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[Music]
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[Music]
welcome to scaling up the podcast where
we scale up on knowledge so we don’t
scale up our systems my name is trace
blackmore and nation
it’s finally here
we are at the association of water
technologies
annual convention
of course last year we had a virtual
convention
this year’s in person of course i
pre-record these so you are not hearing
from me
live in the exhibit hall but i have
recorded this with just such
anticipation of
you
being able to go to the awt convention
there’s so many people out there in the
scaling up nation that i’ve met through
awt that have learned about the podcast
through awt and most importantly have
given me suggestions about what you want
this show to cover
so it’s my hope that during this week of
the awt convention that you have tried
to find me
and let me know what this show has meant
to you let me know the things that
you’ve really enjoyed on the show and i
am always happy to take criticism how
can i make this show better you know
it’s always funny some people might say
i have to release on wednesday or monday
or tuesday and
for those of you that have been
listening to the show you know i have
released the show on just about every
day of the week we settled on friday i
answered on an earlier show i did that
so brian kotarsky of aqua phoenix could
listen why he cut his grass on saturday
to a brand new episode so right or wrong
we’re releasing on friday but even if
it’s criticism about when we release the
show i want to hear about it everything
you tell me about scaling up h2o allows
me
and my staff to make it better so let me
know who you want me to talk to let me
know what topics you want me to discuss
let me know what you want me to explore
on your favorite industrial water
treatment podcast you know looking back
at the years since we were at the awt
convention and by at i mean we were all
sitting at our desk enduring a pandemic
so much has happened i think we’ve
learned a lot i think we’ve changed how
we do our business
in some ways some ways have gone back to
normal other ways are just here to stay
but here’s the thing
everything we do it challenges us to do
it better now none of us wished that the
pandemic would come on any of us
but it did
and water treatment especially got
through it and we learned so many things
by going through the pandemic
that many of us are far better on the
other end because we challenged what we
did just because that was the way that
we always did it now something that
helped me so much was the rising tide
mastermind there are many members in the
rising tide mastermind that are members
of the scaling up nation we’ve got about
43 members in the rising tide mastermind
and we didn’t have that many
when the pandemic started in fact when
the mastermind started it was just a few
months
and then our friend
covid19 gave us a visit and i think i’ve
mentioned on the show before
but i had support with my peers
none of us knew how to weather a
pandemic
we had no idea if our customers were
going to pay us and i have to say our
accounts receivable was as high as it
had ever
been did that mean that i wasn’t going
to be able to pay my people did that
mean that i needed to negotiate new
terms with my vendors all of these
things brought questions that we all had
but here was a key benefit that i have
that i think so many people out there
need but didn’t have and that was a
connection to other people that were
going through the same thing and now we
could ask those questions together and
we could learn from each other’s trials
we could learn from each other’s
mistakes
we could pick something up where
somebody else left off and now
we completed a huge task but maybe we
only had to do half of it or a third of
it or a fourth of it because we were all
working on it i cannot say enough good
things about being a member of a group
like the rising tide mastermind now as
an industrial water treater i do want
you to consider becoming a member of the
rising tide mastermind you can do that
by going to scalinguph2o.com
forward slash mastermind and i’m also
going to tell you that the rising tide
mastermind is not right for everybody
there have been some members that we’ve
after an interview just decided that
this is not the right group for them and
i hope that they do find the right group
but there are people out there that are
listening to this right now that the
rising tide mastermind is the perfect
group for them and i want those people
to check out the rising tide mastermind
i want to have an interview with you
so one i can ask some questions and make
sure you’re right for the mastermind but
i also want to make sure that the
mastermind is right for you
the simple fact is life is hard any
doubt of that just relive last year but
we don’t have to live it alone and when
we can share our experiences our
successes
and even ask others to give us a little
boost up every now and then
that’s what the mastermind is all about
and just a few short weeks ago we had
our first live event where all the
members of the rising tide mastermind
came together
and nation i cannot tell you what an
amazing experience that was
it was as if some of the best friends uh
ever have come back together it was like
we all went to college together
and of course we meet on a weekly zoom
call and that’s great but to be able to
be with each other in person there’s no
substitute to that and i and the amazing
staff here at the scaling up h2o podcast
and also the rising tide mastermind team
we put on a live event that was just
amazing and i want to describe it to you
but if you weren’t there it’s just
really hard to put into words i will say
this everybody left there
and they were so much better connected
to each other
and they had tools they had handles to
take back from that live event
not only to reinvest in their weekly
calls with the rising tide mastermind
but to take back to their teams to take
back to their families to take back to
all the organizations that they’re a
part of and make those things better and
i’m going to say that during the live
event we pushed the boundaries of what
made us comfortable i shared some
personal things there that a lot of
people don’t know about me and that
wasn’t easy that was hard and sometimes
