If you aspire to be a successful intrapreneur, seek a healthy work environment. There are organizations with healthy work environments that energize employees and others that suck the life out of them. Unfortunately, the latter dominate. According to research from Gallup, over the last decade, 75 percent of American workers reported that they were not engaged in their jobs.
Here’s what you should be looking for in a work environment that will help you thrive.
The leaders I speak with seem to be more optimistic about the future, even though some express concerns about the state of consumer credit card debt and how it might affect the financial system and economy. At E Pluribus Partners, we’ve definitely seen a recent surge in business prospects. Here are some of the new activities on our agenda.
The Conference Board just asked me to be speak and be on the advisory board for its Customer Experience Leadership Conference next March 23-25 in New York City. The conference chairman and emcee is Robert Reiss, host of one of my favorite radio shows, The CEO Show.
The Forum for People Performance Management and Measurement just hired me to give the keynote speech at its annual conference in Chicago, Illinois on October 14. The Forum is an affiliate of the Department of Integrated Marketing Communications, the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.
On October 20-22, I have the honor of meeting with several leaders and speaking to various business student groups at my alma mater, Illinois State University in Normal, Illinois. I had a wonderful experience as a undergraduate business student at ISU from 1977 until 1981 and remain in touch with several students and faculty members I met during my years on campus.
The Human Capital Institute just invited me to facilitate a session and speak at its Employee Engagement and Onboarding Conference in Boston on October 26-28. HCI is doing great work and I’m looking forward to working with them.
On May 27, I’ll be recording an interview
for IBM’s developerWorks podcast with host Scott Laningham.
In addition to my recent posts about speaking at the University of Virginia’s Darden Graduate School of Business and the interview I did that was just published in the award-winning Rotman magazine, produced by the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, here’s a quick update about my recent and upcoming activities.
I’ve been in Washington, DC lately speaking to various groups including Martha Dorris’ Office of Citizen Services and Communications (part of the U.S. Government Services Administration), Kitty Wooley’s Society of Fellows and Friends and Michael Yoka’s Executive Development Exchange Network. I was inspired during my visits to DC by the dedication, energy and intelligence many Federal Government employees have. This may come as a surprise to many but I believe working in government will be one of the most exciting, challenging and rewarding workplaces in the years ahead. Part of this comes from President Obama’s belief that government can be a force for good and his appreciation of people who want to serve a cause greater than self. I’m thrilled to be working more in DC. On June 12 I will be a guest on Federal News Radio’s (AM-1500) book club and on July 1, I will be speaking at the Treasury Executive Institute.
Yale-New Haven Health System just hired me to speak to its 450 managers on June 2 at its Yale-New Haven Hospital Management Symposium. This is one of the world’s great hospitals and I can hardly wait to fire their up their leaders and empower them with tools to create a Connection Culture.
I’ll be presenting at the Wharton Alumni Club of Boston on June 4.
My publisher just informed me that Fired Up or Burned Out is being translated into another language, this time Korean. In the last year alone the book was published in Australia, New Zealand and Vietnam (in Vietnamese, as you can see from the cover to the left). In addition, the book is now available in Kindle and paperback editions. An audio edition is in the works and I’m optimistic it will continue to be published in more languages over the coming years.
The American Management Association just published an article I wrote about Pixar Animation entitled “Case Study: Pixar’s Winning Strategy of Inclusiveness.”
There are some very exciting additional engagements in the works that I hope to announce soon so stay tuned.
P.S. On the personal front, my daughter Sarah was just accepted at Texas Christian University (TCU) in Fort Worth, Texas. A couple weeks back, our whole family flew down to Texas to support Sarah as she tried out to be a cheerleader. So, I’m now the proud father of a TCU Horned Frog cheerleader. Sarah has worked hard and I’m happy and confident that she will thrive at this great school.
In my experience as a leader, a board member and an advisor to leaders, I’ve learned that all great leaders are “servant leaders,” a term first used by Robert Greenleaf in his influential essay “The Servant as Leader.” Recently, I hosted several webcasts on the leadership and employee engagement channel at Brighttalk.com that have a link to the servant leadership theme.
Howard Behar, the inspiring and wise former president of Starbucks International, spoke with me about his experiences as a leader and his outstanding book entitled It’s Not About the Coffee. I loved this book.
Here are two new articles I wrote that will appear shortly in publications in India and the US. As with all of the articles I write they relate to leadership and employee engagement. Email me at mstallard [at] epluribuspartners [dot] com if you have any comments or suggestions. Thanks – Michael
The Competitive Advantage of Pixar’s Environment
By Michael Lee Stallard
At the Technical Academy Awards ceremony in Hollywood, the Associated Press reported that it wasn’t the host, actress Jessica Beil, who attracted the most attention.
Over the weekend I read Warren Buffett’s letter to shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway. I admire Buffett. I’ve met him, followed him closely over the years and I own Berkshire stock. I’ve also written about Buffett in The Economic Times and spoke about his leadership style in leadership training workshops I conduct and in this brief training video I recorded for Athenaonline.com (click on the link to see the video).
In his letter to shareholders, Buffett displays some of the attributes I’ve described as being part of his leadership style, namely he loves to praise and give credit to his managers while being humble (or critical) about his own performance. Here are just a few excerpts that provide more evidence that Buffett is as great a leader as he is an investor:
Today I taught about Connection Cultures and employee engagement to leaders at GE’s famed Crotonville Leadership Training Center. In the coming weeks I’ll be working with GE to add material from Fired Up or Burned Out to one of GE’s leadership courses. The Connection Culture will help GE attain its desire to be inclusive. And I’m fired up about helping this great organization become even better.
GE is a company I’ve always admired. Previously I’ve written about Jeff Immelt, GE’s CEO, and how he has made inclusiveness one of GE’s values. More recently, I wrote in a post entitled “Warren Buffett: More Than an Oracle,” that Buffett made a multibillion dollar investment in GE. Although the current economic conditions are challenging, like Buffett, I believe GE’s future is bright.
Last week I joined Marshall Goldsmith and others as one of Success Television’s experts on leadership and employee engagement. Former CNN executive Helen Whelan, Success Television’s founder and CEO, is developing an excellent platform to provide corporate training via online, dvds and videos. Success Television’s website is currently featuring an article I wrote about Truth, Beauty and Goodness in Leadership. You can learn more about it by clicking on Success Television.
John Timmerman, Corporate Vice President of Operations at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, L.L.C. (click here for his bio) was my guest on a recent webcast on Brighttalk.com’s Leadership and Employee Engagement Channel. You can see the webcast by clicking on employee engagement.
During the webcast John identifies a variety of Ritz-Carlton practices that hep make it a Connection Culture including:
Last week I spoke at a breakfast meeting of Wharton and Harvard Business School Clubs of D.C. It was such an engaging group of individuals that included entrepreneurs, leaders of government agencies, and leaders from the social sector. I would like to thank them for their enthusiastic response to my presentation.
During the presentation I spoke about the leadership style of or Retired Admiral Vern Clark, the former Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) who served as CNO from 2000-2005. Retired Rear Admiral Rose Levitre, who presently works for LMI (an intelligence consulting organization) and Rear Admiral Frank Thorp, the current Chief of Information for the Navy, stood up before the group and shared their experiences working for Admiral Clark. Thank you Rose and Frank for inspiring us with your stories.
Finally, I would like to thank the Wharton Alumni Club of D.C.’s president, Alan Schlaifer, for doing a first class job of organizing this event and Anthony Priest, chairman of the Harvard Business School Club of D.C., for promoting it.
