Tag Archives: michael lee stallard

Posted on

Say “Hi” and “Bye”

#5 Say Hi and Bye

When you enter a room and it’s appropriate given the context and number of people present, greet people by name.  When you leave their presence, say goodbye.  Not saying hi and/or bye, runs the risk of giving someone the impression that you are indifferent to them.  (This practice reflects the Connection Culture element of Value.)

This is the fifth post in our series entitled “100 Ways to Connect.” The series highlights attitudes and behaviors that help you connect with others.  Although the 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.

Update: Howard Behar, former President of Starbucks North America and Starbucks International, and I co-authored an article entitled “Leadership Myopia” that appears in the August edition of Leadership Excellence alongside articles by well known leadership experts Gary Hamel, Marshall Goldsmith and Patrick Lencioni.    On October 10, I will give a keynote speech at the Retailing Summit held in Dallas, Texas.  The Retailing Summit is a premiere event for senior leaders in retail.  This year’s conference includes Karen Katz, President and CEO of Nieman Marcus, Maxine Clark, Founder of Build-a-Bear Workshop, Duncan Mac Naughtan, EVP, Chief Merchandising & Marketing Officer for Wal-Mart U.S. and Graham Atkinson, CMO & Chief Experience Officer of Walgreens.

Posted on

Neuro Wi-Fi: Power of Mutual Empathy

Happy Girl
#4 Feel Others’ Emotions

Mutual empathy is a powerful connector that is made possible by the mirror-neurons in our brains. These neurons act like an emotional Wi-Fi system. When we feel the emotions others feel it makes them feel connected to us. When we feel their positive emotions, it enhances the positive emotions they feel. When we feel their pain, it diminishes the pain they feel. If someone expresses emotion, it’s okay, and natural, for you to feel it.

Posted on

THANK YOU PFIZER for Saving 800,000 Children’s Lives

A recent announcement by Pfizer caught my attention.  The firm is selling its Prevnar 13 vaccine at a fraction of its normal price so that 260 million young children in poor countries will be protected from pneumonia and meningitis.  This is a disease that kills 800,000 children annually, nearly all of whom live in poor countries according to the World Health Organization.  800,000 children!  As a father myself, I think not only of all of those children’s lives but also the heartbreak, trauma and suffering that their families will avoid.  This is truly something worthy of celebrating and I for one want to say “thank you, Pfizer.”

I hope the leaders at Pfizer make their employees and the family members of employees well aware of this because they  should feel proud of their company for alleviating the suffering and deaths that would have otherwise visited these children and their families.  Communicating the good deeds of an organization reflects Vision and Value, two of the three core elements of a Connection Culture that boosts employee engagement, productivity, innovation and overall performance.

The news media today provide a constant drum beat of of stories about corporate misdeeds and rightfully so because the press plays an important accountability role in free market democracies.  I do wish, however, that the press would give more attention to positive stories like this that reflect good corporate character and reduce time spent on trivial matters.  Corporations bring skilled people together and provide the capital and resources necessary to solve some of the most challenging problems facing humankind.  Pfizer’s action in this announcement is a great example.  By celebrating the good deeds of corporations like Pfizer, we encourage them to be good citizens.

Posted on

Attention is Oxygen for Relationships

#2 Be Present in Conversations

It’s been said that attention is oxygen for relationships. When interacting with people, be present in conversations. Get in the habit of staying focused on them and giving them your full attention. Be engaged and curious by asking questions and then asking follow-up questions to clarify. Listen carefully to words and observe facial expressions and body cues. Don’t check your smart phone, don’t look at your watch, don’t look around the room or let your mind wander.

Want to learn more? Watch the video above as Katharine P. Stallard shares tips for being present.

Posted on

100 Ways to Connect: Develop the Courage to Connect

This post begins our series entitled “100 Ways to Connect.” The series highlights attitudes and behaviors that help you connect with others.  Although the 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.

