The NBA Finals are proving to be an epic battle. On the surface, the Golden State Warriors and Cleveland Cavaliers match-up appears to be a showdown between Stephen Curry and LeBron James. David and Goliath, anyone?
Tag Archives: teamwork
4 Teamwork Lessons from the Iditarod
As seen on Fox Business
Saturday begins the Iditarod, a grueling dog sled race that spans nearly 1,000 miles from Anchorage to Nome, Alaska. Not only is the terrain challenging but wind chill temperatures have fallen to as low as 130 degrees below zero in past races. The winner of the first Iditarod in 1973 took almost three weeks to finish. Today racers can complete the “Super Bowl” of dog sled races in less than 10 days.
Adversity faced by sled dog teams racing in the Iditarod makes the event a stress test for teamwork and the cohesiveness of a team’s culture. Reading about it, I could see parallels between sled dog teams and teams of people in organizations.
Seek the Unique
#6 Seek the Unique – When meeting someone for the first time, ask questions to identify something that is both unique and positive about them. Doing this will make you more likely to remember them and what differentiates them from others.
While teaching a leadership seminar in Boston, a participant from the American Red Cross told me that Elizabeth Dole, the former president of the Red Cross, practiced this and Ms. Dole frequently brought up in conversation what was unique about a person the next time she saw him/her. (This practice reflects the Connection Culture element of Value.)
This is the sixth post in our series entitled “100 Ways to Connect.” The series highlights language, attitudes and behaviors that help you connect with others. Although the language, 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.
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.
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.
Life-Giving Cultures in Health Care Organizations
You can’t give what you don’t have. That’s why cultures in health care organizations need to be life-giving in order to energize health care workers who give so much of themselves to their patients. This is an important issue today. In some health care-related fields, as many as one-third of employees leave their jobs each year. What can be done? To learn more, read the article I wrote for the Fall 2012 Addiction and Behavioral Health Business Journal entitled, “Connection Culture: Creating a Life-Giving Environment in Health Care Organizations.”
Courage, Connection and the Flow of Ideas
“Little of consequence is ever done alone.”
– David McCullough
Last week my wife and I went to see the historian David McCullough speak about his new book The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris. I’ve seen David McCullough speak twice before and always found his talks to be thoughtful and inspiring.
On this occasion, McCullough spoke on the courage of Americans who went to France between 1830 and 1900 because they were “in love with learning and advancing their abilities.” They made the difficult trip across the Atlantic that lasted anywhere from one to three months. They remained there despite language differences and outbreaks of disease such as cholera. Upon their return, they applied knowledge acquired in France to improve America. Greater competence in their chosen fields was not all they gained. Their character had changed as well. Exposure to new people, new ideas, exquisite art and architecture, broadened their perspective, lifted their spirits and inspired them to make a difference.
The stories McCullough told were marvelous. His enthusiasm was contagious as he recounted the tales of Harriett Beecher Stowe, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Emma Willard and others. James Fenimore Cooper, while writing in Paris, visited the Louvre every afternoon to speak words of encouragement that would help his friend, Samuel F.B. Morse, persevere in painting the masterpiece Gallery of the Louvre. It was in France that Morse learned something that gave him the idea for the telegraph. Charles Sumner, while studying at the Sorbonne, came to know black students who were his equal in their aspirations and intelligence. He returned to America to become an influential voice for abolition despite threats against his life. The flow of ideas and knowledge, reflected in these personal accounts, is something I’ve written about in Fired Up or Burned Out and in the article “Encouraging Knowledge Flow” that appeared in Perdido.
This summer I’ll be reading The Greater Journey and another of McCullough’s books, The Great Bridge. If you’ve not already picked up books for summer reading, I encourage you to check out these titles. I’ve also thoroughly enjoyed and highly recommend Brave Companions, John Adams and Mornings on Horseback, also by David McCullough.
Update
In early May I spoke at the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) International Conference and Exposition in Denver on the topic “Do Leaders Need to Make Employees Happy?”.
Great Leaders: TCU’s Chancellor, Victor Boschini
TCU is on a roll. It has been recognized by U.S. News as one a top 100 colleges in America. Its athletics’ teams are generally among the top teams in Division I college sports. More recently the Chronicle of Higher Education named TCU as one of the “43 best colleges to work for.” I could go on.
This is no accident. TCU has benefitted from having a string of great leaders over recent decades. These leaders developed a vision for the school that inspired the TCU community. They raised money to fund a sizable endowment that gives the school financial flexibility to weather the ups and downs of the economy. They improved campus infrastructure. They invested in identifying and attracting the best “teacher-scholars” who love teaching and connecting with students and also share a passion to advance the pursuit of truth through research and scholarship.
The current leader of TCU, its chancellor, Victor Boschini, is an impressive leader. He’s brimming with energy and optimism while being grounded in reality. He combines a passion for excellence in tasks and in relationships (Boschini refers to fundraising as “friend-raising.”) He’s curious, always seeking people’s opinions and tapping their knowledge. He has surrounded himself with a team that has the energy and intelligence I can only compare to the White House staff in Aaron Sorkin’s West Wing.
At present, Boschini’s focus is to strengthen TCU’s culture of unity, community and connection. This is one reason I’m thrilled as a parent that my daughter Sarah is a junior at TCU, and beginning next Fall, my youngest daughter, Elizabeth, will be a freshman there. Sarah is co-captain of TCU’s cheerleaders. She describes TCU as “a small school with big spirit.” Like many students at TCU, she’s involved in the local community. Sarah is the cheerleading coach of Nolan Catholic High School where she coaches and mentors girls to develop their competence as student-athletes and their character as human beings.
