Michael Lee Stallard's Blog, page 17

America’s #1 Health Problem is Not What You Expect

Many organizations today are interested in the wellness and wellbeing of their people. They promote wellness programs that encourage exercise and mindfulness. Few, however, address the number one health problem.

In a 2016 interview with Politico, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy said the most common illness today isn’t heart disease. It isn’t diabetes. It isn’t cancer.

It’s loneliness and social isolation.

Dr. Murthy went on to say: “…we underestimate how prevalent isolation is. We underestimate the impact it has on our health. In fact, we know that social isolation–science tells us, in fact–that social isolation is linked to shorter lives, to cognitive decline, to increased rates of cardiovascular disease, as well as other healthcare concerns.”

The media is catching on. Articles are appearing with greater frequency in the press about rising loneliness. In April 2017, The Atlantic featured an interview with loneliness expert John Cacioppo from the University of Chicago in an article titled, “How Loneliness Begets Loneliness.” The previous month in The Boston Globe, Billy Baker wrote a thoughtful, and at times humorous, article titled, “The biggest threat facing middle aged men isn’t smoking or obesity. It’s loneliness.”

In recent years we’ve seen articles on loneliness in many media outlets including:

“Loneliness May Warp Our Genes and Immune Systems” from NPR
“How Social Isolation is Killing Us” from The New York Times
“Research: Loneliness Increases Risk of Death” from CNN
“Loneliness May Be Bad for Your Heart” from The New York Times
“Social Media, Loneliness and Anxiety in Young People” from Psychology Today
“The Lethality of Loneliness” from New Republic
“How Loneliness Wears on the Body” from The Atlantic

The UK is struggling with rising loneliness, too. Concerned organizations came together to establish The Campaign to End Loneliness as a means to combat the problem.

Combating Loneliness With Organizational Culture

If organizations want to improve the wellness and wellbeing of their people, then they should promote cultures of connection in addition to promoting the traditional approaches of exercise and mindfulness.

We are doing our part by publishing content on Connection Culture.com, MichaelLeeStallard.com, DrToddHall.com, providing helpful insights in our books Connection Culture and Fired Up or Burned Out, and educating audiences through our keynotes and workshops.

Soon we will be launching a new Connection Culture Inventory (CCI) to help organizations assess their subcultures. If you are interested in participating in the CCI’s free trial, which allows us to gather sufficient responses to develop robust mean averages, email me at mstallard@epluribuspartners.com and we can schedule a call to discuss.

Helping Coworkers and Friends Who Struggle With Loneliness

Everyone has an important part to play in reducing today’s epidemic of loneliness. If you have a boss or coworkers who are irritable and difficult to reason with, it may be because they are lonely. Consider whether your family members and friends may also be struggling with loneliness.

If you think loneliness may be an issue, ask the person you’re concerned about to join you for a meal or coffee. Find out how they’re doing. Get them talking and listen closely to what they’re saying. Let them know you care. Consider inviting them to a social event you know about, to join you in volunteering to serve your community, or to participate in a community-based organization such as a faith community or social sector organization. As one of my mentors Frances Hesselbein says, “to serve is to live.” It’s so true.

You can also help combat rising loneliness by encouraging your family, friends and coworkers to access the free 100 Ways to Connect e-book and our semi-monthly “Connect to Thrive” newsletter, which provides ways to connect, new scientific research on connection and inspiring stories about intentional connectors.

Together we can reach out to connect with the people in our midst who suffer from a lack of connection, and by doing so we will be helping them boost their happiness, health and productivity.

You May Also Enjoy:

Why We Connect

The Surprising Way to Protect Yourself from Burnout

America’s Stress Epidemic

The post America’s #1 Health Problem is Not What You Expect appeared first on Michael Lee Stallard.

3 Practices Help Protect You from Premature Aging Related to Job Stress

On Christmas day in 1984, Carol Grieder, Ph.D., then a graduate student in the University of California, Berkley lab of Elizabeth Blackburn, Ph.D., stopped by the lab, curious to see the results of an experiment that had taken place several days earlier. Eight months of research and variations of experiments had led her to this point. There, in an image on x-ray film, was evidence that an enzyme existed that helped protect people from premature cellular aging. Ecstatic, Greider went home and danced around her living room. Fifteen years later, Blackburn, Grieder, and another scientist, Jack Szostak, Ph.D. were awarded a Nobel Prize for discovering the enzyme they named “telomerase.”

Now, Blackburn and another collaborator, Elissa Epel, Ph.D., have co-authored a new book titled The Telomerase Effect: A Revolutionary Approach to Living Younger, Healthier, Longer. It describes a unifying framework to help us understand cellular aging and how it is connected to our behaviors and the physical and social environments we live in.

In a nutshell, healthy behaviors and environments produce the telomerase enzyme that lengthens telomeres. Telomeres are the hard end tips of our chromosomes (think of the hard part at the end of a shoestring and you get the idea). Short telomeres are one of the primary causes of cellular aging. They make our bodies vulnerable to early disease. Chronic ongoing stress shortens telomeres.

