As many organizations move away from diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, they are left asking, “what’s next?” 

My proposal is to replace DEI programs with something more effective: cultivating a culture of connection (also referred to as a “Connection Culture” or “Connected Culture”). This approach intentionally develops positive bonds among people, fostering collaboration, cooperation, employee engagement, strategic alignment, innovation, better decision-making, agility, adaptability and overall superior performance.

In a recent article published by SmartBrief on Leadership, I explain the challenge of many DEI programs and how Connection Culture addresses those challenges, why Connection Culture is a proven model for uniting teams, and how to implement Connection Culture in a way that avoids the pitfalls of DEI.

If you need help cultivating a culture of connection in your organization, reach out to me. From workshops to help train your team to books and resources, I can help your team get off to a strong start.

The post A More Effective DEI Alternative: Connection Culture appeared first on Michael Lee Stallard.

Organizations with supervisors who connect with, encourage, and coach their employees often outperform those that do not. Years ago, Southwest Airlines discovered that reducing the ratio of frontline employees to supervisors enabled supervisors to build stronger relationships, provide better support, and ultimately improve employee performance. As a result, Southwest Airlines maintained a frontline employee-to-supervisor ratio of 10:1, whereas some airlines have ratios as high as 40:1.

What Connecting, Encouraging, and Coaching Looks Like in Practice: 6 Steps for Leaders

What does it truly look like to connect, encourage, and coach? Here are some real-world examples of actions supervisors can take to foster a more engaged and effective workforce:

1. Get to know your team members. Learn about their past work experiences, the environments in which they thrive, and their career aspirations. Take an interest in their lives outside of work, including their hobbies and personal interests.
2. Support their professional growth. Help employees acquire the skills and experiences they need to move closer to their career goals. If formal training budgets are tight, you can offer to connect them with potential mentors in your network within or outside the company, or look for opportunities for them to participate in projects that will grow their knowledge and skills.
3. Recognize them and provide constructive feedback. Praise employees for their good work and offer constructive suggestions to help them improve. Positive reinforcement should outnumber corrective feedback by at least a 3:1 ratio, reinforcing that you support their success. If an employee is not well-suited for a particular role, be honest and encourage them to explore opportunities that better align with their skills and interests—whether within your organization or elsewhere.
4. Collaborate when setting KPIs. Involve employees when setting KPIs so that they have a sense of ownership.
5. Keep them in the loop. Be generous when it comes to sharing information. Many employees appreciate this and are more engaged as a result.
6. Give them a voice. When you have to make decisions that affect employees or that they would want to have input to, share your thoughts on the issue and ask them to share what’s right, wrong, or missing from your thinking. This will give them a sense of ownership in the decision and make them more likely to give extra effort when implementing. (It also demonstrates that giving and receiving feedback is part of how the team operates.)

Why Make the Effort? The Rewards of Being a Connected Leader

None of the steps listed above are difficult, but they do require some intentionality and time. With an overflowing inbox and pressures from above, it can be easy to skip these steps when interacting with your employees.

However, the benefit of this approach is that employees recognize that you genuinely care about their well-being and development. This fosters a workplace culture where people feel valued, rather than treated as mere means to an end. Leaders who prioritize connection, encouragement, and coaching ultimately attract, engage, and retain top talent because employees know they will be supported and given opportunities to thrive.

Addressing the Concern: Does a Connection-Focused Leadership Approach Sacrifice Performance?

If you are worried that this “soft” approach to leadership means sacrificing performance, think again. A connection-focused leadership approach does not mean sacrificing performance. Rather, it recognizes that both task excellence and relationship excellence are essential for achieving sustainable, superior results.

By strengthening the relationship excellence side of the equation, you create an environment where people feel motivated to give their best efforts. You also build the social capital necessary for those moments when you need to ask your team to go above and beyond to meet a challenge.

Additionally, many of the examples outlined above focus on the task excellence side of the equation, such as providing constructive feedback and setting KPIs. When approached through the lens of connection, these accountability steps become more productive and rewarding.

The Bottom Line

Leaders who intentionally connect, encourage, and coach are rewarded with stronger employee relationships and better team performance. If you aren’t sure where to start, begin with the six steps outlined in this article. Your employees—and your own boss—will thank you.

Photo by Amy Hirschi on Unsplash

The post The Best Leaders Connect, Encourage, and Coach appeared first on Michael Lee Stallard.

A sobering report was released by Gallup Research recently: At 30 percent, employee engagement has hit its lowest point in over a decade, dropping an additional three points in the first quarter of 2024 from the end of 2023. That drop equates to another 4.8 million U.S. workers who are now in the “I’ll just do the basics of what I need to do” or “Why should I bother?” camp. This revelation is not just a statistic; it’s a wake-up call for organizations.

Seventy percent of workers are disengaged. Within that majority are men and women who account for the seventeen percent deemed “actively disengaged.” This last group may channel their disengagement in disruptive or destructive ways. Consider the impact on any number of measures — productivity, quality control, and innovation, to name a few — if on a team of ten people, five people are ho-hum, two people are checked-out or even angry, and only three people are committed and enthusiastic.

In Gallup’s reporting in 2023, several issues related to what was driving worker disengagement were noted, including “less role clarity, lower satisfaction with their organizations and less connection to their companies’ mission or purpose”  and “less likely to feel someone at work cares about them.”

When Gallup’s research reveals a downward trend in engagement levels, it’s a red flag for organizations to reassess their culture and leadership practices. If the goal is to foster a thriving work environment, is what they are doing working? Do they even have a thought-out approach to improving culture? Amidst this challenge of weak engagement levels lies an extraordinary opportunity for organizations that prioritize Connection Cultures.

