Expect More Than Others Think Is Possible

My last blog post included the following statements about success.

Care more than others think is wise.

Risk more than others think is safe

Dream more than others think is practical

Expect more than others think is possible

In my last blog post, I focused on different ways to show caring as a co-worker and as a manager.  As I read through this quote again, I was thinking about the next area to focus on.  I reflect on both my career in the IT and computer software industry, and my role as a soccer coach.  I realized that in both cases, I expect a lot more out of myself and others than most people.  It’s been one of the keys to my success.  As I’ve said in other blog posts, I haven’t always been the most gifted in my career, as an athlete, or even as a coach.  However, my success can be directly related to my work ethic and my ability to expect more of myself and of others.  When most people are willing to stop and say “that’s all I can do”, I push forward and say “how can I do more?”

When I was actively coaching youth soccer, one of the comments often made to me as a coach was “how do you get so much out of your players?”  Honestly, I didn’t have any magic formula to it.  I always felt that my ability to grow players was to expect more from them, and to teach them how to expect more from themselves.  Most youth players that I have worked with come with the “that’s all I can do” mindset.  The mind is a powerful thing, and you can very easily convince yourself “that’s all I can do”.  What’s harder is to reflect on how to grow beyond the mental barriers you have set for yourself.  One of my specialties, as a coach, was to help young players learn how to expect more of themselves.  It’s not always the physical limitations that get in your way, but rather the mental barriers you put up.

To take it a step further, my current manager and some co-workers sent me an inspirational quote:  “Life begins at the end of your comfort zone”.  I think far too often that we limit ourselves because we think in terms of what we can do today.  We grow comfortable with the current state of things, and worry that if we do something different, we will lose what we have today.  That may be the case, but that thinking can also prevent us from growing and getting in a situation that is better than what we have today.  Life is a risk/reward proposition.  If you don’t take any risks, you maintain what you have today.  If you take risks, you can lose what you have, but more importantly, you can get more than what you have.  I think that far too often people let the worry of losing what they have get in the way of being better.  I’m not saying go out and risk everything all the time.  However, you need to be able to push your boundaries and comfort zone if you want to grow.

This all makes sense.  However, how do we get there?  What do we need to do?  I will use my soccer coaching background as an example, but I think this also applies to managers at work.  The translation is pretty simple.  The manager is the soccer coach.  The workers are your players.  Here are what I feel are the keys to success.

• ·      Communicate, communicate, communicate – Nothing else matters if you can’t establish a clear line of communication.  Also, communicate early and often.  As a coach, you want to make sure that your players are comfortable communicating with you no matter what the situation is.  You need to establish, up front, that you’re going to be open to sharing your thoughts with your players, and you’re also going to be open to hearing their thoughts.  Neither the coach nor the player is going to like everything they hear.  The hardest things I’ve ever had to do as a coach is deliver a message I know a player doesn’t want to hear.  I struggle with that because you worry about how a player will react, or if they will “hate” you.  That’s an extreme view, but I always worry about it.  So, when I have to deliver a tough message, I try to make sure I really think through what I want to say and how I want to say it.  I’m certainly not perfect with it every time.  The bottom line is this:  without open communication, nothing else matters.
• ·      Establish a “no penalties” policy – This is a tough one.  I think the best thing you can do as a coach is to let your players know that you want them to try new things, and that if they do and things don’t go as planned, you’re not going to penalize them.  Of course, you have to establish that there are limits to the risks you want them to take.  However, you want them taking chances and learning from mistakes.  The worst thing you can do as a coach is have a player take a risk, make a mistake, and then immediately substitute them out of the game because the risk didn’t pay off.  Part of it is teaching the player resilience.  What I mean by that is this.  After they take a risk and the outcome didn’t go as planned, you want them to work hard to make up for it.  I always tell my players that it’s not always about what happened, but how you react to what happened.  The one area I will “penalize” a player for is if they took a risk, it didn’t go as planned, and they give up.  At that point, I will substitute them out and the first thing we will talk about is how I expect them to react to a mistake.  I’d much rather have a player trying new things, making mistakes, and hustling to recover from those mistakes than have a player that plays the game trying to avoid making mistakes.  It’s VERY important for the players to know that they have the freedom to make mistakes.
• ·      Goal Setting – At the beginning of the season, I sit down with each player to set goals for what they want to accomplish.  Before the session, I ask them to write down what their goals are, and I write down the goals that I have for them.  Then, we sit down, and review the lists and come up with goals we mutually agree on.  It’s typically a blend of what’s on their list, and what’s on mine.  The goals have to be in two different areas.  First, they have to be what they want to accomplish as an individual.  Second, and more importantly, the goals have to be in the context of their role on the team.  Individual goals aren’t necessarily meaningful if they don’t fit into the larger context of the team.  Additionally, if a player is chasing individual goals that don’t fit in the context of the team, the overall team will not succeed.
• ·      Goal Visibility – I always encourage players to write the goals down, and post them somewhere that they will see them on a regular basis.  It’s not just enough to remember the goals.  The goals need to be visible where the player is regularly reminded of what they want to accomplish.  An odd, but very good place to place the goals are on the ceiling over your bed.  You wake up each morning, and the first things you see are your goals.  What’s nice is that it could be anything.  School, soccer, work, or any other type of goal.  There are other places to post goals, but the key is visibility where you see them each and every day.  It’s a great way to see where you want to go.
• ·      Goal Review – This is absolutely critical.  A huge mistake you can make is to help a player set goals, and then only review the goals at the end of the season.  The key is to have regular review sessions where you can work with the player to assess where they’re at with their goals, and whether any adjustments need to be made.  The worst thing you can do as a coach is to set goals, and get to the end of the season only to have the player realize that they missed all of the goals they set for themselves.

I think the most important part of the above list is that you have to make sure that when you’re setting goals and communicating that the goals involve some level of risk or force the player to get outside of their comfort zone.  But again, it needs to be in the right context.  Risks or goals that force a player outside of their comfort zone only work if the player is not afraid of punishment if the risk or goal did not go as they had planned.  They have to feel somewhat comfortable or safe that when things don’t go well that they have a support system in place to help them work through whatever happens.

The above example uses coaching athletes as the basis.  However, I feel the same applies for managers and employees.  Too often in the work place, we set goals annually or quarterly, and then we don’t go back to review them until after the year or quarter is over.  You look back at the goals you didn’t achieve, and think “gee, if I only reviewed the goal more often, I could have adjusted”.  Most organizations have a setup where managers meet with employees on a weekly or bi-weekly basis.  The first part of the meeting should probably be used to review the goals and where things are at.  It doesn’t have to take a long time, but a quick review.  If things need to be adjusted, you don’t necessarily have to do it in the weekly or bi-weekly meeting, but rather have a follow up planning sessions specific to resetting goals and objectives.

As a final thought on this topic, I think the manager’s job is to come up with goals and objectives that force the employee to get outside of their comfort zone.  Obviously, it’s the manager’s job to understand how much risk each employee can tolerate, and then come up with stretch goals based on that.  However, you want to make sure that employees are pushing themselves to try to achieve something they’re not 100% certain they can achieve.  When a manager does this, great things can happen.  First, if an employee doesn’t achieve the goal, they learn a lot about themselves and what else they may need to do.  Second, when the employee does achieve the goal, it’s very rewarding for both the employee and the manager.

People can do great things in life.  However, they have to learn how to expect more from themselves and get outside of their comfort zone.