Michael Lee Stallard

“…while there are indeed great, often unfathomable forces in history before which even the most exceptional of individuals seem insignificant, the wonder is how often events turn upon a single personality, or the quality we call character.”

– Historian David McCullough

“Ability may get you to the top but it takes character to keep you there.”

– Legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

– Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

This morning I’ll be a guest on my friend Jim Blasingame’s Small Business Advocate radio show.  Jim and I will talk about developing character strengths in your business such as passion for excellence and beauty, kindness, persistence, creativity and citizenship. Strength of character makes us better leaders in business, government, education and the social sector.  It also makes us better human beings.

On the show I will mention downloads available on my blog. Here they are below:

List of the Character Strengths and Virtues

Character > Connection> Thrive Chain

Fired Up or Burned Out: How to Reignite Your Team’s Passion, Creativity and Productivity.

Here is a video from YouTube of a conversation I had 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.

This week I participated in an interview about Connection Cultures, productivity and innovation with Dean Homer Erekson at a business breakfast sponsored by TCU’s Neeley Business School in Fort Worth, Texas. (Read the Fort Worth Business Press article about the event entitled “Speaker Promotes Emotional Connection for Business“).

The motto of the Neeley School is “It’s More Than Business. It’s Personal.” This phrase expresses what we found in research that’s described in our book Fired Up or Burned Out, i.e. sustainable superior performance requires achieving task excellence (the “business” part) and relationship excellence (the “personal” part).  In addition to speaking at the business breakfast I spoke to students in leadership programs and met with Neeley MBA students.

From all I observed, the Neeley Business School delivers its brand promise.  It hires teacher-scholars who spend time with and mentor students.  In addition, the Neeley School has first class facilities and diverse, energetic, enthusiastic and collaborative students.  It’s a powerful mix that has propelled Neeley to be ranked as the #30 B-School in American and an entrepreneurship program that’s ranked #1.    Neeley is on the move and I expect that it will continue to grow in national reputation and popularity with the best prospective business school students.

Many thanks to Deborah Mills-Scofield for complementing my book  Fired Up or Burned Out in her Forbes.com blog post entitled “Personal Connections are the New Currency.”

Check out this article entitled “Wellbeing on the Home Front.” It describes how social connections at home, at work and in the community affect our wellbeing.   Gallup’s new research provides additional support for the Connection Cultures we described in Fired Up or Burned Out.

Seven years ago today, my wife Katie had surgery for advanced ovarian cancer. The prior year, Katie had surgery to remove breast cancer. Today, she is cancer free.

I wrote an essay entitled “Alone No Longer” about how setting my work aside to focus on being with and helping Katie and our daughters changed my perspective on life.  The essay has been read by many individuals who want to know how they can help people in their lives who are battling a serious illness.  The essay also challenges readers to examine their own lives to consider if they are too focused on status and achievement and insufficiently focused on relationships.  I hope you’ll take time to read “Alone No Longer,” reflect on your life and share the essay with friends who might benefit from reading it.

Below are links to several leadership events that Jason Pankau and I will be speaking at or participating in.

On January 27, I’ll join Dean Homer Erekson of the Neeley School of Business at TCU where we will discuss leadership and employee engagement as part of the Tandy Leadership Speakers Series.

On February 10-11, I’ll be in London participating in the HTB Leadership Conference.

On March 4-6, I’ll be in at the Homestead resort in Virginia where my colleague Jason Pankau will speak at the New Canaan Society Annual Retreat.

On March 7-9, I’ll be speaking about leadership, employee engagement, productivity and innovation at the National Human Capital Summit in Atlanta.  I hope you’ll check it out and consider attending.

On March 10-11, Jason Pankau and I will be speaking about Connection Cultures, leadership, employee engagement, productivity and innovation at the Learning for Life Conference in Reno, Nevada.

Take time to read this thoughtful speech entitled Solitude and Leadership by William Deresiewicz given to this year’s plebe class at West Point. He describes how great leaders develop the courage of their convictions, which includes moral courage. Reflection, time alone with one’s thoughts, interactions with trusted friends and reading great books, as Deresiewicz says, are part of the mix.  What he didn’t adequately include is the impact of one’s experiences in life including one’s family of origin and periods of adversity and suffering that breed humility.  Despite its shortcomings, it’s a fine speech and well worth taking time to read.

Many thanks to David Books of The New York Times for bringing this thoughtful speech to my attention.  Brook’s recognized Deresiewicz’s speech as one of the best pieces of long journalism written in 2010.

At the Technical Academy Awards ceremonies held in Hollywood, the Associated Press reported that it wasn’t the host, actress Jessica Biel, who attracted the most attention. Instead, it was an understated, bespectacled, computer engineer named Ed Catmull. When Catmull’s name was announced to receive an Oscar for his lifetime of work in computer animation, the crowd went wild, whistling and whooping. And rightly so. The impact Catmull and his collaborators have had on Hollywood may last for decades to come.

Ed Catmull is the president of Pixar and Disney Animation Studios. He has rejected the traditional Hollywood star system and its often toxic work environment and replaced it with an environment that emphasizes community and long-term relationships. Catmull described it this way in a Harvard Business Review article he wrote: “[Pixar has] an environment that nurtures trusting and respectful relationships and unleashes everyone’s creativity…the result is a vibrant community where talented people are loyal to one another and their collective work, everyone feels that they are part of something extraordinary, and their passion and accomplishments make the community a magnet for talented people…”

What is it about Pixar’s environment that attracts talented employees and helps them produce outstanding movies such as the blockbuster hits Toy Story, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, and WALL-E that have made Pixar the envy of Hollywood? Read more »

…it takes character to keep you there.  John Wooden, the late legendary UCLA men’s basketball coach once stated this in so many words.

Wooden’s observation came to mind when I read a New York Times‘ article today entitled “The Day the Patriots Empire Began to Crumble.”  The article argued that the Patriot’s lost their lustre when its coach, Bill Belichick, was caught cheating.

Over the years, the leaders of the Patriots, Coach Belichick and quarterback Tom Brady, did so many things right.   I wrote about many of them in a chapter Fired Up or Burned Out.  Belichick’s cheating, however, diminished one of the three elements of a Connection Culture: the element of “Vision.”  The element of Vision exists when everyone in an organization is motivated by the mission, united by the values and proud of the reputation.   Belichick’s cheating was not in keeping with the Patriot’s core values.  It also tarnished the organization’s reputation.  the cheating caused players and fans lost some of their respect for Belichick and the Patriots.  They were not longer felt as proud to say they were members of the Patriots’ organization. Pride in one’s identity is emotional in nature and research shows that emotional connections are 4X as important as rational factors when it comes to the amount of effort people put in their work.  The Patriots lost some of that emotional connection and as a result their players have not been as fired up as they once were.

Hopefully, Belichick learned a lesson and in time can gain back the connection, respect and trust he once had.