Michael Lee Stallard

The New York Times recently had an article on rising burnout among clergy entitled “Taking a Break from the Lord’s Work.”  The article was followed by a thoughtful op-ed entitled “Congregations Gone Wild.”

Effective leadership, employee engagement and employee motivation are closely linked to the alignment of behavior with personal values. In the case of clergy, putting a muzzle on pastors so they are unable to preach in a way that is consistent with their values is a sure path to burnout.

This is a very important issue that everyone should spend time thinking about. Set aside time this month to list your values.  Ask yourself, “what do I believe in and what’s important to me in the way I live my life?”  Then compare what you wrote down with how you presently live.   During the Depression, a young financial analyst working in London did this exercise. Years later reflecting on it he wrote that “people, I realized, is what I value and I had no desire to be the richest man in the cemetery.” That young man, Peter Drucker, left his well-paying job and went on to become the father of management consulting. In “How Peter Drucker Changed My Life” I wrote about how Drucker’s writings affected my own career decisions.

What if you discover there are differences in your values and how you are presently living?  My advice is to invite 2-3 people you trust and respect to meet with you, discuss your analysis and thoughts about how you might take action to close the values gaps.  You may find that all that is necessary is to speak with your supervisor to make changes in your present job or something more may be required such as moving to a different job or business unit in your organization, or, the the most extreme instances, changing careers altogether.  Whatever the case, ignoring the present stressful state is never wise because if affects your mental and physical heath, your relationships and your job performance. Having conversations with people you trust will help reduce the stress you feel and also help clarify your thinking so that you can develop a clear plan to move forward to a better state of work and a better life.

Chris Dorobek, the well-respected talk show host of Federal News Radio in Washington, D.C, recently interviewed Jason Pankau and yours truly about employee engagement and strategic alignment based on an article Jason and I wrote for the award-winning Leader to Leader Journal entitled “To Boost Performance, Connect with the Core.”  You can listen to the unedited radio interview at this link.

Some of you know that in addition to speaking and teaching leadership at business, government and academic organizations, Jason Pankau and I frequently speak in faith communities such as churches. (Speaking of churches, here’s a great example of a Connection Culture in a church.  The example comes from Gary Hamel’s MIX blog and it’s about “Mission Shaped Communities” started in England by a number of innovative clergy including my own pastor Drew Williams who is now senior pastor of Trinity Church in Greenwich, Connecticut.)

To learn more about Connection Cultures in faith communities, watch the following video series of Jason Pankau teaching a workshop on Connection Cultures for Churches.

Session 1 – The Case for Connection
Session 2 – Creating a Connection Culture
Session 3 – Inspiring Identity
Session 4 – Knowledge Flow
Session 5 – Committed Members and Servant Leaders

The US Navy and U2 in the same article! Huh?

That’s right.  It’s true. Check it out for yourself.

The Leader to Leader Institute just posted an article on its website that Jason Pankau and I wrote for the Summer edition of the Leader to Leader Journal. The article features the stories of the US Navy’s former Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Admiral Vern Clark, and Bono, the lead singer of the rock band U2.  The article is about the topic of connecting with “core employees” to boost strategic alignment, employee engagement, productivity and innovation.  Here is a link to the article entitled “To Boost Performance, Connect with the Core.” Read more »

Jason Pankau and I were recently guests on LeaderLab’s podcast interviews available online or at iTunes. LeaderLab’s podcasts are hosted by David Burkus. David’s past guests on LeaderLab’s podcasts have included Marshall Goldsmith, Daniel Pink and Steve Farber. Check it out.

Below is the text of an article Jason Pankau and I wrote for the Leader to Leader Journal that uses examples of CNO Admiral Vern Clark of the US Navy and Bono of he rock band U2.   Read more »

John Robert Wooden, the legendary basketball coach, died yesterday. He was 99 years old. This morning I read Wooden’s obituaries in The New York Times and the Associated Press and felt they missed important aspects of his story that reflect the essence of the man and his legacy.

I profiled Wooden as a role model who we can all learn from in my book Fired Up or Burned Out.  Wooden’s favorite saying was “a life not lived for others is a life not lived.”  He said his heroes were his father Joshua Wooden, Abraham Lincoln and Mother Theresa, each of whom lived a life of service to others.  In John Wooden’s honor, I’m posting the following excerpts from my book:

Connection and the Legend

So often in life, good things bloom from the seeds of hardship. The personal character of a young teenager who went on to become a great leader was immeasurably shaped during the Depression when his family lost their farm in Indiana. His father’s reaction to the loss was unusual. He wasn’t bitter about it. Instead, his dad focused on the future and told his children that everything would be all right. And it was.

During those impressionable years in this leader’s life, he learned that, like the Depression, some things in life are not in our control. His father taught him that he should always strive to do his best at anything he chose to do and not worry about the outcome. He would later spread that philosophy to countless other.

Another perspective he gained during those formative years was to value people. By watching his mom and dad and hearing the stories of faith they taught him, he learned the joy that came from making people and relationships his focus in life.

The young boy grew up to be an outstanding high school and college basketball player in a state that was rabid about the game. After college he married Nell, the love of his life and the only woman he had ever dated. He taught high school English and coached basketball until 1943 when he enlisted to serve in the Navy during World War II. When he returned from the war to the high school in South Bend, Indiana, where he previously taught, he was offered his old job. Other returning GIs were not, however, and so he refused the offer because he felt it was wrong for the school to deny veterans the jobs they had left to serve their country. Instead, he accepted an offer to become athletic director and head basketball coach at Indiana State Teachers College.

A Caring Coach

For the 1946-47 season Indiana State received a post-season invitation to the National Association of Intercollegiate Basketball (NAIB) national play-offs. After the coach learned that a young African-American, second-string guard on his team, Clarence Walker, would not be allowed to participate in the tournament because of the color of his skin, he declined the offer. Read more »

Mark Sanborn just said people should slow down, reflect and be shapers of stories.  How true! It made me think of a scene in the movie Apollo 13 when Mission Director Gene Kranz changed the story of the Apollo 13 mission failure from being about a potential disaster to being one of NASA’s greatest moments by bringing the astronauts safely home despite the odds against them.  For those who don’t know, NASA performed heroically and saved the three astronauts lives.

Last week I spoke to a leader at NASA’s Johnson Space Center who told me that Gene Kranz’s famous line “failure is not an option” that he stated in the movie still influences NASA’s culture today.  On June 17, Jason Pankau and I will be speaking to leaders at the NASA Johnson Space Center where Gene Kranz uttered those famous words that reshaped NASA’s story.  We feel a sense of awe and humilty to have an opportunity to speak at NASA.  We hope to inspire NASA’s leaders about how important it is to create a Connection Culture so that they will thrive, individually and collectively.

While looking for a video to watch a friend recommended Departures, a film by Yojiro Takita that won an Oscar for best foreign language film. I highly recommend it. The movie touches on issues of employee engagement, connection, identity and human value that I raise in my changethis.com Connection Culture Manifesto. There were moments that this film reminded me of the beautiful book Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation by Parker Palmer.

When you watch the film you’ll see a myriad of situations that relate to connection, including the protagonist Diago’s connection to his father, his wife, his employer, his former occupation and his new one, his clients, and his friends and acquaintances in the community.

Connection and the character values that support it resonate deeply with the Japanese, a topic that I will elaborate on in an upcoming blog post.

Google just announced it will shut down its China-based search engine over the Chinese government’s censorship activities.  Here’s a New York Times article about it.  Earlier I wrote in “A Test of Google’s Character” that Google should live up to its values and I described some of the benefits of doing so.