More astute observers who work with the poor see that “poverty is broken relationships” and a connection culture is required to restore human dignity, productivity and prosperity. Check out this insightful piece entitled “Restoring Broken Relationships” by Sean Dimond of Agros International. You can also hear echoes of what Sean described in Acumen’s Manifesto.
Many thanks to Riley Kiltz of Cephas Partners and Paul Michalski of the New Canaan Society for bringing these examples to my attention.
Connection is the bond among individuals in a group that moves them to care for and help the group and its members. The power of human connection to unite, inspire and heal has been on full display of late in West, Texas; Boston; and at the NCAA men’s basketball final. To learn more, check out the articles below.
West, Texas’s Small Town Values — and People — are Anything But Small (USA Today)
Boston Bombing Followed by Stories of Kindness and Heroism (Washington Post)
Brothers, Champions: The Secret Sauce Behind Louisville’s Third Title (Sports Illustrated)
To the people of Boston and West, Texas and to Kevin Ware, Louisville’s reserve guard who suffered a devastating injury, our thoughts and prayers are with you.
Here’s additional evidence that Connection Cultures help students thrive. Many students today are struggling with stress, loneliness, anxiety and depression. Tragically some students lose hope and commit suicide. A recent report by entitled Connectedness & Suicide Prevention in College Settings concluded: “in the wake of repeated suicide and suicide prevention efforts we have learned [a] valuable lesson: we should not be preventing suicide. Instead, we should be be promoting life. Research unequivocally shows that connectedness, belonging, and mattering are all linked to decreased rtes of mental illness including suicide… Colleges and university settings provide an invaluable opportunity to prevent suicide and promote thriving through active engagement in connectedness building efforts.” If you’re interested in helping prevent student suicide, check out this excellent report.
Like many people today, Erin Callan, the former CFO of Lehman Brothers, slowly slipped into a life where her job was #1, ahead of every relationship in her life. To have sufficient energy to work an exhausting schedule throughout the week, she spent weekends sleeping. Eventually she reached a point where what she did was who she was. When she left her job around the time of Lehman’s demise, she was devastated. As Jason Pankau, my friend and business partner says, “when you are what you do, when you don’t, you aren’t.” Recently Ms. Callan told her story in a very thoughtful essay that appeared in The New York Times. Be sure to check it out at “Is There Life After Work?”
The other night my wife and I watched the DVD extended-cut version of the movie Margaret. The movie’s story is about stress, relational disconnection and loneliness in the lives of a teenage girl and her mother, an Off-Broadway actress. Anna Paquin gives a tour-de-force performance as the teen traumatized after she witnesses a bus hit a pedestrian after running a red light and the woman dies in her arms. She seeks comfort from her divorced parents with little success (her father lives in California, while her mother is pre-occupied with the opening of a new show). Desperate for connection to help soothe her pain, Ms. Paquin’s character begins to look for connection in all the wrong places including alcohol, drugs and having sex with a male acquaintance who already has a girlfriend and one of her high school teachers (played by Matt Damon). I don’t want to be a spoiler so let me encourage you to rent the DVD.
Today we live in an age where relationships are devalued and tasks that increase wealth and status rule supreme. The problem with this is that human beings are hardwired to connect. Insufficient connection leads to feelings of anxiety, emptiness and depression, and an unsustainable life. We thrive only when our lives include meaningful relationships. Ms. Callan’s essay and the movie Margaret provide vivid reminders of that, so to is the recent sad news that in America, deaths from suicide now exceed deaths from motor-vehicle accidents (note that the Centers for Disease Control has found that promoting connection in a community reduces the risk of suicide).
Are you investing sufficient time in developing and nurturing the meaningful relationships in your life?
Recently I was delighted to read a great USA Today article about Coach K of Duke leading the U.S. Men’s Basketball Team in the Olympics. Coach K has won four NCAA college basketball titles as the head coach of Duke, a gold medal as an assistant coach of the 1992 Dream Team in Barcelona and a gold medal as head coach of the U.S. mens team in the 1998 olympics in Beijing. He’s a servant leader who creates the “Connection Culture” where his players feel connected to him and to one another, a phenomenon we wrote about in Fired Up or Burned Out. Coach K cares about task excellence and relationship excellence. He cares about people and results.
