Tag Archives: teams

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Attend (Virtually) HCI’s National Human Capital Summit

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This afternoon I’ll be speaking at the National Human Capital Summit in Atlanta.  You can attend the event online at no cost by registering at the link below. Online attendees will be able to see my presentation as well as those of consultant and author Gary Hamel, Liane Hornsey of Google, Dr. John Fleming of Gallup, author Dan Pink, Vineet Nayar CEO of HCL Technologies and Suzanne Gordon of SAS Institute.

To sign up for this special complimentary pass into the live streaming conference, click on this link.

  • If it’s your first time visiting the HCI conference registration site, click “register” and create a new account by entering your information in the required fields and choosing a password (again, there is no cost to do this).
  • Please take the time to click the “Test Your System” icon and install Silverlight if you haven’t previously. If you need any help you may click “Live Chat Now” for instant, live support.
  • When you exit the virtual conference, re-enter by following the same link but click “login” instead of “register” when you return and enter your username and password.

And because it is a live streaming event, you then will come back at the time of the talks that you want to see. Click on this link to see the virtual conference agenda. There are MANY great talks to choose from. All times listed are Eastern Time.

Tomorrow night I will attend the awards ceremony for the Management Innovation Exchange’s HCI Human Capital M-Prize.  Congratulations to the ten semifinalists, three of  whom are friends of mine: Lisa Haneberg, Steve Todd and Drew Williams, my pastor at Trinity Church in Greenwich, Connecticut.

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Video Interview: Employee Engagement = Connections

Here is a video from YouTube of a conversation I had about leadership, employee engagement, productivity and innovation with Dr. Homer Erekson, Dean of TCU’s Neeley School of Business.  Our conversation occurred as part of the Tandy Executive Speakers Series.

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George Washington, Worthy of Praise?

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Today is Presidents’ Day in the U.S., a day in which we primarily celebrate our first president, George Washington. After reading the article “George Washington’s Tear Jerker” in The New York Times, one might ask, was Washington really the great leader he has been made out to be?  I asked myself that question during the summer of 2002 and began a journey to unpack truth from myth.  I went as far as contacting and speaking with Edward Lengel, the foremost historian on Washington’s generalship.  After doing my own research I wrote the following which became one of the chapters on 20 leaders in Fired Up or Burned Out.

First in Their Hearts

Richard Neustadt, Presidential Scholar at Harvard University, observed the following about George Washington: “It wasn’t his generalship that made him stand out . . . It was the way he attended to and stuck by his men. His soldiers knew that he respected and cared for them, and that he would share their severe hardships.”

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To Achieve Excellence

Michael Lee Stallard and Jason Pankau

K. Anders Ericsson and his colleagues famously concluded that 10,000 hours of deliberate practice are required to achieve excellence and expert status.  Malcolm Gladwell popularized Ericsson’s 10,000 hour rule in his book Outliers.  What many forget is that Ericsson’s research also concluded the experts benefitted from coaching and mentoring by people who told them the truth, even when it was painful to hear.

The point here is that no one becomes great at anything without coaching and mentoring.  Do you have coaches and mentors in your life who help you learn, grow and develop into the person you want to become?  Do you want to be better at exercising and eating healthy?  Why not ask someone you know who is good in those areas to mentor you.    Do you want to be a better listener?  Ask a good listener you know to give you suggestions about how to improve.  Want to be a better parent and spouse?  Ask your children and spouse how you can improve.

Michael Lee Stallard is president of E Pluribus Partners.  Jason Pankau is the president of Life Spring Network, a Christian ministry.  They write, speak and teach workshops on leadership and employee engagement. Michael and Jason are co-authors of the bestselling book Fired Up or Burned Out.

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Leaders Can Learn From College RAs

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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.

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It’s More Than Business. It’s Personal.

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This week I participated in an interview about Connection Cultures, productivity and innovation with Dean Homer Erekson at a business breakfast sponsored by TCU’s Neeley Business School in Fort Worth, Texas. (Read the Fort Worth Business Press article about the event entitled “Speaker Promotes Emotional Connection for Business“).

The motto of the Neeley School is “It’s More Than Business. It’s Personal.” This phrase expresses what we found in research that’s described in our book Fired Up or Burned Out, i.e. sustainable superior performance requires achieving task excellence (the “business” part) and relationship excellence (the “personal” part).  In addition to speaking at the business breakfast I spoke to students in leadership programs and met with Neeley MBA students.

From all I observed, the Neeley Business School delivers its brand promise.  It hires teacher-scholars who spend time with and mentor students.  In addition, the Neeley School has first class facilities and diverse, energetic, enthusiastic and collaborative students.  It’s a powerful mix that has propelled Neeley to be ranked as the #30 B-School in American and an entrepreneurship program that’s ranked #1.    Neeley is on the move and I expect that it will continue to grow in national reputation and popularity with the best prospective business school students.

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Happiness at Work Podcast

alter logoJason 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.

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Coach Rex Ryan Connects with Jets

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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.