Overcoming Employee Engagement Challenges Through Connection Culture Principles

What is a Connection Culture, you may ask? It’s more than just a buzzword; it’s adopting a leadership mindset that drives practices revolving around three key elements we’ve termed as Vision, Value, and Voice. When leaders embrace pursuing both task excellence and relationship excellence through the three Vs, they create an environment in which employees feel connected, engaged, and motivated to contribute their best work. This type of culture combats widespread employee engagement woes.

Let’s break down the elements of a Connection Culture:

1. Vision: A compelling vision serves as the North Star for an organization. It’s not just about profits or market share; it’s about a purpose that resonates with employees. When leaders communicate an inspiring vision that serves the greater good, employees feel a sense of purpose and alignment with something meaningful. This vision goes beyond mere words; it ignites passion and drives collective efforts toward a common goal.
2. Value: People are not interchangeable cogs in a machine; they are individuals with unique strengths, perspectives, and aspirations. Treating them in a way that makes them feel invisible or dispensable opens the door for disengagement. A Connection Culture values people as individuals, recognizing their contributions and nurturing their growth. It’s about creating a culture of respect, empathy, and appreciation in which every team member feels seen, heard, and valued for who they are. A culture of connection is a culture of belonging.
3. Voice: An essential aspect of a Connection Culture is giving people a voice. Leaders may say employees have a voice, but when employees can tell that their feedback and input is not actually wanted or won’t be considered, disengagement grows. It’s not enough for leaders to listen passively; leaders must actively seek out and incorporate employee input into decision-making processes. This means creating channels for feedback, encouraging open and psychologically-safe dialogue, and empowering employees to share their opinions and ideas on matters that are important to them. When employees feel their voices are heard and valued, they become more engaged, committed, and invested in the organization’s success.

Connection’s Role in Attracting and Retaining Engaged Employees

Now, let’s delve into why this formula matters, especially in light of the current decline in employee engagement. In a time when so many employees feel disengaged, disconnected, and demotivated, organizations with strong Connection Cultures have a competitive advantage. They attract top talent who are not just looking for a paycheck but also for a sense of purpose, belonging, and fulfillment in their work. These organizations are magnets for high-performing individuals who thrive in environments in which they are confident they will be able to contribute meaningfully, grow professionally, and make a difference.

Moreover, Connection Cultures excel at employee retention. When people feel valued, heard, and connected to something bigger than themselves, they are more likely to stay loyal to their organization. This reduces turnover costs, boosts morale, and creates a stable, cohesive workforce that drives long-term success.

Leaders play a pivotal role in cultivating Connection Cultures. They must embody the elements of Vision, Value, and Voice in their actions, decisions, and communication. Employees can tell when leaders are paying lip service to the three Vs and aren’t actually internalizing them. For a Connection Culture to take root, these three key elements must be integrated into the fabric of the organization’s culture, policies, and practices.

In conclusion, the current decline in employee engagement is a wake-up call for organizations to prioritize Connection Cultures. Guided by the framework of Vision + Value + Voice, organizations can create environments in which employees feel inspired, valued, and empowered to reach their full potential. This isn’t just about data points and improving engagement scores; it’s about creating a healthy, life-giving workplace culture that promotes people thriving and organizations excelling. The opportunity is here; it’s time to seize it.

Katharine P. Stallard co-authored this article

Photo by Vitaly Gariev on Unsplash

The post Declining Employee Engagement Signals an Opportunity appeared first on Michael Lee Stallard.

Can real-life office connections save lives? Consider this: a chance meeting in an office setting years ago set in motion a vaccine to prevent untold number of deaths due to Covid-19.

Dr. Katalin Kariko and Dr. Drew Wiseman, both researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, got to talking one day about their respective areas of RNA and immunology as they took turns using a copier. That friendly conversation led to a collaboration that ultimately resulted in the mRNA technology used in the first Covid-19 vaccines. For their pioneering work, in 2023 the two were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Chance encounters that spark innovation is one reason why leaders advocate for a full return to the office. However, this policy makes attracting and retaining the best employees difficult. Work has not returned to pre-pandemic norms. Many of the best employees prefer maximum flexibility and favor employers who provide that flexibility. Requiring people to be at the office five days a week will be a deal breaker for many people going forward.

Recent research by Gallup on remote-capable employees found that only 20 percent work entirely on-site, 30 percent work entirely remotely, and 50 percent of them have hybrid work arrangements. In addition, Gallup found that eight in ten remote-capable employees expect to work hybrid or fully remote.

What if leaders thought about this differently? Rather than strictly dictating being on-site, consider offering employees the flexibility to work remotely part of the time then make being in the office such a positive, inclusive, and energizing experience that people want to be in the office together. Leaders can do this through cultivating a culture that is rich in relational connection.

Why Connection Cultures Are Attractive

Here’s why this approach works. As I explained in Connection Culture: The Competitive Advantage of Shared Identity, Empathy, and Understanding at Work, a culture of connection meets the seven universal human needs at work:

• Respect
• Recognition
• Belonging
• Autonomy
• Personal growth
• Meaning
• Progress

Who wouldn’t want to work in an environment that offers these benefits?

Employers benefit, too. Connection cultures boost employee engagement, improve the quality of decisions, increase the rate of innovation, and much more. Only this type of culture is a win-win for employees and employers.