Given the findings on telomerase, our aim should be to engage in activities and live in physical and social environments that produce this enzyme that lengthens our telomeres so that we are protected from premature cellular aging.

Eating healthy, getting at least seven hours of sleep a night, mindfulness activities such as prayer and/or meditation, and moderate exercise are associated with longer telomeres. Environments with toxic chemicals and toxic relationships (including discrimination) have been found to be associated with shorter telomeres. Chronic job stress has also been found to be associated with shorter telomeres.

Here are three actions you can take in the workplace and outside of it that are likely to produce telomerase, lengthen your telomeres and protect you from premature cellular aging.

Make Micro-Connections

Micro-connections are what I call small, quick and easy ways to make connections with others such as making eye contact, smiling and using a person’s first name when you are talking with him or her. Blackburn and Epel recommend being proactive in reaching out to make eye contact and smiling at passersby. Making people feel connected promotes a sense of safety that is associated with healthy cells, whereas ignoring passersby promotes a culture of indifference that makes people feel threatened and has been associated with shorter telomeres. It’s probably not practical to aim to briefly connect with everyone you encounter if you are commuting to work in an urban area and passing by hundreds of people daily but it is a practice you can be intentional about in your workplace and in your local community.

You can make an even deeper connection by learning and using people’s first names and getting to know something about them. The best connectors tend to ask questions and identify something unique about each person they meet which then acts as a bridge to connection and helps them remember that individual. It may be as simple as learning which sports teams the person follows, a hobby he or she enjoys, or a favorite trip taken as a child.

Strengthen Close Relationships

Blackburn and Epel recommend strengthening relationships with your family, friends and colleagues at work by showing gratitude and appreciation, being present in conversations, and using touch that is appropriate for the relationship and the setting (for instance, shaking hands, giving high fives or fist bumps in the workplace, hugging a family member at home).

I also recommend getting colleagues out for lunch or a coffee break, and using that time to connect with them about things other than your jobs. You might start by asking, “what are your interests outside of work?” or “what do you like to do when you’re not working?” These open-ended questions will lead to learning about people’s passions and will increase your connection with them.

Develop Healthy Attitudes

Attitudes are ways of thinking and feeling that affect behavior. Assuming the best in others, being quick to forgive, being optimistic, and not getting overly anxious or worrying obsessively are ways that are likely to protect you from premature cellular aging. When you’re feeling anxious, I recommend opening up to a family member or friend. Talking through your concerns will make you feel better and help you problem-solve because it quiets the part of your brain called the amygdala where emotion is processed and it engages the frontal cortex where conversation and rational thought is processed.

Research studies are in process that will show which attitudes, and uses of language and behaviors affect telomerase levels and telomere length. One positive factor that early research appears to show is that anything that makes people feel connected to others helps protect them from premature cellular aging. This should come as no surprise as other research has shown that connection reduces stress neurotransmitters and hormones such as cortisol.

We will report on new research findings related to connection, telomerase and telomere length as it becomes available. In the meantime, we recommend downloading the free 100 Ways to Connect e-book to identify and implement practices that will help you and your team boost connection in your workplace culture.

You May Also Enjoy:

More Rest Required in Today’s Knowledge Economy

3 Insights About Stress Every Leader Should Know

How Connection Improves Our Health and Wellness

Image courtesy of Flickr user Allan Rotgers under Creative Commons license Attribution 2.0 Generic. Image has been cropped.  

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Beware the Brutally Honest Workplace

An old fad is making a comeback: the “brutally honest workplace.” From my vantage point, interacting with your colleagues using “radical candor” or “radical transparency” is a subtle—and sometimes not so subtle—form of verbal assault that seems to be spreading, given the success of firms like Bridgewater Associates, and contributing to the rise of incivility and insensitivity today. Proponents of this approach sometimes say that offering constructive criticism should come from a caring mindset but, from what I’ve seen, it merely gives the arrogant and the bullies permission to verbally attack others in the name of honesty. Fortunately, recent research shows the foolishness of this approach (in fact, even mild expressions of rudeness have been shown to impair team performance).

The brutally honest workplace is nothing new. EST seminars championed this approach in the 1970s. When I first started working in the semiconductor group of Texas Instruments in 1981, TI’s Chairman, Mark Shepherd, and CEO,  J. Fred Bucy, regularly pummeled subordinates with their criticisms. It contributed to a culture of fear in which managers would tell them what they wanted to hear rather than the constructive criticism they needed to hear. As a result, they ran the company down until the board replaced Bucy with an emotionally and socially intelligent CEO named Jerry Junkins. Junkins, an admirable leader who cared about people and about results, went on to reshape TI’s culture and save the firm.

In Support of an Honest Workplace

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for an honest workplace. It’s brutality that I reject.

