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In the workshops we teach, we use stories of great leaders in business, government, the social sector and sports who inspired people to do what’s right.  This is a best practice to strengthen the positive effects of an organization’s identity (i.e. mission, values and reputation).

Happiness is much sought after these days. Book stores and magazine stands are full of titles that promise to unlock the secrets of happiness.  Positive psychology courses are all the rage on college campuses across America. Recognizing that happiness gets attention, I recently decided to title a chapter I’m writing “Should Leaders Care About Employee Happiness?” The chapter will be included in the American Society for Training and Development’s new Handbook of Management.

In my view, the primary reason happiness is on the decline in America and in many market democracies around the world is that we’ve become “achieve-aholics” who, as a result of our achievement-seeking lifestyles, lack sufficient human connection.  Lacking connection, we eventually dysfunction. As achieve-aholics move through adulthood, they feel a sense of boredom, emptiness and meaninglessness.  Many are mis-diagnosed as having depression when in fact they are just lonely (I wrote about this in an earlier post on the rise of loneliness in America). To feel better, achieve-aholics oftentimes seek illegitimate thrills (e.g. sexual affairs, pornography, extreme sports and extreme business risks) or they self-medicate to numb the pain, which leads to substance abuse. In my opinion, this is why America, with a mere five percent of the world’s population consumes half of the mood-altering pharmacological medications and two-thirds of the world’s illegal drugs (a point that Joseph Califano, head of the National Center on Substance Abuse at Columbia University, made in a video interview on the Atlantic’s website).

The bottom line is that we are human beings, not machines.  As I consistently present on this blog, and all the science makes it abundantly clear, we need human connection to thrive. This point is underscored in another fine Atlantic article written by my friend Joshua Wolf Shenk entitled “What Makes Us Happy?.”   Josh’s article is about the 70-year long Grant study to understand happiness and flourishing in life by following the lives of 268 men who graduated from Harvard in the late 1930s.

Dr. George Valliant, the psychiatrist at Harvard who heads the Grant study, summed it up this way:  ”The only thing that really matters in life is your relationships…”  As for happiness, Dr. Valliant concludes in the video interview: “happiness is love.”  I agree, for the most part, that happiness is relationships and love.  I would add meaningful work to the equation and phrase happiness in a slightly different way.   In The Connection Culture Manifesto and Fired Up or Burned Out, I present the case that meaningful relationships AND meaningful work are both important to experience joy and contentment, and to flourish over the course of one’s life.

Balance is key. But getting the balance right isn’t easy.  It’s a recurring issue in my own life.  Recently, a friend of mine who heads leadership training for a prestigious hospital system in New England, asked me try out the Hartman Values Profile as a possible tool to use in my work coaching leaders.  It indicated I’m flourishing in most areas of my life but still I work too much and don’t take sufficient care of myself. Now I’m thinking through how I can make changes to keep from drifting to a state of imbalance.

What do you think?  I hope you’ll take the time to read the links in this post and share your thoughts in the comments section below.  Do you agree with what I’ve said?  Are you getting the balance right?  Do you have advice you can share here about how to balance work and life outside of work?

During our speeches and workshops we conclude the section where we present research from a diverse fields of knowledge that makes the case for connection to thrive at work and in life by stating:

“connection = life” whereas “disconnection = death” (we point out that this applies to both individuals and organizations)

Now we have additional research about the effect of connection on individuals in the workplace to prove it.  A 20-year study by researchers at Tel Aviv University found that workers who reported working in cultures where they experienced positive social interactions and felt emotionally supported to the people they worked with were 2.4 times less likely to die over the next 20 years than those who reported they didn’t feel emotionally supported at work.   The New York Times recently included an article about it entitled “Friendly Workplace Linked to Longer Life.”  (You can purchase the published research findings on Psychnet at “Work-Based Predictors of Mortality: A 20-Year Follow-up of Healthy Employees.”)