To learn more about Coach K’s leadership style and the surprising story of how he evolved as a leader check out this fascinating New York Times Magazine article entitled “Follow Me.” In it you’ll learn why this extraordinary leader, a guy’s guy from an all boys Catholic high school, West Point and the U.S. Army, coaches, as the author Mike Sokolove says, “like a girl.”
Connecting with people requires empathy i.e. you feel the emotion another individual feels. This is different from sympathy where you recognize the emotion but don’t feel it.
In Fired Up or Burned Out, I wrote about the company Cranium and how it designs “high five moments” into its games. High five moments are times when people connect via the shared empathy of joy (remember that we define “the force of connection” as shared identity, empathy and understanding). When you are interacting with people you want to connect with, feeling and expressing emotion helps. When you feel someone’s joy or pain, it connects.
In the news
Here are a few recent articles related to connection that you might enjoy:
Walter Isaacson wrote about leadership lessons from Steve Jobs’ life for Harvard Business Review. In the article, Isaason addresses issues relevant to Connection Cultures including the elements of Vision, Value and Voice. Jobs was brilliant when it came to Vision, terrible when it came to Value and mixed win it came to Voice. Fortunately, there are other members of Apple’s senior leadership team whose strengths helped overcome Jobs’ weaknesses.
David Brooks just wrote a column for The New York Times entitled “The Relationship School” that touches on aspects of Connection Cultures in schools.
The Atlantic had a piece entitled “Stress Makes You Sick: Exploring the Immune System Connection.” The article explores how stress weakens the human immune system and mentions the link between stress and connection. (Remember I shared with you that recent research over a 20-year period showed people who work in cultures with supportive relationships had mortality rates that were 2.4 times lower than people who worked in cultures with weak relational support. This supports the longstanding view that lifestyles with little relational support produce chronic stress will kill you.)
While teaching seminars on leadership and Connection Cultures at the Darden Graduate School of Business, Professor Marian Moore introduced me to the work of her colleague Jonathan Haidt, a social psychology professor at the University of Virginia. Haidt just wrote The Righteous Mind. Here’s a well-written review of the book entitled “Why Won’t They Listen?” The book review clearly shows it addresses issues related to the Connection Culture elements of Value and Voice. I’ve ordered a copy but not read it yet.
Finally, I recently spoke with Jim Blasingame about the competitive advantage of culture on his nationally syndicated radio program entitled “Small Business Advocate” that you can hear at this link. Also, I wrote an article on the “Science of Engagement” for Training Industry Quarterly.
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.
Tomorrow I fly back to the U.S. after a 10-day trip to Amsterdam, Brussels, London and Edinburgh where I taught seminars for the Institute for Management Studies, spoke at ITV, saw several friends and spent a couple days on vacation with my wife, Katie.
While here, I learned about several new items of media coverage related to connection. Several items came from my friends Sean Witty and Jay Morris. Here are the items below.
Dr. Suzanne Zeedyk’s research on the importance of connection to babies and their ability to connect
Mental Heath Foundation of the UK report on rising loneliness and declining connection in the UK
UNICEF summary report on meeting children’s need for connection in the UK, Sweden and Spain
Article in Entrepreneur magazine “Forget Networking. How to be a Connector”
Center for Creative Leadership article on introverts who connect well with colleagues
Dr. Stephen Jones on the need to connect with others to keep your mind and memory sharp
This last week I was in Boston for several meetings and to teach a seminar for the Institute for Management Studies (IMS). I always teach that there are hundreds of ways to connect with others and the challenge facing leaders is to get to know the people they lead and identify ways to connect with them given who they are and the context of their work together.
Following are a few of the ways I learned that people and organizations are connecting.
The importance of creating Connection Culture also came to my attention this week as I was doing research on Alan Mulally, Ford’s CEO. Ford just announced its third full year of profit. Frances Hesselbien, a friend and leader whom I much admire, has praised Mulally so I decided it’s about time that I take a closer look at his leadership of Ford. In this splendid interview he did with The New York Times, Mulally recounts how he learned the importance of giving people autonomy, being inclusive, keeping people in the loop and connecting them to their organization’s “Inspiring Identity.”
In the coming weeks I’ll be speaking and teaching in Houston, Amsterdam, Brussels, London and Edinburgh. As I travel, I’ll post new things I learn about connection.