we have to be vulnerable in order to get
the real
information out in order to make that
real connection and we definitely did
that at the live event
and that’s something
that we have to do if we’re in charge of
people if we’re in a management role and
we’re going to talk about what that term
means with our next guest
but there’s so many things that we have
to be able to do
in order to lead people correctly and
that’s what we’re talking about today
with our guest
and i know you’re going to
walk away from this interview with so
many new tools and things that you want
to try
so ladies and gentlemen here’s the
interview
[Music]
my lab partner today is bill eckstrom
ceo of excel institute and excel sports
and excel education
lots of companies there
bill i can’t wait to talk to you i can’t
wait to just share with the scaling up
nation
how you coach what you do and especially
just give them some handles on how they
can take some of that and do what they
need to do better but first off how are
you today i’m amazing well that’s good
to hear it’s a great day so far
so three different companies tell us
about those
uh
it probably sounds more impressive than
it actually is the excel institute has
been around for about a dozen years and
that organization was started in
business
with the idea of
i i have this passion
for growth
and we believed that what has the
biggest impact on growth of individuals
and teams in business are the respective
leader or coach of that team
we needed to quantify that we needed to
understand more about it to giving
examples uh in sales
using that as an example in a sales
department you know sales team
typically gets all the resources they
get all kinds of things for improvement
and growth and but if you ask executives
and say hey there’s a growth and
performance of teams a reflection of how
the people in those teams are coached
and they will unequivocally 100 of the
time say oh yes absolutely they are bill
good then if their performance is based
on how well they’re coached then why is
it the coaches get no attention we track
where sales people go for a cup of
coffee we don’t but organizations track
if they stop for for at a starbucks
they know if they got a donut in the
morning they put gps’s in their car
they know everything about their day but
they can’t tell you where the managers
were last week
or last month certainly three months ago
so it’s an interesting dichotomy so we
we kind of started this business with
the idea of changing that not that
employees need less attention they need
more attention but they need it from
their leaders and they need it the right
way
so that spawned that and then from that
we kind of got sucked into athletics and
education and so we measure athletic
coaches impact on the student athlete
and we measure teachers impact on the
students in the classroom well i can’t
wait to break all of this down i’m one
of those people that believe that you
should learn everything you can and then
you should share that with as many
people as you come in contact with or in
my case as many people that want to
listen to me i think that is a
definition loosely of what a coach is
how would you define what a coach is
you know that’s a really good question
because
everybody always talks about you know
coaching has become a pretty strong
buzzword anytime there’s a problem
employee unfortunately is usually what
it’s associated with well you got to
coach them up
you know you’ve got to be a better coach
well coach seems synonymous with
intervention anytime there’s a problem
we look at coach as someone
who creates trusting relationships
one who creates the best systems and
structures
and then one who creates challenge
for the people on their team
and those are so that’s pretty long
definition but i think the gap between
what we define as a coach versus a
leader is
we believe great coaches
have
great leadership characteristics great
coaches no one is appropriate to manage
that’s why we hate the term manager
great coaches
um know when to motivate they know how
to motivate they are in charge and
accountable they’re great recruiters
they know how to identify and acquire
talent develop talent
and
the biggest distinction is between a
coach and leader is a coach has people
that report to them
i can be a follower and and have great
leadership skills you know and and have
leadership behaviors coach you gotta
have a team whether it’s two or whether
it’s 20.
i think most companies out there have a
sales department and i love talking
about the sales department because it’s
probably the most dysfunctional
department a company has
so let’s say somebody just is a rock
star in sales so he gets recognized he
or she gets recognized
and then they get promoted so they’re
really good out in the field working
with customers and now all of a sudden
they’re a manager but as you said most
of the time they don’t get any extra
training on the skills that they need to
lead this new team of people that
they’re now put in charge with how
should that process go
wow that’s another really good question
trace
well first of all let me back up
to
be a coach
versus a player
is
a completely different
talent a completely different skill do i
think it helps to have to play the game
to coach the game heck yes
i really do believe that i i think my
learning curve is shortened if i have
been in sales and then i move into a
sales leadership role or a coaching role
as we would say
but in our research we see that only
four to five percent of salespeople
have the ability to be a great coach in
sales
great leader in sales i’m going to use
this anonymously only four to five
percent that means 95 to 96 of sales
people should either stay in sales or go
somewhere else in a company
but they shouldn’t be moved into a
coaching role
and too often
that’s where
leadership thinks well
i need to show this salesperson
i need to reward them for high
production
well
a move up a proverbial corporal matter
is not a reward for doing your job well
that is simply a way of advancement as a
salesperson i can advance by selling
more stuff by making more money
there’s all different ways i can
continue to grow
it doesn’t need to be through moving me
into a coaching role especially
if i am not equipped to be a great coach
so how should that process go ideally
well
ideally they would be
really assessing their talents to see if
