Total Picture Radio. Peter is a well-respected thinker as well as an outstanding and insightful interviewer.  In the interview we discussed how Connection Cultures increase employee engagement.   You can access my interview with Peter by clicking here.

Recently I spoke with Kelly Spors of The Wall Street Journal about what potential business partners should consider before forming a partnership. As you might expect, my comments focused on issues where connection is most often as risk. Here is a link to her article entitled, “OK, Partner, We Better Sign a Prenup.”

Earlier this month I spoke with Erin White of The Wall Street Journal about how Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences influenced my work at E Pluribus Partners. Here is a link to the article entitled, “Quest for Innovation, Motivation Inspires the Gurus.”