Category Archives: Employee Engagement
The Connection Edge Webinar
Jason Pankau and I are presenting a 60 minute webinar for Communitelligence about the “Connection Edge” that leaders such as Steve Jobs, Ed Catmull and A.G. Lafley employ to boost strategic alignment and employee engagement. The 60 minute webinar will be held on June 9 at 2:00 PM Eastern. You can sign up at this link. Use the promotion code “smallbiz” to receive a $100 discount.
Sustainable Organizations: The Ideas of Martin Seligman
In an earlier post, I wrote that the ideas of thought-leader Dov Seidman, CEO of LRN and author of How, are likely to have a profound effect on organizations in the years to come. In this second post on thought leaders affecting the evolution of organizations, I highlight the work of Martin Seligman.
Seligman, a psychology professor at the University of Pennsylvania, founded the positive psychology movement when he became president of the American Psychological Association. There isn’t adequate space in this post to provide an overview of positive psychology, so for those who are interested in learning more, I highly recommend reading an article co-authored by Seligman entitled “Positive Psychology: An Introduction” and a New York Times’ Magazine article entitled “Happiness 101” that describes how the positive psychology movement is growing.
Positive psychology has identified 24 character strengths that it believes — and a growing body of research shows — affect human flourishing. These character strengths are universal. Religious thinkers and moral philosophers throughout the ages have advocated them. Political, social and economic cultures that have been sustained for long periods of time have these values and systems that don’t (i.e. coercive utopian systems such as communism and fascism), fail because the values they promote work against human flourishing.
Our research at E Pluribus Partners identified a “Character > Connection > Thrive Chain” (see below) that posits organizations and individuals thrive because they are comprised of people who embrace and behave in ways that reflect the character strengths and in doing so create “Connection Cultures” which meet universal human needs such as meaning, respect, recognition, belonging, autonomy and personal growth. Learn more about positive psychology and the Character >Connection>Thrive Chain on pages 116-130 of the free digital book download of Fired Up or Burned Out.
Recent research from The Conference Board and the Corporate Executive Board make it clear that employee engagement is at dismal levels but eventually leaders will discover that embracing and behaving in ways that reflect the 24 character strengths creates Connection Cultures and develops the corporate character strengths necessary to produce sustainable organizations.
(To enlarge the diagram below, click on it once until it appears then click on it a second time for an enlarged version.)
Summer: A Season to Connect
Summer is an excellent time to be intentional about strengthening the relationships in your life, including your relationships at work. Think about the people you need to have good relationships with to perform your job well (I call these “Critical Connections”) then consider the present state of each relationship. If some of these Critical Connection relationships are not strong, you need to take action to strengthen them.
Once you’ve identified your Critical Connection priorities, spend time with these individuals over meals or coffee. Ask them questions unrelated to work so that you get to know them as human beings. Asking questions of another human being, then listening carefully to their reply so that you can understand and empathize with them, demonstrates that you value them as human beings. Understanding and empathy reflect the essence of connection.
Here are are a few questions to consider asking when you meet with your Critical Connections:
Where did you grow up?
What are your interests outside of work?
What are your favorite movies and television shows?
What are you favorite books?
Who are your favorite musicians?
Who are your heroes?
Where did you go to college and what did you study?
What events in your life shaped you as a person?
Who has had the greatest impact on your life and why?
What is the best advice you received?
These questions should give you plenty to talk about and help you strengthen your connection with the people you rely on at work.
What Are “Sustainable Values”?
In my last post, I wrote about “sustainable values,” i.e. the beliefs and behaviors that produce an inspiring identity, human value and knowledge flow in groups that help people thrive individually and collectively. In other words, when a group embraces and behaves in ways that are consistent with sustainable values, it leads to sustainable superior performance.
In our work, we recommend that leaders of organizations promote the universal character values celebrated by religious thinkers and moral philosophers throughout history. Cultures that have these values exhibit superior strategic alignment, employee engagement, productivity, innovation and overall performance. Researchers that are part of the American Psychological Association’s positive psychology research effort identified these values as helping people flourish and a body of large body research is developing in support of that view. Here’s a list of the values and their definitions:
Tom Friedman, Dov Seidman: Need For “Sustainable Values”
Check out Tom Friedman’s column in today’s New York Times at this link. Friedman cites Dov Siedman’s belief that in an interconnected world we need “sustainable values” more than ever. I couldn’t agree more. In past posts I’ve written about Dov, his book entitled How and LRN, the company he founded to promote principled leadership.
In our work at E Pluribus Partners, we promote universal character values and virtue as essential for people to thrive, individually and collectively. Our “Character > Connection > Thrive Model” (see below) lays out the rationale. In a nutshell, individuals who believe and behave in ways that are consistent with Universal Character Values (also known as character strengths), create “Connection Cultures” that meet universal human needs to thrive. You can learn more about Connection Cultures, Universal Character Strengths and Virtues by reading this free manifesto published by changethis.com entitled The Connection Culture: A New Source of Competitive Advantage.
