Tag Archives: Employee Engagement

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To Connect, be a Servant Leader

Starbucks Logo#23 Adopt a “Servant Leadership” Mindset

Here is a powerful truth:  To serve is to connect. This is the notion behind servant leadership. “Servant leaders” connect with the people they lead because they view themselves as serving the people to help them better serve the organization’s mission.

When Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz was struggling to make Starbucks successful as it expanded outside of Seattle, he hired Howard Behar to be the president of Starbucks North America. Behar moved to Chicago, the first big city Starbucks expanded into, and he went store-to-store getting to know the people and teaching them how to connect with one another and with customers. That was an inflection point in Starbucks’ history. After spectacular growth in North America, Schultz made Behar the first president of Starbucks International and Behar led Starbuck’s international expansion. To learn more, read Howard Behar’s great book, It’s Not About the Coffee. (By the way, Howard Behar went on to become the chairman of the Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership.)

This is the twenty-third post in our series entitled “100 Ways to Connect.” The series highlights language, attitudes and behaviors that help you connect with others. Although the language, attitudes and behaviors focus on application in the workplace, you will see that they also apply to your relationships at home and in the community.

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Connect by Staying in Touch

Writing a Letter

#22 Hold In-Person Meetings and Regularly Check-In

Good relationships are maintained by staying in touch. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill understood this. Historians have found more than 1,700 letters, notes and telegrams Churchill wrote to his wife so that they would remain connected.

Take a page from Churchill’s playbook. With your direct reports, stay connected by meeting weekly with them in person, if at all possible. If you cannot meet weekly, use “check ins” – phone calls, emails, text messages – to help keep you connected. To stay connected with people who work remotely, regularly call or Skype them. Remote work can be lonely and people should feel you are on their team and want to help them achieve their potential. Besides work issues, inquire about how they are doing personally, too. There is much truth to the old saying that “people don’t care what you know until they know you care.”

This is the twenty-second post in our series entitled “100 Ways to Connect.” The series highlights language, attitudes and behaviors that help you connect with others. Although the language, attitudes and behaviors focus on application in the workplace, you will see that they also apply to your relationships at home and in the community.

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To Connect, Communicate Meaningful Core Values

Woman looking into distance whilst thinking#19 Reflect Upon, Write Out and Communicate Your Core Values

Take time alone to reflect on the values you believe in and want to live out in your life. For inspiration, read Starbucks’ CEO Howard Schultz’s excellent book Pour Your Heart Into It and read the Montpelier Command Philosophy in Fired Up or Burned Out. Write out your core values in a manner that is similar to the Montpelier Command Philosophy, i.e name the value, explain what it means and why you believe it’s important. Ask trusted friends whom you respect to read your values and provide feedback about “what’s right, what’s wrong and what’s missing” from them. When you believe your draft is in good shape, share it with your direct reports and ask them to provide feedback about “what’s right, what’s wrong and what’s missing.” Consider the feedback, make the changes that you believe improve it and then circulate the final to your direct reports.

This is the nineteenth post in our series entitled “100 Ways to Connect.” The series highlights language, attitudes and behaviors that help you connect with others. Although the language, attitudes and behaviors focus on application in the workplace, you will see that they also apply to your relationships at home and in the community.

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To Reinforce Connection, Replenish the Vision

Group of people raising arms in air in excitement

#18 Replenish the Vision

Vision leaks, so look for ways to keep your organization and team’s mission, values and reputation in front of your team. Take employees out to visit customers or bring customers in to talk with employees about how they use your products or services and how it benefits them. Keep up with articles and press releases on your organization then circulate those that reinforce the mission, values and reputation.

This is the eighteenth post in our series entitled “100 Ways to Connect.” The series highlights language, attitudes and behaviors that help you connect with others. Although the language, attitudes and behaviors focus on application in the workplace, you will see that they also apply to your relationships at home and in the community.

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Connect by Cascading Your Vision

Leader Discussing Plans with Team

#17 Cascade Your Vision

When Frances Hesselbein led a remarkable turnaround of the Girl Scouts of the U.S.A. she implemented an inclusive annual planning process. Frances communicated the vision, mission and annual objectives then explained why each objective was selected. She gave people a voice to provide feedback about “what’s right, what’s wrong and what’s missing” from the vision and annual objectives. Her leadership team considered the feedback, made adjustments and communicated the final plan.

