Check out this article entitled “Wellbeing on the Home Front.” It describes how social connections at home, at work and in the community affect our wellbeing. Gallup’s new research provides additional support for the Connection Cultures we described in Fired Up or Burned Out.
Tag Archives: fired up or burned out
Coach Rex Ryan Connects with Jets
Check out this great article entitled “Channelling Churchill, Ryan Inspires His Team” on New York Jets’ football coach Rex Ryan The article makes several important points that support the conclusion we came to from our research on leaders who produce sustainable superior performance. Our research concluded that sustainable superior performance comes when leaders develop task excellence and relationship excellence. Rex Ryan is doing this by connecting with his players on both emotional and rational levels. He connects rationally by communicating and leading his team to implement effective strategy and tactics. This produces “task excellence.” Ryan’s passion and authenticity helps him connect on an emotional level. This helps produce “relationship excellence.” Ryan communicates simple, relevant and memorable themes with phrases such as “burn the boats” and “how dare you?” He tells memorable stories to illustrate his points.
The Jets are a decent team but not a great team, yet. They just pulled off a big playoff win by defeating the Indianapolis Colts. Given what I’m seeing, I expect the Jets are on the rise as Rex Ryan and team continue to develop a Connection Culture with Vision, Value and Voice.
How Solitude Shapes Great Leaders
Take time to read this thoughtful speech entitled Solitude and Leadership by William Deresiewicz given to this year’s plebe class at West Point. He describes how great leaders develop the courage of their convictions, which includes moral courage. Reflection, time alone with one’s thoughts, interactions with trusted friends and reading great books, as Deresiewicz says, are part of the mix. What he didn’t adequately include is the impact of one’s experiences in life including one’s family of origin and periods of adversity and suffering that breed humility. Despite its shortcomings, it’s a fine speech and well worth taking time to read.
Many thanks to David Books of The New York Times for bringing this thoughtful speech to my attention. Brook’s recognized Deresiewicz’s speech as one of the best pieces of long journalism written in 2010.
Signals We Send in Relationships
Thanks to my friend Deborah Mills-Scofield for sending me this article from Science Daily entitled “Exploring How Partners Perceive Each Others Emotion During a Relationship Fight.” It looks at how expressions of hard, flat or soft emotion are perceived and how such perceptions affect relationships. This research suggests that a leader’s ability to express appropriate emotions at appropriate times is important to keep people feeling connected to the them (and emotional connections are essential to employee engagement and alignment).
Motivate Employees Now
This morning appeared as a guest on my friend Jim Blasingame’s nationally-syndicated “Small Business Advocate” radio program where we talked about leadership, employee engagement and productivity. During the program, Jim and I discussed how the three core elements of a Connection Culture — Vision, Value and Voice — motivate employees to give their best efforts and align their behavior with organizational goals. One of the ideas I shared was to bring employees together to read and discuss a management book including how it applies to their business. To get them started, I offered a free download of the digital version of Fired Up or Burned Out to listeners who sign up for my email newsletter. To sign up for the newsletter and access the free book download click on this link.
Shine the Light on Others
- When you see someone doing something that’s admirable, be sure to let them know that you recognize it.
- Tell your family members and friends how much and why you appreciate them.
- When you are in a group discussion, praise others for their good ideas and opinions.
- Send a hand-written personal note of appreciation to a family member, friend or colleague at work.
- When a family member, friend or colleague at work is sick, send them a get well gift.
- When a family member, friend or colleague at work has something to celebrate congratulate them.
Free Linkage Leadership Webinars
Jason Pankau and I spoke on a webinar for Linkage about maximizing employee engagement and alignment. You can see the 60-minute webinar at this link. You may also be interested in other free webinars offered by Linkage at this link.
Talent May Get You to the Top, But…
…it takes character to keep you there. John Wooden, the late legendary UCLA men’s basketball coach once stated this in so many words.
Wooden’s observation came to mind when I read a New York Times‘ article today entitled “The Day the Patriots Empire Began to Crumble.” The article argued that the Patriot’s lost their lustre when its coach, Bill Belichick, was caught cheating.
Over the years, the leaders of the Patriots, Coach Belichick and quarterback Tom Brady, did so many things right. I wrote about many of them in a chapter Fired Up or Burned Out. Belichick’s cheating, however, diminished one of the three elements of a Connection Culture: the element of “Vision.” The element of Vision exists when everyone in an organization is motivated by the mission, united by the values and proud of the reputation. Belichick’s cheating was not in keeping with the Patriot’s core values. It also tarnished the organization’s reputation. the cheating caused players and fans lost some of their respect for Belichick and the Patriots. They were not longer felt as proud to say they were members of the Patriots’ organization. Pride in one’s identity is emotional in nature and research shows that emotional connections are 4X as important as rational factors when it comes to the amount of effort people put in their work. The Patriots lost some of that emotional connection and as a result their players have not been as fired up as they once were.
Hopefully, Belichick learned a lesson and in time can gain back the connection, respect and trust he once had.
Maximize Employee Engagement, Alignment and Productivity
Jason Pankau and I are speaking about maximizing employee engagement, alignment and productivity on several upcoming webinars. The webinars are based on ideas in our book Fired Up or Burned Out: How to Reignite Your Team’s Passion, Creativity and Productivity (Thomas Nelson).
Here are the names of the organizations hosting the webinars along with the respectives dates and links to sign up:
December 7, 1:00 PM EST for Linkage
December 7, 3:00 PM EST for the Human Capital Institute sponsored by the ITAGroup
December 15, 12:00 PM EST for the New Talent Management Network
Strengthen Your “Critical Connections”
Research has shown that people perform better if they take time to create checklists that break their work down into necessary tasks. Here is an approach we recommend. Make a list of those individuals whom you count on you in order to do your work well and the individuals who count on you in order to do their work well. Think of these people as your “Critical Connections.” Strengthening your relationship with them is, in addition to making checklists, another key to achieving excellence in your work.