they have the talent to be a great
coach unfortunately most often
when we work with organizations the
people are already in the role and the
only way to understand how effective one
is as a coach when they’re in a coaching
role is to measure it just to quantify
it
to head that off you would have to
assess on the front end you’d have to do
the proper interviews on the front end
and one of the things you know as simple
as it sounds we we recommend to
organizations quick calling and managers
what if that first level of leadership
were called a coach
so i’m a sales coach now i’m no longer a
salesperson
instead of a sales manager
and i really wonder
how many fewer people would actually
apply for or want that job okay i know
whoa whoa i’m a coach i’m not a manager
yes
huh
i like to manage people
so i don’t know
but there are certainly a few things
they can do on the front end and then
once they get there the only way is to
quantify how good they are
in your book i believe you cover this
but you talk about the difference
between coaching leading and managing
how should we look at those terms
first of all the term manager management
really is an archaic term it was
developed
in the industrial era in our country and
think no further than ford’s assembly
line it was all about
inputs and and predictable outcomes you
know if we put a b and c in we should
get d e and f out and if that’s straight
there’s a problem with the input and it
took in no account
for the leader
of those teams for the for the human
dynamic in those teams back then we
didn’t understand that there’s this
concept of discretionary effort that if
i have a boss you know who’s coaching
through fear they could still get
discretionary effort out of me but it’s
probably not going to last especially in
today’s world back then it could last
jobs were hard to get
you know it was an employer’s market now
it’s an employee’s market and guess what
you want to coach me through fear i’m
out of there
i’m going somewhere else i’m going to
place a positive psychology i’m going to
a place that comes from love i’m going
to work for a team of people that that
really want to help me grow and then i
want to give back to the company that
way as well again the whole leadership
and coaching thing
the dynamic there is coaches always have
teams and there’s so many leadership
models and so many philosophies on how
to lead what great leaders do and from a
coaching perspective
we focus really on that dynamic
between the coach
and the player whether it’s in business
sport or classroom
so i’m sure there are people out there
that are on the hiring staff maybe this
company has a hiring committee or
however they do it
they’re thinking wait a second i need to
change my mindset on who i put in this
leadership position
so what should they be now doing to make
sure they find the right coach for that
position
you know again that gets back to i think
properly assessing
that in my mind is where it begins and
then that coupled with structured
interviews uh experiential interviews
experiential questions
you can get a pretty good read to combat
it on the front end
and there are simple things like give me
an example
of where you took time away from your
daily activities
to go help another employee and if they
got to sit there and go oh wow um
gee
give me a minute here i’m sure there’s a
time idea you know
their pension isn’t towards coaching
it’s not towards development so i think
there’s a series of things they can do
uh from from a science more of a data
perspective to help them find who those
people are
so based on that the number one quality
you’re looking for is their willingness
their desire to help others
well when we quantify this we’re
more looking at what they do
today so what what what are the greatest
coaches doing today to get the most
discretionary effort out of the people
on their teams that that’s really where
our focus is we’re not in the assessment
um on the front end so what we see
uh in terms of what great coaches are
doing there’s a set of behaviors and
activities that are not earth-shattering
but they do them consistently and they
do them really really well and of an
emphasis on the wealth for example
one-on-one meetings
great coaches they do one-on-one
meetings consistently with the people on
their teams
they give
feedback when i say feedback not just
oral feedback but they give consistent
written feedback
they hold consistent team meetings and
they do career development plans and
conversations with people on their team
and and right now people are probably
hearing that going well gb we do all
that stuff yeah it’s not rocket science
but how often do they do it
how well do they do it can you quantify
it because if you tell a bad coach
someone who acts like a manager if you
tell that person hey i’ve been reading
this great book on what great coaches do
who says you should do more one-on-ones
go do that
you might be creating negative
discretionary effort because if you put
a bad coach in front of me and tell that
coach to spend more time with me i’m
gonna do less work i’m gonna be less
productive
so the quality
of those activities is more important
than the quantity of those activities
and when we look at quality traits we’re
looking at things like a coach’s ability
to create trust-based connections
the psychological safety they create on
their teams have they put in the proper
structures are they developing the skill
sets of the people on their team are
they challenging the people on their
team in a healthy way and are they
communicating properly so there are six
behavioral aspects that are quantifiable
that are more important than the actual
activities of what great coaches do
how do you know what the right interval
is is a year too long where
weekly is too often or is that different
for each person you know that’s a that’s
uh
some time ago we couldn’t have answered
that now we can
when we look across the highest
performing coaches uh both in sales
doesn’t matter now because we started in
sales and now it’s i.t and hr and
operations and you know marketing all
the way through the highest growth
highest performing coaches do
one-on-ones every other week not more
for you i think a lot of people think
they would do them every week they
didn’t but here’s what’s interesting
during the pandemic they moved them to
weekly they knew intuitively they just
