In this episode, S. Chris Edmonds discusses the key points of his book The Culture Engine: A Framework for Driving Results, Inspiring Your Employees, and Transforming Your Workplace.

S. Chris Edmonds has a delightfully simple explanation of culture: “Culture is all about how people treat each other—how leaders treat their teams and peers, how employees treat each other, and how people treat customers and vendors. It’s about relationships and respect,” he explains. As simple as that sounds, it can also be a very disruptive concept to some organizations.

Many leaders and managers are asked to manage business results but are rarely asked to manage the quality of their work culture. “Get out of the mindset that results are the most important thing. Make respect as important as results. One of the first things I do is educate senior leaders about how important it is to have a culture that is purposeful, positive, and productive—one that is going to drive great customer experiences and employee engagement.”

So how does an organization start creating the culture they want to cultivate? Edmonds suggests writing an organizational constitution—a document that outlines the purpose, values, strategies, and goals of the company. It describes exactly how employees will engage with each other, with customers, and with vendors. An organizational constitution gives meaning and clarity to every employee by providing a clear understanding of how they can do their best work, treat others respectfully, and help the organization prosper.

It is critical to urge all the leaders in the organization to model the behaviors outlined in the organizational constitution. It becomes the document they can lead by, live by, and manage performance to. It helps them hold people accountable, praise people who are living the values of the constitution, and redirect people whose behaviors are not in alignment.

If your organization doesn’t have a constitution, individuals can lead by example. Edmonds asks leaders to pay attention to the relationships they have with their direct reports, peers, customers, and vendors. “I ask leaders to shift from an ‘I need’ mindset to a ‘What do you need?’ mindset. If leaders can help their people accomplish tasks easier, or give a client what they need, they will build trust and create a mutually beneficial relationship,” Edmonds explains. “I’ve seen it work with intact teams within organizations.  I tell people to just start making a difference where they are.”

Edmonds shares several examples of working with organizations to help them define their purpose, values, strategies, and goals, and describes how these companies are creating their desired cultures. The stories bring his concepts to life.

Edmonds stresses that culture drives everything that happens in an organization day by day, including focus, priorities, and the treatment of employees and customers. A great culture not only drives great performance but also can help attract and retain top talent. However, a great culture isn’t something that evolves naturally—it must be defined, supported, honored, and modeled every day.

About The Ken Blanchard Companies
The Ken Blanchard Companies is the global leader in management training. For nearly 40 years Blanchard has been creating the best managers in the world, training over 150,000 people each year. From the award-winning First-time Manager program—based on the best-selling business book The New One Minute Manager^®—to SLII^®, the most widely taught leadership model in the world, Blanchard is the provider of choice for Fortune 500 companies as well as small to medium businesses, government agencies, and educational and nonprofit organizations.

About S. Chris Edmonds
For more information on S. Chris Edmonds visit his website at www.drivingresultsthroughculture.com

In this episode, Whitney Johnson discusses the secrets to creating an engaged and productive team as outlined in her book, Build an A-Team: Play to Their Strengths and Lead Them Up the Learning Curve.

Johnson shares seven ways managers can support their team members’ journey up the curve.

1. Take the right kind of risks—Help team members understand the difference between doing something just to compete, versus finding a problem that needs to be solved and creating the solution.
2. Play to your distinctive strengths—Help team members identify what they are good at and let them apply their knowledge to those types of projects.
3. Embrace your constraints—By identifying constraints and taking a hard look at them managers can help team members inspire innovation.
4. Battle entitlement—Encourage team members to think about new ways of doing things. Just because a process has been in place for years, doesn’t mean it is the best process. Entitlement can kill innovation.
5. Step back, down, or sideways to grow—Continually pushing forward is not always the best way to drive innovation. Help people understand the positive influence of stepping back to look at other possibilities.
6. Give failure its due—Accept what you can learn from failure. It might be the very thing to catapult you up the learning curve.
7. Be driven by discovery—Encourage your team to ask for feedback and use what they learn to discover things that might be holding them back.

About The Ken Blanchard Companies
The Ken Blanchard Companies is the global leader in management training. For nearly 40 years, Blanchard has been creating the best managers in the world, training over 150,000 people each year. From the award-winning First-time Manager program, based on the best-selling business book, The New One Minute Manager^®—to SLII^®, the most widely taught leadership model in the world, Blanchard is the provider of choice for Fortune 500 companies as well as small to medium businesses, government agencies, and educational and nonprofit organizations.

About Whitney Johnson
For more information on Whitney Johnson visit www.whitneyjohnson.com. Or visit www.whitneyjohnson.com/diagnostic to take an assessment to determine where you are on the S-Curve of Learning.

In this episode, Tasha Eurich describes concepts from her book Insight: The Surprising Truth About How Others See Us, How We See Ourselves, and Why the Answers Matter More Than We Think. Eurich explains how developing self-awareness—knowing who we are and how others see us—can help you be fulfilled, confident, and successful in life and work.

“As an organizational psychologist—and intuitively—I’ve always believed that self-awareness was an important skill. But as an executive coach, I’ve come to realize it is an essential skill. I wanted proof, so I started researching the concept.”

