Michael Lee Stallard

Previously I wrote a post about the rock band U2 and how the band members’ value one another as human beings rather than treating each another as human doings.  I explained how this value contributes to the band’s extraordinary success.

Another factor that contributes to the band’s success is its participative, consensus-oriented decision-making approach.  The members of U2 argue relentlessly over their music, which reflects their passion for excellence. Bono has stated that this approach is frustrating at times but that U2 feels it is necessary to achieve excellence. The key here is that the band’s members appreciate each other’s strengths. Bono has said that although he hears melodies in his head, he is unable to transfer them into written music. Because he considers himself a “lousy guitar player and an even lousier piano player,” he relies on his fellow band members and recognizes that they are integral to his success.  To Bono, U2 is “the best example of how to rely on others.”

As human beings, we tend to overvalue our strengths and contributions and undervalue the strengths and contributions of others.  Don’t make that mistake. For each individual you regularly work with, take the time to learn how he or she thinks, his or her temperament and character values.  I recommend applying the thinking styles identified by Robert Stenberg at Yale University, the Kiersey Temperament Sorter to test and understand temperaments, and the character value strengths identified by Martin Seligman. If you (1) invest the time to understand thinking styles, temperaments and character values, (2) assemble teams with diverse strengths required in light of tasks the team mush accomplish and (3) apply a participative, consensus-oriented approach to making decisions, your teams will consistently outperform the teams of leaders who do less.

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Michael Lee Stallard coaches and teaches leaders to increase strategic alignment, employee engagement, productivity and innovation. He is president of E Pluribus Partners, a leadership training and consulting firm, and the primary author of the bestselling book Fired Up or Burned Out: How to Reignite Your Team’s Passion, Creativity and Productivity. For more: www.MichaelLeeStallard.com

Take a look at this article about Ursula Burns, the new CEO of Xerox, and her efforts to alter Xerox’s culture.  Anne Mulachy, the former CEO did a remarkable job pulling the Xerox family together to save the company when it was on the verge of bankruptcy.  Mulcahy is a tough act to follow but I’m pulling for Ms. Burns to take Xerox to the next level.  One way to look at  Ms. Burns challenge is that she needs to frame Xerox’s success as being rooted in achieving both task excellence and relationship excellence.  When a culture sacrifices truth to being nice (or more accurately to avoiding conflict) a company’s performance eventually suffer.  Ms. Burns is performing a delicate dance.  If she comes off too strong, people wil ear to spaek he truth.  If she does nothing, it seems that the desire to avoid constructive conflict may eventually sabotage the companies performance.

If I were advising Ms. Burns, I would say “make it clear to your Xerox colleagues that we must be intentional about achieving BOTH task excellence AND relationship excellence in order to thrive.  Sacrifice either and we will risk managerial failure for reasons I’ve written about in Fired Up or Burned Out.

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 »

The New York Times columnist Mauren Dowd describes President Obama’s effort to reconnect with Republicans at this link. This is a form of the “Knowledge Flow Session” I write about in my book in chapters 11 and 12. You can read about it at this link.

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.

In his The New York Times column, Tom Friedman asks and answers the question: Is China the next Enron?  He argues that Chinese censorship of the web restricts knowledge flows and doing so diminishes the rate of innovation.  There is compelling historical evidence to support Friedman’s view.  As I explained in my book Fired Up or Burned Out:

The danger to nations that reduce knowledge flow is apparent throughout history. By isolating themselves and their countries, the leaders of civilizations have missed opportunities for innovation and growth. China in 1400 had the best and largest fleet of ships in the world (over a period of three years the Chinese built or refitted 1,681 ships). With their enormous fleet, the Chinese sailed to Indonesia, Arabia, East Africa, and India. Gradually, however, the Chinese emperor’s attitude toward the benefits of foreign travel shifted as he favored domestic agriculture over maritime interests. By 1436, the Chinese were diverting resources from maintaining the ships, and by 150o, anyone who built a ship with more than two masts was subject to the death penalty. In 1525, the Chinese authorities ordered all oceangoing ships to be destroyed and their owners arrested.

A period of Chinese isolation from the rest of the world began. At the time of the ships’ destruction China led the world in innovation. It had developed gunpowder, deep drilling, printing, paper, porcelain, cast iron, and the compass. China’s isolation, however, prevented it from knowing about developments beyond its borders, the ideas and information that had contributed to its high rate of innovation when Chinese ships were sailing the world. In recent decades, economic reforms and social freedoms have reconnected China to the broader world, resulting in increased Chinese economic growth.

Like the Chinese civilization, the Arab-Islamic civilization became isolated in the sixteenth century as its leaders adopted the view that the world beyond them had little to offer. As a result of the isolationism adopted by the Chinese and Arab-Islamic civilizations, both began a period of steady decline in innovation and economic output. Read more »

Employee engagement increases when a business opens its books and invites employees to contribute their opinions about how to improve performance.  Here’s a wonderful story entitled “A Reluctant Retailer Decides to Open Her Book,” by Jack Stack, one of the pioneers of open book management. Jack is a hero in my book.  Years ago he saved a business and many jobs by creating SRC Holdings from a division that was going to be shut down by its parent company.  You can read about it in a book I highly recommend entitled The Great Game of Business.

All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.

- Attributed to Edmund Burke

In honor of the Reverend, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., I’m posting an article I wrote that was published in The Economic Times in India and in the American Management Association’s Moving Ahead.  The article in part describes the time before a concert in Arizona when U2 received a letter that stated Bono, the band’s lead singer, would be killed if the band played the song Pride, which honors the life and legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  The FBI told U2 it believed the threat was not a hoax.

Although I don’t know for certain, I suspect that Bono reflected on Dr. King’s choice to speak out in the face of death threats.  Dr. King had the courage of his convictions and was willing to risk death to push back the evils of prejudice.  Now, Bono had to decide if he too was willing to speak out against evil and risk death because of it.

Read more »

An interesting article appeared in today’s The New York Times about how business schools are changing to accommodate broader thinking.  The article references the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto and its dean Roger Martin.  I encourage you to read Roger Martin’s books and articles to learn more  about integrative thinking.

Peter Drucker was an excellent example of an integrative thinker.  It’s why his ideas were typically decades ahead of the crowd.   Although his work focused on leadership and organizations, the breakthrough insights he developed were frequently integrated  from other domains including history, psychology and sociology. During Drucker’s life many in the academy criticized his approach.  Rotman and Roger Martin, however, embraced Drucker.  And Drucker recognized the importance of the thinking that was being developed at Rotman and said so in this presentation.

So often, management decisions are based on the myopic thinking of a few like-minded individuals in positions of power and influence rather than drawn from the thinking of individuals with diverse perspectives, experiences and thinking styles.  The developing fields of integrative thinking and design thinking will hopefully broaden the managerial mindset and result in better thinking and decision making.

[In the spirit of full disclosure, I've spoken at Rotman and at the University of Virginia's Darden Graduate School of Management, which is also referenced in the article.  The Connection Culture I write and speak about draws upon aspects of design thinking and integrative thinking.]