Bill Treasurer's Blog, page 17

Workplace Courage Pays Dividends for the Individual and the Organization

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Workplace Courage Pays Dividends for the Individual and the Organization

Learning and growth, individually and organizationally, do not happen in a zone of comfort. They happen in a zone of discomfort, which presents a challenge. Given the choice, most people choose comfort over discomfort. 

Life and work exist on a long continuum. To stay stuck on the comfortable side of the continuum is to live halfheartedly. Personally and professionally, our opportunities expand to the extent that we work both ends of the continuum.

Courage is so central to concepts like leadership, innovation, and sales that they just don’t exist in the absence of courage. 

Despite advancements in nearly every aspect of organizational life, and despite having access to leading-edge management knowledge, too many modern organizations remain hopelessly backward when it comes to the treatment of people. It makes no difference whether you work for an aging institution or a hip leading-edge tech venture, when pressures mount and dollars dwindle, too many managers succumb to behavior more befitting of a taskmaster.

Fortunately, there is a better way of leading and managing—the way of courage. Courage, according to Aristotle, is the first virtue… because it makes all other virtues possible. This is true in life and in the workplace. 

Courage is alive and well within the soul of each and every worker. It just has to be activated.

Courage connects to almost every facet of organizational performance. Leadership takes courage, for example, because it requires making bold decisions that some people won’t agree with or support. Innovation takes courage because it requires creating ideas that are ground-breaking. Sales takes courage because it requires knocking on doors of prospects over and over in the face of rejection. Courage is so central to concepts like leadership, innovation, and sales that they just don’t exist in the absence of courage. 

What do more courageous individuals and workplaces look like? Here are just a few of the changes you might see.

Impact on Individuals:

Increased confidence
Enhanced reputation
Better ability to assertively deal with work challenges

Impact on Organizations:

Pursuit of more aggressive strategies and goals
More tolerance for truthful discourse
More forward-falling mistakes leading to innovation

Courage is alive and well within the soul of each and every worker. It just has to be activated.

As a leader, YOUR courage must be activated. When you role model courageous behavior, you are building courage in individuals and institutions. The effects will be seen and felt within your employees and your organization. You will affect positive and lasting change. When you put your courage to work, the entire workplace benefits. 

What will you do to affect the courage of others today?

Can You Build Courage?

You’ve been notified that you’re being considered for a supervisory position. Maybe it’s recognition of your sustained superior performance and/or longevity within an organization, or maybe you got it because of “connections” and/or who you know. Whatever the reason, the leadership spotlight will soon be on you, and it will remain there 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. 

Playing it safe all the time so that you don’t experience failure shows no personal courage and will get you nowhere. 

Starting to sweat a little? Worrying whether you have the attributes to be a strong, effective leader? That’s ok, those are just normal reactions to the increased responsibility about to enter your life. And how can you start building your courage to stop you from worrying? First, I think, you need to be able to honestly answer the below questions. 

Can you:

~ Make a decision…and not waffle about it afterward?

~ Have the backs of your employee(s)…both in good times and bad? 

~ Say “thank you” for a job well done…and mean it?

~ Escape the safe confines of your office, and do a “walkabout” of the production floor, talking with your people and soliciting their open, honest feedback?

~ Delegate responsibility to your staff?

~ And most importantly, lead with integrity?

If you can answer “yes” to all of the above, then good on ya!! If you can’t, then maybe you aren’t quite ready to be in charge. Or maybe you can’t answer “yes” because you recognize that you’re weak/inexperienced in some areas, and just need to get better at them. And how can you do that? By having the courage to recognize and acknowledge the need to learn and grow. 

Know when to push yourself to build on success, but also know when to throttle back when things aren’t going as planned.

Coach’s tip(s) for the month: Here are a couple of things I did that helped build me into a more courageous leader:

(1) Do something that absolutely terrifies you. Step out of your comfort zone, and do something that forces you to “act” or “lead” under extreme stress and duress. For me, it was learning how to jump out of a perfectly good airplane. Having an inherent fear of heights didn’t make that easy, but once I learned to control my fears and became proficient in my skydiving skills, my jumps became a fantastic experience for me, and built my courage to want to do more!