Eurich’s research shows that self-awareness is the foundation for high performance, smart choices, and lasting relationships. It also shows that most people don’t see themselves as clearly as they could. “Our data reveals that 95 percent of people believe they are self-aware, but the real number is 12 to 15 percent,” she says. “That means, on a good day, about 80 percent of people are lying about themselves—to themselves.”

There are two parts to self-awareness: internal and external. Internal self-awareness means knowing your values and personality strengths and weaknesses. External self-awareness means knowing how other people see you. The two parts are independent of each other. A person can be high or low on both scales, or high on one and low on the other.

Fortunately, self-awareness is a skill that can be developed—all it takes is a willingness to improve. Critical elements include questioning your assumptions about yourself and asking for feedback. Most people don’t like hearing feedback, but pushing past this discomfort is one of the first steps on the journey to self-awareness.

Eurich identifies a phenomenon she calls cult of self as a global problem. “Think about the way people use social media. They don’t post bad news—only great news. It can take so much effort to make ourselves seem a certain way that we become disconnected from who we really are,” she explains. “We each have a choice between being a meformer—just talking about ourselves, or an informer—focusing on what we do, how we can add value to the world, and what we learn from people around us.”

Self-serving behavior shows up in the workplace when people are not authentic and not open to feedback. The most productive work environments, according to Eurich, are built around people being humble, open, honest, and willing to learn and grow.

“A surprising finding centers on people who spend a lot of time in self-reflection. We assume they would be more self-aware, but it isn’t true. Some people spend so much time ruminating on the negative that it actually damages their self-awareness. The key to effective self-reflection is to think about something for a defined period of time and then make a decision, not to beat yourself up. For example, instead of focusing on why you may have done something, think about what you can do differently next time or what kind of support you need. Self-reflection should move you forward productively.”

To apply this concept in the workplace, leaders must model self-awareness behaviors. First, ask for feedback from every member of the team. Create a safe environment for people to share their truth when giving feedback. Most important, make sure this is a continuous practice—not just an activity at a retreat.

Eurich offers one last piece of advice. “Working on your self-awareness will put you ahead of 80 percent of your colleagues. It is the secret ingredient. Don’t put pressure on yourself to do it quickly—be open to what people tell you so that you can make a significant improvement.”

About The Ken Blanchard Companies
The Ken Blanchard Companies is the global leader in management training. For 40 years, Blanchard has been creating the best managers in the world, training over 150,000 people each year. From the award-winning First-time Manager program—based on the best-selling business book, The New One Minute Manager®—to SLII®, the most widely taught leadership model in the world, Blanchard is the provider of choice for Fortune 500 companies as well as small to medium businesses, government agencies, and educational and nonprofit organizations.

About Tasha Eurich
For more information on Tasha Eurich, and to take a free self-awareness quiz, go to www.insight-quiz.com.

In this exciting episode, Peter Bregman shares his thoughts about leadership and the importance of showing up with confidence, being connected to others, and being committed to a purpose in a way that inspires others to follow. He explains that the most successful leaders not only know what to say and do, but are willing to experience the discomfort, risk, or uncertainty of saying and doing it. These leaders display what Bregman calls Emotional Courage.

“Think about a conversation you need to have, but haven’t. You have all the skill and knowledge you need, but you aren’t doing it. Why? Most likely it is because you believe it may cause you to feel something you don’t want to feel. You might become disconnected from that person. Or they might come back in anger or act in a passive aggressive way that can damage relationships and put projects at risk. It could simply make you uncomfortable—and no one likes to feel uncomfortable. Emotional Courage is not how much you know—it is about what you are willing to feel,” says Bregman.

The four elements of Emotional Courage are simple to understand, but not always easy to implement. To be a leader with Emotional Courage, you need to:

1. Be confident in yourself. To be confident, you need to understand who you are as a leader and then determine who you want to become. Asking for feedback is a powerful way to uncover blind spots, while listening to and accepting that feedback is the key to changing your behavior. Building confidence creates the foundation for your leadership style.
2. Be connected with others. Listening with a willingness to learn something new is the birthplace of connection. Following through on commitments builds trust for a lasting, honest relationship. True success depends on connecting with others.
3. Be committed to a purpose. Create a clear, powerful, compelling focus toward a larger purpose in order to channel your energy and the energy of those around you toward a common goal. Achieving a common purpose requires extreme focus.
4. Act with Emotional Courage. Understand when you don’t want to feel something and take steps toward it. Be courageous and act boldly. Emotional courage feeds on confidence, connections, and commitment.

“The key thing to remember is to be aware of what is important to you and be willing to take the risk to increase your own productivity. That will have a positive impact on personal and organizational results—because you will be operating with Emotional Courage.”

About The Ken Blanchard Companies
The Ken Blanchard Companies is the global leader in management training. For nearly 40 years, Blanchard has been creating the best managers in the world, training over 150,000 people each year. From the award-winning First-time Manager program, based on the best-selling business book, The New One Minute Manager®—to SLII®, the most widely taught leadership model in the world, Blanchard is the provider of choice for Fortune 500 companies as well as small to medium businesses, government agencies, and educational and nonprofit organizations.

About Peter Bregman
For more information on Peter Bregman, visit www.bregmanpartners.com.

