Michael Lee Stallard

“Doctrine Man,” a popular cartoon on facebook, has, in essence, become a means to boost the Connection Culture element of Voice in the U.S. Military.  It’s odd, I know, but it’s working.  To learn more, read this New York Times article entitled “Masked Military Man is Superhero for Troops.”

Earlier, Jason, Carolyn and I wrote an article about the element of Voice (also know as “Knowledge Flow”) for the award-winning Perdido magazine that you can read at this link.  Voice exists in an organization when everyone seeks the ideas and opinions of other, shares their opinions honestly and safeguards relational connections. Voice reflects a culture that values humility, open-mindedness, curiosity, continuous learning and experimentation.

Voice strengthens organizations in three ways.  First, it boosts employee engagement when people are informed and have their ideas and opinions considered. Second, decision makers make better decisions when they learn from the ideas and opinions of others.  Third, a culture that has a high degree of sharing opinions and ideas creates a marketplace of ideas that fuels innovation.

With those benefits in mind, I say to Doctrine Man, whoever he may be, live long and prosper!

Every once in a while I come across an article or blog post that jumps out at me for its sheer brilliance or insight. Deb Mills-Scofield’s blog post entitled “Gamification in Everything” is a recent example. I encourage you to check it out and post your thoughts on Deb’s blog. I’m headed there right now to post some thoughts. I hope to see you there!

Employee engagement research this year produced several insights about serious problems we presently face in America.  Now this may sound bleak to some but for wise leaders and organizations it presents a huge opportunity. Below, I’ll explain.

In January, our friends at The Conference Board published a report entitled “I Can’t Get No … Job Satisfaction, That Is.”  The report’s subtitle, “America’s Unhappy Workers,” captured the essence of The Conference Board’s message. Consistent with the report’s tone, its cover featured a picture of an impending storm.  The report stated that job satisfaction and employee engagement had fallen to the lowest levels since The Conference Board began surveying more than 20 years ago. The report explained that the decline in employee satisfaction and employee engagement began long before the Great Recession and should therefore not be viewed as cyclical in nature. Looking forward, The Conference Board expressed concern about the impact of declining employee engagement on American competitiveness.

In July, Hewitt released a report showing that for the quarter ending June 2010, 46 percent of the 900 organizations it tracks experienced declines in employee engagement versus 30 percent of the organizations that experienced improved employee engagement.  Hewitt noted that this was the largest quarterly decline in employee engagement it has witnessed in the more than 15 years Hewitt has been researching employee engagement. Read more »

Here’s a stirring video from Chick-fil-A to remind us that every human being has a story. In our endeavors to develop Connection Cultures we encourage people who work together to get to know one another’s stories and to reach out and learn customers’ stories, if at all possible. Learning the stories of the people in your life is just one aspect of Human Value, the second element of a Connection Culture. When you know a person’s story, it helps you empathize and connect with them. It’s also more difficult to grow extremely disconnected with someone when you know their story.

Newstex just added MichaelLeeStallard.com to its sources of authoritative content.  The organization provides real-time news and commentary collected from the world’s best online and offline sources to customers who need information but don’t have time to gather it from a myriad of places.  Today, Newstex offers aggregated news and full-text feeds from thousands of premium blogs as well as Twitter, audio and video content from editorially-selected, authoritative news, corporate, and independent publishers.

This week I did an interview about employee engagement and employee motivation with Angelo Fernando and Derrick Maines of Triple Bottom Line Radio KFNX AM 1100 based in Phoenix, Arizona.  You can hear it on their website at this link.

Congratulations and happy birthday to my friend David Zinger, founder of the Employee Engagement Network. David’s book entitled Zengage is off to a great start and he’s already donating profits of $2,160 to flood relief and a women’s shelter.  Here’s what I wrote earlier about the book: Read more »

A couple news items to report.

Our publisher, Thomas Nelson, just informed me that the Korean language version of Fired Up or Burned Out is now available (see cover above). Author, speaker Mark Thompson recently emailed me a video of an interview I did with Mark and his wife Bonita for the Leader to Leader Institute’s Leadership Dialogues series. You can view the video on Facebook at this link.

Dan McCarthy at Great Leadership hosted this month’s leadership carnival that features best blog posts of top bloggers on leadership. Here’s what Dan wrote about it:

Welcome to the September 5th, 2010 Leadership Development Carnival Back to Football edition! Yes, Fall is in the air, and the NFL kicks off it’s season this Thursday with a rematch of last year’s NFC championship game – the Saints and the Vikings.

To get in the spirit of the season, this month’s Carnival is set up as if you’re watching the big game, from tailgating to post game highlights. So grab your favorite snack and beverage and get ready for some championship caliber leadership development advice and opinions from some of the best bloggers in the league. Read more »

Many individuals and organizations today are in a funk.

Employee engagement is at a low point and the slide down began long before the Great Recession. Research generally shows that 90 percent of employees don’t feel connected to their supervisor or colleagues at work and are either not engaged and giving their best efforts or not aligning their behavior with organizational goals.  Is it any wonder that our economy is struggling?

Research shows that many individuals today are lonely, anxious and depressed.  Depression medication is now a 10 billion dollar business. Even more children report feeling anxious and depressed.  They sense that something is wrong although though they don’t understand why.

The problem today is hidden in plain sight. We are sorely deficient of what I refer to as connection (also known as community, social capital, belonging or meaningful relationships).  How did we get to this state?  Over the last century we grew myopic and obsessed with increasing efficiency and productivity and forgot that human beings need time for relationships too.

If you’re skeptical, I invite you to take a look at The Connection Culture Manifesto, the Hardwired to Connect report by the Committee for Children at Risk, and The Lonely Society report by the Mental Health Foundation in the UK. Several excellent books also address the issue of declining connection in society including Bowling Alone, The American Paradox and The Loss of Happiness in Market Democracies.

What can you do?  Although it’s simple, it isn’t easy. Take time to connect. Reach out to the people in your life, set up times to meet for coffee a walk or a meal and then slow down and focus on being present with those you spend time with.  Find out what’s going on in their lives at work and outside of work.  Do this daily, if at all possible.

It used to be said that an apple a day keeps the doctor away but research from a variety of fields makes it clear that connection with others and with meaning in life is the real daily requirement that helps human beings survive and thrive.

So what are you waiting for?   Just connect.