This provides additional evidence that the “Connection Cultures” we described in Fired Up or Burned Out are essential for people and organizations to thrive for sustained periods of time.  Connection boosts hormones and neurotransmitters that make us feel more alive, more energetic, more confident, more creative and better problem solvers.  Furthermore, during periods of stress, connection reduces stress hormones such as cortisol, epinephrine and norepinephrine.  This helps us cope with stress and anxiety so that we are more likely to make rational decisions rather than rash decisions when our emotions overwhelm us.

Jason Pankau and I recently recorded a podcast interview on happiness at work for Alter+Care, the healthcare real estate company.  You can hear the podcast at this link.

Most leaders can learn an important lesson from the RAs at TCU who are creating a sense of community in the residence halls on campus.  You can read about it in this excellent article entitled “Culture of Caring.”  The article makes an important point that creating a sense of community requires intentionality. Daniel Terry, TCU’s director of Community Renewal, puts it this way:

“We’re trying to create whole people here at TCU. [TCU has always had an emphasis on personal attention and mentoring relationships.] We’re implementing Community Renewal at TCU because, like all communities, there needs to be some intentionality around relating to the people around you.  Where there is no intentionality, people tend to take relationships for granted.”

So true.

In this blog, I consistently describe new research and case studies that collectively prove beyond any reasonable doubt that connection = flourishing and life and disconnection = disfunction and death.  This applies to both individuals and organizations.  (For additional information on Connection Cultures read the Connection Culture Manifesto or my book Fired Up or Burned Out.)  That’s why I’m excited about what I saw at TCU last week when I spoke on campus and met with university administrators, faculty and students.  TCU’s motto is “learning to change the world.”  By developing citizens who value connection and community and know how to create it, TCU will indeed be living up to its aspiration.  This comes at an important time given that the emotional health of many college students is at a low. With 75 percent of American workers not feeling connected to their supervisors or colleagues at work — and, as a result, not giving there best efforts — American business leaders need to learn a lesson from these RA’s who value connection and are intentional in bringing it about.

Congratulations to SAS Institute for being recognized the second year in a row as #1 on Fortune magazine’s 100 Best Places to Work list. Last year I met with Jim Goodnight, SAS Institute’s founder and CEO, to learn more about his leadership and SAS Institute’s culture.  You can read the article I wrote at  The Economic Times‘ website or below.

Most of the leaders I meet believe the people they lead are aligned with strategy and engaged in their work. The data suggest otherwise. The Conference Board released research in January that concluded employee satisfaction and engagement in America were at the lowest point since it began surveying more than 20 years ago.  The report also concluded that the downward trend began long before the Great Recession. Another well-respected organization, the Corporate Executive Board, released research last year that concluded 75 percent of the employees were not engaged and giving their best efforts and of the 25 percent who were engaged, 60 percent were not aligned with organizational goals. The bottom line is that 90 percent of American employees are either not engaged or aligned with strategy.

The potential productivity boost from improving employee engagement and strategic alignment is staggering.  Unfortunately, most leaders have a blind spot when it comes to these areas. Jim Goodnight, co-founder and CEO of SAS Institute, is not one of them. Recently, SAS was named number 1 on Fortune’s “100 Best Companies to Work For” list for 2010. SAS has made the list every year, five times ranking in the top five.

Goodnight, a 6-foot 4-inch tall North Carolinian with a Ph.D. in statistics, founded SAS more than 30 years ago with colleagues from North Carolina State University. Today, SAS is on a roll with annual revenues of approximately $2.3 Billion, a truly global business, a worldwide workforce in excess of 11,000 and an enviable long-term record of revenue and profit growth. Harvard Business School named Goodnight as one of the “20^th Century’s Great American Business Leaders” and he was named one of “America’s 25 Most Fascinating Entrepreneurs” in Inc. magazine’s 25^th anniversary issue.