(2) Understand (and accept) that failure is part of the job. A leader is ultimately built by their successes (and failures) in life. Playing it safe all the time so that you don’t experience failure shows no personal courage and will get you nowhere. 

(3) Put your people in charge. Rewarding your subordinates by putting them in charge of a project builds their self-confidence, while also affording them the opportunity to know what it’s like to be in the leadership spotlight. 

(4) Be your biggest fan and critic. Nobody knows how to build you up (and tear you down) better than you. Know when to push yourself to build on success, but also know when to throttle back when things aren’t going as planned.

That’s it for this month! See you all in November!

Managing Professional Expectations in Leadership Is No Easy Task

As leaders, we expect employees to perform their jobs competently when we assign tasks and projects. The details for which (we are sure) are crystal clear. When the work is complete, we anticipate the outcome will meet all of our professional expectations. But some leaders often find themselves disappointed in the work product. Did the employees disregard their instructions, or did the leader not manage expectations? Maybe both are true. 

Even the best project managers occasionally have team members who fail to deliver. Workers sometimes miss due dates, don’t prioritize, or plain misinterpret expectations. When held accountable, they learn to grow and succeed, and just as importantly, you learn to create reasonable expectations genuinely communicated in a way that is clear to everyone.

Here are 6 tips for managing professional expectations and improving accountability for deliverables:

Be Clear: Start by giving clear instructions. If they do not know your expectations, how can they know if they are reaching or missing them? Be explicit about what you want.
Be Timely: Give prompt feedback if you’re dissatisfied. Don’t wait until their six-month review to address the problem areas. Hold people accountable as soon as you see performance slip. Otherwise, you aren’t being responsible for your unmet expectations.
Be Consistent: Don’t play favorites. Your expectations should apply to everyone on your team. 
Be Discreet: Avoid criticizing people in front of their peers. The humiliation, coupled with that experience, will often lead to more significant negative consequences. 
Be Gracious: Forgiving a person who has failed to deliver on professional expectations is sometimes a way to set up a better performance in the future.
Be Balanced: This is an incredibly important concept. There is nothing written on a stone tablet that says all forms of accountability must be negative. You can hold people accountable for what they have succeeded in doing well. Catch people doing something right!

Above all, make sure you remain accountable and manage your professional (and personal) expectations.

People will take their behavioral cues from you, so practice what you preach. When you’re wrong, promptly admit it. When you miss your marks, own it. Above all, don’t blame others for the mistakes you make. We all make them.

How do you handle expectations on the job? Have a personal experience you’d like to share?

I Do Believe in Meetings. I Do, Do!

By Becky Jarrell

The following is an original blog post by Becky Jarrell. It is based on the importance of good meetings as presented in her new book, POW-erful Meetings.

I believe in meetings. At least, I believe in good meetings. Unfortunately, there are so many unnecessary, unproductive, and uninteresting meetings, that some people want to banish meetings from the workplace. While I agree that some meetings can and should be abolished, I think we also need to recognize the value of rich face-to-face communication and improve our meetings – especially when rolling out organizational change. 

Change begins with awareness of what’s happening, why, and how the change impacts the employees personally.

As a Change Leadership Consultant, I help leaders prepare their people to successfully adopt large-scale corporate change. Change begins with awareness of what’s happening, why, and how the change impacts the employees personally. Face-to-face meetings or conversations are the most effective form of communication for helping employees learn about upcoming changes. Not email. Not training materials and policy documents. Not videos. You should use these other channels later as part of your blended multi-media approach to reinforce the communication, but use a meeting for your initial connections with impacted employees. Meetings allow for a human touch to simply let folks know what’s going on and what the change means to them, as well as to allow for two-way communication to get input, feedback, or answer questions.

