These are people who have pushed the envelope and been subjected to tests far beyond what they previously thought they could do. Challenging fears is the fuel that builds confidence, and the resulting energy is what propels people forward to dream and achieve new dreams.

Q: What have you done lately that challenged you beyond what you thought you were capable of doing?

Q: With your confidence, what new frontier are you called to tackle?

We wouldn’t want you to think the whole topic of culture sounds like we’re about to dive off into the wonderful world of soft, fuzzy feelings as opposed to nice, solid facts. But, before you decide to zone out, take note: a great deal of current research tells us that having the right culture is an important key to improving individual and organizational performance. In fact, it is likely the most important factor of all!

Consider the culture in the organization we just visited. The building was filled with nice, highly educated individuals (think advanced degrees) with lots of confidence. In fact, the confidence was a bit overwhelming. These were folks who seem to have a mindset of “We’ve got it…been there and done that, and can tell you the best way to approach any project you throw at me. Just bring it on!” And in many ways, the confidence serves the organization well. Yet, individually, many seem to feel that improvement only applies to the other people. These team members clearly think they already have all of the knowledge and skills they need, and any feedback or coaching pertains to anyone but them. This is clearly not a learning organization.

Just down the street on the other side, we visited a company with a totally different point of view.

In a brief meeting we observed, here are some comments we overheard in the conversation:

• “That’s a great idea. I never thought of it that way before.”
• “What do you think? I could use another perspective.”
• “Let’s check with the Tech Team…they will have all of the latest information on that aspect of the project”

The second company clearly had a culture that reflected a mindset of “Students for Life”. How great to hear that the individuals were open to feedback and welcoming of ideas that weren’t their own!

How would your “Culture Check” work out? Is your organization a learning one, or are your team members “Know -it -All’s”? It’s good food for thought.

• Identify (specifically) where their performance is lacking, and
• Develop the skills and behaviors needed to excel in their role

In short, some of our feedback and coaching is as generic and meaningless as “work better!”

To jumpstart individual performance improvement for your team:

• Use competency-based skills assessments to identify specific strengths and improvement opportunities

Begin and continue a regular, informal dialogue about victories and improvement opportunities

• Share your journey of continuous learning and improvement with your team, and pass along some lessons from your own struggles
• Provide some simple, practical ideas to help your team members develop the necessary skills via informal and formal learning opportunities

Performance won’t improve until individuals know exactly what to change and how to change it. Leaders are an essential part of planning and supporting that improvement effort, and the organizational performance will be the better for it!

But, you reason, confronting and correcting a derailer is a tough sell. First of all, as author and Executive Coach Marshall Goldsmith asserts, it’s easy for a successful hi-potential individual to misunderstand a derailer to be something that has contributed to his/her success, instead of seeing that the success is “in spite of” the attribute or lack thereof. Even so, organizations intent on improving performance and building strong leaders won’t be discouraged or thwarted by the difficulty of helping the individual see the flaw. As leaders and coaches of high potential individuals, we understand that we play an important role in not only encouraging team members to use and optimize their strengths, but also find and eliminate career derailers. But how?

• One of the most important first steps we’ve learned is to cultivate in each high potential individual an attitude of a “continuous learner”—always open to new ideas, new findings, new ways to improve and grow. If this becomes an organizational value—something that is held up as being core and key to your culture, the high potential team member will be open to ongoing feedback, and appreciative of the chance to learn more about how he or she is perceived by others. Often derailers are most apt to rear their ugly heads in times of stress such as change or transition. So as leaders, we are called to be vigilant during those times especially, and keep the lines of communication open for honest (and immediate!) coaching and feedback.
• One more idea for helping your high potential team members: make sure that your coaching conversations focus on the “how” and not just the “what”. In the high- pressure, short term results-orientation of recent years, it’s a no-brainer to talk about goals and bottom-line results. That’s important, but how those things were accomplished is at least equally so. Talk about results, but spend just as much time discussing specific examples of how those goals were attained, tuning into both the positive and negative aspects of the how. Unless you make it clear that “how” matters, some individuals will assume that the results trump the manner of getting there.

Fatal flaws don’t have to be… help your high pots spot them, and move beyond bad habits to the career they have imagined.

Your thoughts?