As we wrap up season one of the LeaderChat Podcast, Ken Blanchard and Chad Gordon revisit some of their favorite episodes. They share new thoughts about the important messages from our guests and invite you to send questions you would like Ken to answer in future episodes. Just send your questions to podcast@kenblanchard.com.

Enjoy this episode of Chad Gordon interviewing Dr. Travis Bradberry, researcher and author of the best-selling book, Emotional Intelligence 2.0—which has sold over one million copies!

Bradberry shares how emotional maturity is absolutely critical for success as a leader, and how emotional intelligence is a capacity that can be learned and developed. He explains that increasing your emotional intelligence begins with self-awareness.

Bradberry discusses how to integrate EQ training into a leadership development curriculum—and how the emotional intelligence displayed by top leaders can set the example for all levels of leadership in an organization. Bradberry also shares strategies for dealing with stress, procrastination, and toxic people.

Emotions are a primary driver of behaviors and emotional intelligence is a foundational skill of all good leaders.  Learn how to be a master of your emotions in a way that increases your effectiveness as a leader.

And be sure to listen to the very end of this 30-minute interview to hear Ken Blanchard share his thoughts and personal takeaways on Dr. Bradberry’s ideas.

As we wrap up season one of the LeaderChat Podcast, Ken Blanchard and Chad Gordon revisit some of their favorite episodes. They share new thoughts about the important messages from our guests and invite you to send questions you would like Ken to answer in future episodes. Just send your questions to podcast@kenblanchard.com.

Enjoy this episode of Chad Gordon interviewing Patrick Lencioni, author of The Ideal Team Player as well as nine other books on teams and motivation—which have sold nearly five million copies! Lencioni describes leadership as a calling that requires putting the needs of others ahead of your own. That begins with identifying people with the right qualities and developing those qualities to the fullest extent.

Building on the concepts he first explored in his best-selling first book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Lencioni recommends taking a moment to consider your own behaviors when working on a team. He teaches how using a Humble—Hungry—Smart model can help you and others become more effective team members.

Lencioni shares how leadership development experts can identify these traits in potential new hires along with sharing his own personal story of using these principles in his work and other areas of his life.

Be sure to listen to the very end of this 30-minute interview to hear Ken Blanchard share his key takeaways and the areas that he most plans to work on.

About The Ken Blanchard Companies
The Ken Blanchard Companies is the global leader in management training. For nearly 40 years, Blanchard has been creating the best managers in the world, training over 150,000 people each year. From the award-winning First-time Manager program—based on the best-selling business book,& The New One Minute Manager^®—to SLII^®, the most widely taught leadership model in the world, Blanchard is the provider of choice of Fortune 500 companies as well as small to medium businesses, government agencies, and educational and nonprofit organizations.

About Patrick Lencioni
For more information on Patrick Lencioni visit www.tablegroup.com

Check out this episode!

As we wrap up season one of the LeaderChat Podcast, Ken Blanchard and Chad Gordon revisit some of their favorite episodes. They share new thoughts about the important messages from our guests and invite you to send questions you would like Ken to answer in future episodes. Just send your questions to podcast@kenblanchard.com.

Enjoy this episode where Chad Gordon interviews Elena Botelho, coauthor of The CEO Next Door: The 4 Behaviors that Transform Ordinary People into World-Class Leaders to hear what it takes to become a world-class leader.

“Most ideals about why people are successful are driven by stereotypes and gut feel rather than facts and data,” explains Botelho. “In this book, we’ve aspired to provide information about how anyone can be successful by helping readers learn from other successful people in business.”

Learnings shared in the book are based on groundbreaking research and in-depth analysis of more than 2,600 leaders drawn from a database of more than 17,000 CEO and C-suite executives. Botelho describes the four behaviors of highly successful people as identified by the research.

1. They are decisive and understand the importance of speed over precision when making decisions. According to Botelho, most people assume that CEOs have an uncanny ability to make the right decisions more often than other people. But her research indicates that what really makes a CEO stand out isn’t necessarily the accuracy of their decision, but the speed and will to make the decision in the first place.
2. They are reliable and deliver what they promise, when they promise it—without exception. This behavior sounds simple, but isn’t easy to practice consistently. Botelho describes the importance of being on time and doing what you say you’re going to do—and she offers another tip: “Highly reliable leaders are thoughtful about setting expectations right up front.” Botelho shares that this behavior not only improves the likelihood you will succeed in your role, but also increases your chances of being hired In the first place.
3. They adapt boldly, especially when faced with the discomfort of the unknown. “Of the four behaviors, this is the one where people are most likely to underestimate their ability—and that is costly.” Botelho explains people naturally assume change will be painful, so they resist it. But her research shows that the most successful leaders are good at letting go of past behaviors, habits, and commitments that will not serve them in the future.
4. They engage with stakeholders without shying away from conflict. These leaders focus on leading to deliver results that benefit the company as opposed to leading to be liked. They keep all stakeholders—customers, employees, and shareholders—in mind and manage those relationships.

Finally, Botelho shares some counterintuitive insights about making great strides in your career—what she calls career catapults. “Sometimes it is better to go small in order to go big,” Botelho says. Having an elite MBA or working for a marque company is a great way to advance your career, but sometimes taking what looks like a side step instead of always focusing on moving up the ladder can have a more positive impact. By being in charge of a smaller project, division, or group, you might actually have a chance to practice more skills and get more exposure.