When people feel disrespected in a brutally honest workplace culture, it diminishes their performance and the performance of the organization in several predictable ways. People who feel disrespected also feel disconnected to the organization, so they:

Don’t give their best efforts (i.e. employee engagement);
Don’t align their behavior with organizational goals (i.e. strategic alignment);
Don’t communicate as frequently or honestly so decision-makers don’t have the information they need to make optimal decisions (i.e. quality of decision-making);
Don’t engage in proactive thinking about how to improve the organization (i.e. innovation); and
Are more likely to be in a state of stress response, which, if chronic, diminishes their wellbeing and health (i.e. wellness).

Knowledge Traps Contribute to Managerial Failure

In the brutally honest workplace, the only people who feel safe to speak truthfully are those with power, control, influence and status. The rest of the people who have less power, control, influence and status—which tends to be about 75-80% of the people in any organization—don’t feel safe so they withhold expressing their opinions and ideas.

A brutally honest workplace culture is a breeding ground for what my colleagues and I refer to as “knowledge traps.” People who feel disrespected are more likely to withhold information and knowledge than to share it. They’ve learned that voicing a contrary point of view is often dangerous as it invites attacks from people who would rather be right than get to the right answer.

Knowledge traps are like cholesterol in the human body. When cholesterol builds up, it clogs the flow of blood, which leads to a heart attack. When knowledge traps build up in a team, department or organization, it results in poor decision-making, which in time contributes to managerial failure (the organizational equivalent of a heart attack).

Wisdom from Ancient Times

The best approach to bring honesty into any team or organization’s culture is to follow the wisdom written thousands of years ago in the Bible: speak truth in love . Although this may sound Pollyanna-ish, it’s actually practical. People are more likely to listen and consider your point of view when you speak honestly while applying these three practices:

Keep positive “relationship bank accounts”

People are more likely to consider your views when they feel you care for them versus if they perceive you as a threat or that you could care less about them. The idea of a relationship bank account is one approach to show you care.

To apply the relationship bank account practice, make more deposits to the relationship bank account and fewer withdrawals so that the account reflects a positive balance. When you take time to get to know, affirm and/or help an individual, you are making deposits to your relationship bank account with him or her; when you share constructive criticism or ask for favors you are making withdrawals.

Research by the psychologist John Gottman found this approach works in marriages, too. After observing the interactions of many couples filmed in research, Gottman came up with a “magic ratio” of five positive interactions to every negative interaction. Gottman discovered that when the ratio of positive to negative interactions stays at or exceed 5-to-1, there is a much higher probability that the marriage will last. Even though Gottman’s research applies to marriage, it’s relevant to other relationships. Applying a 5-to-1 ratio is probably a good target to aim for in work relationships too.

Begin with a humble and practical mindset

Before you express constructive criticism to a colleague, take time to reflect that you are not perfect and don’t have a monopoly on good ideas. Also know that your advice is more likely to be accepted if you deliver it in a kind, calm and gentle tone rather than a critical, forceful and judgmental one. This will put you in the right mindset to speak with humility and modesty.

Apply a “spoonful of sugar”

First of all, it’s better to express constructive criticism in private than in public. Before offering your point of view, begin with affirmation. Remind the other person of at least three things you genuinely appreciate about him or her. For example, you might say, “John, I appreciate the excellent work you do, your work ethic and the great ideas you contribute to our team.” After expressing appreciation, express constructive criticism with a “spoonful of sugar” (which, if you remember the words of Mary Poppins, “makes the medicine go down”). For example, you might preface your suggestion with “John, I think you would be even better if…” or “John, I think you might be even more effective if you did/ refrained from doing…”. If you are in a meeting and need to express constructive criticism in the moment, you might begin by saying “It’s just one person’s opinion but…” or “I may be wrong but…”

The bottom line is this: rudeness, arrogance and other forms of relational brutality in the workplace only invite uncooperative or retaliatory responses, and will diminish the performance of your team. Brutal honesty backfires and actually sabotages working relationships. Instead, apply the practices I describe above and you will bring greater honesty into your workplace in a way that supports your team’s and organization’s performance.

You May Also Enjoy:

A Surprising Way to Reduce Mistakes and Accidents

6 Ways Leaders Can Dial up the Value in the Workplace

Star Systems on Steroids: Why They Hurt Employee Engagement

The post Beware the Brutally Honest Workplace appeared first on Michael Lee Stallard.

Q&A With Wally Bock: Become a Better Boss One Tip at a Time

Wally Bock, a frequent contributor to ConnectionCulture.com and a leadership coach, recently published a new book titled Become a Better Boss One Tip at a Time. Wally’s practical, effective advice always resonates with readers and his book addresses common leadership challenges.

Here’s what Wally had to say about his new book and favorite leadership tips:

Q: Why do you use the term “boss?” Many people don’t like that term.

A: I define a boss as a person who is responsible for the care and performance of a group. There are lots of people who exercise leadership without position, but the boss has the position and therefore no place to hide. He or she is responsible all the time and in every situation.

Q: Who should read this book?