Humility is a major underlying theme in all 7 Harry Potter books.  From the moment he was born, Harry was famous and deemed a hero for thwarting the villainous Voldemort from taking over the world.  It wasn’t until he was introduced into the wizarding world at 13 that he knew of his fame.  From that time, Harry is given constant attention, praise, and ridicule for his popularity.  But rather than boasting about his greatness, Harry consistently tended to disregard the conventional wisdom and view himself as the orphan from underneath the stairs.
In leadership, it is tempting to believe that you have superior abilities to others.  We can easily think highly of ourselves, and believe our success has resulted from our own merit, hard work, and dedication.  However, truly great leaders utilize their strengths in order to serve those around them and help them achieve their own goals, while working toward the common good.  They also hesitate to spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about themselves.

Teamwork is another key aspect of the Harry Potter series that J.K. Rowling highlights. It’s repeated over and over again in each book that Harry wants nothing more than to perform the tasks and achieve the goals he set for himself. Once again it was for selfless reasons, as Harry sought to keep his friends from risking their own lives to save him. Even so, none of the major achievements would have been possible without the help he received from his friends.
No matter how much we try, we can never do a job as well as we could with the collaboration of others. Teamwork is critical in both getting multiple perspectives on an issue, and covering all the bases via individual strengths and talents of team members.

Strategy and goals , especially in the last book, were emphasized in the final development of the characters. The trio’s objective to defeat Lord Voldemort was clearly defined and well thought out. The destruction of the horcruxes represented a long-term goal the team sought to achieve, rather than just going headstrong into battle against the man himself. Not only did he execute the plans well, but Harry was able to use his knowledge and limited resources under pressure when things didn’t go according to plan.
It’s imperative that as leaders we are able to set stimulating yet achievable goals for our selves, our company, and those for whom we are responsible for. When the pressure becomes insurmountable, we as leaders must be able to take action and responsibility no matter the outcome. Then, we are wise to evaluate what has happened and what we can learn from the experience.

So there are some valuable lessons that I have taken from the Harry Potter series. I leave you with a quote from Albus Dumbledore – one more lesson for leaders:

“It is our choices that show what we truly are, not our abilities”

Interviewer: “Can coaches today really afford to be a teacher-coach in a world that treasures winning so much…can they really be more concerned with developing the athlete than they are with performing.”

Coach John Wooden: “I don’t think they can afford not to….”

We were always in awe of the man, coach and teacher that was John Wooden. Take a look at this Youtube interview in which Coach Wooden discusses his dedication to being not just a coach, but a teacher-coach.

Here, he touches on the importance of paying attention to each individual and knowing he “had to work with each individual a little bit differently”:

“…because no two are identical. Your students - no two are identical. Your athletes- no two are identical. They’re alike in many respects but they are not identical. Part of your obligation is to analyze each individual  under your supervision and try to help them in a way that you can.”

Wooden goes on to say that coaching goes beyond helping one’s players master the fundamentals of the sport. The coach that really has an impact does this in a way that allows those he/she’s coaching to extract meaning that will resonate forever.

It would be hard to argue with a coach that won 10 NCAA basketball championships, including seven consecutive wins. Clearly, Coach Wooden did so many things right but he seemed to always bring the lesson back to the emphasis he placed on the personal and professional development of his players.

What would it be like for your company to see a seven consecutive month increase in sales? or how about experiencing 10 glorious years of unmatched levels of employee engagement and productivity?

Coach Wooden would say its possible. Here’s a toast to one of the greatest teacher-coaches there ever was.

As you rack your brain, you try to figure it out. Does she want more pay? Is it a personal relationship problem? Is it you?

And what about Roy? What the heck is going on with Roy? You’ve received some complaints from customers that he has failed to return their inquiries. That’s not like him at all.

So what’s his deal? Does he want more pay? Doubtful, he just received a raise that he seemed pleased with. Since he recently seems almost withdrawn, you’re starting to worry about that major project you put him in charge of a few weeks ago.

After some discussion with other department managers, you all realize what’s truly plaguing the company: disengagement.

Darth Vader, Mordor, Lord Voldemort, Lex Luther. and Disengagement. Yes, disengagement is to your company’s culture and success as any of these dark villains is to the characters they seek to destroy.

We’re not going to sit here and tell you that transforming a disengaged workforce into a motivated and productive movement is easy. Employee engagement is a battlefield but it has to be one that you are willing to take on for the well-being of your team and company.

First take a look at this World at Work video on Employee Engagement.