Most employees going through change (74%) say they want to hear the “why” behind the change from senior leadership – either the CEO/President or the senior executive leader in their division. An ideal meeting for this communication is a town hall meeting. As for the “how” related to the change, 78% of employees say they want to hear the details and how they are personally impacted by their immediate supervisor. The ideal meeting for this communication is either a team meeting or a one-on-one conversation. (Source: Prosci, Best Practices in Change Management, 2016)

Face-to-face meetings or conversations are the most effective form of communication for helping employees learn about upcoming changes.

Recently, my team interviewed a variety of employees at a large conglomerate to ask about their communication preferences related to learning about corporate changes. We interviewed senior leadership, middle management, and individual contributors. The employees preferred a wide variety of communication channels, with their answers often related to their learning style and their type of job (off-site with clients versus in the office). The respondents consistently favored face-to-face communication for important messages. 

Some of the general findings that we uncovered included:

Face-to-Face Communication is Richer.

“We need to hear about changes in person at a team meeting – from a guest speaker or team leader.”
“Nothing beats the in-person and over the phone conversation.”
“Don’t rely on email communication. I may have 300-400 unanswered emails at the end of each day. I’ll miss your email.”




Highlight the Importance of the Change.

“We need to know the why behind the what.”




Make it Interactive.

“I need to be able to ask questions back and forth first.”




LESS is MORE.

Too much information “can be overwhelming.”




Let Me Hear from My Leader.

“I expect my team leader to push info to me.”

In summary, to paraphrase Peter Pan – I DO believe in meetings. I do. And I encourage you to believe in meetings, too. 

This article is the first in an occasional series. Next up: “Engaging Key Stakeholders throughout your Change Initiative.”

Becky Jarrell is the author of POW-erful Meetings, a collection of strategies, tips, and tools to make your meetings more productive, interesting, and valuable for your organization. Becky has a passion for helping people see different perspectives, take new actions, and get better results. She has specialized in Change Management, Organizational Effectiveness, and Leadership Training for over 25 years .

I Do Believe in Meetings, I Do. I Do.

By Becky Jarrell

The following is an original blog post by Becky Jarrell. It is based on the importance of good meetings as presented in her new book, POW-erful Meetings.

I believe in meetings. At least, I believe in good meetings. Unfortunately, there are so many unnecessary, unproductive, and uninteresting meetings, that some people want to banish meetings from the workplace. While I agree that some meetings can and should be abolished, I think we also need to recognize the value of rich face-to-face communication and improve our meetings – especially when rolling out organizational change. 

Change begins with awareness of what’s happening, why, and how the change impacts the employees personally.

As a Change Leadership Consultant, I help leaders prepare their people to successfully adopt large-scale corporate change. Change begins with awareness of what’s happening, why, and how the change impacts the employees personally. Face-to-face meetings or conversations are the most effective form of communication for helping employees learn about upcoming changes. Not email. Not training materials and policy documents. Not videos. You should use these other channels later as part of your blended multi-media approach to reinforce the communication, but use a meeting for your initial connections with impacted employees. Meetings allow for a human touch to simply let folks know what’s going on and what the change means to them, as well as to allow for two-way communication to get input, feedback, or answer questions.

Most employees going through change (74%) say they want to hear the “why” behind the change from senior leadership – either the CEO/President or the senior executive leader in their division. An ideal meeting for this communication is a town hall meeting. As for the “how” related to the change, 78% of employees say they want to hear the details and how they are personally impacted by their immediate supervisor. The ideal meeting for this communication is either a team meeting or a one-on-one conversation. (Source: Prosci, Best Practices in Change Management, 2016)

Face-to-face meetings or conversations are the most effective form of communication for helping employees learn about upcoming changes.

Recently, my team interviewed a variety of employees at a large conglomerate to ask about their communication preferences related to learning about corporate changes. We interviewed senior leadership, middle management, and individual contributors. The employees preferred a wide variety of communication channels, with their answers often related to their learning style and their type of job (off-site with clients versus in the office). The respondents consistently favored face-to-face communication for important messages. 

Some of the general findings that we uncovered included:

Face-to-Face Communication is Richer.