Webinar: Jobs, Catmull, Lafley Have the “Connection Edge”
Jason Pankau and I are presenting a 60 minute webinar for Communitelligence about the “Connection Edge” that leaders such as Steve Jobs, Ed Catmull and A.G. Lafley employ to boost strategic alignment and employee engagement. The webinar will be held on June 9 at 2:00 PM Eastern. You can sign up at this link.
Has SAS’s Jim Goodnight Cracked the Code On Corporate Culture?
On Friday, I was granted a private interview with Dr. Jim Goodnight, co-founder and CEO of SAS. We met in Atlanta during the Chick-fil-A Leadercast where 50,000 individuals participated live or via simulcast from locations around the world.
Goodnight, who has a Ph.D in statistics, founded SAS more than 30 years ago with colleagues from North Carolina State University. Today, SAS is on a roll having achieved an enviable long-term record of revenue and profit growth. The firm was named number 1 on Fortune’s “Best Places to Work” list for 2010. Harvard Business School named Goodnight as one of the “20th Century’s Great American Business Leaders.” He was also recently named one of “America’s 25 Most Fascinating Entrepreneurs” by Inc magazine.
During the Leadercast program and prior to my meeting with Goodnight, author Jim Collins interviewed him on stage. Collins has written about the Level 5 leaders who experienced a catalyst in their lives — death of a loved one, near death experience, religious conversion — that developed humility in their character and made them better leaders. Collins seemed to be looking for something similar in Goodnight to explain SAS’s benevolent corporate culture where the average work week is 35 hours and the bucolic SAS campus has nearly every employee perk imaginable. Despite Collins’ attempts to draw out Goodnight, he hit a dead end. Typical of Goodnight, he answered several of Collins’ questions with a “yes” or “no.” When Collins asked Goodnight why most SAS employees were given offices rather than the standard cubicles that the typical software company employee has, Goodnight replied tongue in cheek that if an employee were watching porn from the privacy of his office it would not be the problem that it would be if he were in a cubicle out in the open. The audience responded with tentative laughter. They weren’t quite sure what to make of Goodnight.
Like Collins, I have known and written about many great leaders who experienced adversity that made them better leaders. Goodnight is a different breed, a leader who by all accounts has not gone through a Level 5-type transformation and yet has at least in some respects cracked the code on corporate culture. For every job opening, SAS receives 100 or more resumes. Over a business cycle, SAS’s employee turnover in the low single digits is a fraction of the software industry’s that at times reaches into the mid-20 percent plus range.
My interview with Goodnight and some additional research led me to believe that Jim Goodnight is among the most important role models for leaders to emulate today. This week I’m working on an article that explains why. If you have thoughts about Jim Goodnight or SAS’s corporate culture that you would like to share, please post them here or email me at mstallard [at] epluribuspartners [dot] com.
John Maxwell on Connection
I’m in Atlanta to write about the Chick-fil-A leadercast. Presently I’m listening to John Maxwell who recently wrote Everyone Communicates, Few Connect. Here are a few of John’s comments about connection:
– Leadership is influence.
– Connecting is the ability to identify with and relate to people that it increases our influence with them.
– Connecting is all about others, not about us.
– Connecting is intentional, it is all about other, and it requires hard work and energy to connect.
– As soon as you get married, you have a power outage.
– Who do you need to spend energy on connecting with?
– Connectors find common ground…connection is based on similarities, not differences.
– When you connect it takes you to a higher plain of communication.
– Connections happen when you open up your life rather than keeping people at a distance.
As always, John connected with the audience. His warmth, humor, humility and wisdom are truly exceptional.
I’m thrilled to see John write and speak about the importance of connection. John is an fellow author whose books have been published by Thomas Nelson, the publisher who published our book on Connection Cultures entitled Fired Up or Burned Out: How to reignite Your Team’s Passion, Creativity and Productivity.
Relationship Excellence: Chick-fil-A’s Competitive Edge
I just met and heard Chick-fil-A’s President Dan Cathy speak to a group at the Chick-fil-A Leadercast about values, faith, serving others and the competitive advantage of relationships. It was an inspiring message and he is genuine and clearly passionate about the organization, its people, customers and what it represents. Dan told the audience that he recently committed to his father, Chick-fil-A founder S. Truett Cathy, to keep the company private which will help preserve the values of this great organization.
Observing Dan speak, it’s clear that he connects with the employees of Chick-fil-A. He spends more than half of his time on the road visiting stores and connecting with employees and customers. He tells stories that move him and in so doing move the hearts of others. He often uses objects that help people remember his points. A large pepper grinder represents adding pepper to the customer’s experience by going the second mile to be friendly. Chick-fil-A has won numerous awards for its exceptionally high level of customer service.
Sometimes when I hear corporate leaders talk I wonder if they walk the talk. I’ve done some due diligence and feel highly confident that Chick-fil-A is the real deal. Even my own mother who lives in Bristol, Virginia sings the praises of the local Chick-fil-A for their good people and positive influence on the local community.
In the coming weeks I’ll be interviewing Dan Cathy to learn more about his journey as a leader and his work at Chick-fil-A so stay tuned.