knew that hey i need my people need more
me now but
you know sans pandemic the highest
performing we’re doing it every other
week team meetings everybody thinks well
weekly team meetings are the most
productive they’re not
it’s not the great ones due monthly they
do them monthly again they were
went to every other week during the
pandemic but it’s not the fact that they
were less frequent it’s the fact that
they do them differently
so
there is a frequency there is a cadence
to them
but there’s like i said the quality is
is more important than the cadence
now you mentioned the pandemic a lot of
us moved from in-person meetings to zoom
style meetings
what should change on that format from a
regular in-person meeting you know
really nothing
which is a
very good question because
one of the things we’ve been fortunate
enough
is because we started off working in
sales departments
most of our clients are
people who have all their employees
remote anyway
you know
i could be a coach and i live in denver
and i got sales people in seattle san
francisco los angeles phoenix you know
so on and so forth so these people we’ve
been studying this for years they’ve
been managing leading coaching remote
workforces for a long long time
and the funny part is i think everybody
thinks that well zoom now we have to
change what we do no we don’t it can be
operated the same way it’s just that
fewer people want to do it that way
coaches that used to do it in person is
like well i don’t know what to do and
i’m no good at it or or i’m just going
to ignore it
and you can’t do that
so
it’s
still having
and this gets back to the structure
component having the disciplines to do
what’s right even in the face of
adversity which is what coveted was
and is
providing we have the right leader we
have the right coach
and they’re now in charge of a team what
are some things that they absolutely
have to be looking at to know that they
have a healthy team
the only way they’re truly going to know
is to measure it
to quantify it
and we’ve tried this if you ask leaders
what they do well
and and
what what they feel healthy teams are
like
they’re not very accurate
they just they’re not so the only way to
to to know whether team is healthy is to
quantify and the way you quantify it is
by serving the employees on that team
it’s it’s a bottom-up measurement it’s
not side to side it’s not top-down it’s
not a 360. it’s a bottom-up measurement
and that’s the only way to get an
accurate understanding of whether or not
you have a healthy team dynamic and a
high growth and high performing team
dynamic
what are some of the things that should
be on that survey
now now we get back to those six themes
in terms of quality that i was talking
about earlier it’s really understanding
first and foremost do i have trust
connections with people on my team well
most every leader will tell you oh yes
of course i do yes i trust my people
they trust me well guess what on a 100
point scale our average
trust connection score within businesses
is only a 74. i think that’s right i
think it’s a 74 76 somewhere in there
that’s not very good
and when people get these results back
so often they look at them they say oh
my gosh
i i can’t believe i thought my people
trust don’t they know how much i care
and my response is usually the same no
they don’t because you don’t show them
how much you care so
trust connections
are one of the things that absolutely
have to be quantified psychological
safety come on i mean in the workplace
today
in athletics in the classroom to not
understand
whether or not you’re creating a
psychologically safe environment for
people to perform you’re missing out you
can be holding people back you’re
holding growth back you’re holding
performance back by not providing the
most psychologically safe environment
you can and the funny part is nobody
knows whether or not they have that
environment they hope they do they want
it but it’s like everything else if you
don’t measure it you don’t know
so what question would you
pose on this survey to get the right
responses on trust
i’d have to pull up our our survey to to
give you some examples but here’s one i
think this comes from that section of it
which is
my supervisor will use that term
asks about my life outside of work
my
supervisor
cares about me as a person
not just an employee
i can share some things with my
supervisor i can’t share with other team
members see here’s what i love about
those questions as a leader
that puts me in a different mindset and
it’s it’s allowing me to think of am i
doing these things how am i really
showing people that i do care
and and i’ve got to tell you we do have
an assessment i don’t know if they list
those questions out so well
as you just put but it allows me to get
good feedback from my people but at the
same time too make sure that i’m doing
the things so they can answer those in
the way that i would hope that they
would answer them
it’s an interesting point because the
way we do this has evolved and our
director research is you know her
background she’s masters of sociology
and research methodology
so
one of the things one of the challenges
we see is is you know at a basic level
and i’m not impugning you for doing this
as a matter of fact i applaud people for
when they do this is don’t develop
surveys on your own because you don’t
know if they’re statistically accurate
or correct and if you’re giving them out
personally or handing you know you’re
probably not getting accurate answers
and then our survey has evolved
in a way to where every single question
is an actionable question and it’s about
the dynamic that exists between
boston employee
it’s 100 percent every single question
that is asked is something that a a
coach could look and go oh i can change
that i can absolutely take actions to to
get a different response from the people
on my team so i think making them
actionable uh is really really important
because what’s interesting to me
is things like engagement focus on
outcome we focus on input what creates
that outcome
and that’s really we know more than
anything else
and you know this too i’m sure trace
that
what has the biggest impact on whether i
stay with you whether i leave you
whether i am engaged with you whether i
give you discretionary effort
more than anything else has to do with
the relationship between