Earlier this month, I met with Dr. Jim Goodnight to talk about his views on corporate culture and how it affects strategic alignment, employee engagement, employee retention and overall performance. What stood out to me as I observed Goodnight is that he loves to think about how to crack the code of difficult problems.  During our conversation it was evident that he is proud that SAS is developing software to solve problems in a broad range of fields.  He spoke of using parallel processing, a form of artificial intelligence, to create new solutions that address thorny risk management issues faced by financial services institutions such as banks and insurance companies. Education is another field he mentioned. Already 30,000 teachers are using the educational software developed by SAS that the company makes available to teachers online at no cost. Topping Fortune’s “Best Companies to Work For” list, it would appear that SAS and Goodnight are cracking the code of corporate culture too. When Goodnight founded SAS, he already knew that work environments affect employee productivity and retention.  He has also stated that he believes the work culture is key to the creativity inherent in knowledge work.  Earlier in his career when he worked for a NASA subcontractor on the Apollo program, he observed the dismal environment of employees working in cubicle farms and how it contributed to annual employee turnover of around 50 percent.  It didn’t take a rocket scientist to see the negative effect that work environment had on organizational performance.

From the start, he treated SAS employees as he had always wanted to be treated. This common sense approach is all too uncommon in practice. In return, he expected they would be more likely to stay as well as to align their behavior with organizational goals and give their best efforts. Few companies can boast of a performance record like SAS’s and Goodnight believes the firm’s culture is key. Its annual employee turnover rate of approximately four percent — versus the typical 20 percent experienced by companies in the software industry – provides additional data that support Goodnight’s approach.

At a time when most companies are laying off workers, expecting their employees to work longer hours, and cutting back on benefits, SAS is a different story. A relative degree of job security distinguishes SAS from other organizations. During the difficult business environment in 2009, Goodnight reassured employees that there would be no layoffs at the privately-held company.  His rationale was that he was in a better position financially to weather the storm than employees were.  He did, however, explain to them that SAS was not in a position to pay raises last year and he asked everyone to help reduce costs.  Employees responded by indentifying and implementing cost cuts that reduced SAS’s expenses by 6 to 7 percent.  SAS employees work 35 hours in the average week out of offices on a bucolic campus with 6,000 pieces of corporate artwork.  Perks on the property include a health club, health center, subsidized cafeterias and a child care facility on site. To help employees learn and grow, SAS encourages participation in industry conferences.

Employees also benefit from an unusual degree of autonomy. SAS has no dress code, no set work hours nor any limitation on annual sick days. Employees appreciate SAS’s culture of informality and openness where Goodnight holds “Java with Jim” sessions for employees to sit down with him for coffee and ask him any question they like.  The culture also has an egalitarian feel to it.   Everyone there knows that Goodnight, in addition to his CEO duties, spends time writing code like many of them.

The culture Goodnight has fostered at SAS works because it meets human needs that are necessary to thrive at work: respect, recognition, belonging, autonomy, personal growth and meaning.  When these needs are met, people thrive, individually and collectively.  When they are not met, people seek means to meet them on their own, oftentimes in ways that work against the organization.

Goodnight clearly knows that he has identified a competitive edge and he’s not about to be pressured into following the crowd that he views as irrational when it comes to corporate culture.  When most entrepreneurs would have gone public long ago, Goodnight decided it didn’t make sense.  He didn’t want analysts on Wall Street telling him how to run his business and forcing him to cut out the elements of SAS’s culture that give it an edge.

As we concluded our conversation, Goodnight was looking forward to getting back home to Cary, North Carolina where he and his wife live in a home on SAS’s campus.  Who can blame him?  In an oftentimes less than rational and volatile world, SAS Institute is an island of sanity and stability.  Just what Dr. Goodnight ordered.

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Michael Lee Stallard is president of E Pluribus Partners, a leadership training and coaching firm.  He is the primary author of Fired Up or Burned Out: How to Reignite Your Team’s Passion, Creativity and Productivity. Additional information at www.michaelleestallard.com.

At the heart of building community is developing a bond of connection among the members of a group. In other words, when the members of a group feel positive emotions related to being understood, respected, appreciated, and included by their group’s leaders and fellow members, it forms a bond that strengthens cooperation and commitment among group members.