According to the author, here is the most important message to take away from The CEO Next Door and this podcast: Excellence is more achievable for us than we assume.

Be sure to stay tuned for comments from Ken Blanchard at the end of the podcast!

As we wrap up Season 1 of the Blanchard LeaderChat Podcast, Ken Blanchard and Chad Gordon revisit some of their favorite episodes. They share new thoughts about the important messages from our guests and invite you to send questions you would like Ken to answer in future episodes. Just send your questions to podcast@kenblanchard.com.

Enjoy this episode where Chad Gordon interviews Dr. Marshall Goldsmith, the world’s top-rated executive coach and author, about his book Triggers: Creating Behavior That Lasts–Becoming the Person You Want to Be.

Dr. Goldsmith discusses the environmental and psychological triggers that can derail us at work and in life, and what we can do about them.

Drawing on years of experience coaching top executives, Goldsmith gives us an inside look at how to achieve change in our lives. He discusses the unique challenges top executives face and shares the number one reason people don’t act on their good intentions. He also offers six questions we can ask ourselves every day to help us stay on track and begin to find alternatives to instinctive impulse-response behavior patterns.

Goldsmith explains how we can open up new possibilities by planning in advance, avoiding negative triggers when possible, and adjusting our behavior when triggers are unavoidable. He also offers great advice on how to add a little structure to our lives that allows us to be our best.

Be sure to listen to the very end of this 30-minute interview to hear Ken Blanchard share his thoughts and personal takeaways from the concepts discussed.

About The Ken Blanchard Companies
The Ken Blanchard Companies is the global leader in management training. For nearly 40 years, Blanchard has been creating the best managers in the world, training over 150,000 people each year. From the award-winning First-time Manager program—based on the best-selling business book, The New One Minute Manager^®—to SLII^®, the most widely taught leadership model in the world, Blanchard is the provider of choice of Fortune 500 companies as well as small to medium businesses, government agencies, and educational and nonprofit organizations.

About Marshall Goldsmith
For more information on Marshall Goldsmith visit www.marshallgoldsmith.com, or email Marshall at marshall@marshallgoldsmith.com. He can also be found on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook.

Check out this episode!

“Everyone wants to be happy,” says Neil Pasricha. “We were brought up to believe that if we worked hard we would have great success, and then we would be happy. But that just isn’t true.”

Pasricha shares research that indicates combining great work with success, doesn’t necessarily lead to happiness. In fact, it is the opposite. Being happy leads to great work, which leads to success. Coming to work with a positive mindset has been shown to increase productivity by 31 percent and sales by 37 percent. People who are happy are 40 percent more likely to get a promotion, and they live an average of 10 years longer than people with a negative mindset.

Pasricha believes that happiness is a choice, and he offers simple tips for leading a happier lifestyle. He suggests we spend 20 minutes each day doing one of the following:

1. Going for a walk outdoors in nature.
2. Journaling about our day.
3. Reading 20 pages of fiction. (It is important to read fiction rather than nonfiction, to develop our imagination.)

According to Pasricha, all three of these activities change the chemicals in our brain in a way that helps us develop a more positive mindset. His research reveals that happiness is 50 percent genetic, 10 percent influenced by circumstances, and 40 percent influenced by intentional action. He suggests we all focus on the 40 percent that we can manage.

“I know what has worked for me and ask that you consider a few things. First, take care of yourself. Stop watching and reading the news. You don’t have to bury your head in the sand, but you don’t need to let the news consume your life, either,” explains Pasricha. He also suggests we avoid toxic people, instead surrounding ourselves with people who are happy to take care of their own happiness.

“I also suggest you throw away the concept of retirement. The happiest society in the world is in Okinawa, Japan. Their life span is seven years longer than Americans, and they don’t even have a word for retirement in their vocabulary.”

Pasricha says four of the things that help us live happy lives tend to disappear when we retire:

“I highly recommend that you forget about retirement and remember that happiness is a choice. You can change your mindset and choose to influence your life in a positive, happy way.”

About The Ken Blanchard Companies
The Ken Blanchard Companies is the global leader in management training. For nearly 40 years, Blanchard has been creating the best managers in the world, training over 150,000 people each year. From the award-winning First-time Manager program—based on the best-selling business book, The New One Minute Manager^®—to SLII^®, the most widely taught leadership model in the world, Blanchard is the provider of choice of Fortune 500 companies as well as small to medium businesses, government agencies, and educational and nonprofit organizations.

About Neil Pasricha
For more information on Neil Pasricha visit www.globalhappiness.org.

In this episode, Vicki Halsey, author of Brilliance by Design, shares a case study of a team putting the ENGAGE model into practice. For years, both in the school environment and in corporate education, Vicki Halsey observed what was happening in classrooms—a teacher standing in front of a group of people, talking at them. The people in the audience were not engaged; only the speaker. This was very different from Vicki’s classrooms, where people were active, inspired, and even noisy.