A: This book is specifically for men and women who are responsible for the care and performance of a group. Sometimes that’s a permanent position with a title like “Team Leader” or “Supervisor” or “Crew Chief” or “Manager.” Sometimes it’s a temporary situation like a project manager. If you’ve got the job, this book is for you.

Q: What’s in the book?

A: There’s an introduction that summarizes what I’ve learned about being an effective boss over the decades I’ve been practicing, researching, teaching, and coaching. It should take about five minutes to read.

There are 347 total tips. Twenty-eight of them are about personal development. Eighteen are for specific situations. The rest are about everything else a boss does, things like making meetings more effective, working with your boss, having performance conversations, problem solving, and more.

This is all field-tested stuff. I’ve learned from studying working bosses and picking up ideas. I’ve tried them out. I’ve suggested them to other bosses and gotten feedback and some of those bosses told me about things that worked for them.

Q: Why tips?

A: I think that development is about getting a little bit better every day. Tips make that easy. You can pick something to work on today and something else tomorrow. Or you can zero in on a subject, like better performance management, and use tips to guide your learning. If you’re in a tight spot, you can get some ideas that may help. And, certainly, if you’re participating in a training program or getting some coaching, you can use some tips to make that experience more potent.

Q: What’s one of the most valuable leadership tips that you have received?

A: This one’s not in the book, but it’s part of the inspiration for the book. I’ve always been in a hurry and, especially early in my life, I wanted to get to the top of the mountain right away. It was my mother who told me: “You don’t have to get there all at once, but you do have to keep getting better. ” I still struggle with that but it’s some of the best advice I’ve received.

Here’s one more bit of mom wisdom that I try to use every day. Whatever happened to her, including cancer, she always asked: “What good can we make of this?”

Q: What’s an area that you see a lot of today’s bosses struggle with?

A: For thirty years I asked the participants in supervisory skills classes what their biggest challenges were. There were two items that topped the list in every class. One was dealing with their boss and the other was having conversations about (usually poor) performance with their team members.

Q: How can readers get a copy of Become a Better Boss One Tip at a Time?

A: Become a Better Boss One Tip at a Time costs $9.99 (that’s less than 3 cents per tip). There are two bonuses that you get free. One is a Forms Packet with several forms that will help you sort out problems, keep records, and improve your performance conversations with teammates. And, I love this, there’s a collection of tips from Leadership Experts like you. There’s more than twenty of them, and you won’t find the collection anywhere else.

Learn more about Become a Better Boss One Tip at a Time and check out more great content from Wally Bock on the Connection Culture website below.

More from Wally Bock

What Happens When the Annual Performance Appraisal Goes Away?

Becoming a Great Boss: Where to Start

How to Talk to Team Members About Performance

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A Surprising Way to Reduce Mistakes and Accidents

In his excellent TED Talk titled “Doctors make mistakes. Can we talk about that?,” physician Brian Goldman describes the first medical mistake he made, how he made mistakes “over and over again,” and how the culture he worked in made him feel “alone, ashamed and unsupported.” The culture Dr. Goldman describes contributes to widespread burnout in medicine today and it makes future medical mistakes more likely.

Over the years, I’ve taught at, consulted to, or analyzed and written about many technically-oriented organizational cultures where the cost of mistakes and accidents is high, not just financially but in human terms. These organizations include hospitals, cancer centers, medical device makers, the armed forces, military contractors and NASA. Organizations such as these do extremely important work that is of great value to society.  Their employees know their work is important and they feel a sense of pride about it that has a positive effect on motivating them to strive to achieve performance excellence. Stated another way, the Connection Culture element of Vision is strong. I’ve observed that the frequent weakness, however, is that the Connection Culture elements of Value and Voice are less than ideal. These weaknesses make the organizations and their employees vulnerable.

When the Connection Culture Element of “Value” Is Weak

The Connection Culture element of Value exists in an organization when everyone understands the needs of people, recognizes their unique contributions, and helps them achieve their potential. This state makes people feel valued by their supervisor and colleagues.

When Value is weak, people are more likely to feel unsupported, left out, lonely and disconnected. They lose motivation to give their best efforts, align their behavior with organizational goals, proactively communicate, collaborate and cooperate. In extreme cases, they work against the interests of their organization as a form of retaliation for not feeling appropriately valued. This leads to more mistakes and accidents, and it increases enterprise risk from fraud.

When the Connection Culture Element of “Voice” Is Weak

The Connection Culture element of Voice exists in an organization when everyone seeks the ideas and opinions of others, shares their opinions honestly, and safeguards relational connections. It’s evident that Voice is at issue in the culture Dr. Goldman describes in which he felt that it was unsafe to speak up about mistakes.

Cultures that are weak in Voice are breeding grounds for knowledge traps, i.e. forms of relational dysfunction that trap knowledge within an organization so that it doesn’t get to the individual who needs it in order to make optimal decisions. Knowledge traps come in several forms, including a lack of humility to routinely seek the ideas and opinions of others, rivalries, a lack of safety and honesty in a culture, and departmental silos and fiefdoms.