How to Create a Connection Culture

Great leaders recognize that perks, creature comforts, and a cool office vibe aren’t enough to create an environment where people want to be. Instead, they look for ways to boost these three building blocks of a relationally rich Connection Culture:

• Communicate a vision that inspires and unites people
• Value people as individuals instead of thinking of or treating them as mere means to an end
• Give people a voice to share their opinions then consider their input when possible

Three Ideas to Try

• Ask your employees for feedback…and really listen. See what they think about the direction of your company, the current work environment, their perspective on being back in office, and what they would do differently if they could. What have they appreciated about working from home? What have they missed about being in the office?
• Bring back a pre-pandemic favorite or start a unique new tradition. Was the annual chili cookoff always a big hit? Did your team bond over shopping for and wrapping gifts for underprivileged kids around the holidays? These less frequent, but highly meaningful, traditions are the perfect candidates to bring back. You can also start a new tradition that ties into your local culture, like a crawfish boil, clam bake, or barbeque. Aim to offer a meaningful connection opportunity on a quarterly basis.
• Find your weak spots, then strengthen them. Take an honest look at how connecting and engaging your various team sub-cultures are. Use past employee engagement surveys, opinions expressed in exit interviews, and what you’ve picked up through conversations and observations. Identify the teams that would benefit from more focused efforts to improve connection and start there. Identify the leaders or team members who would benefit from mentoring to improve their connection skills, then offer it to them.

Three Ideas to Skip

• Make a one-size-fits-all policy decision. Instead, consider the level of in-person interaction that is truly necessary for each team to do their work well.
• Offer “fun” that isn’t really fun. Friday pizza parties and 8 am Monday bagels and coffee won’t truly incentivize anyone who wasn’t planning to be at the office anyway to come. Would you brave a Monday morning commute just for a bagel? Save those budget dollars and put them toward something your team will truly enjoy.
• Put different requirements on local versus remote workers. A common complaint from locals who are required to be in office is that they still end up spending most of their in-office time on Zoom calls because of geographically dispersed team members. If your team has members who can’t come to the office regularly due to geographic constraints, consider reserving mandatory in-office time for those less frequent occasions when everyone can truly be together.

The Bottom Line

We all want to reap the benefits that come with in-person interactions, but return to office initiatives will fail unless backed by an engaging in-office environment. Gain a competitive advantage in the war for talent by fostering a Connection Culture. Your employees – and bottom line – will thank you.

Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash

The post Three Tips to Draw Employees Back to the Office appeared first on Michael Lee Stallard.

Ever since learning that a movie was being made about J. Robert Oppenheimer and The Manhattan Project, I have been waiting for it to come to movie theaters, curious to see how the man and his work would be portrayed. In my first book, Fired Up or Burned Out: How to Reignite Your Team’s Passion, Creativity, and Productivity, I had written about a particular angle of The Manhattan Project in reference to an element that teams need in order to function well. 

Opening weekend came, my wife and I bought tickets, and we settled into the comfy chairs (with foot rests!). Three hours later, the closing credits began to roll. Debriefing as we drove home, after “that was intense” and “it was really well done,” we ventured into interesting conversations on a host of topics that the movie raised. 

Given the popularity of “Oppenheimer,” I thought you might enjoy the inspiring story below, excerpted from Fired Up or Burned Out, as, to my surprise, a piece of it was not included in the movie. Regardless of your personal feelings about the development and use of the atomic bomb, this bit of history is one clear example of the power in helping people find meaning in their work.

Inspire with Identity

In Warren Bennis and Patricia Ward Biederman’s insightful book Organizing Genius, they tell the story of America’s race to make an atomic bomb before the Nazis during World War II. The Manhattan Project, as it was called, represented one of the most challenging and significant scientific accomplishments in history.

The story began in 1939 when Albert Einstein learned from three Hungarian physicists who had defected to America that the Nazis were trying to build an atomic bomb. Einstein wrote a letter to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt warning him that he believed the Nazis might find a way to do it. Within days of receiving Einstein’s letter, FDR established an advisory committee to investigate using atomic energy for national defense.

During 1941 and 1942, research was conducted at four universities: Columbia, Princeton, University of California at Berkeley, and Chicago. By mid-1942, the project had become the number-one defense priority with a $2 billion budget. In the fall, soon-to-be Brigadier General Leslie Groves was appointed to head the project following his stint building the Pentagon. Groves, a 250- to 300-pound crusty veteran career officer, began to pull together the people and the resources to make it happen.

On December 2, 1942, a team led by Enrico Fermi, a brilliant physicist, successfully created a self-sustaining nuclear reaction in an unused squash court under the University of Chicago’s football stadium. It was a pivotal moment that meant the project could shift to producing an atomic bomb since the concept had been proven.

General Groves identified a tall, gangly thirty-eight-year-old quantum physicist at Cal Tech, J. Robert Oppenheimer, to be the technical leader of the scientists and engineers. Although military intelligence officials objected to Oppenheimer because of his Communist Party connections, General Groves insisted that he was the best person for the job. Refusing to back down, the persistent Groves got Oppenheimer approved.

One scientist on the project was a young genius from Princeton named Richard Feynman who was to supervise technicians supporting the project. For security reasons, the army did not want the technicians to know the purpose of the project. As a result, it was difficult for them to put their hearts into their work. Their productivity was lackluster, and the quality of their work was disappointing. Feynman asked Oppenheimer to let him inform the technicians about the project’s purpose. His request approved, Feynman explained to the technicians what they were working on, its importance to the war effort, and the value of their contribution to the overall project.

After the technicians understood the meaning of their work, Feynman said he witnessed:

Complete transformation! They began to invent ways of doing it better. They improved the scheme. They worked at night. They didn’t need supervising in the night; they didn’t need anything. They understood everything; they invented several of the programs that we used . . . my boys really came through, and all that had to be done was to tell them what it was, that’s all. As a result, although it took them nine months to do three problems before, we did nine problems in three months, which is nearly ten times as fast.