“It occurred to me that the person who is energized and all fired up is the one doing the teaching—not the one doing the learning. It should be the other way around,” explains Halsey. “It happens every day in companies around the world. We hire people because they have fabulous transferable skills, but we don’t spend the time it takes to teach them what they need to know in their new position to help them be successful. We don’t engage them in learning. So, to help the learning process, I designed a simple six-step process that brings out the brilliance in learners: the ENGAGE model.”

Energize and Focus Learners—Get people involved before the session starts by sending emails to explain the importance of the experience. Then give them exposure to the materials that will be used. Send books, articles, podcasts, or video to help them start to learn before they get there. When they arrive at the meeting or classroom, get them involved immediately with an interactive exercise.

Navigate the Content—Present the content through interactive lectures, demonstrations, stories, handouts, exercises with card sorts, or case studies. The key is to understand that people learn in different ways. You need to present the content in enough ways to give everyone a chance to learn.

Generate Meaning—Once the attendees have learned the content, move the learning from short-term memory to long-term memory and help participants sell themselves on why the learning is important in their world by having them create flip charts about the value, benefits, and meaning of this learning in their lives. This will rally commitment for the next part of the ENGAGE model so that they will apply what they have learned.

Apply to the Real World—Have people apply what they have learned through practicing or rehearsing. Give them all the tools they need—checklists, scripts, video examples—then have them practice, practice, practice.

Gauge and Celebrate—It is critical to assess how much learning has occurred—and then celebrate. This can be as simple as a quiz show-style game or crossword puzzle, a group mind map, or a “stump the panel” game. The idea is to create a fun way to deepen the learning and help transfer the learning to doing.

Extend Learning to Action—Keep the learning top of mind after the meeting or class. Send reminders with a tip of the week, share success stories of people using their new skills, or have award ceremonies to honor people’s commitment to the learning. Continuous reminders or refreshers will help extend the learning.

“Research indicates that designs for learning sessions focus about 70 percent of the time on the content to be learned and only about 30 percent on having learners practice what they are learning,” says Halsey. “If you want to unleash the brilliance of your people, you must flip that equation, so they are practicing the new skills 70 percent of the time. Don’t just talk at them. Let them process, learn, and get to work.”

About The Ken Blanchard Companies
The Ken Blanchard Companies is the global leader in management training. For nearly 40 years, Blanchard has been creating the best managers in the world, training over 150,000 people each year. From the award-winning First-time Manager program—based on the best-selling business book, The New One Minute Manager®—to SLII®, the most widely taught leadership model in the world, Blanchard is the provider of choice of Fortune 500 companies as well as small to medium businesses, government agencies, and educational and nonprofit organizations.

About Vicki Halsey
For more information on Vicki Halsey, go to www.vickihalsey.com.

Check out this episode!

In this enlightening episode, Brené Brown describes her research study, seven years in the making, that looks at the future of leadership and the barriers and obstacles to daring leadership. “One of the most important findings of my career is daring leadership—a collection of skills and practices that are teachable, observable, and measurable. It’s learning and unlearning that requires brave work, tough conversations, and showing up with your whole heart. It isn’t easy—because choosing courage over comfort is not always our default. But it is necessary if you want to cultivate braver, more daring leaders, and embed the value of courage into your culture,” explains Brown.

Brown describes the four skills needed to become a courageous leader. The first and most important skill is Rumbling with Vulnerability. Brown had assumed that the biggest barrier to courageous leadership would be fear, but her research indicated that fear is not a barrier. In fact, leaders she interviewed admitted to being fearful much of the time. The real barrier is how people armor themselves to deal with the fear. It is critical to understand that we all self-protect when we feel scared, defensive, or vulnerable.

A great tool to use when Rumbling with Vulnerablity is curiosity. “When I find myself in a tough situation or I’m about to receive some hard feedback, instead of getting my armor up, I stay open and ask questions, so I can get specific information,” Brown explains. In the book she identifies 16 different ways we armor ourselves and offers ways to move that armor out of the way to become a daring, courageous leader.

The second skill is Living into Your Values. Leaders constantly must do tough things, give hard feedback, put bold ideas into motion while being unsure of the outcome, and take many risks. Courageous leaders are able to do this consistently because they operate with a clear set of values and behaviors that line up with those values. “It is important to have values as a leader, but it is critical to operationalize them. Otherwise they are just vague concepts, not guiding principles,” Brown explains.

The third skill, Braving Trust, can be tricky because many leaders don’t know how to talk about trust. Direct reports have to trust their leaders in order to have honest conversations and both parties have to be in an unarmored position. It’s no secret that the highest performing teams are built on a foundation of trust. And building trust is a skill that can be taught and learned.

The fourth skill is Learning to Rise and deals with the ability to re-set after an error or mistake. The ability to be resilient helps leaders learn from mistakes quickly, share those learnings, and continue to move forward in a positive way. And, yes, it is a skill that every leader can learn.

“Courage is a skill set we can teach, measure, and observe, but we are choosing not to because it is an investment of energy and time and it takes muscle building. But why are we choosing not to do it? If we need braver leaders, but we’re not investing in skilling them up, what is getting in the way?” asked Brown.

Brown’s new book, Dare to Lead is the ultimate playbook that offers practical skill-building tools for creating brave leaders in your organization.

