Category Archives: Employee Engagement

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Steve Jobs’ Announcement: Reminder of Need to Make Cancer History

Steve Jobs


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).

MD Anderson LogoBeing 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.

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In Search of Happiness

Happiness is much sought after these days. Book stores and magazine stands are full of titles that promise to unlock the secrets of happiness.  Positive psychology courses are all the rage on college campuses across America. Recognizing that happiness gets attention, I recently decided to title a chapter I’m writing “Should Leaders Care About Employee Happiness?” The chapter will be included in the American Society for Training and Development’s new Handbook of Management.

In my view, the primary reason happiness is on the decline in America and in many market democracies around the world is that we’ve become “achieve-aholics” who, as a result of our achievement-seeking lifestyles, lack sufficient human connection.  Lacking connection, we eventually dysfunction. As achieve-aholics move through adulthood, they feel a sense of boredom, emptiness and meaninglessness.  Many are mis-diagnosed as having depression when in fact they are just lonely (I wrote about this in an earlier post on the rise of loneliness in America). To feel better, achieve-aholics oftentimes seek illegitimate thrills (e.g. sexual affairs, pornography, extreme sports and extreme business risks) or they self-medicate to numb the pain, which leads to substance abuse. In my opinion, this is why America, with a mere five percent of the world’s population consumes half of the mood-altering pharmacological medications and two-thirds of the world’s illegal drugs (a point that Joseph Califano, head of the National Center on Substance Abuse at Columbia University, made in a video interview on the Atlantic’s website).

The bottom line is that we are human beings, not machines.  As I consistently present on this blog, and all the science makes it abundantly clear, we need human connection to thrive.

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The Secret of Apple and U2’s Success

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Apple is now the most valuable company in the world in terms of market capitalization and U2’s recent tour just became the highest grossing of all time, crushing the previous record held by the Rolling Stones.

Learn about Apple’s remarkable rise in market cap in this New York Times article and learn about U2’s claim as the greatest band of all time in this article from the Atlantic magazine’s website.

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How Leaders Connect to Boost Employee Engagement

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Here’s a link to an audio interview Jason Pankau and I did with Jeremie Kubicek, CEO of GiANT (GiANT Impact, Catalyst and Chick-fil-A Leadercast).  Jeremie is the author of a great book entitled Leadership is Dead: How Influence is Reviving It.

During the interview we discussed how leadership affects employee engagement, strategic alignment, productivity, innovation and organizational performance.  Check it out at this link.

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Real Recognition Radio Interview

Today, Roy Saunderson and S. Max Brown of Real Recognition Radio are featuring an interview we did about Connection Cultures, leadership, employee engagement, employe recognition, productivity, innovation and achieving sustainable superior performance.  Roy and Max are both knowledgeable experts on employee recognition and they are delightful individuals to engage with in conversation.  I hope you’ll check out our interview at this link.

Last month, I appeared as a regular guest on Jim Blasingame’s nationally-syndicated radio program focused on small business owners.  Unfortunately, I forgot to post a link to the recording of the interview posted on Jim’s website.  You can listen to it here.

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New Research: Friendly Workplace = Longer Life

During our speeches and workshops we conclude the section where we present research from a diverse fields of knowledge that makes the case for connection to thrive at work and in life by stating:

“connection = life” whereas “disconnection = death” (we point out that this applies to both individuals and organizations)

Now we have additional research about the effect of connection on individuals in the workplace to prove it.  A 20-year study by researchers at Tel Aviv University found that workers who reported working in cultures where they experienced positive social interactions and felt emotionally supported to the people they worked with were 2.4 times less likely to die over the next 20 years than those who reported they didn’t feel emotionally supported at work.   The New York Times recently included an article about it entitled “Friendly Workplace Linked to Longer Life.”  (You can purchase the published research findings on Psychnet at “Work-Based Predictors of Mortality: A 20-Year Follow-up of Healthy Employees.”)