The technicians’ improved productivity and innovation helped the Allies beat Hitler in the race to make an atomic bomb. On the morning of July 16, 1945, the Manhattan Project team watched as the first atomic bomb was exploded in the New Mexico desert. Their efforts gave the Allies a decisive edge in the war. 

Photo of J. Robert Oppenheimer, Enrico Fermi, and Ernest Lawrence (courtesy the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory) via the U.S. Department of Energy – Office of History and Heritage Resources

The post Missing from the Oppenheimer Movie: The Connection Catalyst appeared first on Michael Lee Stallard.

Do you feel like the inner flame that motivates you in your personal and professional life has dimmed? Answering a few questions will provide insight into how you can rekindle your inner light. Before we pose the questions, though, let us share a story that illuminates why contemplating them is so valuable.

Doug Conant’s Story: Being Honored and Honoring Others

Doug Conant is the leader who turned around Campbell Soup Company when he served as President and CEO (2001-2011). We’ve previously written about how Conant held senior leaders accountable for improving employee engagement at Campbell’s and the tremendous difference it made.

We had a long conversation with Conant recently and came away very encouraged by how his views on leadership are aligned with what we advocate about connection and fostering connection cultures. In particular, we wanted to know more about him as a person and how he developed into a leader who cares about people. Who had influenced him? We learned that his journey to the top of the corporate ladder hadn’t come without obstacles.

Albert Schweitzer once wrote: “In everyone’s life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.” At a tough juncture in Doug Conant’s career that person was Neil MacKenna.

Conant was a 32-year-old director of marketing at Parker Brothers Toy and Game Company near Boston when he was stunned to hear the VP of marketing tell him, “Your job has been eliminated. Clear out your desk by noon.” He was hard-working and competent, and now fired. How could this be happening? Hurt, angry, crushed, humiliated, self-pity, dread are words he uses to capture his reaction to the place he now found himself in. (How many workers cut loose in the wave of recent lay-offs can relate?)

The exit package included outplacement counseling and that is how Conant met the man who would greatly shape him as a leader. Conant describes Neil MacKenna as a wonderful, tough-as-nails, crusty New Englander. He was a decorated veteran of World War II and graduate of Harvard Business School who “didn’t suffer whining or a victim-y ’poor me’ attitude.” Throughout the outplacement process, Conant was struck by how MacKenna was fully present, listened intently and earnestly, and genuinely wanted to be of help. He felt honored by MacKenna. A bond of connection formed between them that would last until MacKenna passed away almost 20 years later.

At their second meeting, MacKenna gave Conant the take-home assignment to write out his life story, by hand, and with as much detail as he could. That kind of thorough self-reflection was not something Conant had done before. When they were back together to talk it over, MacKenna called Conant out on the disconnect between the man coming through on paper and the man Conant presented to others. As Conant recounts in The Blueprint: 6 Practical Steps to Lift Your Leadership to New Heights, MacKenna told him, “What you’re showing to the world is a modest guy who goes with the flow. But the Doug who wrote this story is a leader and a fighter.”

Working with MacKenna, Conant came to realize that in trying to be the person that others wanted him to be or expected him to be, whether it was his parents, teachers, coaches or bosses, he was not being true to himself. Talking with us about this, Conant paraphrased a quote from Brene Brown that resonates with him: “You can either walk inside your story and own it, or you stand outside of your story and hustle for your worthiness every day.” Going on, he said, “I needed to write my own story. I needed to figure out what matters most to me and how I want to show up with passion and enthusiasm, and bring my best self to work every day.”

Secondly, MacKenna had him think about the people who had honored him along his life’s journey. Then he challenged Conant to be more like them in honoring others.

The positive emotions Conant experienced from connecting with MacKenna made him more aware of how fully connecting with others affects them in positive ways. He wanted to have that kind of positive effect on people in his life and began being more intentional about connecting. Going forward, he would connect with, support, honor and serve the people in his life in ways that reflected excellence, including his family and friends, and the people with whom he worked.

One practice he embraced as a result of his newfound insights was to actively look for ways to praise and encourage others, and to celebrate their contributions. Not only did he praise people verbally, but he became the most prolific writer of handwritten notes we’ve ever known (which we will share more about in a future article).

In our conversation, he shared: “When I look back on the people who had a profound influence on me – and that’s what leadership is all about, having a profound influence on people to move them in a particular direction that’s good for the enterprise and good for them – they had two characteristics that really jumped out. They had very high standards for me and they loved me to death. They cared.” He noted, “I dealt with a lot of people who had high standards who didn’t care and I dealt with a lot of people who cared a lot but really didn’t lift me up and challenge me. The people who had the most profound impact were, in my language, tough-minded and tender-hearted.” High on his list, Conant told us, are his grandparents and… Neil MacKenna.

“The learning that came out of losing my job was enormous,” Conant declared. It ultimately reframed his view of leadership and prepared him for bigger roles.

Conant would go on to hold a number of senior leader positions, including president of the Nabisco Foods Company, president and CEO of Campbell Soup Company, and chairman of Avon Products. He is now an author, speaker, teacher and executive coach at Conant Leadership.

Your Story: Connecting through Honoring and Serving One Another

Being in environments rich with human connections in which colleagues, friends and family members are honoring and serving one another can be life-changing and rekindle your inner flame.

We can’t give what we don’t have so we need people in our lives who honor, serve and connect with us to support us through the inevitable ups and downs of life, including our time at work. We need people who help us learn, grow and achieve our potential so we can make our contribution to the greater good.

So, as you reflect on your life story up until this point, ask yourself:

1. Who are the people in my life that I have strong connections with and who support me so that I achieve my potential?
2. What is it about them that makes me feel so connected?
3. Do I need to develop more supportive relationships that give me the connections I need to be my best self, do my best work and make my greatest contributions?