You should do the same. At some point in the year, repeat the process after you’ve factored in how well your plans are working and what adjustments are warranted given more current information. An inclusive process to establish annual objectives and action plans engages people and helps them align their behavior with the plan. If you want to learn more about a detailed process to implement this approach, read Michael Kanazawa and Robert Miles’ book Big Ideas to Big Results.

This is the seventeenth post in our series entitled “100 Ways to Connect.” The series highlights language, attitudes and behaviors that help you connect with others. Although the language, attitudes and behaviors focus on application in the workplace, you will see that they also apply to your relationships at home and in the community.

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7 Practices of Alan Mulally that Helped Ford Pass Competitors

As seen on The remarkable turnaround of Ford led by Alan Mulally — without U.S. government financial aid — provides an outstanding example of how to gain competitive advantage through organizational culture.

When Mulally arrived at Ford in 2006, the automaker’s culture could be described as silo rivalries with leaders embroiled in turf wars. This culture drove Ford to the verge of bankruptcy.

Following are seven practices that helped Mulally save Ford by transforming its dog-eat-dog culture into a sled dog team that pulls together. 

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3 Leadership Practices of Bono and U2 – Part II

U2 rose from a band with less than ideal musical skills when it began in 1976 to today having received a remarkable 22 Grammy awards, morethan any band in history. At the 71st Golden Globe Awards ceremony on January 12, the band added yet another accomplishment to its credit: the Golden Globe for Best Original Song from a Motion Picture for “Ordinary Love” from the movie “Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom.”

U2 Ordinary Love Album Cover

U2 Ordinary Love Album Cover

In my last article, “3 Practices CEOs Should Adopt from this Rock Star,” I credited Bono’s leadership of U2 as a key factor behind the band’s success. His leadership approach can be described in one sentence: Bono communicates an inspiring vision and lives it, values people, and gives them a voice.  CEOs would be wise to follow Bono’s example. In the article I highlighted three aspects of Bono’s leadership. As a follow up, here are three practical ways CEOs can implement leadership practices like those of Bono. 

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Connect Through a Greater Vision

The Body Shop Logo#16 Develop a Vision That Serves a Cause Greater Than Self

Leaders who view themselves as serving a cause greater than self connect with people who share their desire to serve that particular cause. A shared cause connects people to one another by bringing greater beauty, goodness and/or truth to the world, and, by doing so, helps people.

Here is an example. Anita Roddick, founder of The Body Shop, started a company to help women-owned businesses in developing countries market their natural personal care products to consumers in wealthy nations. Roddick was passionate about it, employees and customers of The Body Shop loved it, and the company grew rapidly to become a global success story.

Research by Wharton’s Adam Grant has shown that connecting to a Vision of serving others (pro-social, as Grant calls it) boosts employee productivity. Research by UCLA’s Stephen W. Cole, et al., has shown that people who feel connected to their work because it has a higher purpose or service to others exhibited gene-expression profiles that were associated with a lower risk of cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

This is the sixteenth post in our series entitled “100 Ways to Connect.” The series highlights language, attitudes and behaviors that help you connect with others. Although the language, attitudes and behaviors focus on application in the workplace, you will see that they also apply to your relationships at home and in the community.

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Connect with the Core

Leader with employees testing new management theory

#11 Connect with the Organization’s Core

Remember to make an effort to connect with people who have less power, control and influence because they are the ones who do most of the work when it comes to executing the tasks of your organization. Research has shown that higher status employees pay less attention to those with lower status and they are unaware of it. The famous “Whitehall Studies” in the UK established that workers who are lower in an organization’s hierarchy have less sense of control and suffer from greater stress and this contributes to ill health and higher mortality. The antidote to help people cope with stress is to connect with them and to delegate greater control to them.

This is the eleventh post in our series entitled “100 Ways to Connect.” The series highlights language, attitudes and behaviors that help you connect with others. Although the language, attitudes and behaviors focus on application in the workplace, you will see that they also apply to your relationships at home and in the community.