The culture Dr. Goldman describes creates a knowledge trap by failing to openly address the conditions that led to the medical mistake. When Voice is weak, others may never learn how to mitigate the risks that contributed to a colleague’s mistake that might have been avoided. They miss the opportunity to learn and put safeguards in place to make future mistakes less likely.

Connection Culture Contributes to Performance Excellence

The best culture is a Connection Culture. Connection is a bond based on shared identity, empathy and understanding that moves individuals toward group-centered membership. A Connection Culture is created and maintained when leaders communicate an inspiring vision, value people and give them a voice. Few leaders naturally do this well.

Leaders who intentionally create and maintain a Connection Culture can expect to see five benefits that minimize mistakes and accidents: 1. Employees give their best efforts, 2. Employees align their behavior with organizational goals, 3. Employees communicate better information to improve the quality of decision-making, 4. Employees actively engage in efforts that lead to innovation, and 5. Employees are smarter, happier and more productive. Together, these five benefits of connection add up to a powerful source of competitive advantage.

You May Also Enjoy: 

6 Ways Leaders Can Dial up the Value in the Workplace

Star Systems on Steroids: Why They Hurt Employee Engagement

4 Reasons to Lead With Questions

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Patriots’ Dynasty Fueled by Connection

The New England Patriots just won their fifth National Football League Championship since 2002, but their success isn’t a surprise to those who study connection. Here’s what we wrote about the team in the 2007 book Fired Up or Burned Out:

“In recent years, the New England Patriots football team has won an astounding three National Football League Championships without a roster of big name stars. A high degree of connection among the team helps explain why the Patriots have been so successful. The beliefs and behaviors of Head Coach Bill Belichick and quarterback Tom Brady set the tone for the rest of the team and create trust, cooperation, and esprit de corps.

The inspiring identity that Bill Belichick holds out to the team is one of achieving perfection through team effort. Similar to the vision that John Wooden had for his UCLA Bruins basketball team, Belichick has his players thinking about how to improve themselves and their teammates in order to make the Patriots the best they can possibly become. He doesn’t rely on emotionalism or stirring up hate against the opposing team. Instead, he focuses on statistics such as fumbles, interceptions, sacks, pass completion percentages, and other forms of objective, unambiguous performance measurement. Continuous improvement to reach perfection is Belichick’s and his players’ relentless goal.

To increase connection among the players, Belichick doesn’t single out players for punishment. He makes the whole team do more work when a single player commits an error, which encourages players to help one another.

Belichick emphasizes one intangible factor: his players’ selflessness for the sake of the team. He shows no reluctance to bench egotistical players who act selfish. Belichick has also been willing to trade a talented player whose salary demands work against team connection.

Quarterback Tom Brady epitomizes the kind of team player that Belichick admires. Players around the league admire Brady for his humility and commitment to his teammates. An enthusiastic Dallas Cowboys receiver, Keyshawn Johnson, gushed that “the guy just turned 28 . . . three Super Bowls at that age . . . Un-freakin’-believable. And with his attitude, he’s not done. I bet he’s got three more in him.”

Many of Brady’s attributes increase human value in the Patriots culture. In early 2005, Brady stunned sportswriters by accepting a six-year, $60 million contract that was $38 million below the contract of Indianapolis Colts star quarterback Peyton Manning. Brady explained that he wanted the team to have the money available for other players. Sports Illustratedsenior writer Peter King wrote that in covering football for sixteen years he had never seen anything like that, and ‘if you think that plays well in the locker room, you’re right.’ Sports Illustrated named Brady its 2005 Sportsman of the Year and noted that Brady’s ‘greatest achievement grows out of a generosity of spirit.’ When MasterCard wanted Brady to pitch its product in a major television advertisement, Brady insisted that his offensive linemen join him in the ad or he would have to pass.

Belichick increases human value on the team by giving his assistant coaches considerable autonomy in making decisions, and he increases knowledge flow by communicating with players in the weekly team captains’ meeting. This marks a considerable change from Belichick’s time as head coach for the Cleveland Browns when he was criticized for micromanaging and failing to communicate.

With the high level of connection on the New England Patriots team, it will likely be a force in pro football for many years to come.”

You May Also Enjoy: 

3 Lessons from the Life and Leadership of Coach Wooden

Vince Lombardi’s Success Formula: “Task + Relationship Excellence = Results”

5 Team Leadership Insights from Cubs’ Skipper Joe Maddon

Image courtesy of Wikimedia user Brian McDermott under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic. Image has been cropped. 

The post Patriots’ Dynasty Fueled by Connection appeared first on Michael Lee Stallard.

What Disengaged Employees Would Say to the Boss (If They Could Be Honest)

In 2016 you received the results of your company’s employee engagement survey. They were disappointing. In 2017 you need to understand why and make changes that will boost employee engagement.

Suppose you could hear the honest truth about what the people you are responsible for leading think you should do to engage them? Here’s what it would most likely sound like if communicated through a wise and capable spokesperson.