Culture and leadership matter. Most academic cultures are indifferent to students as human beings. Not TCU. That’s why I’m writing an article about TCU and spending a healthy sum to send my daughters there. My hope is that more colleges will become Connection Cultures, especially during this time when research shows college freshman are experiencing record levels of stress according to recent research by UCLA.
To learn more about Victor Boschini, check out this great article entitled “Far from Normal” written when he was appointed chancellor and this inspiring convocation speech he gave earlier this year on TCU’s Connection Culture.
Another leader to keep your eyes on is Dr. Ronald DePinho, president of the University of Texas’ M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. Dr. DePinho has declared that M.D. Anderson, the world’s largest cancer center, is “in a moonshot moment” in the war on cancer. Take a look a at this inspiring article about him entitled, “Leader in Cancer Fight, and Son of an Illegal Immigrant.” My prediction: an highly-motivated leader who knows how to connect with people + the competence and resources at M.D. Anderson = very big things in the years to come. (Full discosure: Both TCU and M.D. Anderson are clients of my leadership training and consulting firm, E Pluribus Partners.)
Finally, Ruth Simmons, president of Brown University, is yet another leader who looks promising based on what I’m reading. Check out this great interview she did with The New York Times entitled “I Was Impossible, but Then I Saw How to Lead.“
Do Leaders Need to Make Employees Happy?
For the second year in a row, 84 percent of American workers intend to actively look for a new job, according to new research by Right Management. Workplace incivility is also on the rise. According to research presented at the 2011 American Psychological Association annual meeting, up to 80 percent of workers have experienced incivility. Workers are struggling and have been for some time. In 2009, The Conference Board published a report with the subtitle “America’s Unhappy Workers.” The report concluded that employee satisfaction was at its lowest point since The Conference Board began surveying it more that 20 years ago.
Connection is the force that transforms a dog-eat-dog culture into a sled dog team that pulls together. Without going too far into the psychology of connection, let me just summarize by saying simply that we are humans, not machines. We have emotions. We have hopes and dreams. We have a conscience. We have deeply felt human needs to be respected, to be recognized for our talents, to belong, to have autonomy or control over our work, to experience personal growth, and to do work that we feel is worthwhile in a way that we feel is ethical. When we work in an environment that recognizes these realities of our human nature, we thrive. We feel more energetic, more optimistic, and more fully alive. When we work in an environment that fails to recognize this, it is damaging to our mental and physical health.
And when you think about it, that makes sense. Let’s consider how this plays out in the workplace. When we first meet people, we expect them to respect us. If they look down on us, if they are uncivil or condescending, we get upset. In time, as our colleagues get to know us, we expect them to appreciate or recognize us for our talents and contributions. That really makes us feel good. Later on, we begin to expect that we will be treated and thought of as an integral part of the community. Our connection to the group is further strengthened when we feel we have control over our work. Connection is diminished when we feel we are being micro-managed or over-controlled by others. If we are over-controlled, it sends the message that we are being treated like children or incompetents, and it’s a sign that we are not trusted or respected. Connection is also enhanced when we experience personal growth. In other words: when our role, our work in the group, is a good fit with our skills, providing enough challenge to make us feel good when we rise to meet that challenge (but not so much challenge that we become totally stressed out). Finally, it motivates us to know our work is worthwhile in some way and to be around other people who share our belief that our work is important. To the extent that these human needs of respect, recognition, belonging, autonomy, personal growth and meaning are met, we feel connected to the group. When they are not met, we feel less connected, or even disconnected.
To learn more about connection cultures and employee engagement, listen to this podcast interview Jason Pankau and I did before we spoke at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. You can hear the interview at this link.
Update: In May, I’ll be speaking on the topic “Do Leaders Need to make Employee Happy?” in Denver at the annual conference of the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD). In addition, I’ve contributed a chapter to the soon to be published ASTD Handbook on Management edited by Lisa Haneberg who writes the Management Craft blog.
Steve Jobs’ Announcement: Reminder of Need to Make Cancer History
Apple’s announcement yesterday that Steve Jobs is stepping down as its CEO, is a poignant reminder of just how important it is to make cancer history. I learned of Jobs’ announcement yesterday while in Houston to share our work with leaders at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.
The combination of learning the news about Jobs and being at M.D. Anderson triggered a some emotions. I’ve followed Jobs closely over the years and written about him. I’ve also written about the challenges facing cancer patients and their families from my wife Katie’s battles with breast cancer in 2003 and advanced ovarian cancer in 2004 (today, Kate is cancer free).
Being at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center was inspiring and humbling. MDACC is the top-rated cancer center according to U.S. News and World Report. The people there think of themselves first and foremost as healers. Being with people who serve a cause greater than themselves always moves me. Yes, they have to keep an eye on econonomic matters, too, in order to make their work sustainable, but money is not what motivates them. This is an important distinction that makes a difference to affordable delivery of healthcare, as Atul Gawande noted in an excellent New Yorker article he wrote entitled “The Cost Conundrum.”
During our presentations at M.D. Anderson, we shared the research and ideas in our book, Fired Up or Burned Out. We firmly believe that creating a culture that is intentional about developing both task excellence and relationship excellence is the only way organizations can achieve sustainable superior performance. In the context of healthcare, research is showing that culture and relationships affect patient outcomes. A recent article that appeared in the Annuls of Internal Medicine, entitled “What Distinguishes Top-Performing Hospitals in Acute Myocardial Infarction Mortality Rates? A Qualitative Study,” supports our view.
Hospital cultures should be life-giving but the irony is that most are not. We are human beings, not machines, and recent research shows that workplace cultures that are hostile or indifferent to human needs shave years off our lives. We hope that more hospitals will get this important message and do something about it, like our friends at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center are doing in their pursuit to make cancer history.