Michael Lee Stallard

We are human beings, not machines. We have emotions, a conscience, hopes and dreams. We need to be respected, to be recognized for our contributions, to feel a sense of belonging, and we need autonomy, personal growth and meaning in our work. When these needs are met, it is life-giving.  When they are not met, it drains the life out of us.

When people relate to one another in ways that fail to reflect our shared humanity, it results in disfunction.  Here are links to two recent articles that recognize the importance of emotions and the ability to connect with other human beings.  A New York Times magazine article entitled “The Korean Dads’ 12-Step Program” described a “Father School” where emotionally challenged Korean fathers learned to connect with their wives and children. And here’s a Wall Street Journal article entitled “On the Lesson Plan: Feelings” that describes business school efforts to help MBA students learn to connect relationally with others in the workplace.

To learn more about the importance of emotional connection to the success of organizations and individuals in the workplace, I encourage you to check out this article Jason Pankau and I wrote for the Leader to Leader Journal entitled “To Boost Productivity, Connect with the Core.”  To go even deeper, read the book that introduced the “Connection Cultures” that are necessary to achieve relationship excellence and sustainable superior performance.  It is entitled  Fired Up or Burned Out: How to Reignite Your Team’s Passion, Creativity and Productivity.  (Read what doctors at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, one of the world’s leading cancer research and treatment centers, are saying about Fired Up or Burned Out at this link.)

Here is a video from YouTube of a conversation I had earlier this year about leadership, employee engagement, productivity and innovation with Dr. Homer Erekson, Dean of TCU’s Neeley School of Business.  Our conversation occurred as part of the Tandy Executive Speakers Series that featured CEOs of outstanding companies such as Nieman Marcus, Southwest Airlines and The Container Store.

During our conversation we discussed how most leaders don’t understand the importance of emotional connections to the success of the their organization.  Learn more about the “Connection Cultures” that great leaders create by reading Fired Up or Burned Out.

Should leaders care about employee happiness or is employee engagement a passing fad?  Let me frame this debate in a slightly different way that I believe provides the best answer.

As part of creating value, leaders need to be intentional about achieving both task excellence and relationship excellence because our research found that both are necessary to achieve sustainable superior performance i.e. Task Excellence + Relationship Excellence = Sustainable Superior Performance.  Both are also necessary if most employees are to experience a sense of satisfaction for the many hours they spend working.  If employees feel unsatisfied, they will not perform tasks at a level that reflects excellence for a sustained period of time.  They will likely be able to perform with excellence for a short period of time but eventually their lack of emotional energy will drag them down.

We are human beings, not machines.  Emotion matters, even in business.

We should also recognize that employee engagement affects strategic alignment i.e. disengaged employees show up for the paycheck but they don’t tend to put extra effort in aligning their behavior with organizational goals.

Here are two data points to consider.  Today in America, 75 percent of employees are not engaged in their work and of the 25 percent who are engaged, 60 percent of them are not aligned with organizational goals (this according to 2009 research from the Corporate Executive Board).   The bottom line is that only 10 percent of America’s workforce are mobilized (i.e. both engaged and aligned).  The opportunity to boost performance by improving employee engagement and strategic alignment is HUGE!!!

To learn more, I encourage you to check out this article Jason Pankau and I wrote for the Leader to Leader Journal entitled “To Boost Productivity, Connect with the Core.”  To go even deeper, read the book that introduced the “Connection Cultures” that are necessary to achieve relationship excellence and sustainable superior performance.  It is entitled  Fired Up or Burned Out: How to Reignite Your Team’s Passion, Creativity and Productivity.  (Read what doctors at MD Anderson Cancer Center, one of the world’s leading cancer research and treatment centers, are saying about Fired Up or Burned Out at this link.)

Airports can be dull, uninspiring places where it’s easy to drift into a numb, trans-like state of mind. But what if a group of people decided to break through the cacophony of sounds and sights at one of the world’s busiest airports by orchestrating a beautiful symphony of human voices. Thanks to a stunning T-Moble advertisement, we don’t have to imagine what it might look like. Check it out in the wonderful video above.

Watching the video reminded me of the joy people experience when they become engaged in and feel connected to their work. They move from the drone of daily work to a life-giving state where work is like making beautiful music. This only happens when one’s work brings truth, beauty and/or goodness into the world. It is one aspect of the first element in a Connection Culture that we call “Inspiring Identity.” Learn more about Connection Cultures and Inspiring Identity in Fired Up or Burned Out.

I’m encouraged to see more leaders recognize that individuals and organizations need connection to thrive. Here’s a video of Polly LaBarre at MIX interviewing Ivy Ross, Gap’s Chief Innovation Officer, about the need for connection to innovate. To learn more about “Connection Cultures” download the Connection Culture Manifesto published by changethis.com. You can go even deeper into Connection Cultures by signing up for my new quarterly email newsletter after which you will receive an email that contains a link to a free download of Fired Up or Burned Out, the book that introduced Connection Cultures.

In Leadership Is Dead: How Influence Is Reviving It, Jeremie Kubicek, CEO of the leader development company GiANT Impact, makes a clear and compelling case that “dominating leaders” who lead by coercion are on the decline and are being replaced by “liberating leaders” who lead through influence.

Kubicek observes that leadership has moved from a noun to a verb.  It has become a means or vehicle for appropriate change rather than a goal or end in itself (i.e. to become the leader who exerts power over others).  Peggy Noonan, President Ronald Reagan’s speechwriter, once stated it this way: “Poor leaders want to be great. Great leaders want to do something great.” Kubicek points out that for leaders to successfully make this shift, competence is required to get the job done well and character is required to build strong relationships based on mutual trust.  People are much more likely to give their best efforts when following a liberator than a dominator because this type of leader helps the people he or she leads and, in doing so, develops a bond of connection.

I highly recommend this book.  In addition to making a valuable contribution to leadership thinking, the stories and examples make it a page-turner. Read more »

HRIQ just published a piece I wrote about how Google’s Project Oxygen research confirms the importance of Connection Cultures. You can read it at “Google’s Project Oxygen: A Case-Study in Connection Culture.”

Jason Pankau and I recently did an interview on employee engagement and connection cultures with Alexandra Guadagno of Human Resources IQ.  The interview was part of the HR Today Podcast Series.  You can hear the podcast and download it on iTunes at this link.

Employee Engagement and Connection from David Zinger on Vimeo.

Yesterday David Zinger and I held a webinar on Employee Engagement and Connection.  You can see a recording of the webinar above and here is a link to the slides used during the webinar.

The webinar was hosted by the Employee Engagement Network, a 3,500 member online community founded by David.  It was my good fortune to be the first speaker for the Employee Engagement Network’s inaugural webinar! If you are not a member of the Employee Engagement network already, I want to encourage you to join.  David will be the host for future webinars on employee engagement-related topics that you will not want to miss.

The New York Times recently had an article entitled “What Makes a Hospital Great” that described new research concluding a hospital’s culture and the quality of relationships were the most important factors determining patient outcomes. This finding is consistent with our research that concluded leaders must be intentional about developing both “task excellence” and “relationship excellence” in order to achieve sustainable superior performance.  If leaders focus on task alone the eventual failure of relationships will sabotage excellence.