Michael Lee Stallard

New York City’s WCBS News Radio 880 ran portions of an interview I did with daytime host Pat Farnack.  Here are links to the segments and full interview:


Is your workplace killing you?

Worse than Toxic

Snakes in Suits

Nick the Doorman

How to Flourish

Full Interview (14 minutes)

Last week I met Frances Hesselbein, head of the Frances Hesselbein Institute, over a delightfully long lunch at the Waldorf Astoria.  Peter Drucker once called Mrs. Hesselbein America’s best leader.  I’ve written about her remarkable leadership of the Girl Scouts of the USA.  At one point in our lunch I mentioned a quote from Psalm 78:72 about King David’s leadership of Israel.  The New Living Translation of the Bible states it this way: “he cared for Israel with a true heart and led them with skillful hands.”  It’s a variation of the “Task Excellence + Relationship Excellence” model we teach at organizations.  After hearing the Bible verse, Mrs. Hesselbein leaned over toward me, looking me directly in the eyes and said “and he cared for them first.”  I will never ever forget those words coming from a leader who lived them out.

Here are a couple updates on some things I’m doing and what I’ve noticed of interest in the media.

Training Industry Quarterly magazine invited me to write an article on the science of connection. You can read the article here.  Note on the article’s first page you have the option to click on a link and listen to a podcast version.

I hope you’ll check out my friend David Burkus’ new video on taking a creative risk.

On May 6-9, I hope to see old friends and make new friends at this year’s American Society for Training and Development’s International Conference where 8,500 training professionals will gather in Denver.  At the conference, I’ll be speaking on the topic “Do Leaders Need to Make Employees Happy?” which also is the title of a chapter I wrote for ASTD’s The Management Development Handbook: Innovations for Today’s Managers (edited by the talented and charismatic Lisa Haneberg).  Kevin Eikenberry, Alfredo Castro and I will join Lisa in a panel discussion at the conference and a book signing.

David Brooks of The New York Times continues to write on issues related to connection and character.  Check out his recent columns entitled “The Talent Society” and “The Rediscovery of Character.”

Finally, I just completed interviewing Anne Mulcahy, the former CEO of Xerox.  Ms. Mulcahy led a miraculous turnaround and shared with me her thoughts about how she kept the senior leadership team together and motivated people to give their best efforts for a decade long endeavor.  Ms. Mulcahy has much wisdom to share and I know you’ll enjoy reading her stories and advice that is extremely relevant to leaders in today’s challenging economic times.

For the second year in a row, 84 percent of American workers intend to actively look for a new job, according to new research by Right Management. Workplace incivility is also on the rise.  According to research presented at the 2011 American Psychological Association annual meeting, up to 80 percent of workers have experienced incivility.   Workers are struggling and have been for some time.  In 2009, The Conference Board published a report with the subtitle “America’s Unhappy Workers.”   The report concluded that employee satisfaction was at its lowest point since The Conference Board began surveying it more that 20 years ago.

The good news is that is doesn’t have to be this way. Leaders can develop workplace cultures that engage people. Engaging people makes them happy because they benefit from the positive emotions that come from being productive, learning and growing and working together with others to accomplish something of value.  This is what the Greek’s described as eudaimonia, the joy that we experience when we do good work.  The other type of happiness is hedonia.  It comes from pleasurable experiences such as when we see a beautiful sunset or enjoying a great meal. Leaders need to create work cultures where people experience eudiamonia. That’s the type of happiness that affects employee engagement, productivity and innovation.

Here’s another way to think it it.  There are three types of workplace cultures: Dog-Eat-Dog Cultures, Indifferent Cultures (cultures that are indifferent to people and treat them as human doings), and “Connection Cultures” where people experience eudiamonia because they feel connected to their organization’s identity (i.e. mission, values and reputation), they feel connected to their colleagues and supervisor, and they feel connected to their role in the organization (because it fits their strengths and provides the right degree of challenge).

Connection is the force that transforms a dog-eat-dog culture into a sled dog team that pulls together. Without going too far into the psychology of connection, let me just summarize by saying simply that we are humans, not machines. We have emotions. We have hopes and dreams. We have a conscience. We have deeply felt human needs to be respected, to be recognized for our talents, to belong, to have autonomy or control over our work, to experience personal growth, and to do work that we feel is worthwhile in a way that we feel is ethical. When we work in an environment that recognizes these realities of our human nature, we thrive. We feel more energetic, more optimistic, and more fully alive. When we work in an environment that fails to recognize this, it is damaging to our mental and physical health.

