Michael Lee Stallard

Amy Wrzesniewski, Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior Yale School of Management, recently sent me a paper she co-authored with Jane Dutton (University of Michigan) and Gelaye Debebe (George Washington University) entitled “Caring in Constrained Contexts.”  Reading it made me realize that for workers in low status positions the indifference and incivility they experience is in part why 90 percent of employees today are either disengaged or not aligning with organizational goals.  Reading the comments of workers provides a technicolor view of their day-today experiences. Here are a few excerpts:

• “The doctors have a tendency to look at us like we’re not even there, like, you know, we’ll be working in the hallways, and you know, no recognition of what you are doing whatsoever.”

• “A typical day with the nurses down here would be I come in at about 4:30. I set my cart up in my area. … they do a lot of staring and gawking. I don’t know the purpose of this. It’s a very uncomfortable feeling for me.”

• “I was called as a favor to my supervisor to come up …and clean a room because the patient’s family was complaining that the room was filthy. It was supposed to be cleaned by the day shift and evidently the day shift has skipped over that particular room…And you have these people shouting, ‘This room is filthy,’ and this, that, and the other, and ‘I want this room cleaned now.’”

• “Doctors will do things like, you know, they’ll do an exam, take off their gloves and drop them on the floor. You know, just things like that…they don’t even think, you know, they expect housekeeping to do everything…I think there’s a difference between housekeeping and maid service and they get confused”

• “Some of them [the doctors] feel like they’re next to God. There’s a lot of doctors who feel that way too…Just in their tone and their body language. Every now and then some might, they don’t want to say it, but you know they just feel it. Say, like this. For instance I am cleaning their room or waxing. A doctor will walk right through it. Even if it is not an emergency. You can tell them. Everyone else will go around. You know, I’m saying, he will walk right through here. Now, do you think that’s kind of a sense? Just because he’s a doctor. Nurses will go around housekeepers. So that’s why you get this feeling. Who he just thinks he is….” Read more »

Yesterday was President’s Day in the U.S., a day in which we primarily celebrate our first president, George Washington.  Reading the article “George Washington’s Tear Jerker” in yesterday’s The New York Times, one might ask, was Washington really the great leader he has been made out to be?  I asked myself that question during the summer of 2002 and began a journey to unpack truth from myth.  My journey went as far as contacting and interacting with Edward Lengel, the foremost historian on Washington’s generalship.  After doing my own research I wrote the following which became one of the chapters on 20 leaders in a book I wrote entitled Fired Up or Burned Out.

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First in Their Hearts

Richard Neustadt, Presidential Scholar at Harvard University, observed the following about George Washington: “It wasn’t his generalship that made him stand out . . . It was the way he attended to and stuck by his men. His soldiers knew that he respected and cared for them, and that he would share their severe hardships.” Read more »

Nick Sarillo lost the feeling of connection to his work when the home construction employer he worked for over 12 years shifted focus from quality and craftsmanship to speed and mediocrity. So Nick did what every self-respecting man of action does. He quit and started his own business where every employee would feel connected to his or her work. Today, Nick’s Pizza & Pub is the 4th busiest independent pizza company in America and it’s the cover story in this month’s Inc magazine. The story is entitled “Lessons from A Blue-Collar Millionaire,” written by Bo Burlingham, one of my favorite writers.

Nick’s Pizza & Pub is a prime example of a business that thrives because its leader is focused on achieving both task excellence and relationship excellence. Just read its purpose and values below:

Nick’s Pizza & Pub
“Pizza on Purpose”®

Our Purpose: “The Nicks Experience”
Our dedicated family provides this community an unforgettable place; to connect with your family and friends, to have fun and to feel at home!

Nick’s Pizza and Pub Values

• We treat everyone with dignity and respect.
• We are dedicated to the learning, teaching and ongoing development of each other.
• We have fun while at work!
• We provide a clean and safe environment for our guests and team.
• We honor individual passions and creativity at work and at home.
• We communicate openly, clearly and honestly.
• We honor the relationships that connect our team, our guests and community.
• We take pride in our commitment to provide a quality service and a quality product.
• We celebrate and reward accomplishments and “A+” players.
• We support balance between home and work.
• Health: We are a profitable and fiscally responsible company.  We support the physical and emotional well-being of our guests and team members.
• Our team works through support and cooperation.

I met Nick and his business partner Chris Adams at The Great Game of Business Conference and Nick attended a presentation Jason Pankau and I gave last Fall at Northwestern University’s Forum for People Performance Management and Measurement. Read more »

Recently I wrote about Dov Siedman and his company LRN. I was delighted to see this article about him in Fortune magazine.

“The times are difficult. They require courage and faith.” – Thomas Merton

Last Saturday evening, my wife Katie and I attended a gathering to hear about a new artistic collaboration between our friend Rob Mathes and Irish poet Michael O’Siadhail. The evening of conversation, poetry and music brought a dose of truth, beauty and goodness to my day.  It lifted my spirit.

Performing one of the songs with Rob was vocalist James “D-Train” Williams.  Prior to the performance, my friend Ian Cron, catalyst to the Mathes-O’Saidhail collaboration, said a few words about courage and faith during difficult times. As usual, Ian was profound.  He quoted Thomas Merton, whose words are so applicable today.  We need courage and faith to persevere when the future looks threatening, as it does for so many.