Include us in goal setting

We see that you are motivated to succeed. You work hard to set our department’s annual goals and achieve them. Unfortunately, that isn’t enough to engage us. We want you to include us in planning our department’s goals. Share what you have in mind in terms of goals for our department, and then have the humility to ask us what’s right, what’s wrong and what’s missing from your thinking. Listen to what we say, consider it and incorporate it before settling on our department’s annual goals. By doing this, you will receive the best thinking of all of us and we will feel a greater sense of ownership in our department’s direction.

Stay connected with us

As the year progresses, regularly keep us in the loop about how we are progressing toward meeting our goals. Seek our opinions about making any necessary adjustments, consider what we say and factor it into your decision-making. This begins with sharing information with us about how we are doing in meeting our goals and then having conversations about it. Also, periodically set aside time for us as a group to think about ways to improve our collective work by becoming more efficient by increasing productivity and reducing cost.

Align our individual goals with department goals

Take time to meet with us and learn about our career aspirations and what support we need to do our best work. Listen to and consider what we say and then look for ways to align department goals with our career goals. We understand perfect alignment isn’t possible, but together let’s find ways to create some degree of alignment so that our work is a win-win for us and for our department.

Don’t micromanage us; do encourage and be available to us

Let’s agree on individual goals and then give us an opportunity to show you what we can do without micromanaging us. Make yourself available if we need help. You can do this by regularly asking if there is anything you can do to help. Also, look for signs of progress and encourage us when you see them. Work is hard and we need to know that you see and appreciate the effort we’re putting in and the progress we’re making. The appreciation and encouragement you express energizes us.

Be honest with us (and nice about it)

When you become aware of something we are doing or not doing that has a negative effect on our work product, please let us know right away. When you communicate it, be nice about it. Don’t speak down to us. It’s better to first encourage us by affirming your appreciation for the good things we do and then share what we need to begin doing or stop doing. It should sound like this: “Tom, I appreciate [this, that and the other thing] about you. I think you would be even more effective if you did this [or refrained from doing this].

Help us grow and gel as a team

Strengthen our team camaraderie and cohesiveness through training and team building. Regularly bring in outside experts who will share practices that will make us better. Set aside time for us to get together to share what we are doing, get to know one another better, have fun and celebrate our progress. As part of this, help us keep in mind the importance of our work by bringing in customers to share their positive stories about how our work made their lives better. Finally, if we have people on our team who are not a good fit to do their jobs well or who are jerks that drag down team spirit, replace them with individuals who strengthen our team.  That will be best for everyone in the long term.

________________________________

The above 6 practices will boost employee engagement. Ultimately, improving employee engagement is all about developing and maintaining a healthy, effective workplace culture i.e. the predominant attitudes, language and behavior of a group.

Create a culture committee that submits ideas to you about how to improve your department’s workplace culture. (Here’s an example of the ABC News culture committee). Like ABC News, consider letting volunteers be part of your culture committee. Ask your culture committee members to begin by reading Connection Culture to understand the vocabulary and framework for creating a healthy workplace culture and then downloading the free 100 Ways to Connect e-book to get potential actionable ideas for implementation.

The beginning of 2017 is an excellent time to strengthen your workplace culture. It will pay off through more engaged employees who give greater effort and are more cooperative and collaborative in ways that boost your department’s overall performance.

You May Also Enjoy: 

How Inspiring Identity Fuels Team Performance

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The post What Disengaged Employees Would Say to the Boss (If They Could Be Honest) appeared first on Michael Lee Stallard.

More Rest Required in Today’s Knowledge Economy

The human brain accounts for two percent of our body weight yet consumes 20 percent of our energy. Given the intellectual nature of most work today, we use up a considerable amount of energy. This makes getting sufficient rest essential to keeping you and your team energized.

Great Leaders Understand the Value of Rest

A leader from the past who knew the value of rest was the U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR). Toward the end of most days, FDR held a social gathering where the only rule was that no one could talk politics. He cherished the time to relax and recharge. It revived his energy level and helped him maintain the optimism to lead America out of the Great Depression and through World War II.

Rest also played a part in stimulating FDR’s creativity. During a vacation that some members of the press criticized FDR for taking, the president conceived the Lend Lease program to provide military assets to Great Britain in its hour of need.

People in the creative professions, including writers, musicians and thought leaders, have long recognized the value of rest and relaxation to stimulate their creativity. Many of them retreat to quiet and relaxing settings to free themselves from the distractions of day-to-day life and release their creative energies.

Developing a Rest Routine

Consider developing a rest routine. Nearly every weekend I take at least one day off from doing anything that’s work related. Instead, I engage in leisure activities that rejuvenate me. These activities include spending time with my wife, Katie, and my group of male friends. Katie and I like to go to one of our favorite restaurants, watch movies at the theater, read the newspaper and books, watch college and professional football games, and/or explore museums or neighborhoods in nearby New York City. I see my guy friends at a men’s Bible study on Saturday mornings.  These activities recharge my batteries.