After thinking about the supportive relationships in your life, consider how you are supporting others. Ask yourself:

1. Who am I connecting with, honoring and supporting so they will achieve their potential?
2. Through my words and behaviors, can they tell that I care about them as individuals and I believe in them?
3. Am I encouraging them to become an even better person by expecting the best of them and holding them to high standards?

As Conant reminds us in The Blueprint: “[Y]ou can be more like the people who have helped you become the person you are today; you can be that person for the people with whom you live and work. You already know what it looks like. You’ve lived it. And you know, from your memories of these people, that the way they behaved toward you is the way other people also deserve to be treated.”

Creating and fostering a culture of connection in which people are honoring and serving one another will lead to healthier individuals, communities, organizations, and a stronger and better society, something that’s very much in need today.

This article was coauthored by Katharine P. Stallard. 

The post Rekindling the Inner Flame in Others, and in Ourselves appeared first on Michael Lee Stallard.

If you are seeking to develop a Connection Culture in your workplace, then you need to not only proactively take actions that build connection, but also avoid actions that destroy it. Sometimes, we have blind spots that make it difficult to identify “connection killer” habits.

Are any of these common issues getting in the way of your efforts to infuse connection into your work environment or feel meaningfully connected with your colleagues? While different, each hinders or kills connection as it puts a wedge between leaders and those being led. Some shake the confidence of employees, some convey an “us versus them” mentality, some have the effect of communicating that an employee is only needed to do what he or she is told to do. They separate people rather than drawing them together. While you may not be in a role that allows you to tackle each head on, it’s good to be aware of the damage they may be doing.

1. Layoffs

Granted, sometimes layoffs are unavoidable so that a trimmed-down version of the organization can survive. In the case of several large organizations that recently publicly announced they are laying off people, the rationale provided was an anticipation of declining demand and an economic recession. Layoffs are to be avoided if at all possible because they diminish the connection people feel to the organization and its leaders. Layoffs communicate that the leadership team doesn’t value people and valuing people is the heart of a connection culture. For those who remain, fear and insecurity can creep in. If that department can be shut down or a significant number of people let go across the board, how secure are the rest of us? Should I start looking for a different job? Rather than laying people off, it’s preferable to find other ways to reduce costs, including temporarily reducing the pay of leaders in order to save jobs. (See example of FCB New Zealand.)

2. Unrealistic expectations

Today, we see many organizations where leaders have unrealistic expectations in terms of what they expect people to accomplish. Overwhelmed employees who are burning out and/or results that reflect mediocrity are inevitable when there is a lack of focus and a lack of understanding what the team can reasonably accomplish with the time and resources available. Rather than trying to do too much, leaders and managers should identify their top 3-5 priorities, communicate them as broadly as possible, and focus on accomplishing them with excellence.

3. Employees who are not in the loop on strategic vision

People need to know where their team is going, why it’s important to get there, how they are going to get there, what the team’s values are, and what their individual role is. Absent clarity about these things, people often assume the worst. Knowing the “the big picture” and having context for the work they are doing is motivating and helps people feel like they are a valued part of the whole.

4. Employees who have no voice in matters that are important to them

People need to be able to express their opinions and ideas on matters that are important to them, and to know their feedback is considered when possible. When people don’t have the opportunity to contribute, it can leave them feeling disrespected, not valued, expendable, even invisible. Having no voice undermines employee engagement and human connection.

5. Supervisors who don’t show they care about the people they are responsible for leading

Supervisors need to get to know the people they are responsible for leading. This includes knowing about them as individuals outside of work and asking about their career aspirations. They can then articulate how the work an employee is doing and the skills they are developing will help them achieve their career aspirations. Having a supervisor who shows no interest in you as a person or superficial interest at best is disconnecting.

6. Bullies

Allowing someone to bully and harass coworkers is a sure way to diminish engagement and connection. It’s best to hold bullies accountable. If they can’t be respectful after being given the opportunity to change, show them the door. Pfizer explicitly uses the phrase “no jerks” when it comes to behavior. This makes it clear to all employees that disrespectful, patronizing, condescending or passive-aggressive behavior is not welcome.

7. Inflexible work arrangements

With the rapid rise of remote work brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic, more people now value flexibility in their work schedule and location. Finding the right balance for the organization is key. To get the greatest support for bringing employees back for more work days in a physical office, it will be necessary to cultivate a culture of connection that brings about a spiraling up of positive emotions. If the workplace is permeated by negative emotions, people will seek employment elsewhere.

Consistently high levels of connection lead to a higher level of productivity, tighter strategic alignment, greater innovation, improved quality of decisions and greater agility. These benefits add up to a powerful performance and competitive advantage.

Being intentional about adding in attitudes, language and behaviors that improve connection should be a priority. However, unless you also identify and eliminate connection killers, your efforts to improve the esprit de corps of the team and organization will be in vain.

This article was coauthored by Katharine P. Stallard. 

Photo by Elisa Ventur on Unsplash

The post 7 Connection Killers to Avoid appeared first on Michael Lee Stallard.

The image of trees being whipped back and forth during a storm is an appropriate analogy for humans weathering especially stressful seasons in life. It was on my mind as I followed the coverage of Hurricane Ian and the destruction it left in its wake at the same time I was reading new research that came out on rising burnout among physicians. I thought of how those in healthcare have been battered by a fierce hurricane called the Covid-19 pandemic. They faced a powerful and unpredictable foe, one that shifted and adapted as it went along, one that was fatal to some it encountered and left others unscathed. Shaken and tested by what must have felt like an unrelenting storm in the first year, some in healthcare were able to persevere and remain standing strong and some fell. Still others are upright, but for how much longer?