About The Ken Blanchard Companies

The Ken Blanchard Companies is the global leader in management training. For nearly 40 years, Blanchard has been creating the best managers in the world, training over 150,000 people each year. From the award-winning First-time Manager program—based on the best-selling business book, The New One Minute Manager^®—to SLII^®, the most widely taught leadership model in the world, Blanchard is the provider of choice of Fortune 500 companies as well as small to medium businesses, government agencies, and educational and nonprofit organizations.

About Brené Brown

For more information on Brené Brown, go to www.brenebrown.com and click on the Dare to Lead Hub for free resources.

In this episode, Susan Fowler explores how most companies expect managers to motivate their people to accomplish goals. Managers may try many different methods to encourage people to reach their goals, from rewards and recognition to pressure and intimidation. But research indicates that these methods just don’t work. “When did we get to the point that people have to be motivated by carrots and sticks—carrots representing incentives or bribes, and sticks representing pressure, threats and tension?” asks Fowler.

Many people may not be aware of new research showing that the real secret to motivation is creating an environment where people are optimally motivated to perform at their highest level.

“Look at your own beliefs,” says Fowler. “Do you think people are basically lazy and won’t do what you want them to do, or do you believe people want to thrive and make a contribution in their role? Do you believe people are more motivated extrinsically or intrinsically?”

Research indicates that people want to thrive and that intrinsic rewards are more sustainably motivating than extrinsic rewards. Problems arise when managers don’t believe people want to succeed or when they default to extrinsic reward systems to improve performance.

Fowler describes three conversations managers can have with direct reports. Each includes a separate set of questions to help analyze a direct report’s motivation on certain projects or tasks. The first set of questions gets to the root of the psychological need for autonomy: does the direct report feel good or bad about the choices available to them on their task? Everyone needs a sense of control over what they do. The second set of questions focuses on the psychological need for connection or relatedness and helps identify values and purpose. The third set of questions relates to the psychological need for competence and describes the skills the person brings to the task.

When the manager asks the direct report questions that put them in touch with their needs for choice, connection, and competence, the direct report is able to find their own source of motivation internally—and that is the most powerful motivation.

“You must remember to be mindful and not judgmental when having these conversations with your staff,” Fowler says. “By asking these questions, you are helping people to be more self-aware and to explore what their motivational outlook is all about.”

Fowler believes managers can create an environment where their people can have a better quality of life. “It’s not that we don’t want money—we are all motivated by money, power, and status—but there are other options that serve us and the people around us more effectively. We need to become more aware of why we are motivating people the way we are, and what is motivating us.” Fowler encourages you to ask yourself these three questions: (1) Why do I make the choices I make? (2) How do I feel a greater connection? and (3) How do I learn and grow every day?

About The Ken Blanchard Companies
The Ken Blanchard Companies is the global leader in management training. For nearly 40 years, Blanchard has been creating the best managers in the world, training over 150,000 people each year. From the award-winning First-time Manager program—based on the best-selling business book, The New One Minute Manager^®—to SLII^®, the most widely taught leadership model in the world, Blanchard is the provider of choice of Fortune 500 companies as well as small to medium businesses, government agencies, and educational and nonprofit organizations.

For more information about Susan Fowler, go to http://susanfowler.com/

Or https://www.kenblanchard.com/Products-Services/Optimal-Motivation

In this episode, Don Yaeger, author of Great Teams: 16 Things High Performing Organizations Do Differently, discusses his research on why some teams win when others fail. “My research of the business and sports world uncovered sixteen things that successful teams do, and I grouped them into four main pillars,” explains Yaeger. (As you listen, you’ll realize the names of the four pillars create the acronym TEAM.)

Pillar One: Targeting Purpose

“Every team has to have a shared sense of purpose,” says Yaeger, “but this is more a belief than a statement. A high performing team feels a shared purpose in their bones. It becomes part of who they are as a team.” You may have heard about Simon Sinek’s Why concept (if you know the answer to why your work matters, you will enjoy your work more.) The concept behind this pillar is very similar to Sinek’s concept, but it applies to entire teams, not individuals. The sense of purpose for a team identifies who they are serving and why that matters. Whether in business, sports, military operations, or day-to-day life, teams show up more positively when they share a sense of purpose.

Pillar Two: Effective Management

Yaeger explains that team leaders need to be committed to developing others. To build a team to its full potential, a leader should recruit people for a cultural fit and then train them for skills. Profit and loss statements are the roadmap to the future for many companies—but Yeager suggests having the right people in the right positions is a better way to ensure that people and teams are constantly developing and improving. The most successful teams have markers on their roadmap of performance defined as developmental goals, not monetary goals.

Pillar Three: Activating Efficiency

This pillar focuses on a willingness to not just accept change but embrace it, so the team can be successful even in transition. “It is important to build a culture of mentorship. Leaders do that by making their expectations clear and praising good performance that supports the culture. Every member of the team must act as a mentor when necessary. It isn’t the job of only the team leader to be a mentor—everyone needs to own that role.”
An especially good example of this pillar is for leaders to be fully engaged in all meetings or practices to let the team know their performance is the most important thing at that moment. In fact, Yaeger recommends that leaders be either fully engaged and present or fully absent. If a leader isn’t prepared to be there 100 percent, they might as well not show up at all.

