Tag Archives: connection

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Connecting Up: Our Need for Transcendence

What do many scientists at NASA and engineers at Google have in common with a doorman at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC)?  The answer: they are fired up about the importance of their work and have a passion and energy that drives them to be a force for the cause.  Employees at NASA are fired up that they are exploring space.  Google employees are fired up because they are organizing information and making it accessible to the world.  I learned  this when I met employees at NASA and Google.   I spoke at both organizations earlier this year.

The doorman I refer to at MSKCC is named Nick.  When my wife Katie and I were walking down 53rd street in NYC in 2004 and we got within eyesight of the MSKCC  entrance, Nick locked his eyes on her and greeted her like a returning friend.  This in in Mid-town Manhattan where no one makes eye contact! Nick knows cancer patients when he sees them, probably from the wigs they wear.   It felt like the healing began within eyesight of MSKCC.

Katie was at MSKCC for high dosage chemo treatments she needed to treat advanced ovarian cancer.  Late last year her oncologist told her it that given favorable test results and five years in remission it was unlikely she would have a recurrence.  Words can’t express how overjoyed we were to hear that news. When we told Nick, he gave Katie a big hug and said how proud he was that she persevered.  We learned that Nick was a cancer survivor too and he attributed his survival to the treatments he received at MSKCC.  Is it any wonder then that this man is so passionate about his work at MSKCC.  You have to see Nick to believe it and you can if you stop by MSKCC’s entrance on 53rd Street across the street from the Citigroup building.  He’s a big guy with a dar complexion and blue eyes. Tell Nick you read about him.  Don’t worry that it may seem strange.  Former cancer patients and their family members regularly stop by to say hello to Nick. That’s how beloved he is.

Nick’s example shows that people are fired up if their work reflects the eternal values of the transcendent: truth, beauty and goodness.  MSKCC’s work reflects goodness and is expressed in it’s tagline “The Best Cancer Care, Anywhere.”  Apple’s passion for the aesthetic design and ease of use of its products reflects beauty. Work in the fields of journalism, research, theology and the academy reflect truth-seeking.

Truth, beauty and goodness are eternal values that reflect transcendence.  Human beings need the truth, beauty and goodness of transcendence to meet our need for meaning in life.  If you can find time over the holidays, reflect on the need for the transcendent values of truth, beauty and goodness in your own life. Below are links to some of my favorite essays, speeches and articles that touch on transcendence. Let me encourage you to print them out, read them and consider their relevance to your life and the lives of those you love.  

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‘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.

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Is Patriot’s Bill Bilichick Great?

Bill Bilichick is being criticized for his decision to go for it on a fourth down in last night’s game against the Indianapolis Colts. I wrote admiringly in Fired Up or Burned Out about Bilichick and Tom Brady’s leadership of the New England Patriots. Neither man is perfect, of course*, but there is much to admire. Steven Levitt’s Freakonomics column in The New York Times provides another reason why Bilichick is among the best coaches when it comes to team performance. Levitt argues in “Bill Bilichick is Great” that statistically the coach made the right decision if his goal was to win even though it would subject him to endless criticism if the decision failed to pay off.

*filming the signals of opposing teams, as the Patriots were caught doing, is one shameful example.

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Change by Legitimate or Illegitimate Means

Change in organizations can be brought about by legitimate or illegitimate means, with understandably different results. Take a look at this Fast Company article on the methods of consultant Fernando Flores for an example of change by illegitimate means. Typically, coercion, degradation and intimidation are the methods of choice by people I refer to as “Intentional Disconnectors,” individuals who tear others apart for the sake of an unhealthy need for ego gratification. Bob Sutton describes them well in his book The No Asshole Rule.

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Google Beams, Curiosity and Innovation

Last week when I toured Google’s corporate headquarters, the “Googleplex,” I was shown a monitor that had an image of the planet earth with multicolored beams of light shooting up from the various contintents. The beams represented Google searches that were presently being conducted from those locations. (For example, when I searched on Google this morning for an article on “augmented intelligence,” it would have appeared on Google’s global search monitor as a beam of light shooting up from Greenwich, Connecticut where I live.)

What stood out to me when I observed Google’s global search monitor was that locations such as North America, East Asia and Western Europe were aflame with Google beams of search activity whereas some regions like Africa and much of South America were largely dark.

If Google searches can be thought of as a proxy for curiosity and learning, then locations (nations and organizations) that are aflame with search activity are preferable to locations that are dark.

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Weathering the Storm

Facilitator and blogger Terry Seamon just posted a piece I wrote entitled “Weathering the Storm.” Terry has invited a number of thinkers to share their ideas on employee engagement in a series on his blog entitled “Engaging Voices.” This series will include posts from David Zinger, Tim Wright, Judy Bardwick, Phil Gerbyshak, and Judy McLeish.

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Warren Buffett: More than an Oracle

Warren Buffett is in the news these days after publicly expressing his confidence in the future of American corporations and recently investing $8 Billion Dollars to purchase interests in GE and Goldman Sachs. With the recent stock market turmoil, many look to the world’s wealthiest man for guidance, and rightly so. Buffett is widely recognized as an exceptional judge of corporate value. “The Oracle of Omaha,” as he is known, is arguably the most successful investor in history. Corporate leaders regularly make the trek to Omaha, Nebraska, seeking his wisdom. With so much attention on Buffett’s investment acumen, it’s easy to overlook another talent: motivating people. It’s one of a host of reasons his investments tend to outperform the market.

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Our Responsibility to Connect to the Disconnected Among Us

mawi.jpgYears ago when I attended a large church in Wheaton, Illinois, I remember the Asgedom family who came from a refugee camp in Sudan.  They were ever present members of our church community.  Mawi Asgedom was a young boy at that time.  I recently learned that Mawi went on to graduate cum laude from Harvard in 1999 and was voted by his fellow students to be one of the Harvard’s four commencement speakers.  

Standing before an audience of 30,000 Mawi gave a remarkable speech entitled  “Of Snakes, Butterfies and Small Acts of Kindness.”