Here’s additional evidence that Connection Cultures help students thrive. Many students today are struggling with stress, loneliness, anxiety and depression. Tragically some students lose hope and commit suicide. A recent report by entitled Connectedness & Suicide Prevention in College Settings concluded: “in the wake of repeated suicide and suicide prevention efforts we have learned [a] valuable lesson: we should not be preventing suicide. Instead, we should be be promoting life. Research unequivocally shows that connectedness, belonging, and mattering are all linked to decreased rtes of mental illness including suicide… Colleges and university settings provide an invaluable opportunity to prevent suicide and promote thriving through active engagement in connectedness building efforts.” If you’re interested in helping prevent student suicide, check out this excellent report.
Category Archives: Employee Engagement
Connection Cultures Help Students Thrive
Greenwich High School (Greenwich, CT) was recognized in a New York Times article as a school in an affluent community that’s successfully integrating students from low income families. What the article misses is that a key contributor to Greenwich High School’s success is that it its Connection Culture.
The school’s headmaster, Christopher Winters, regularly talks and writes about the importance of connecting students, teachers, administrators and parents. He walks the talk, too. Chris greets students when they arrive in the morning and he easily moves about the student center connecting with students. He encourages camaraderie among teachers and administrators and encourages parental involvement.
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.”
Leader, Beware of Failing to Give People a Voice
John Sexton, the president of New York University, is been aggressively expanding NYU at home and abroad. Now the faculty of NYU’s largest school, Arts and Sciences, have scheduled a no-confidence vote on Sexton. An article in yesterday’s New York Times entitled “A Test of Leadership at NYU,” described the no-confidence vote as coming about because dissident faculty felt Sexton was acting like a maverick CEO. How did this happen? It appears that Sexton’s mistake was failing to give faculty a voice in major decision-making and failing to address their legitimate concerns such as increased teaching loads that require travel abroad and the impact of the expansion on student-teacher ratios. “Voice” is one of the three elements in a Connection Culture (the others are Vision and Value). When a leader fails to give people a voice in decisions that affect them, he or she runs the risk that some people will organize and seek to have the leader replaced. This article describes that scenario. Note in the article that one astute observer comments: “had more faculty been involved in the process…few if any professors [would be actively opposing Sexton].”
Feel Lonely and Left Out at Work?
Recently, I’ve sensed more people feel lonely and left out at work. With years of layoffs, those who remain carry greater workloads. This crowds out time to connect with colleagues. Managers are also stretched and have less time to connect with the people they are responsible for leading. When I ask people at the seminars I teach which element of a Connection Culture — Vision, Value or Voice — they would like to increase in their workplace culture, it’s nearly always Voice. One result of this is that there has been a decline of connection, community and the spirit of unity in organizations.
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.”
Wisdom in Seeking and Considering Opinions of Others
Seeking and considering the opinions and ideas of others reflects the character strengths of wisdom and humility. Today’s world is complex and rapidly changing so that we need to hear the perspectives of people who have had different experiences and who possess different thinking styles. Doing so helps improve the likelihood we will make optimal decisions.
Is Too Much Stress Damaging Your Chromosomes?
Too much stress, including stress in your workplace, damages “telomeres” on the ends of your chromosomes and causes rapid aging. Interestingly, when people connect in supportive relationships it triggers the production of enzymes called “telomerase” that heal damaged telomeres. Check out this outstanding 58 minute National Geographic documentary entitled “Stress: Portrait of a Killer” about this and other research on the effects of stress. It includes an excellent segment on the famous Whitehall research studies in the UK that established stress and mortality were inversely related to hierarchy in organizations.
Update: I recently returned from speaking, teaching and meeting with leaders of organizations in business, higher education and government in Houston, Fort Worth, Texas and Erie, Pennsylvania. ASTD’s The Public Manager recently published a version of a case study I wrote about CNO Admiral Vern Clark’s improving the U.S. Navy’s culture. The article is entitled “Great Leaders Connect with the People They Lead.”
In a Crisis, Culture Matters: the Navy on 9/11
Within hours after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, U.S. Navy aircraft carriers, destroyers and cruisers were in place to protect America’s shores. Naval leaders anticipated what had to be done and took action before they received orders. At the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., planning for America’s response began while fires from the attack still smoldered nearby.
The rapid response of the U.S. Navy on September 11 was in part due to the culture led by Admiral Vern Clark who served as the U.S. Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) from 2000 until his retirement in 2005. The CNO is the principal naval adviser to the President and the Secretary of Defense on the conduct of war. The Navy achieved some impressive gains during Clark’s tenure as CNO and the naval leaders I’ve met or spoken with have praised his leadership and positive impact. By the time Clark retired as the second longest serving CNO in U.S. Navy history, he had led changes that would have a positive effect on the U.S. Navy for years to come. Learn about Admiral Clark’s leadership of the U.S. Navy in an article I wrote for Leadership Excellence that you can read at this link.
Achieving Greatness Requires Coaching
Did you notice at the Olympics that all the world class athletes had coaches? No one becomes great without coaching. We all have blind spots we cant see that are sabotaging our performance. This is true of leaders, too. Coaches and mentors help leaders see their blind spots. They also provide advice and encouragement to help leaders overcome their blind spots and strengthen their strengths.
Are you stuck in your career or want to accelerate your growth? If so, get a coach.
Update
Check out the interview I did on Connection Cultures with Ago Cluytens of Coaching Masters in Switzerland. You might also enjoy this article I wrote for the August edition of Leadership Excellence entitled “Great Leaders Connect.”