Pillar Four: Mutual Direction

Great teams have a true sense of what they ultimately want and what it will take to get there. A football team focuses on the fourth quarter and a business team focuses on the completion of a project. Both teams focus on the finish. By preparing all along the way, great teams build a culture where they can win even in critical situations.
Most important, Yaeger urges team leaders to design the culture they want. “By design or by default, your team will have a culture. So design it the way you want it to be and focus on creating and maintaining it. The best teams aren’t necessarily the ones with the best talent—they are the ones with the strongest culture.”

About The Ken Blanchard Companies

The Ken Blanchard Companies is the global leader in management training. For nearly 40 years, Blanchard has been creating the best managers in the world, training over 150,000 people each year. From the award-winning First-time Manager program—based on the best-selling business book, The New One Minute Manager®—to SLII®, the most widely taught leadership model in the world, Blanchard is the provider of choice of Fortune 500 companies as well as small to medium businesses, governments, and educational and nonprofit organizations.

About Don Yaeger

For more information about Don Yaeger go to donyaeger.com.

Learn six strategies for turning a pressure situation into an opportunity. In this episode, Judd Hoekstra, coauthor of Crunch Time: How to be Your Best When It Matters Most, talks about the skill of reframing—intentionally thinking about a situation in a new or different way to improve performance.

“When faced with a stressful situation, it is normal to have the fight, flight, or freeze reaction. But what you should do is pause and recognize when you are having negative thoughts—then challenge your thinking to have positive thoughts,” Hoekstra explains. Hoekstra offers six tips for putting reframing into practice.

1. The first is to reframe from trying harder to trying easier. Contrary to what many of us have been taught, trying harder under pressure is often counterproductive. Think about your best performances. Were you grinding and full of anxiety? More than likely, you remember your best performances as almost effortless. Trying easier isn’t about being lazy or not trying. It is about throttling back just a little. It’s about taking the tension out of what you’re doing and replacing it with a level of effort that allows you to perform in a relaxed state.
2. The next skill is to reframe from tension to laughter. Humor diffuses pressure better than any pharmaceutical on the market. It momentarily reduces the perceived threat posed by a situation. It also helps generate a sense of control and provides perspective that can help you see dire circumstances with some levity. It also stops cortisol, a stress hormone, in its tracks and releases endorphins—the feel-good neurotransmitters that enhance performance.
3. Reframing from anxiety to taking control is a skill that can be used in any stressful situation that undermines your performance. Instead of setting lofty goals that can be intimidating, set simple, short-term, bite-sized goals that are attainable. Then you can take control of the situation and perform at a higher level.
4. Fighting our own doubts is difficult, but it is possible to reframe from doubt to confidence. “When I’m making a presentation but I’m filled with doubt, I think back to a similar situation where I performed at my best level. I visualize that performance—I actually relive the event—to build my confidence and remember that I’ll be using the same tried and true skills that I’ve successfully used before,” says Hoekstra.
5. Reframing from failure to a learning moment is one of the most useful skills to consider when trying to deliver your best performance. Whether you are an athlete, business person, actor, parent, or teacher, we can all learn from our mistakes. Hoekstra shares how Garry Ridge, CEO of WD-40, has banned the word mistake from the company’s culture. Ridge prefers the term learning moment. People are afraid of making mistakes, but having a learning moment is an opportunity. He asks people to think about what they’ve learned and to share that information with others.
6. The last skill is to reframe from prepared to overprepared. This skill is especially helpful in pressure situations. A normal amount of preparation is fine, but it won’t serve you well when the pressure is high. Overpreparation allows you to operate instinctively even when things are not going as planned. “Overpreparation is what allowed Michael Phelps to set a world record in the 2008 Olympics even when his goggles were leaking and he couldn’t see the edge of the pool,” says Hoekstra. Overpreparation is the skill that allows you to overcome the unthinkable.

The best thing to remember is that people everywhere, in all kinds of professions, are using reframing skills successfully. They are as helpful to a CEO or athlete as they are to a parent trying to have a positive interaction with their children.
Crunch Time: How to be Your Best When It Matters Most

In this episode, Alex Hutchinson shares what he learned from ten years of researching human performance. He explains that whether you are running a marathon, building a career, or raising a family, you will have fundamental struggles. And even though the situations are very different, the struggles are similar. “Human achievement relies upon the ability to endure?and your ability to push forward in any circumstance will separate the very successful times from the less successful times,” explains Hutchinson. Here are a few of the fascinating concepts he shares:

Although some limits we experience feel physical, many are dictated by the brain. That doesn’t mean we can ignore those limits, but we need to realize they are more changeable than we think. If, for example, you are struggling to win a race or fighting to stay awake during a presentation, you are hitting a limit. Being able to recognize the difference between apparent and actual limits is at the heart of understanding what endurance is all about.

Your beliefs could be the most powerful asset you have for improving performance. Believing you can do something is part of the trick. The method of creating belief doesn’t happen overnight?it takes time and effort to build confidence. And confidence improves performance. Tricking yourself that you are performing better than you actually are can bridge the gap between what your brain thinks you can do and what your body really can do. Deception is useful to show you what is possible to achieve; however, it isn’t a great method for sustaining performance.