Hurricane Ian toppled many sturdy-looking trees, exposing their roots. Because their root systems were insufficiently deep and wide to anchor the trees, they were vulnerable to wind bursts, especially if the ground was overly-saturated with water. Trees with shallow and tight root systems tended to blow over; trees with deep and wide root systems were more likely to stay standing because their well-developed root systems made them resilient to cope with the stress.

The strongest and most resilient trees have roots that are interconnected with roots of other trees around them. I’ve learned that trees with interconnected root systems have been shown to support one another, not only providing a strong anchor of support against hurricane-force winds, but also through moving nutrients from strong trees to trees that are struggling.

I am in awe of healthcare professionals who have remained in the profession through the pandemic. Many are weary yet they remain standing and doing the important work of serving the health needs of people in their communities. Still, I am concerned for them.

After studying clinician wellbeing and resilience, the National Academy of Medicine recommended six essential elements to support clinician wellbeing, one of which is cultivating a culture of connection and support. Although these elements came out of the context of healthcare, they are relevant to every organization that recognizes the seriousness of burnout and wants to take steps to improve employee engagement and well-being. Because my expertise is in cultivating a culture of connection, and I believe it is presently the most urgent need, I will focus my comments on that element.

Seeing your organization as a living and relational organism

There is a flipside to an article I wrote about how cultivating a culture of connection provides an extraordinary opportunity to win the war for talent and it is this: If leaders don’t take action to help reduce stress and improve workplace social environments, people are going to break down. The current high levels of stress and disconnection (loneliness and social isolation) in our society are going to have a catastrophic human cost.

We need to change our view of organizations. The people who make up our organizations are not cogs in a machine, replaceable and expendable parts churning out whatever the product may be. If they are treated in a way that makes them feel controlled, unimportant, underappreciated or invisible, many will struggle because of a lack of connection. Their attitude, energy and productivity will suffer.

In my mind’s eye, I’m seeing the human cost of less-than-healthy work cultures as a forest with many fallen trees. Like a tree, we need to be in a healthy environment in which our roots can grow deep and wide so we can flourish and blossom. To be truly engaged, we must feel connected to and supported by the “trees” around us as well.

Research over recent decades clearly shows that the social environment we are in has a profound effect on us. From a biological standpoint, connection improves the cardiovascular, endocrine and immune systems’ performance. Matthew Lieberman, a leading neuroscientist, refers to connection as a “superpower” because it makes humans smarter, happier and more productive.

In contrast, research has found that disconnection is unhealthy for individuals. Loneliness is associated with poorer cognitive performance. Loneliness may impair executive control and self-regulation so that we are more impulsive. Loneliness is associated with substance abuse, depressive symptoms and suicidal ideation. Given these findings, it follows that researchers found greater loneliness leads to poorer task, team role and relational performance.

Allowing others to see into you

In our American culture that prizes individualism, we are reluctant to show what might be perceived as weakness or burden others with our problems so we often push on alone. I used to think that way earlier in my career but now I know better. Fixing our broken workplace cultures may require a change in our own mindset. We need to be intentional about developing supportive relationships that go beyond a surface level.

There are many ways to go about this. I would recommend beginning by having someone or a group of people with whom you can share some of the positives and negatives you experience each week. The simple act of sharing our positives and negative experiences calms our nervous systems and shifts brain activity to the cortex where we make rational decisions. In other words, if we allow others to see what we are thinking and feeling, we feel better and we make better decisions.

As I explained in Connection Culture: The Competitive Advantage of Shared Identity, Empathy, and Understanding, mutual empathy is a powerful connector that is made possible by mirror neurons in our brains. When we attune to the emotions of others, it makes them feel connected to us. When we attune to their positive emotion, it enhances the positive emotion they feel. When we attune to their pain, it diminishes the pain they feel. In other words, the “highs” feel higher when others join you in your joy or excitement and the “lows” feel less low when others are with you in times of pain or loss.

Jason Pankau, a friend of mine, once told me that he thought of intimacy as in-to-me-see. That’s what we must do on a regular basis: allow others to see inside of us. Those close friendships are the ones in which you feel a level of trust that allows you to be even more open.

My hope is that these thoughts I’ve shared will encourage you to think about your own “root system” and how you will strengthen your connections with your colleagues at work and also with your family and friends in your community.

Why not take the first step and reach out to a few people and ask them to meet you for coffee or to go on a walk? As you get to know them, ask them about their highs and lows over the last week and share yours. Listen closely. Here’s an important tip: Don’t try to solve their problems unless they ask for your advice. By engaging in the simple act of conversation, you will be developing and deepening the unseen root system that will make you and those you connect with smarter, happier, more productive and more resilient.

Photo by Arnaud Mesureur on Unsplash

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An opportunity exists for leaders and organizations to gain a performance and competitive advantage if they can win the war for talent. A recent conversation I had with Jon Clifton, CEO of The Gallup Organization, reinforced my long-held position that the x-factor in talent acquisition, employee engagement, and employee retention is connection. Fostering an environment in which workers feel connected to the organization, their supervisor, their colleagues, and the work they are doing will enable those organizations to pull further ahead of organizations that lack great jobs.

What constitutes a great job? Having a paycheck and steady work of at least 30 hours a week is a “good” job, Clifton explains in his new book, Blind Spot: The Global Rise of Unhappiness and How Leaders Missed It. To be considered “great,” it also needs to be a job in which you are engaged and thriving. In a great job, “[workers] can use their strengths, their opinions count, and they have a manager who cares about their development.”