And when you think about it, that makes sense. Let’s consider how this plays out in the workplace. When we first meet people, we expect them to respect us. If they look down on us, if they are uncivil or condescending, we get upset. In time, as our colleagues get to know us, we expect them to appreciate or recognize us for our talents and contributions. That really makes us feel good. Later on, we begin to expect that we will be treated and thought of as an integral part of the community. Our connection to the group is further strengthened when we feel we have control over our work. Connection is diminished when we feel we are being micro-managed or over-controlled by others. If we are over-controlled, it sends the message that we are being treated like children or incompetents, and it’s a sign that we are not trusted or respected. Connection is also enhanced when we experience personal growth. In other words: when our role, our work in the group, is a good fit with our skills, providing enough challenge to make us feel good when we rise to meet that challenge (but not so much challenge that we become totally stressed out). Finally, it motivates us to know our work is worthwhile in some way and to be around other people who share our belief that our work is important. To the extent that these human needs of respect, recognition, belonging, autonomy, personal growth and meaning are met, we feel connected to the group. When they are not met, we feel less connected, or even disconnected.

The bottom line is that connection plays a critical part in improving individual performance. People who are more connected with others fare better in life than those who are less connected. Connection, because it meets our human needs, makes people more trusting, more cooperative, more empathetic, more enthusiastic, more optimistic, more energetic, more creative and better problem solvers. It creates the type of environment in which people want to help their colleagues.They are more open to share information that helps decision makers become better-informed. The openness that emerges in a trusting and cooperative environment creates a robust marketplace of ideas that stimulates innovation. Connection among people improves performance in an organization and creates a new source of competitive advantage.

To learn more about connection cultures and employee engagement, listen to this podcast interview Jason Pankau and I did before we spoke at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. You can hear the interview at this link.

Update: In May, I’ll be speaking on the topic “Do Leaders Need to make Employee Happy?” in Denver at the annual conference of the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD). In addition, I’ve contributed a chapter to the soon to be published ASTD Handbook on Management edited by Lisa Haneberg who writes the Management Craft blog.

Here is a link to the article I wrote about Starbucks. The article is entitled “Have a Heart.”  It was published in Outlook Business for Decision Makers, a leading business magazine in India. In addition, below are links to three segments of a radio interview I did yesterday morning with Jim Blasingame, host of the nationally syndicated Small Business Advocate program.

Apple is now the most valuable company in the world in terms of market capitalization and U2′s recent tour just became the highest grossing of all time, crushing the previous record held by the Rolling Stones.  Learn about Apple’s remarkable rise in market cap in this New York Times article and learn about U2′s claim as the greatest band of all time in this article from the Atlantic magazine’s website.

Apple and U2′s continued success begs the question, “what’s their secret?” Read more »

Here’s a link to an audio interview Jason Pankau and I did with Jeremie Kubicek, CEO of GiANT (GiANT Impact, Catalyst and Chick-fil-A Leadercast).  Jeremie is the author of a great book entitled Leadership is Dead: How Influence is Reviving It.  During the interview we discussed how leadership affects employee engagement, strategic alignment, productivity, innovation and organizational performance.  Check it out at this link.

Today, Roy Saunderson and S. Max Brown of Real Recognition Radio are featuring an interview we did about Connection Cultures, leadership, employee engagement, employe recognition, productivity, innovation and achieving sustainable superior performance.  Roy and Max are both knowledgeable experts on employee recognition and they are delightful individuals to engage with in conversation.  I hope you’ll check out our interview at this link.

Last month, I appeared as a regular guest on Jim Blasingame’s nationally-syndicated radio program focused on small business owners.  Unfortunately, I forgot to post a link to the recording of the interview posted on Jim’s website.  You can listen to it here.

Some time ago I did an interview about Fired Up or Burned Out on Book Ends with Susan Stamm.  Susan and here colleagues developed a discussion guide based on the interview.  You can hear the interview here and find the discussion guide at this link.

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.