“We need to hear about changes in person at a team meeting – from a guest speaker or team leader.”
“Nothing beats the in-person and over the phone conversation.”
“Don’t rely on email communication. I may have 300-400 unanswered emails at the end of each day. I’ll miss your email.”




Highlight the Importance of the Change.

“We need to know the why behind the what.”




Make it Interactive.

“I need to be able to ask questions back and forth first.”




LESS is MORE.

Too much information “can be overwhelming.”




Let Me Hear from My Leader.

“I expect my team leader to push info to me.”

In summary, to paraphrase Peter Pan – I DO believe in meetings. I do. And I encourage you to believe in meetings, too. 

This article is the first in an occasional series. Next up: “Engaging Key Stakeholders throughout your Change Initiative.”

Becky Jarrell is the author of POW-erful Meetings, a collection of strategies, tips, and tools to make your meetings more productive, interesting, and valuable for your organization. Becky has a passion for helping people see different perspectives, take new actions, and get better results. She has specialized in Change Management, Organizational Effectiveness, and Leadership Training for over 25 years .

Coachees Will Measure Success If They Learn to Set Goals

Most people perform better when they are heading towards a goal. As such, if you’re a coach, it is essential your coachees know how to set goals and achieve them. People, however, aren’t born knowing how to set goals. It’s a skill that you will need to impart and nurture as you work with them.

When structured mindfully, goals incorporate five specific characteristics that facilitate and ensure their successful execution.

5 Characteristics of Successful Goal-Setting:

Clarity. Clear goals are Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic, and Time-bound (SMART). When a goal is clear and specific, a coachee knows what needs to be done and what is expected.
Challenge. We are often motivated by achievement, so we’ll judge a goal by how difficult we perceive it to be. If it is too easy, we won’t give it as much attention and energy. However, if it demands us to stretch ourselves in order to achieve the recognition of a job well done, we are more likely to be motivated to excel.

Commitment. For goal-setting to be effective, the goal needs to be agreed upon and understood. While this doesn’t mean you negotiate every goal with every coachee, there is value in engaging the very people working towards the goal. The harder the goal, the more commitment is needed.
Task Complexity. For goals that are highly complex, we have to not only give people sufficient time to meet it, but actually provide the time to practice or learn skills that are necessary for success. The purpose of goal-setting is successful achievement, so you have to be careful that the conditions around the goal support the success rather than stifle it.
Feedback. Incorporating feedback into the goal-setting process allows for expectations to be clarified, difficulty to be adjusted, and recognition to be given. In particular, when a goal is long-term in nature, it’s important to set benchmarks that help coachees gauge their success and see their achievement.

Once your coachee’s goals are defined, each goal should be “drilled down” with specific objectives and measures. Objectives can be thought of as the yardstick; measures can be thought of as the exact location on the yardstick of each goal area, and both short-term and long-term objectives and measures should be defined.

When determining objectives and measures it can be helpful to ask, “How will you know when this goal is achieved?” and “What, exactly, will be different around when the goal is attained?”

Without goals and the process of goal-setting, coachees can feel adrift. They may be tuned in to your words of wisdom, but they need the opportunity of direct application of the principles you’re teaching. As a coach, helping them to create and implement goals will allow them to turn your teachings into action and measure their progress as successes.

I Gotta Know! How Does That Coach Do It?

Last month we talked about “coaching excellence” and the newsletter offered articles and tips on how to excel as a coach/mentor/leader. This month’s blog is a continuation of that theme, with a few more “secrets” to share as you continue down the path to coaching excellence.

While I knew that my good military ride would come to an end eventually, why did I have to retire when I had finally figured the “leadership game” out, and still had so much to offer to the Navy?

It took me 30+ years of military service to find, develop, and refine my leadership style. The cocky, arrogant leader I was as a young junior officer drastically changed as I was given assignments of greater authority and responsibility, and was “checked” by colleagues (both senior AND junior) that I worked with during my career. And just when I felt that I had it right, the Navy thanked me for my honorable service and kindly suggested that it was time to retire. While I knew that my good military ride would come to an end eventually, why did I have to retire when I had finally figured the “leadership game” out, and still had so much to offer to the Navy?