During difficult times, we also need truth, beauty and goodness.  When I’ve been working so hard that I go numb, I find that truth, beauty and goodness have a mysterious power to revive me: truth in the form of learning something new and refreshing from a book, an article or a movie;  beauty in music, the theater or nature; and  goodness in a kind, encouraging or helpful outreach to others.

If you are facing difficulties and need to be refreshed, watch Rob Mathes performing for Kathy Lee Gifford on The Today Show, read Ian Cron’s wonderful book Chasing Francis, or reach out to encourage or help a family member or friend in need.  During a difficult time in my life when my beloved Katie was undergoing treatment for advanced ovarian cancer, my family was on the receiving end of a continuous flow of truth, beauty and goodness that I wrote about in an essay entitled Alone No Longer. The essay was published  as an Amazon Short.  I hope reading it will encourage you, too.

One of my favorite business books is Howard Behar’s It’s Not About the Coffee. Behar is the former president of Starbucks International and Starbucks North America. On March 24-25 I’ll be moderating a session at the Conference Board’s Customer Experience Management Conference in New York City where Howard will be speaking. You can learn more about the conference at this link. And be sure to check out the above webcast I hosted with Howard.

Six years ago this month, while standing in a hospital waiting room with my mother-in-law and my two young daughters nearby, I began having a hard time breathing.  My wife Katie’s surgery for ovarian cancer had gone beyond three hours.  I knew that normally it shouldn’t have taken that long and I started imagining something had gone wrong.   Before too long, the surgeon entered the waiting room and walked toward me.  ”Katie has ovarian cancer and it has spread.  I’m sorry,”   he told me.  Today, six years later, Katie is cancer  free and her doctors at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center told us they believe it is highly unlikely that she would have a recurrence at this point.

That season in our lives changed me in expected and unexpected ways, including how I view organizations and the workplace.  I wrote an essay about it entitled Alone No Longer that was published as an Amazon Short.  Each year around the anniversary of Katie’s surgery, I offer a free download of Alone No Longer at this link. I hope you’ll take the time to download and read it, then reflect on its application to your life.  The essay has been especially popular with people who want to know how they can help family members or friends with a serious illness.  If you know of someone who might benefit from reading Alone No Longer, please pass it along with my best wishes.

for they shall be comforted.

Miep Geis, Protector of Anne Frank, Dies at 100. (Click on the link to read her obituary that appeared in today’s The New York Times.)

While growing up did you have role models in your life who had a profoundly positive effect on you? Perhaps it was a teacher who believed in you and pushed you to strive, a parent of one of your friends who consistently provided encouragement or a coach who modeled great leadership, teaching you to work hard and play fair. I’m fortunate to have had positive role models and mentors in my life who brought out the best in me and I’ve tried to play that role for younger people in my community.

I was reminded about positive role models recently while watching a remarkable television program called Friday Night Lights. I really want to encourage you to check out this award-winning and critically-acclaimed drama. This show is gritty and real.  I don’t want to give away the story but suffice it to say the writing, acting and production of this show are extraordinary, a far cry from many of the vacuous programs on today.  You can rent the first three seasons at your local video store and the fourth season will be broadcast soon on NBC (if you have DirecTV, you can watch the fourth season now on Wednesdays at 9:00 PM Eastern).

While I’m not an avid football fan (and you don’t have to be to enjoy this show), I love this drama for its inspiration, entertainment and the values it promotes. The primary examples of great role models on display are in the characters of coach Eric Taylor and his wife Tami. Eric is the high school football coach in a football-crazy West Texas town that, incidentally, is based on Odessa, Texas, where I worked for Texas instruments in my first job after college.  Tami is a guidance counselor who becomes the high school’s principal in later episodes.   Eric and Tami are both leaders who inspire the kids to achieve excellence in their academic and athletic endeavors, and in their relationships and personal character. The show’s adult and teenage characters face the types of heart-wrenching trials and temptations that we all face in life, whether it’s the sickness or death of a loved one, a friend who needs us during a busy and demanding time in our life, or the lure of doing something we know is wrong for the sake of status or financial gain.

The above video clip includes images from Friday Night Lights set to Coldplay’s song “Fix You.”   The images coupled with the song’s music and lyrics capture the spirit of Friday Night Lights. I hope you’ll check it out. You’ll be glad you did.

The 1951 movie “A Christmas Carol” based on Charles Dickens’ classic novel starring Alistair Sim as Scrooge,  is about a man who idolizes wealth and status which isolates him from family and friends and makes him miserable. Scrooge gets a wakeup call in the form of a nightmarish visit from the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future.

“A Christmas Carol” is all about how certain character vices lead to relational isolation that result in dysfunction and death.  This is in contrast to virtuous character that leads to human connection, thriving and life. Charles Dickens understood just how powerful human connection is and that it comes from the character strengths of compassion, empathy, generosity, kindness and magnanimity. These are character strengths and virtues we celebrate during the holiday season.

The same themes of connection and character are explored in the holiday classic, “It’s a Wonderful Life.”   Read more »