This provides additional evidence that the “Connection Cultures” we described in Fired Up or Burned Out are essential for people and organizations to thrive for sustained periods of time.  Connection boosts hormones and neurotransmitters that make us feel more alive, more energetic, more confident, more creative and better problem solvers.  Furthermore, during periods of stress, connection reduces stress hormones such as cortisol, epinephrine and norepinephrine.  This helps us cope with stress and anxiety so that we are more likely to make rational decisions rather than rash decisions when our emotions overwhelm us.

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The Heart of Starbucks’ CEO

A leader I know and much admire is Howard Behar, the former president of Starbucks North America and Starbucks International. Howard tells about the time 14 years ago this month when he received a call in the middle of the night at his home in Seattle alerting him that three Starbucks employees at the Georgetown store in Washington, D.C. had been shot and killed, including an 18-year who had just recently begun at Starbucks, his first job.   Behar immediately called Howard Schultz, Starbucks’ CEO, who was in New York on vacation at the time.

What Schultz didn’t do, says a lot about his character.  He didn’t call Starbucks’ public relations people or lawyers.  Instead, Schultz chartered a plane and headed straight to Washington, D.C.  When he arrived, he spoke with the police then proceeded to the store to get the addresses of the three murdered Starbucks employees. He went to each of their homes, told their families he was sorry and shared in their tears.

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Boost Employee Engagement Globally

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Earlier this year my colleague Jason Pankau spoke at the HR Summit in Singapore. We’re delighted to announce that next year I’ll be teaching workshops on leadership, teamwork, employee engagement, productivity, innovation and Connection Cultures at the Institute for Management Studies (IMS) in Amsterdam, Brussels, Edinburgh and London. (Stateside I’ll be teaching sessions in 2011 for IMS in Atlanta, Boston, Cleveland, Detroit and San Francisco.)

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PwC Chairman: Need to Connect with Millennials

Dennis Nally, PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Chairman, recognized the need to connect with Millennials, in a Wall Street Journal interview entitled “PwC Chairman Aims to Keep Millennials Happy.”  In the interview Nally states:

“Connecting with your employees so they understand you can deliver the career they want is key…they want less-hierarchical structures, they want more flexibility, they want to work as hard but they want to define how they do their work. If you can’t figure out a way to accommodate that kind of flexibility, you’re not going to be able to retain that talent.”

Millenials are not the only employees companies need to connect with.  Research consistently shows that on average, 75 percent of employees feel disconnected at work. As a result they don’t give their best efforts or align their behavior with organizational goals.  Employers need to develop Connection Cultures so that employees thrive, individually and collectively.

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E-Book and Good News

Today I’m teaching a two-hour webinar entitled “Outstanding Individual Contributors” for Executive Development Partners and its client the McKesson Corporation. As part of the webinar, I’m offering a free download of the digital version of Fired Up or Burned Out.   You can access the digital version (a pdf file), save and print it at this link.

MD Anderson LogoNow for more good news.  We are seeing unprecedented opportunities to speak about developing virtuous leadership, employee engagement and unity in business, government and social sector organizations.   My colleague Jason Pankau recently returned from speaking at the largest leadership conference in Asia.  I recently taught a one-day workshop in New York City where leaders were present from a wide variety of business and government organizations.  Jason and I were just hired to teach workshops for the Young Presidents Organization (YPO) and for the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, one of the largest and most well-respected cancer centers in the world.

Vern Clark speakingOn September 13, I will speak alongside CNO Admiral Vern Clark (Ret.) at breakfast and lunch meetings sponsored by the Harvard and Wharton Alumni Clubs of D.C. Admiral Clark was chief of the U.S. Navy from 2000-2005.  Admiral Clark and I will be speaking about virtuous leadership and how it unites people in an organization to give their best efforts and pull together.  (Read what Jason and I wrote about Admiral Clark’s leadership in an article that was published in the Leader to Leader Journal.)

Fired_Up_or_Burned_Out_Book_CoverWe are grateful to the individuals who continue to help us raise awareness of the importance of human connection at work and in life. There are several ways to do this including reading and recommending our book Fired Up or Burned Out, and/or bringing us in to their organizations to give keynote speeches and/or lead workshops through our leadership training and coaching firm E Pluribus Partners