my coach and me and if that’s not
healthy you’re not getting the most out
of me
if you’re not getting the most out of me
we’re leaving performance on growth on
the table
you probably have statistics to this
most employers think people leave for
more money but that’s probably not the
case what’s the real number why people
leave
gallup puts out numbers on that and
their numbers i think 70 percent uh of
the reason is always because of the boss
is 70 percent
i would tell you i believe i believe
just through
subjective
analysis in the years in in business and
now in athletics and in the classroom i
think it’s every bit of that arguably
even more so in the world of sport
a term you like to use is leadership
effectiveness what is that
actually i like coaching effectiveness
more
all right we can use that coaching
effectiveness it’s my ability to
to create discretionary effort
it’s it’s
sometimes just that simple
do people work an extra hour because
of me
as their coach
are they more engaged do they make an
extra phone call are they nicer to the
person next to them do they ask more
questions are they more curious and if
the team will do that without me as
their coach
then why am i there
why have managers in business if the
teams will produce as much if they
weren’t there
so that is what effectiveness is
for us and and that getting back to why
that can now be quantified
those things used to be soft skills
didn’t they trace
yeah you would just think somebody would
come in and they would put in the extra
work and that was the expectation but
you’re really getting to the reason why
they would want to do that
right exactly and things like trust
connections if you had brought that up
20 years ago people say oh that’s a soft
skill you know psychological safety
really psychological safety that’s soft
skill you know you got to challenge your
people soft skill
they’re not the difference between soft
skills and now what are what we call
hard skills is if they can be measured
and if you can quantify them
so let me ask what are some of the
things that a leader should measure
themselves around that and then what are
some things that the leader should be
looking at from the people that they are
leading
in terms of what measures the leaders
should look at it is those themes it’s
what you do and what you say
i mean every employee
looks at you through your eyes it’s
based on what you do and what you say
so
if our research shows what you do
there’s a lot of things you do in a
given day but what most impacts me on
your team it’s whether you do one-on-one
meetings with me whether we hold you
know effective team meetings you know
those four areas those four activities
what you say what how you behave
is really around those six themes do you
create relationships of trust do you
create psychological safety do you put
in the proper structures do you develop
my skills do you push me and challenge
me outside of what the norms might be
you know so on and so forth in terms of
how do i evaluate my team well that’s
what feedback is all about i mean let’s
face it on the athletic field a
quarterback coach can grade every single
practice every single snap
of both the practice and the game a
quarterback’s skill level can’t they in
business so
if you ask
someone in marketing to say hey
what are the
metrics around your marketing your
digital marketing manager in terms of
their performance they should be able to
tell you
can they tell you that knight t can they
tell you that in operations they usually
can in sales because sales metrics
everybody knows right number of calls
number opens the number of closes number
of presentations right whatever those
are
but there’s also quality metrics they
should be looking at too so every coach
should have a series
of key indicators
that track progress and growth for the
people on their teams
and they need to document those
and i don’t mean in a review i’m not
talking about a review
i mean again
when we look at the world of sport
even at the collegiate level trace i’ve
worked with the gymnastics team they can
do an event in practice just a little
routine on an event in practice have it
graded and videoed and they can come off
the apparatus and go watch it we had an
intern who was a diver at a big ten
school and she said in practice every
dive they took was graded and filmed
but in business the high performing
coaches
they give feedback once a quarter and
most are
not even willing to do that of the low
performers
so in athletics they get it every day in
business most people say i can’t even do
it once a quarter
and by the way that activity providing
great proper objective feedback is the
number one tool that has the strongest
correlation to discretionary effort the
number one coaching tool and very few
people are willing to do it
so what does that look like how do we
get what the young lady experienced in
diving
to a sales community we’ve got a lower
performer
they’re they’re not doing the things
that they probably could be doing to be
a better performer there’s no camera how
do we how do we bring the camera that
she got on the diving board into the
board room or wherever they’re doing
their pitch
yeah that’s a that’s a wonderful
question and you’re right there’s no
camera so what is the camera
it’s my coach being with me it’s that
sales leader being out in the field
with those sales producers
watching
listening
to to truly be a coach so when they’re
done
they can ask the right questions and
then provide the best feedback
the difference is most people want to do
that only orally right they get out of a
sales call and they walk on and say hey
what’d you think yeah i thought we
kicked rear end and took names yeah baby
let’s go what are we going to do in this
next call we were going to go see joe
all right let’s let’s rock this call
now granted that’s a pretty
you know hyperbolic way to view it
but what should happen after i recall
there should be oral synthesis right
what do you think went well
what would you have done differently uh
if we went back in that call why would
you do that differently or what
specifically when this when this you
asked this question earlier and the
prospector client responded this way
would you ask the question that same way
again
great because how did he respond you
know so so you’re really drilling into
asking questions and then once a quarter
