Mickey Connolly - The Vitality Imperative: How connected leaders and their teams achieve more with less time, money, and stress

Copyright 2016 by Conversant Solutions, LLC

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Published by Catalyst Publishing, September 2016, an imprint of RDA Press LLC

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The Connected Leader is a trademark of Conversant Solutions, LLC

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

ISBN: 978-1-937832-92-6

Mickey Connolly

To Fairy Tana, wife, partner and guide, for her fierce devotion to living an honorable life and to Emma Rose and Guy, our extraordinary, inspiring children.

Jim Motroni

To my wife, Debra and my children, Dylan and Ava, who have contributed immeasurably to my vitality, my growth and my lifeand tolerated my failure to always return their generosity in kind.

Richard McDonald

To my wife, Amy, thank you for being a confidant and an inspiration to live life with greater presence and heart wide open. I am forever grateful.

Table of Contents

Contents

I first met Mickey Connolly around 1994 when I was a participant in a leadership class he was leading for managers at Hewlett-Packard Company. At that time, I knew I had connected with someone having genuine curiosity for who I was and what was important to me. By the way, this curiosity was not reserved for myself only it was extended to each and every person in the room. I remember feeling engaged and more present to the conversation we were all about to have.

Reflecting on the experience now, I realize that seeing us all as valuable and fascinating individuals was the secret to capturing our willingness to be deeply open with the possibility of making even greater contributions as leaders. It was exciting, energizing, fun, and productive. Its no surprise that my organization at the time invested so heavily in not just this training but also in the on-going practice of what was modeled in the class. In no small way, this way of working together contributed to the success and exponential growth of HPs Inkjet business over a ten-year period.

Many others have explored in part and in different ways what Mickey and his co-authors, Jim and Richard, define as vitality. Often referred to in the corporate world as well-being, employee satisfaction, ownership, and high performance, most of these related concepts only nibble around the edges of what it really takes for people to connect and commit whole heartedly to each other on behalf of accomplishing great things. With this book, Mickey, Jim, and Richard succeed in giving us something larger and more practicala useful and catalytic definition of vitality at work and what it takes to protect and expand it over time. Their definition encompasses what it means to be human beings at work, and will help you remove barriers to great and rewarding accomplishments in your organization.

Its taken a while for people to be ready to hear about vitality. Partly, this is because of deeply-seated, erroneous, centuries-old cultural beliefs. These beliefs assert that as humans, we must make tradeoffs between opposing forces: rational individual self-interest vs. seeking the common and collective good. The premise underlying this belief is that the natural order is the individual and that only out of necessity for survival do we give up some of our personal desires in order to be protected. This is simply not true.

In fact, great thinkers, such as Adam Smith, Emile Durkheim, George Herbert Mead, and Humberto Maturana have challenged this underlying assumption with logic and evidence that suggest just the opposite. They reveal we are human only because we are socialized. And our nature and the very emergence of our intelligence and well-being are dependent upon our interactions, positive emotions, and solidarity with each other. In short, there is a fundamental human need to live and work together, and to care about one another. The choice between results and community, contribution, and choice is not an either/or. Rather it is a yes/and.

The autonomy to pursue a meaningful life only has traction in relationship to each other and a shared purpose. Researchers Edward Deci and Richard Ryan have named universal, co-existing human intrinsic needs: relatedness, competence, and autonomy. The Vitality Imperative interprets and expands these essential elements as: community, contribution, and choice. In doing so, it further shatters the damaging notion of either/or thinking. Heres the good news of The Vitality Imperative: You can both increase organizational vitality and dramatically increase business results!

As you read, you will discover the power of making community, contribution, and choice available in any organization. This makes you and your team more innovative because you are having fun. It fosters health because you and your team genuinely care and support one another. And it allows you and your team to accomplish the extraordinary because you are smarter collectively. And because no one has to live in fear and isolation, the best ideas emerge and win in an organization committed to fostering vitality.

As this book reveals, fostering vitality requires keeping seven promises. These promises do not exist only in the cognitive domain. Those committed to keeping them must also develop social, emotional, and physical awareness on the path to becoming connected leaders. For those that do, the rewards are energizing: you and your team successfully achieve the organizations purposes with confidence, joy, and even enthusiasm. Who wouldnt want that every day?

Years ago, while working for a major organization, I was visiting with a colleague about the looming specter of a downsizing and how to best cope. He turned to me and soberly reported, I know we have great corporate values about respect for the individual and the power of teams, but maybe we cant afford those values right now. This shocking statement still haunts me as a too-common example of our false choices and assumptions. My own research shows it is precisely the times when we are facing daunting problems and conundrums that we must double-down on our beliefs and commitment for what we are in together. This opens new portals to what is possibleand in the process, expands our humanity. As a close research colleague, Dennis Sandow, once said, To understand performance, follow the joy. As great results can be sensed even before they arrive, I invite the reader to let joy, interest, and positive energy guide your own path to greater organizational vitality.

I cannot overemphasize that what is outlined in the following pages addresses what all human beings wantand what all organizations need. It is deceptively simple, but not necessarily a template easy to practice. Peak performance, thriving, and achieving all these are both reason for and benefit from The Vitality Imperative. No organization, if it wishes to succeed, flourish, and sustain over time, can afford to ignore this call to action. You cant either.

Anne Murray Allen, DSocSci

September 2015