Consultant Max Caldwell of Towers Watson defines the traditional model of engagement (the degree to which people bring extra degrees of effort and productivity to their jobs) as the following:

• rational engagement - do I feel rationally connected to the company?
• emotional engagement - do I feel proud of the company?
• motivational engagement – do I feel like going the extra mile?

There are all types of obstacles that interfere with the daily lives of your employees – they can be professional or personal. Examples: Sales are down for two months in a row, slowly chipping away employees’ pride in their product. Connie, who just had a baby, is struggling to keep up with her presentations. Negative feedback from her supervisor for the last two has her doubting if she’s cut out to be a mother and still hold on to her desired career path.

Life happens. But healthy high-performance companies realize that the engagement mix includes a number of factors: healthy employer-employee relationships, co-worker relationships, clarity about goals and work expectations.  They also realize that they need to equip their employees with the tools they need to be engaged and recognize the importance of a collaborative, healthy environment.

One practical step Caldwell gives is allowing employees to understand possible career paths and opportunities.

In our experience, we’ve seen time and time again that engagement is revived when human beings feel they can make a difference. If sales are slipping, then get the team involved and get them to start communicating their unique ideas for boosting sales. If Connie doubts her future career success because of her new parenthood, dialogue about the tools she needs to have a better transition as a working mother. Assure her that her place and work there makes a difference and then discover together how you can establish a healthy relationship.

Engagement is a battlefield. You’re in a battle for professional minds and souls here. There’s no simple magic wand trick or inspirational speaker that you can hire to change the tide. So arm yourself against distractions and obstacles and go right to the source - your people - to put together a plan of action.

“I want them to be scared of me.”

Yep… these are the words we heard come from a company leader just last week. He wants his staff to fear him…. it’s nothing we haven’t heard before and yet it baffles us everytime.

To those bosses and supervisors who lead by intimidation, we’d like to ask - How’s that working for you? How’s it working for your company culture and also, how’s it working for your sales and customer relationships?

Do you think the way you relate to your staff does not relate to your sales and customer interactions?

We strongly disagree and so does web blogger Joy Kosta for the Human Capital Institute. With some help from Gallup’s Chief Scientist John Flemming, Kosta reiterates the responsibility that a leader has to ensure high engagement with customers AND his/her staff.

In our experience, we’ve seen the way the latter can deeply impact the former- (staff engagement and customer relationships).  Supervisors who invest time in building relationships with their staff and who treat them as individuals with valuable ideas truly experience a profound difference in productivity, customer relationships and revenues.

Employees can see right through intimidation or lack of caring or respect and choose (whether consciously or subconsciously) to respond to that kind of treatment. Do you blame them? As human beings, it’s natural for us to shut down, hold back or even retaliate when we feel that we are not being respected or cared for, especially by someone who is expecting something out of us.

Costa’s blog, “The Talented Touch,” touches on one of our favorite adages: “People don’t care what you know until they know how much you care.”

As leaders, we do expect a lot of time, hard work and effort out of our staff. But how much effort are you putting into showing them that those things actually matter?

Costa asks this question:  “Can you recall the last time you walked around, smiled and made eye contact, sincerely interested in what your talent/people had to say, expecting to learn something you may not have guessed?”

Phillips Electronics CEO Greg Sebasky is a prime example of an executive who cares. In this WSJ video, he discusses how he makes sure his schedule balances time to speak to front line employees… and here’s why:

“The importance of allowing the time even with all the priorities we have as executives with front line employees is really learning about how they’re experiencing their job in a way that engages them and they feel that an executive listening to them shows humility and that is a very, very strong message to send to our line organization. They’re also the people that are spending most of the time in front of our customers and so they can bring back insights from the customers on a regular basis to help us improve our service and our product delivery.”

Sebasky really understands the connection between executive-employee relationships and how that ties into company success.

In our work, we’ve witnessed that some of the best ideas can come from the most unlikely source – often someone whose name is closer to the bottom than the top of the org chart!  Imagine the motivation and productivity that can come from an employee whose idea was instrumental in helping the company bring in more sales this month or cut unnecessary costs?

But the boss who chooses to lead by intimidation or apathy toward his employees, would never be able to tap into these kinds of ideas.

In the same way that you want your staff to care about their jobs and the company’s well being, they want you to care about their ideas, needs and goals. Plain and simple, they won’t care until they know that you care.

Fast forward one day, and picture yourself in that conference room. As you spot some hopeful faces, you proceed to give yourself a mental pat on the back.