#1 Develop the Courage to Connect – It requires courage to make the effort to connect because not everyone will reciprocate.  You may hold out your fist to invite a “fist bump” only find you are left hanging or you may say “hi” to a passerby and receive no response.  When our efforts to connect are spurned it triggers “social pain” in our brains (the part of the brain that feels physical pain becomes active when we are left out of a group or our efforts to connect with someone are turned down).  That’s why it’s necessary to be prepared by knowing that not all people will connect with us.  In such cases, we need to recognize that we made the effort and had the courage to do so.  Of the three core elements of a connection culture, this practice reflects “Value,” which is also known as “human value.”

Update: It’s been a busy beginning to the summer.  I just returned from speaking at conferences and teaching workshops in Chicago, Dallas and New Orleans.  People in attendance at the workshops represented a wide variety of organizations including Allstate, AAA, Blue Cross Blue Shield, FINRA, the U.S. Government Services Administration, Leo Burnett, Liberty Mutual, Northern Trust, and United Airlines. Recently, I also spoke with Jim Blasingame on his radio program entitled The Small Business Advocate.  You can hear recordings of topics we covered during the conversation at the links below:

Who feels the most stress in the workplace?

Is there such a thing as good stress?

Practice the three V’s to reduce stress in the workplace?

Posted on

Former Cab Driver Helps Liberate WWII France

After American and British troops took control of the beaches on D-Day, they got stuck in France’s hedgerow country. Sergeant Curtis Cullen, a former cab driver from Chicago, came up with an innovation that General Omar Bradley, commander of America’s First Army, credited with helping to liberate France.  Watch the video to learn about this extraordinary story of innovation and the leaders and culture that made it all possible.

Posted on

Your Work Culture: Live-Giving or Killing You?

Are you working in a “culture of connection” where you feel a sense of connection to your supervisor, your colleagues, your day-to-day job tasks, and your organization’s mission, values and reputation?  A connection culture is life-giving as compared to a culture of indifference or culture of dominance that drain the life out of you.   To learn more, check out the video interview I did with Michelle Pokorny of Maritz Motivation following the keynote speech I gave at the Recognition Professionals International Annual Conference in New Orleans.

Posted on

Attention is Oxygen for Relationships

It’s been said that attention is oxygen for relationships.  That’s why it’s important when meeting with an individual, to develop the habit of being present by staying focused on him or her and giving your full attention.  Be engaged and curious by asking questions and then ask follow-up questions to clarify.  Listen carefully to words and observe facial expressions and body cues. Pause before you respond to make certain he or she has finished. Don’t check your smart phone, don’t look at your watch, don’t look around the room or let your mind wander.  Develop the habit of being present during conversations and you will soon see how it improves your relationships and influence.

Update: Engagement Strategies Magazine just featured an article we wrote entitled “Do Leaders Need to Make Employees Happy?”  This week I had the pleasure of giving a keynote speech on employee engagement at the Recognition Professionals Association’s annual conference in New Orleans.  Later this month I’ll be speaking on inclusion and innovation at the Dallas Convention Center as part of the American Society for Training and Development’s International Exposition and Conference. We will also be exhibiting at ASTD so if you’re attending, please come visit us.

Posted on

Your Leadership is Killing Me!

Why do people react so strongly when they don’t have a voice in decision-making? Research suggests there is a rational biological basis for this reaction.  It comes down to this: feeling that we have little or no control is detrimental to our health.

The famous Whitehall studies in the U.K. established that there was an inverse relationship between level of hierarchy, power, control, status and cardiorespiratory disease/mortality rates in members of the British Civil Service.  More recently, a group of researchers found that participants in a Harvard Business School program for leaders had lower stress (as measured by cortisol levels and self-reported anxiety levels) versus people in the local community who didn’t manage others.  The researchers also found that leaders with more powerful positions had even lower cortisol and self-reported anxiety.  Here is a link to the published research and to a New York Times article about it entitled “It’s Easy Being King.”