During the week I fit time in for rest, too. Many days I walk and/or lift weights for 45 minutes to an hour, time that gives my mind rest and replenishes my energy. I also get some quiet time in each day for reflection. For me that includes time for prayer and reading.

If you frequently feel tired, consider getting a physical exam. Medical conditions including allergies, sleep disorders and the body’s inability to metabolize glucose can drain you of needed energy. From my own personal experience, I can attest that addressing these issues has improved my energy, enthusiasm and optimism.

Take time for vacation, too. During this holiday season, I encourage you to take time off to rest. In addition, reflect on whether you’re getting sufficient rest during the week and over weekends. If you’re responsible for leading others, encourage them to make time for rest, too. You’ll be surprised at the difference it can make in your work and life.

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What Mayo Clinic Discovered About Burnout

Could something as simple as regularly having a meal with colleagues to discuss work experience-related issues help reduce burnout? It seems too simple doesn’t it? Although several factors contribute to burnout, there is good reason to believe connection practices such as taking time to talk with others over lunch or dinner provides a measure of protection. It is certainly having that desired effect at Mayo Clinic.

In recent years the Mayo Clinic recognized that the increasing complexity of medicine made physicians feel more isolated, which is known to be a factor contributing to burnout. While lower than the national rate*, a 2015 Mayo Clinic survey showed 40% of its physicians reported at least one sign of burnout. To reduce isolation and burnout, Mayo Clinic began experimenting with programs that brought physicians together in groups to discuss issues related to their profession. Results were promising so they’ve continued to experiment and improve upon what they’ve learned.

The most recent program is named “COMPASS” (Colleagues Meeting to Promote and Sustain Satisfaction). COMPASS brings self-formed groups of 6-8 physicians together for meals every two weeks and provides $20 to each participant to cover the cost of the meal. The terms of COMPASS require participants to begin the time together with a 15-minute discussion on assigned issues related to the physician experience, such work-life balance, medical mistakes, meaning at work and resiliency.

After studying a control group of 61 physicians and comparing it to the results of an intervention group of 64 physicians, the study’s authors, Colin P. West, MD, Ph.D, et al, concluded study participants experienced statistically significant improvements in multiple domains of wellbeing and satisfaction. Dr. West recently shared with me that 1,100 of Mayo Clinic’s 3,700 physicians and staff scientists presently participate in COMPASS. He said 97% of participating respondents have indicated that COMPASS is valuable.

Wired to Connect

In Connection Culture, I lay out the scientific evidence that connection makes us smarter, happier, healthier and more productive. Amy Banks, M.D., author of an excellent recent book titled Wired to Connect, uses the acronym “C.A.R.E.” to summarize the relational benefits of connection. Dr. Banks is a former instructor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and is presently the director of advanced training at the Jean Baker Miller Training Institute at the Wellesley Centers for Women.

C.A.R.E. summarizes four parts of the neural pathway for connection, with each pathway representing an aspect of relationships. The four pathways are as follows:

Calm – Helps people feel calm via the smart vagus nerve.


Accept – Helps people feel accepted via the brain’s dorsal anterior cingulate cortex.


Resonate – Helps people resonate with others via the brain’s mirroring system.


Energy – Helps give people energy via the brain’s dopamine reward pathway.

Using Dr. Bank’s C.A.R.E. framework, it’s easy to see why physicians participating in Mayo Clinic’s COMPASS program would report fewer signs of burnout. Regular meals with colleagues help meet the physicians’ need for connection which makes them feel calm and accepted, helps them resonate in conversations with their colleagues and gives them greater energy to tackle the considerable workload physicians have today, especially given the changing landscape of healthcare reform and the added administrative burden required to convert the industry to electronic medical records.

Changing Cultures to Promote Connection

The decades-old push for productivity in organizations has had unintended consequences. Workloads in most professions have increased at a time when attitudes have changed to effectively squeeze out time to connect with colleagues. The result is that greater workloads and less connection is making people more vulnerable to disengagement, burnout, anxiety and depression.

Ask yourself: Does my team’s culture promote connection, including going out for lunch to catch up with colleagues, or does it pressure people to eat lunch at their desks while continuing their work? If an individual goes out for a social lunch, do people brand him or her as a slacker?

It’s time for leaders to encourage people in the workplace to take time to connect. Individuals and organizations perform better when they do. I applaud Mayo Clinic for its initiatives such as COMPASS that strengthen culture and protect people from burnout. It’s intentional efforts like this to improve culture that have made Mayo Clinic the #1 rated hospital overall in the nation.

* Medscape and Mayo Clinic/American Medical Association national studies show more than 50% of physicians report one sign of burnout.

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The Surprising Way to Protect Yourself from Burnout

Amy has been under increasing stress. Her boss is pressuring her to significantly boost the productivity of the team she manages. She’s working longer hours and spending more time on work while away from her office. Adding to that, Amy feels stress from her commute to work and the financial pressures to support her family. The time she once spent on self-care – getting sufficient sleep, exercising and engaging in leisure activities with family and fiends – has gradually been squeezed out of her schedule. Sound familiar?