Understand that mental fatigue is as real and as tiring as physical fatigue. Research shows that looking at a computer screen for a few hours can cause changes in your brain chemistry that result in mental fatigue?and that can damage your physical performance. So, if you are in the office powering through a project on your computer, maybe the best thing you can do is get up and take a walk outside to refresh your mental state and then get back to your project with renewed energy.

Pain causes discomfort that slows us down. An athlete experiences physical pain, but someone making a presentation or speech can also feel pain. The good news is that pain tolerance can be developed. To push the limits of your endurance, you need to get comfortable being uncomfortable.

Nutrition plays a huge role in your performance. It’s obvious that physical endurance depends on food and water, but a nutritious diet is also important for brain function. There is no silver bullet diet?you must find what works best for you.

Finally, Hutchinson explains the importance of optimism and believing in yourself. He reminds us that “The experience of a limit is a sensation in the brain. It isn’t easy to change, but it isn’t as absolute as it feels. Don’t take the feeling of hitting a limit as a signal of failure, but as a signal to look for another way to accomplish your goal.”

“Most ideals about why people are successful are driven by stereotypes and gut feel rather than facts and data,” explains Botelho. “In this book, we’ve aspired to provide information about how anyone can be successful by helping readers learn from other successful people in business.”

Learnings shared in the book are based on groundbreaking research and in-depth analysis of more than 2,600 leaders drawn from a database of more than 17,000 CEO and C-suite executives. Botelho describes the four behaviors of highly successful people as identified by the research.

1. They are decisive and understand the importance of speed over precision when making decisions. According to Botelho, most people assume that CEOs have an uncanny ability to make the right decisions more often than other people. But her research indicates that what really makes a CEO stand out isn’t necessarily the accuracy of their decision, but the speed and will to make the decision in the first place.
2. They are reliable and deliver what they promise, when they promise it—without exception. This behavior sounds simple, but isn’t easy to practice consistently. Botelho describes the importance of being on time and doing what you say you’re going to do—and she offers another tip: “Highly reliable leaders are thoughtful about setting expectations right up front.” Botelho shares that this behavior not only improves the likelihood you will succeed in your role, but also increases your chances of being hired In the first place.
3. They adapt boldly, especially when faced with the discomfort of the unknown. “Of the four behaviors, this is the one where people are most likely to underestimate their ability—and that is costly.” Botelho explains people naturally assume change will be painful, so they resist it. But her research shows that the most successful leaders are good at letting go of past behaviors, habits, and commitments that will not serve them in the future.
4. They engage with stakeholders without shying away from conflict. These leaders focus on leading to deliver results that benefit the company as opposed to leading to be liked. They keep all stakeholders—customers, employees, and shareholders—in mind and manage those relationships.

Finally, Botelho shares some counterintuitive insights about making great strides in your career—what she calls career catapults. “Sometimes it is better to go small in order to go big,” Botelho says. Having an elite MBA or working for a marquee company is a great way to advance your career, but sometimes taking what looks like a side step instead of always focusing on moving up the ladder can have a more positive impact. By being in charge of a smaller project, division, or group, you might actually have a chance to practice more skills and get more exposure.

According to the author, here is the most important message to take away from The CEO Next Door and this podcast: Excellence is more achievable for us than we assume.

Be sure to stay tuned for comments from Ken Blanchard at the end of the podcast!

Check out this episode!

“Every time, in more than six years of asking that question, almost every hand would go up,” says Rognlien. “Then I would tell them, ‘Great, now it’s your responsibility not to mess it up.'”

In his new book, This Is Now Your Company: A Culture Carrier’s Manifesto, Rognlien shares that every person must own their contribution to the organizational fabric of a company, no matter what role they are stepping into. It begins by owning your role.

“If the definition of culture is the sum total of all of our behaviors, then you can start tipping the culture in another direction by changing your behavior.”

To help with that, Rognlien suggests organizational leaders encourage higher quality conversations between managers and direct reports. He says most companies don’t have an environment that allows people to sit down with their managers and ask, “How are we going to get through this together?”

Rognlien describes this relationship as a 50-50 partnership, meaning the direct report has just as much responsibility for clear goals and performance feedback as the manager.

“You are half the relationship. If you know more about something, or if something specific requires special care or attention, then you’d better be willing to have that conversation.”

Rognlien goes on to discuss personal branding, feedback, and leveraging your strengths. He closes the interview by discussing a hot topic in today’s organizations—unconscious bias. He explains that bias exists in every organization—and that some biases can actually be helpful and support organizational values.

“At Facebook, for example, we had a bias for moving quickly. When interviewing or working at Facebook, if you were moving slowly, you would feel it—the bias for speed was ever present. That’s an example of a conscious bias that is useful and has served Facebook well.”

Rognlien explains that the unconscious form of bias accumulates over time without being recognized and it can lead organizations to act in ways that go against stated values. While he believes organizations can’t completely eliminate bias, he suggests steps can be taken to bring it out into the open.

“Our goal is to create people and organizations who are comfortable talking about unconscious bias. We have to stop being afraid and we need to have those conversations.”

In closing, Rognlien encourages listeners to step into their fears.

“The only way you will know if something isn’t going to work is to try and fail. If you can learn something from it, was it really a failure?”

Be sure to listen through to the very end of the session, where Ken Blanchard shares his key takeaways from the interview!