The beauty of my work with Bill and Giant Leap Consulting since retiring has been the opportunity to share my leadership experiences from a unique and unconventional profession with you all. I always look forward each month to sharing what I did right in my career, and also, what I did wrong. And to be upfront…I learned more about how to be a better leader/officer from what I did wrong than what I did right during my career! Go figure out that logic.

Coach’s tip(s) for the month: Here are a couple of recommendations that helped me be a better coach/leader/mentor:

Be consistent. If you’re “hard” in your leadership style, stay hard. If you’re quiet, and less of an authoritarian, stay that way. The absolute worst leadership style I saw in the military were leaders who started “soft,” and then tried to become harder and more authoritative as they spent more time in charge. This waffling style never worked, and it ultimately confused the sailors as they tried to figure out who the boss was and how they wanted things to be done.
Walk the Deckplates. The very best thing I did in the Navy , was to push away from my desk and walk the “deckplates” of my unit where the actual work of my unit was being done. It was there that I could talk directly with my people, get the ground truth on the issues that were affecting the command’s overall performance, and get honest feedback from my sailors on what was (and wasn’t) working. You’re absolutely fooling yourself as a leader if you think you can run things solely from sitting at your desk in your climate-controlled office. Do a walkabout!



Know your people. A carry-over from last month’s blog, and for a good reason! You absolutely cannot coach/lead/mentor everyone the same. A successful coach never stops learning and growing. 
Talk to your people….not down to them. Everyone knows you’re the boss, you don’t need to remind people of your status. Talk/treat your people how you want to be treated.

That’s it for this month! See you all in September!

A Tip For Coaches – Learn to Inspire Courageous Action

Executive, leadership, and life coaches want what’s best for their coachees. Helping others succeed is, after all, why we picked this profession. Or in some cases, how it chose us. It’s been my experience over 20 years that imparting and nurturing the ability to behave courageously has been the most powerful gift you can give those with whom you work. It’s something they won’t forget and a skill they’ll use for the rest of their lives.

Before starting my own company, I worked for Accenture, one of the world’s largest and most respected management and technology consulting companies, as its first-ever internal executive coach. Before moving into the coaching role, however, I remember being petrified by the prospect of coaching the senior executives. 

Safety for me meant preserving the positive reputation I had worked to establish. Moving into a new coaching role, I feared, might threaten it.

As a middle manager, I had reported to a few of them and knew how intimidating some of them were. I feared my lower rank would cause my coaching suggestions to be discounted and that eventually my role would be marginalized. Nearly all of the senior execs had more business experience than I had, yet I would be counseling them. Safety for me meant preserving the positive reputation I had worked to establish. Moving into a new coaching role, I feared, might threaten it.

I was so worried about failing that I strongly considered forgoing the opportunity, despite the fact that I wanted it badly. Now, admitting to your boss that you’re scared of failing is hard to do in any company. It is particularly hard to do in a company made up of hotshot consultants. But I was fortunate to be working for Hines Brannan, a seasoned and level-headed senior partner. Hines had a way of lifting my head up past the speed bumps of the moment so that I could view my career as a winding journey. I went to him and said, “Hines, I think you should consider placing someone else in the new coaching role. I’m okay with coaching people at my level, but it wouldn’t be fair for me to coach people who are more senior than me. I mean, I’ve reported to some of these people in the past. The thought of coaching them is too intimidating.” Hines listened patiently. Then, instead of telling me what a wuss I was being, he simply said, “But Bill, you coach me.”

Unlike some bosses I had worked for, Hines didn’t make me feel small so that he could feel big.