What struck me anew is that it is the leaders and organizations that are cultivating great jobs that have these clear and considerable advantages:

• They are winning the war for talent at a time when talent is in short supply.
• They are engaging people to do their best work at a time when more workers are losing their motivation to give their best efforts.
• They are retaining talented employees at a time when many people are seeking to leave their current employer.

And here’s sobering news that Clifton shared with me: only 10% of the jobs in America (and 9% of the jobs globally) are great jobs.

According to Gallup’s research, 70% of employees are “struggling or suffering” from chronic negative emotions including stress, worry, sadness, and/or anger. Those negative emotions infect not just the workplace. Gallup has found that “fifty-nine percent of miserable workers say that in the past months they had three or more days when the stress of work caused them to behave poorly with their family and friends.”

It’s no wonder then that over recent years we have seen large numbers of Americans quit their jobs. Add to that the number of people who are “quiet quitting,” a relatively new term for staying on the job but adopting an attitude of doing the bare minimum to get by.

The current state of work culture is contributing to negative attitudes toward corporations and capitalism. Earlier this year, Gallup found that 74% of Americans are dissatisfied with the size and influence of U.S. corporations, 64% think corruption is widespread in U.S. business today, and 43% think some form of socialism would be a good thing.

What can be done

Given this current state, leaders and organizations that account for the 90% of not-great jobs would be wise to take the following actions or they will continue to lag behind.

1. Listen to employees.

According to Gallup, 25% of employees report being totally ignored at work. Clifton recommends that organizations systematically listen to all stakeholders by surveying them. When surveying employees in particular, I advise leaders to use a scientifically-validated employee engagement survey that allows respondents to add comments. These surveys are one way to give workers a “voice” and for leaders to listen to their concerns.

Employee engagement survey results also serve as an important tool to help an organization identify which leaders and managers are creating and maintaining healthy work subcultures that engage people and which leaders and managers are consciously or unconsciously causing disengagement and need help in order to change. An example of a leader who took this seriously is Doug Conant. As president and CEO of Campbell’s Soup Company from 2001-2011, Conant strategically used Gallup’s employee engagement survey to help turnaround Campbell’s performance.

2. Train leaders and managers to develop relationship excellence and encourage friendships at work.

According to Gallup, “70% of what determines an employee’s emotional attachment to their job depends on their manager,” including whether the manager cares about an employee as a person. The Gallup research clearly points to the need for organizations to train managers on how to effectively connect with employees and develop relationship excellence among the people they lead. Clifton contends that the best bosses function more like coaches and they make listening a priority.

In addition, Clifton cites compelling research that workplace friendships improve employee wellbeing, employee engagement, and productivity. Yet, only 15% of people report having a “real friend” at work. Clifton points out that many organizations wrongly believe friendships don’t belong in the workplace. A shift in attitude is needed.

These two data points really stood out to me about the value of friendships: 1) having a friend to talk to once every two weeks increases your chance of thriving by 50%, and 2) six hours of social time a day with friends doubles your chances of thriving and reduces your chances of suffering by 50%. Given the amount of hours we spend working, it’s not reasonable to think those social needs are going to be totally met outside of the job.

3. Care about employee wellbeing.

According to Clifton, “Workers who strongly agree their organization cares about their wellbeing are 69% less likely to actively search for a new job, five times more likely to strongly advocate for their company as a place to work, and 71% less likely to report experiencing a lot of burnout.” Despite these significant advantages, Gallup has found that only 24% of American workers felt their employers cared about their wellbeing.

Conclusion

The wealth of data and insightful analysis in Blind Spot on global unhappiness and the subjective feelings of work wellbeing, financial wellbeing, community wellbeing, physical wellbeing, and social wellbeing help clarify the reasons for concern that many people have today for the future. Clifton observes, “One of the most significant sources of global misery comes from work.”

In treating one another in ways that strengthen positive connection, we can each play our part in reducing misery at work and moving more jobs into the category of great. Listening to one another, training leaders and managers to develop relationship excellence and promote friendships at work, and caring about employee wellbeing are actions that will give organizations an edge in getting and keeping the best people for the work they do, bringing out the best in them, and maximizing the organization’s performance.

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Campbell Soup Company was not in good shape when Doug Conant was named President and CEO in 2001. Sales were declining. The stock price was falling and it was underperforming the S&P 500. I’ve long held that it takes a commitment to pursuing both task excellence and relationship excellence in order to achieve sustainable superior performance. Pushing the task side alone won’t do it and will cause more harm. Brought in to effect a turnaround, Conant knew it would be essential for leaders across the organization to combine the two elements. He told leaders, “When you are both tough-minded [on issues] and tender-hearted [toward people], you can deliver ever-higher levels of performance.” People at Campbell’s would come to realize that he was serious about the relationship side of the equation.

As he recounted in his book TouchPoints: Creating Powerful Leadership Connections in the Smallest of Moments, he made it clear on his first day at Campbell’s that “leaders must show they cared about the employees’ agenda before they could expect employees to care about the company’s agenda.”

One important step Conant took as part of the multifaceted effort to improve the work environment and the employee experience was to implement Gallup’s 12-question employee engagement survey (commonly referred to as the Q12). It was a very smart move because it clearly communicated to Campbell’s leaders not only what Conant expected of them, but also that he was measuring for it and would hold them accountable.

Measuring Connection at Work: What the Q12 Reveals

If you are not familiar with Gallup’s Q12, the employee engagement survey asks questions to assess an employee’s level of connection with their organization’s mission and purpose as well as with their supervisor and colleagues. More specifically, the survey asks whether their supervisor or a colleague cares about them as an individual and encourages their development, if expectations are clear, and if they feel their opinions are considered. It also assesses whether they feel connected to their work by asking whether their job is a good fit with their strengths and if they are learning and growing. The survey even asks if they have a best friend at work—a question that certainly affects connection but is one that many leaders struggle with because they believe it isn’t reasonable to hold a leader accountable for delivering best friends at work.

