The first in a series of blog posts I wrote entitled, “Creating a Culture That Attracts (and Retains) Talent” was posted yesterday on the Human Capital Institute’s new blog at this link.
Tag Archives: business speaker
‘Tis the Season
This morning I was a guest on Jim Blasingame’s nationally syndicated radio show “The Small Business Advocate.” You can hear the interview by clicking on the “listen now” button above. On Jim’s program, we talked about how a company interacts with its customers is becoming more important to competitive differentiation. I believe the past century was about achieving task excellence but the century ahead will be about developing relationship excellence in organizations, including strong relationships with and among an organization’s customers (more on that later).
At the heart of relationships is “the force of connection.” If ever there is a time to connect with people, it is now during the holiday season. I say this for my own benefit too. I’m an achieve-aholic who compulsively lists things I must do and who derives pleasure from crossing items off my list. Attending to the tasks in my life — writing articles, speaking, blogging, teaching workshops, making calls, meeting with people, reading articles and books, checking my email and iPhone (now with 100,000+ apps), etc., etc., etc. — develops an addictive rhythm.
Tomorrow afternoon when my daughter Sarah arrives home after completing her first semester in college at TCU, I want to break free of the rhythm of tasks and spend time with her, my daughter Elizabeth and Katie, my wife. My hope is that I can be present with them and not be seduced by the allure of thinking about my next article, speech, blog post, etc.
Katie talks about “making memories.” That should be the priority of this season. Being together. Doing memorable things together. Connecting with those we love.
That said, I want to wish you happy holidays. May the time you have this holiday season be well spent.
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Michael Lee Stallard speaks, teaches and writes about leadership, employee engagement, productivity and innovation at leading organizations including Google, GE, NASA, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics and the Darden Graduate School of Business at the University of Virginia. Most recently, Michael and his colleague Jason Pankau filmed a 90-minute program for Linkage that will be released in January of 2010. Michael wrote the guest editorial for Talent Management magazine’s January 2010 edition and last month his article on how the force of connection boosts productivity and innovation was featured as the lead article in the UK’s Developing HR Strategy Journal. Google just posted on YouTube a talk Michael gave at Google earlier this year. Click on these links to learn more about Michael and Jason in the media and their speaking engagements.
Leading with the Power of Community
Do you ever wonder how past leaders could have missed what seems so obvious in hindsight? Sadly, most leaders live in an environment that makes them vulnerable to managerial failure. The problem lies in a little-recognized reality of leadership: isolation.
Leading can be lonely. Typically leaders have few, if any, high-trust relationships at work. Because leaders have the power to make or break the careers of those around them, people are afraid to be honest with them and challenge their thinking. Likewise, too often leaders are reluctant to let their guard down out of fear of losing the respect of their colleagues.
HR: Order Takers or Game Changers?
The best HR leaders are game changers. They develop conviction about what constitutes a high-performance work culture. They are a force that helps develop the values and processes necessary to make a high-performance work culture come to life. The departments they run are NOT staffed with the type of order-takers Keith Hammonds described in his wildly popular Fast Company article entitled “Why We Hate HR.”
I recently wrote an article that describes a game changing strategy HR leaders should consider in light of today’s widespread employee disengagement. The article was just published as the lead article in the UK’s Developing HR Strategy journal. It’s entitled, “The Force of Connection: Boost Employee Engagement, Productivity and Innovation.” You can download it at this link.
Free Slide Presentation Download
Northwestern Univ. Human Capital Conference
View more presentations from Michael Stallard.
This week I spoke in Toronto as part of Rotman School of Management’s Leadership Experts Series and Jason Pankau and I spoke at Northwestern University’s Forum for People Performance Management and Measurement in Chicago. The presentations addressed leadership, employee engagement, productivity and innovation. Above is free download of our slides from the Northwestern presentation.
Leadership Speaker for ASTD and Linkage
I’m thrilled to announce that I’ll be speaking for two of the world’s leading organizations in the training and development field. On July 23rd I’ll be speaking about how Connection Cultures relate to leadership, employee engagement, productivity and innovation in an hour long presentation via Webex to members of ASTD (the American Society for Training and Development). ASTD is the world’s largest association dedicated to workplace learning and performance professionals with 80,000 members from more than 100 countries.
On December 10, I will be at the headquarters of Linkage Corporation near Boston to record an 90 minute presentation on Connection Cultures that will be made available on demand to Linkage clients. Linkage is a global organizational development company that specializes in leadership development. More than 200,000 leaders and managers have attended Linkage programs since 1998.
Connection Critical to Healthcare
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about healthcare organizations. I recently spoke in New Haven to nearly 500 managers at Yale-New Haven Hospital and in Philadelphia to a group of CEOs that included several leaders from the Cancer Treatment Centers of America. I’ve written from the patient’s perspective about my wife Katie’s battles with breast and advanced ovarian cancer and about Dr. Herb Pardes, head of New York-Presbyterian Health System, and how he is leading his organization to deliver patient-centered care. Recently, I interviewed Bill Shannon, Chief Wisdom Officer, at DaVita, Inc., the leading provider of kidney dialysis services and shortly I’ll be hosting a webcast with Pat Charmel, CEO of Griffin Hospital, a perennial member of Fortune’s best places to work list.
Two books I recently read reminded me again just how critical connection is to health care.