He was right. Like many of the senior executives I would be coaching, I reported to him. And over the years, I had become a bit of a confidant to him. In the process, I had grown comfortable offering Hines my perspective on issues and challenges that he was grappling with. I’m sure that Hines had far more impact on me as a coach than I ever had on him, but in the moments when I had coached him, he had drawn value from it. By pointing out the obvious, Hines permitted me to see the opportunity in a different way. The confidence I had already established in coaching him could be extended to working with the other executives. His words helped me to cut myself a break. Moreover, his words helped put my courage to work. 

Armed with this knowledge, I was able to build up a thriving internal coaching practice, eventually coaching thirty Accenture executives on a regular basis.

The most important thing that Hines did was permit me to express my fears without embarrassment. Unlike some bosses I had worked for, Hines didn’t make me feel small so that he could feel big. With him, I never felt dismissed or patronized. He never disrespected me by multitasking when I talked with him, despite his pressing schedule. To the contrary, when I approached him, I always had his full presence and attention. I felt valued, not intimidated. Had I reported to another executive, I would have been much more reluctant to express my fears and concerns.

More tangibly, Hines gave me permission to be courageous by pointing out where I already was doing the very thing I was afraid of. This was incontrovertible proof that I could indeed meet the challenge—because I already was meeting it. Armed with this knowledge, I was able to build up a thriving internal coaching practice, eventually coaching thirty Accenture executives on a regular basis.

Now, as a professional coach who trains coaches, I emphasize that the most powerful action you can take to provoke courageous behavior is to give coachees permission to be courageous. How you carry yourself will make a significant impact on how safe they feel and, thus, on how expressive they will be. By giving them your full presence, they’ll feel valued and free to talk about their current and future fears. When they do, you’ll be better able to address their concerns and shift their thinking to all the ways they are prepared to meet their next challenges.

How will you inspire courageous behavior?

You Want Me To Do What?!?!

As most of you have come to know, my nickname is “Coach.” It’s a byname that’s followed me for nearly 40 years, a moniker I gained when I started my Navy career on the pool deck training swimmers at the Naval Academy, but not formally bestowed upon me as my official nickname until my very first day of SEAL training by one my BUD/S classmates.

…I felt their “pain” and knew how hard it is to push yourself when you think your energy tank is on empty.

Since that day, most of my friends have never called me by my first name, nor did my military colleagues call me by my rank as is expected per military protocol. They just called me “Coach” and I was ok with it because to me that nickname has always been a term of endearment associated with someone who strives to bring out the best in others. 

The hardest thing I had to do as a swim coach was getting my swimmers to do a difficult swim set when they were exhausted, especially during the “grind” times of the competitive swim season. These sets involved a series of repetitive swims at race pace (or as close as possible), often with little (or no) rest in between each swim.

During these times I had to do my best to ignore the “I hate you” stares of my swimmers, and explain to them that they needed to do the set because it would make them faster and best prepare them for the conference championships at the end of the season when they were rested and tapered. It was never easy because as a former swimmer, I felt their “pain” and knew how hard it is to push yourself when you think your energy tank is on empty. But as their coach, it was my job to motivate them to push/test their limits and help make them better swimmers.

You can’t coach everyone the same. An excellent leader/coach knows when to step on the gas and when to ease off the pedal.

It was the same as a SEAL officer. Nothing was harder than getting a platoon/team of SEALs to do some of the things we were expected to do, because what we did as SEALs was hazardous and often involved a lot of physical discomfort in extreme weather conditions. But, like when I was a coach, it was my job as an officer to motivate my guys to do what we had to do to have them best prepared if/when the nation called upon our service. 

In either case as a swim coach or as a SEAL officer, what I found out was that the excellent coaches/leaders in life were the ones who could get people to do something they didn’t want to do…and do it well!

Coach’s tip(s) for the month: If you want to be an “excellent coach,” here are a couple of recommendations:

Set the standard for excellence. You’re the boss, so be the performance benchmark for others to emulate and respect.  
Know your people. You can’t coach everyone the same. An excellent leader/coach knows when to step on the gas and when to ease off the pedal. The degree of throttle will be different for each person you lead.
Motivate. Motivate yourself first, then motivate those below to follow your lead.

That’s it for this month! See you all in August!