The PowerPoint presentation led the team through some of the company’s past milestones, weaving in motivational quotes, referencing the company’s mission statement and leaving them with a passionate charge that “Today will be the day that this team reinstates this company’s vision of excellent customer service and technical support.”

Fast forward again. Two weeks later and you realize something is starting to stink.  It’s not long before you realize that it’s the smell of disengagement, boredom and stagnation.

Discouraged, you start to feel that somewhere along the way your message must have fallen flat.  Where did you go wrong?

If this sounds familiar, don’t fret. You join decades of public service announcements, charity campaigns, brand marketers and business leaders who’ve yet to figure out the recipe for STICKINESS.

Luckily for us, two savvy brothers took on the challenge several years ago to dissect what factors lead effective messages to leech onto the human mind. From the book, “Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die” comes this acronym recipe for sticky ideas:

• Simplicity. According to the Heath brothers, keeping messages simple is determining the single most important thing. Once you’ve figured that out, make sure you don’t bury it down below.
• Unexpectedness. Get attention by breaking people’s expectations. Break patterns to surprise them and peak their interest- butavoid gimmicks.
• Concreteness. Reframe abstraction and jargon so that it is concrete.
• Credibility. Convincing details, available statistics, and testable credentials.
• Emotional [component]. Figure out WHY people care, appeal to self interest and capitalize on the power of association and identities to impact emotionally.
• Stories. Stories can provide inspiration, stimulation, a guide for instructing people how to act,
• Sticks - Use what Sticks.

For decades, this debilitating virus has spread amongst top-level executives. It embeds itself in the brain and starts tampering with the memory immediately.

Without warning, execs lose their ability to remember a time not too long ago when they were fresh and unseasoned. They forget what it was like to look at a company financial earnings statement and see jargon and gibberish. And the ability to draw upon examples from their “rookie” years quickly diminishes.

This piercing virus then quickly makes its way throughout the body before nesting in its number 1 target: the mouth. These execs traipse around babbling out corporate speak that no one else understands but those who share their same plight. When new hires or young professionals seek out their advice, these infected execs spew out advice that is both difficult to understand and assumes the company newbies are just as experienced and knowledgable as they are.

It’s called the “Curse of Knowledge” and unfortunately, no one is safe from its trap.

The Heath Brothers, Chip and Dan Heath, coined this “Curse of Knowledge” villain in their 2007 book “Made to Stick: Why Some ideas Survive and Others Die…”

The Heaths describe the Curse as this: “Once we know something, we find it hard to imagine what it was like not to know it. Our knowledge has “cursed” us. And it becomes difficult for us to share our knowledge with others, because we can’t readily re-create our listeners’ state of mind.”

We’ve all experienced this in one way or another. And we’ve all been on both ends. Whether we’re the poker expert trying to teach a newbie how to play or whether we’re the student trying to learn, being on either end is frustrating. But it is the one who holds the knowledge that must be careful.

“It’s easy to lose awareness that we’re talking like an expert,” the Heath brothers write.

The authors provide an excellent example in a manufacturing team that comes to its engineering team with a problem: manufacturers can’t fit a part onto a machine. The engineering team’s solution is to reconstruct the drawings and create even more abstract drawings. The engineers thought by elaborating on their drawings, they would make the process more clear for the manufacturers.

The engineers, according to the Heaths, “were suffering from the Curse of Knowledge. They had lost the ability to imagine what it was like to look at a technical drawing from the perspective of a non-expert.”

We’ve seen “The Curse” take its course all too often in companies and organizations we serve. Top execs, managers, supervisors lose their ability to put themselves in the shoes of their subordinates. Communication and coaching take a big hit when these higher ups lose their ability to relate and instruct.

“It’s a hard problem to avoid - a CEO might have thirty years of daily immersion in the logic and conventions of business. Reversing the process is as impossible as un-ringing a bell. You can’t unlearn what you already know,” the Heath brothers write.

True. But you can learn how to communicate what you already know on a level that is understandable to both or all parties. The Heath brothers give several tactics for battling this curse, but we’ll leave you with three:

• Use stories and/or analogies
• Find a universal language. The Heaths are clear that they don’t mean to “dumb down” the message but to keep communication and goals concrete. “Concreteness makes targets transparent,” they write.
• Asking Why. This strategy “helps to remind us of the core values, the core principles, that underlie our ideas.”  - Chip and Dan Heath