Gallup’s research bears out the critical role that engagement plays in performance and the bottom line. In 2016, Gallup performed a meta-analysis of 339 research studies comprising 82,248 business or work units and 1.8 million employees within 230 organizations across 73 countries. The research concluded that top quartile units with higher Q12 scores (in other words, higher connection) outperform bottom quartile units. Comparing the two ends of the spectrum, the units with higher connection and engagement had:

• 20 percent higher sales levels
• 17 percent higher productivity
• 21 percent higher profitability
• 10 percent higher customer metrics
• 40 percent fewer quality defects
• 70 percent fewer employee safety incidents
• 24 percent lower employee turnover in higher-turnover organizations and 59 percent lower employee turnover in low-turnover organizations (low-turnover organizations were defined as those organizations with 40 percent or lower annualized turnover).

Skeptics may argue that favorable organizational outcomes affect employee engagement more than employee engagement affects organizational outcomes. Gallup chief scientist James Harter teamed up with Frank Schmidt, the Gary C. Fethke chair in leadership and professor of management and organizations at the University of Iowa, to put this theory to the test. They and a group of researchers completed a meta-analysis on longitudinal research from 2,178 business units within 10 large organizations working in diverse industries. The research established causation by measuring across three time periods, finding conclusive evidence that engaged employees caused higher employee retention rates, better customer loyalty, and superior financial performance. The evidence for causality in the reverse direction—from performance to employee engagement—was, according to Schmidt, “pretty weak in comparison.”

Holding Leaders Accountable at Campbell’s

Gallup’s gold standard for employee engagement/connection is a ratio of 12:1 (i.e., twelve engaged employees for every employee who is either not engaged or is actively disengaged). In 2001, Conant’s first year at Campbell’s, he had a Q12 survey done that would serve as a baseline going forward. The result was dismal; the ratio was less than 2:1. (Imagine what it would be like to work in an organization in which one-third of your colleagues are not engaged.)

For the next two years, Conant invested time and resources in “training, coaching, and cajoling” 350 global-level leaders to improve their work environments in order to raise the engagement level. In 2003, the ratio had improved, but only slightly. For Conant, the new ratio of 4:1 was not acceptable and it indicated that not all of the leaders were on board with this effort. He let leaders know, in no uncertain terms, that he was serious about employee engagement and if they weren’t, they should leave.

Conant began to really hold leaders accountable. By the end of that year, 300 of the 350 leaders (86%) had parted ways with the organization. New leaders were put in place who, like Conant, were people- and results-oriented.

Conant believes, “To build relationships, you need to take the time to talk to people. Get to know them. Learn their stories. Listen for what drives them, what they care about, what they take pride in, and what concerns them.” Rather than view people through a lens of hierarchy, leaders should see them as individuals “with their own priorities, anxieties, hopes, and dreams.” He believes that leaders should be transparent about who they are and “lead with your head and your heart.” He advises leaders to use the “four magic words” of “How can I help?”

The engaged-to-not-engaged ratio continued to improve. In 2006, it had moved up to 6:1. A year later it was 9:1. In 2008, seven years into Conant’s tenure, it hit the gold standard level of 12:1. But it didn’t stop there. In 2010, the ratio measured 17:1.

And as the work cultures throughout Campbell’s improved, so did the organization’s performance on many fronts. Here was the picture in 2009: “The company was outperforming both the S&P Food Group and the S&P 500. Sales and earnings were growing, the core businesses were thriving, the employees were highly engaged in their work, the company was increasingly being recognized for its progress with workforce diversity and inclusion, and Campbell was ranked as one of the ten most socially responsible U.S. companies.”

Acting on the Survey Results

Plenty of leaders give lip service to improving employee engagement. Not Doug Conant. He firmly believes that “to win the marketplace, you must first win in the workplace.” He took action and he kept at it. It was not a “one and done” attempt to boost morale and then move on to the next issue. Consistently measuring engagement demonstrated to employees at all levels of the organization that he was serious about the kind of work experience they were having. That he followed through on holding leaders accountable to improve the everyday experience of those they were responsible for leading was a clear testament to his commitment. Strengthening connection and engagement at Campbell’s accelerated an improvement in the bottom line.

I’m an advocate of measuring engagement. Most leaders who rely on their own “take” of the situation are mistaken in their assessment of the connection levels of people they lead. As a result, they don’t recognize there is a problem until they feel the pain from underperformance in the form of poor operating and financial results, incidents of managerial failure (including accidents and product failures), or high employee turnover.

Once you have survey results, identify the leaders who are cultivating an engaging work environment and those who need help. Consider creating peer mentorships between the leaders who have achieved high engagement and those who have not. If you don’t want to go the mentoring route, provide coaches to support your leaders. In addition, it is critical to provide training to all of your managers so they share a common language and framework about how to improve employee engagement. For example, in the training we provide, we teach a simple, memorable, and actionable 3 V model that employee engagement is rooted in a work culture of connection where leaders communicate an inspiring vision, value people, and give them a voice to share their ideas and opinions. In other words, Vision + Value + Voice.

By communicating clear expectations about employee engagement and supporting your leaders with training and mentors (or coaches), you will see improvement in employee engagement survey metrics as well as operational and financial results.

Note: Portions of the article were adapted from the 2nd edition of Connection Culture: The Competitive Advantage of Shared Identity, Empathy, and Understanding at Work.

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