you document it written on a one-to-five
scale write down what they do well and
their opportunities for growth because
how do you know when to grow if nobody’s
telling you and if you can’t see it and
read it how do i know how to get better
and people are so afraid of that
is the way to get over that fear just to
start doing it it gets back to my ted
talk right it makes me uncomfortable so
the only way to get over discomfort is
to do it over and over again
we call it being in a complex
environment the only way
to create growth is through discomfort
i i mean that literally the only way to
create growth is through discomfort and
so many coaches which is interesting we
ask why don’t you do written feedback
you know it’s just too tough it’s too
hard it takes too much time or it makes
my people uncomfortable you’ll hear that
too yeah and the truth is it probably
makes them uncomfortable
exactly to tell somebody on a scale one
to five they’re a one or a two i mean
that’s not what i go to bed dreaming
about oh how much i love to do that but
if i really am a great coach and i’m
really invested in helping my people
grow they need to hear that if that’s
what they are
so we started this conversation off
around
the word coaching really is a pejorative
that oh bill shows up late all the time
trace you need to go coach him make sure
that he can get here on time
but everything that we’ve talked about
it’s about building others up according
to their needs and i’m i’m sure that
there is and i’m going to use the term a
manager out there that they maybe got
promoted because they were the best
sales person and now they’re the sales
manager and they’re thinking this is the
missing element of what i’m doing i need
to start acting like a coach what would
you say the first thing that they need
to do
to to make that shift so they are
coaching the people that they lead
first and foremost just show me show
them you care show them you care about
them as people not just employees
ask about their life outside of work get
to know them know the names of their
kids and their dogs
understand their goals professionally
personally
that
first and foremost is is foundational
to being a great coach
because without trust without developing
those connections of trust
you have no platform on which to build
if i don’t trust you i’m not going to
feel safe around you so psychological
safety is down if i don’t trust you i’m
not going to follow your structures and
process as well as your structure score
goes down if i don’t trust you you’re
going to push me and challenge me and i
think you’re a jerk because i don’t
think you’re in it for me i think you’re
in it for you
so that’s where it has to begin
are there any famous leaders that you
can refer to and say this is the quality
that i’m referring to and this is the
result that they received
most of them trace are people nobody
knows
because the real famous people
i haven’t interviewed i haven’t been in
there studying them i haven’t tracked
their behaviors i haven’t interviewed
the people that reported to them
so it’s the day in
day out
business leaders and coaches that we’ve
studied that we’ve supported
that
i want to look and say and and thank and
just say man
there’s some of you i would tell my kids
to go be on your team that’s how much i
trust you because i know you would
challenge and love my kids and help them
grow
now on the surface level when i think
back this will age me a little bit but
general norman schwarzkopf was someone
who you know i saw actually shed tears
on camera but i also know how tough he
was
and he showed everything from
wonderful empathy to to wonderful
connections and certainly provided
you know challenges people to perform at
the highest level so that would be a
person in terms of just that i don’t
know but i looked at and i thought he
embodied all those things
can you share with us one of your
biggest success stories
wow how deep do we want to go on this um
you know i think if you were asked most
people they would say oh bill’s biggest
it would be his ted talk that went viral
but that’s not what i would say my
biggest success story is
understanding
and tapping into the power of my mind
five years ago four years ago
and what that’s done for me
physically what it’s done for me
mentally
yeah my biggest success story is is
really
putting my emphasis there
if you could only stress and get one
point across today to the scaling up
nation what do you want that point to be
don’t be afraid to be uncomfortable
because
we have to learn to spend part of our
each day in a state of discomfort if we
want to grow
you know the old don’t don’t look at
yourself and think to yourself wow i’m
the same guy i was 20 years ago oh my
goodness that means you haven’t evolved
don’t take pride in that take pride in
how you’ve evolved take pride in the way
your thinking’s evolved take pride in
how your mental self has evolved and the
only way that’s going to evolve is if
you spend a little time each day in a
state of discomfort and whether that’s
discomfort physically discomfort
mentally or in my case i recommend all
of the above create a little growth
every day doing that
well bill i have enjoyed asking you all
of these questions but i still have some
questions left are you ready for the
lightning
round i think
you know whether i’m ready or not your
audience will know
there we go so you now have the ability
to go back in time and talk with your
former self on your first day in a
coaching role what advice would you give
yourself
i’m not sure i would
i’m not sure i would give my
because
it’s the learning it’s too often i think
we want to go back and say what would we
change what would we fix and all those
mistakes as well as successes in that
journey comprise who i am today
and if i knew how to eliminate those i
wouldn’t be who i am today so i think i
would go back and look at my former self
and say enjoy the ride i don’t think
anybody’s ever answered the question
that way and i have to tell you i
absolutely
love it
my next question is what are the last
few books that you’ve read
man’s search for meaning by victor
frankl
is one what a profound book i was
introduced to that book reading the
seven habits of highly effective people
i think it’s only 90 something pages but
wow
yeah it’s victor frankl is an amazing a
remarkable person
so that that’s one another a good friend