The demands on Amy are taking a toll on her. She almost feels numb and, as a result, she’s less able to connect with other people at work and at home. Her patience is wearing thin and she no longer empathizes with the people in her life. This growing detachment has led her to depersonalize others and it’s contributed to feelings of alienation. While she may hide it from others, Amy feels lethargic and lonely – at times anxious and other times depressed.

To try to feel better, Amy began to engage in behaviors and ingest substances that are addictive. They make her feel better for a while, but she’s found that she has needed more of the behaviors and substances over time. When she’s tried to stop, she feels awful. Amy secretly fears her addictions are taking over her life.

Like many people, Amy traveled down the slippery slope of burnout that led to addiction. She’s not alone. In 2011 Sussman, et al. studied the co-occurrence of 11 addictions in the U.S. (cigarettes, alcohol, illicit drugs, binge eating, gambling, Internet, love, sex, exercise, work, and shopping). By reviewing 83 studies with more than 500 respondents, Sussman and his coauthors concluded that approximately 47% of Americans had one or more of the 11 addictions.

The Primary Cause of Job Burnout

The gold standard job burnout assessment is the 22-question Maslach Burnout Inventory (“MBI”) by University of California, Berkeley psychology professor, Christina Maslach. The MBI surveys three areas: exhaustion, depersonalization and professional efficacy. According to Dr. Maslach, people often think the demands of their jobs are the primary contributors to burnout. Interestingly, she has found that poor relationships in the workplace – incivility, passive aggressive behavior and bullying – are often the real culprit.

In other words, people have a misconception when it comes to burnout; they think it’s caused by work demands when more often it’s attributable to a poor state of relationships or, what I call, a lack of connection. Matthew Lieberman, a social neuroscientist at UCLA, has noticed this blind spot, too, and he refers to it as “our kryptonite.” In his TEDtalk, “The Social Brain and Its Superpowers,” Lieberman calls connection a superpower and this lack of appreciation of our social superpowers keeps us from becoming smarter, happier and more productive (similar to how kryptonite prevented Superman from exercising his superpowers of flight and x-ray vision).

3 Practices to Protect Yourself from Burnout

Burnout is often the result of spending too much time on activities that consume energy and insufficient time on activities that energize. Here are three practices that can boost connection and emotional energy to help protect you from burnout.

Connect Yourself

Schedule time for self-care. I know one person who literally schedules time in his calendar and guards it as he would an appointment with a client. Self-care will make you emotionally sturdier and more resilient.

At one time in my life, my habit was to run hard until I collapsed, take time to recover…and repeat the cycle. It wasn’t until a client of mine had me complete the Hartman Values Profile that I was even aware of this unhealthy pattern. It was a wake-up call that resulted in changing my attitude and behavior. Today I have several safeguards in place. Each week, I take at least one 24-hour period off from thinking about work and chipping away at my to do list, and do things that are life-giving and that recharge my batteries. I also exercise on a regular basis and spend time on most days for self-reflection (praying and recording entries in the Gratitude 365 app, for example).

Connect with Others Outside of Work

You should be aware that America is experiencing an epidemic of loneliness (read excellent articles about it in Slate and The Atlantic). I can relate. When the demands of work and commute crowded out time for family and friends, I began to suffer from loneliness. I didn’t feel well, but wasn’t aware that loneliness fueled by stress was behind how I was feeling physically.

No one ever told me that people are hardwired for connection and that we dysfunction when our need for connection goes unmet. If you’re not convinced that you need connection to thrive in life, read the “Science of Connection” chapter in Connection Culture where I present the scientific evidence. Now I’m intentional about spending time with my wife and going to my men’s Bible study on Saturday mornings. You should be intentional about investing time connecting, too.

Connect with Colleagues and Customers

Over the course of my career I have worked in cultures that energized me and cultures that drained my energy. Mind you, I hadn’t changed. I’ve come to see that it was the differences in attitudes, uses of language and behaviors that affected me. Workplace cultures either control people, are indifferent to people (because everyone is so busy they don’t take time to connect) or they connect people. It’s connection cultures that help people thrive, individually and collectively.

To establish and sustain a healthy workplace culture, it’s necessary to have a common vocabulary that defines what culture is, a framework to create a health culture and examples of how others have done it. Rather than trying to assemble this on your own, I recommend taking time to get your team together to read my latest book, Connection Culture. As a companion piece, download free copies of the 28-page 100 Ways to Connect e-book. You and your team can use these practical resources to develop a shared language and approach to team culture and then identify individual and collective actions for implementation.

The bottom line? Connection is protection from burnout. I sincerely hope you will mark this day, begin connecting and watch what happens. I promise that over time, you will see that connection affects much more than the financial bottom line. As you experience greater levels of productivity, prosperity and joy that come from having an abundance of connection in your life, you will discover wealth of even greater value.

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