Emotions are important to organizational effectiveness. Research by the Corporate Executive Board has shown that emotional factors are four times as effective as rational factors when it comes to the amount of effort employees put in their work. Emotional factors include how an employee feels about his organization’s identity and the people he works with whereas rational factors include what an employee thinks about his compensation.

Typically, an organization’s managers and stars feel emotionally connected while three-quarters of all employees do not. What happens to those who don’t feel connected? They stop caring. They stop giving their best efforts. They stop fully communicating and, as a result, decision-makers don’t get the information they need to make optimal decisions. This disconnection results in a gradual spiraling down of performance that may eventually threaten an organization’s survival.

Connection is grounded in human needs. I’ve found that two of these needs, recognition and belonging, can be partially met through participation in online communities. The need for recognition is in our DNA. It’s almost as if we have a “recognition battery” that needs to be charged regularly but the curious aspect of this battery is that its plug-in is located at a spot on our back that we can’t quite reach. As such, we rely on the people around us to charge our recognition battery. If it’s charged, we are energized; if not, we become drained and lose energy.

In addition to recognition, we have a need to feel that we belong to a group — to be in a place where “everyone knows your name,” as the popular theme song of the old comedy television show Cheers stated. Positive interactions on a regular basis with members of a group bring about this feeling of belonging.

There are a number of online capabilities that organizations can put place to help meet the needs for recognition and belonging, and bring about feelings of connection.

Online Personal Profiles that allow people to express their personal identities through posting photographs, hobbies and interests outside of work provide recognition. When co-workers inevitably comment on these personal expressions of identity, it provides recognition and a sense of belonging that makes people feel more connected. Giving employees a place to express who they really are helps them avoid feelings of isolation that occur when they begin to feel like cogs in a machine. Also related to personal identity are affinity groups such as book clubs and alumni groups. These groups can be encouraged and supported with online intranet websites and social media that increase connection among people with shared interests outside of work.

Social Media can be used to inform employees and invite them into conversations about corporate issues. Leaders who mine the resulting body of content for good ideas, implement them, and give credit where credit is due will discover that this helps employees feel more connected. This practice will also improve decision-making and innovation as decision makers gain access to new information and participants to identify new business opportunities, process improvements and product possibilities.

Podcasts and Webcasts are helpful tools to facilitate connection by reaching employees who have visual and auditory learning styles. They can also be used to increase awareness of thought leaders and experts in an organization. For example, Polly Pearson, former Vice President of Employment Brand and Strategy Engagement at EMC, interviewed thought leaders and experts on an internal webcast entitled “Culture Talk.” Polly helped several EMC employees to become internal bloggers and eventually to blog externally. As a result, EMC developed more than 40 bloggers.

These are but a few of the online means that can be utilized to foster connection among the members of an organization. By helping everyone to feel connected, organizations will increase the employee engagement, strategic alignment, productivity, innovation and overall performance.

Jason Pankau and I were guests on a podcast for clients of The Alter Group, one of America’s leading real estate development firms.  The podcast host was Tom Silva, Vice President of the Alter Group. Our topic was happiness at work, leadership, employee engagement and employee motivation. You can check it out at this link or download it on iTunes.

Take a look at this fascinating article in Foreign Affairs by Nicholas Eberstadt entitled “The Demographic Future.” It has an excellent discussion of how population and labor supply around the world will change over the next 20 years as a result of the nearly 50 percent decline of fertility worldwide over the last half century. The larger point of the article is that although many nations are presently experiencing an excess supply of labor, a shortage is certain to result as baby boomers retire and the economy resumes growing. The analysis in the article points out the need for nations to improve educational opportunities, health conditions and economic environments.  In addition, it supports the need for nations to create Connection Cultures that will attract and retain immigrant talent to their home markets, the need for organizations to create Connection Cultures that will attract and retain talent to their organizations, and the need for managers to create Connection Cultures that will attract and retain talent to the units they lead.