and colleague by the name of dr larry
widman
wrote a book uh called max out mindset
and i’m spending part of my time doing
some work with athletic teams on a
volunteer basis not just in a business
setting
i love the psychology of
growth and the mental aspect of it so
that those are my two most recent
and bill i have to ask you about your
book tell us about that the coaching
effect thank you for asking um you know
it’s fun we we had clients and people
tell us for years you guys should write
a book you guys should write a book and
finally
what i did is the president of our
company i she and i had written some
stuff together like e-articles and
journal articles and things like that
that we had co-authored so i took some
of our work and um and after visiting
with a
series of people that had written books
and then gotten online and just done all
my due diligence everybody said and
everything we had i had read was hey
start the journey because you’re going
to get turned down and you really got to
start it and eventually you’ll probably
if you’re good you’ll find somebody that
wants to write your book
so
i did my due diligence and
went to all different i would
investigate all different publishers
took our work and without
her knowing because getting back to one
of the activities in our career
development conversations she had i said
what’s one of your dreams one day and
she said i would like to either author
or co-author a book
and i took note of that and a year later
i took some of the work we did together
and after all my due diligence has
submitted it to a publisher and the
publisher didn’t reject it he came back
they came back said well you made the
first cut and i was like whoa oh well
that’s nice and
i figured maybe i should go tell sarah
now
and um a month later uh after what they
call editorial review the publisher came
back said
we want you to write a book with us
so it was our first try
and so the coaching effect is really
about what great coaches do now it’s
written for business so it doesn’t has
some athletic examples but
it’s based on the research where we
researched and quantified the
interactions of over 100 000
interactions between
bosses and employees in the workplace
what did we learn from that so that’s
what we share in the book what the
greatest coaches are doing what
activities what behaviors and what you
can do tomorrow to begin your journey on
growth well i will be sure to put a link
to that on our show notes page and
please tell me there’s an audible
recording of that there is and we tried
to use their own voices they will they
wouldn’t let us
but yes well i think that was a mistake
because i’ve enjoyed listening to you
this entire hour and i can’t imagine it
could be any better without your voice
well you’re very kind thank you all
right my next question eventually
hollywood’s gonna find out about bill’s
life who plays bill
um so with that at the risk of sounding
arrogant if you were to ask my oldest
daughter who plays bill she would tell
you george clooney i can see that and i
think it’s because of the hair i can
definitely see that
great choice too i’m sure he’s waiting
on the script my final question you now
have the ability to speak with anybody
throughout history who would it be with
and why
i think it would be viktor frankl i
would just love to continue to pick his
brain as to
how he can take what he lived through
and help others on this journey because
some things have evolved i would just i
i yeah it would be victor frankel so
many so many lives can be changed and
touched and positively impacted if they
knew the power of their mind and how to
access that and that’s one of the things
he was really on the cutting edge of
well i think you’ve allowed a lot of
people that might have been mediocre in
coaching the people that they’re in
charge of to think a little differently
today and unlock some of the powers that
you just suggested that victor frankl
has the the ability to do
and i’m sure several people are going to
read your book to try to find out more
of what they can do if they want to go
beyond that how can they contact you
well thank you for that uh
billextram.com
it’s our personal website our company
website is excel ec sell institute.com
i am active on linkedin i’m active on
twitter and instagram and anytime
anybody reaches out
i respond
you know that i i just do that’s you
know after the ted talk i think i i
can’t i have had hundreds of people
reach out personally and either thank me
or ask me questions about
i can honestly say with the exception of
one where it got creepy i’ve responded
every single person throughout the world
so i have to ask you about the creepy
now i you know i’m not
you’re the second person who’s wanted to
know that
i can’t remember
exactly the dynamic that took place but
i remember forwarding it to my daughter
saying and she’s like all right get out
of this in a hurry you know get delete
this
so i don’t know where it was going but
anyway she was what she had my back
fair enough well uh are you okay if i
link your ted talk to our show notice
page as well of course it’s called why
comfort will ruin your life
and there you have it wait thanks so
much for being a guest on scaling up h2o
thank you trace
nation that was a very informative
interview i know i’ve always thought of
myself as a coach but i think bill gave
me some terminology and some phrasing
around that that really shaped how
we as leaders
need to think of ourselves
and
as i mentioned during our interview just
hearing some of the questions that he
was asking the people that we lead
instantly make me think of how i should
be leading them what should i be doing
so they could answer those questions and
the most positive way that they could
and am i showing them that vulnerability
we started the show by talking about
vulnerability but if you’re not
vulnerable they’re not going to be
vulnerable or if you’re not challenging
them to grow
well they’re going to go seek that
elsewhere if you’re not giving them the
things that they need the things that
they want and everything that we talked
about today was all around
you are you giving the people you lead
the gift of you
and i’m really curious to hear
how you’ve taken today’s interview and
made your team better because now you’re
working on yourself
and how is your better self now going to
build a better team something that bill
mentioned was victor frankel and victor
frankl has come up before on the scaling
up h2o podcast as i mentioned to bill i
first became familiar with victor frankl
when i read the seven habits of highly
effective people
if you’re a listener of this podcast you
know that is
beyond a doubt my favorite book i have
learned so much from that book it has
allowed me to work within myself better
and because i now have a better command
of myself i can now work with other
people better and the results that we
get working together
is far superior because i know all of
these things that dr covey teaches in
the seven habits and he will very
modestly say that he did not come up
with the seven habits
he discovered the seven habits well
habit one is be proactive and habit one
is all about we get to choose our
response to things
that happen to us
and he uses and when i say he dr stephen
covey he uses victor frankl as the
example of being able to choose
what happens
to him now he was a prisoner he was
being held captive because he was jewish
and he lived in nazi germany
and they did these horrible
sterilization experiments on his body
and if you can just imagine a young
victor frankel who stripped naked uh
with these harsh bright lights uh
illuminating
his private parts and all around him and
and these
doctors these nazis were doing
experiments on his genitalia i mean it
doesn’t get any worse than that well it
was during these experiments that
he
got the idea that his captors were
holding him captive
so he didn’t have freedom to leave but
the true freedom that he had
was in his mind and when they were
experimenting on him
he would actually he was a professor
and he would take his mind and he would
lecture about what they were doing
in a class that he hadn’t taught yet
and nation that’s just so hard to
comprehend knowing what he went through
but all this really happened and he
eventually did lecture on that but he
did it first in his mind and his mind
was able to take him to a place separate
from his body and it was all because
he was choosing
to be proactive now that’s the biggest
extreme i have ever heard of that
and we’ll go ahead and put a link to an
amazon link an affiliate link for the
victor frankl book that was mentioned
and i’ll tell you it’s it’s a short read
it is a very very profound read
and it’s going to change the way
you think about
things that might inconvenience you and
how you react to some of those things
anyway i just felt i had to tell you the
scaling up nation a little bit about
that book because it didn’t mean a lot
to me and it was mentioned by bill
something else bill mentioned was his
ted talk so i’ve got a link to his ted
talk directly on my show notes page i
know you’re out there driving from
account to account don’t worry
i’ve got a link directly to that
and bill talks in his ted talk all about
growth through
discomfort and when you think about
habit one
that’s what that’s all about you know
after
uh stephen covey talks about victor
frankl he talks about two circles the
circle of concern
and the circle of influence and most of
us live our lives in the circle of
concern things that concern us but we
really don’t have any direct influence
over and i think what bill is saying
is that if we work on the outer edge of
the circle of influence
that’s uncomfortable and if we do those
uncomfortable things
and we force ourselves to do them
because we know that’s where growth will
happen
that circle will get bigger and the
things that concern us
now we have influence over and if we
keep working on that outer edge of the
circle influence more and more things
that concern us we will have influence
over so bill once again thanks for
coming on scaling up h2o
the tools that you gave us
i think really allowed us to
think about how we should be leading
people differently
and it all starts with us leading
ourselves you know a lot of us are
leading ourselves and becoming better in
the chosen profession that we do every
day
and a gentleman that helps us do that is
james mcdonald here’s a brand new
james’s challenge
[Music]
hello scaling up nation the next james
is challenged as we grow as an
industrial water treatment professional
drop by drop is
[Music]
look for dead legs in your water systems
now i’m not talking zombie apocalypse
here i’m talking areas of low flow
standing water within your water systems
this may be links of unused piping
waiting for future system expansion or
left over from equipment removal
it may be redundant systems waiting for
their turn to operate
dead legs can be breeding grounds for
unwanted microbiological activity to
continually inoculate the water system
even after what you thought was an
effective disinfection
don’t let dead legs ruin your day
be sure to share your experience on
linkedin by tagging it with hashtag jc21
and hashtag scalinguph2o this is james
mcdonald and i look forward to seeing
what you share
thanks james well nation in just one
short week we will be celebrating
industrial water week i love industrial
water week because it’s our holiday it
is the holiday for the industrial water
treater and on monday october 4th we’re
going to be celebrating pre-treatment on
tuesday boilers wednesday cooling
thursday waste water and friday
careers we do something a little
different each and every industrial
water week i know you’re going to enjoy
some of the things that we’re doing this
year
but the bottom line is is we cannot
celebrate without you so
i want you to show us how you are
celebrating each and every day by
posting your pictures by hashtagging
iw21 and hashtagging scaling up h2o
folks i can’t wait to bring you a brand
new episode next week and folks if you
saw me here at the convention thank you
so much for stopping in and let me know
what this show means to you if you
didn’t see me here
by all means let me know those things
too let me know what you want the next
show to be by going to
scalinguph2o.com and go over to our show
ideas page or you can leave me a
voicemail asking your question
nation have a great week take care of
each other and be the best water treater
you can be
[Music]
nation it’s hard to improve the
day-to-day when we are stuck living in
the day today and for one hour a week
you can join the group at the rising
tide mastermind so you can work on the
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you