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Meaningful Work

Maintaining accountability in the workplace is a two edged leadership sword.

On the one hand we want employees to do meaningful work, on the other hand, what’s meaningful to management may not necessarily be meaningful to them, BUT it still needs to get done and therein lies the dilemma for executives, managers, and entrepreneurs.

What You’ll Discover About Meaningful Work:

* How meaningful work connects employees’ unique abilities with the overall vision and mission of the company

* Why meaningful work requires synchronizing employees’ expectations

* How meaningful feedback contributes to meaningful work

* How to help employees overcome the fear of vulnerability when discussing meaningful work

* And much more.

Guest: Zach Montroy

Zach Montroy is a change agent and leadership team coach who has spent two decades in executive roles, honing his expertise in organizational strategy, people operations, people leadership and scaling companies. With a passion for helping leaders expand their impact and build trust, Zach draws from his extensive experience to help companies align their mission and values with their strategy.

Over the last five years, Zach has focused his efforts on helping entrepreneurs scale and grow their businesses, bringing his knowledge and insights to bear on the stickiest issues facing high-growth organizations. With a deep understanding of the importance of both strategy and culture in achieving sustainable growth, Zach helps companies create high-functioning, high-impact organizations through his innovative approach to leadership.

As a sought-after speaker and podcast guest, Zach is known for his ability to distill complex concepts into actionable insights that help businesses achieve their goals. Whether you’re looking to scale your business, build a high-performance team, or expand your impact as a leader, Zach’s expertise and passion for organizational strategy make him an invaluable resource for any entrepreneur or business leader looking to take their organization to the next level.

Related Resources:

If you liked this interview, you might also enjoy our other Corporate Governance and Culture episodes.

Contact Zach and connect with him on LinkedIn.

Also be sure to visit his business website, Intention Collective, and it’s corresponding LinkedIn page. 

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How to Combine Accountability with Meaningful Work

Maintaining accountability in the workplace is a two-edged leadership sword. On the one hand, we want employees to do meaningful work, and on the other hand, what’s meaningful to management may not be meaningful to them, but still, it’s got to get done. And there’s the dilemma.

This is Business Confidential Now with Hanna Hasl-Kelchner, helping you see business issues hiding in plain view that matter to your bottom line.

Welcome to Business Confidential Now, the podcast for smart executives, managers and entrepreneurs looking to improve their business performance and bottom line. I’m your host, Hanna Hasl-Kelchner, and I’ve got another interesting guest for you today. He’s Zach Montroy.

Zach helps entrepreneurs scale and grow their businesses by showing them how to build trust and expand their influence. He’s a leadership team coach with over 20 years of experience in executive roles, and he’s the founder and CEO of the Intention Collective. He’s known for his ability to distill complex concepts into actionable insights. I’m really excited to have him join us here today to talk about accountability and meaningful work.

Welcome to Business Confidential Now, Zach.

Thanks so much, and it’s great to be with you today.

It’s good to have you here. Everyone wants to do meaningful work. That’s really kind of a no-brainer. What do we need to know about what meaningful work is? I mean, it sounds obvious, but is it really?

It does. And I think that that’s the complexity of it. Right? Is I think as leaders, we get into this and think like we want to create a meaningful place for our team. But I think oftentimes we let the tyranny of the urgent take over and we forget to care for our team. We forget to really invest in them, make sure that we’re connecting their unique ability to the overall vision and mission of the organization.

And, at the end of the day, we have to know our people. We have to know them well. If we’re gonna create meaningful work, we have to make sure that we’re dedicated to creating a safe, brave, psychologically safe place for them.

I love that phrase, “tyranny of the urgent.” [Laughter] That is great. [Laughter] But, you know, I think everybody has kind of these hidden – I don’t want to call them agendas, but hidden desires, like, “Oh, gee. I really want to be a rock star,” and that may not fit with your business model. So, people may have hobbies or interests that don’t fully align with the job that they’re hired to do, but those things are meaningful to them. How do you kind of reconcile that?

Kim Scott wrote an amazing book called “Radical Candor” a number of years ago, and in the book, she gives this framework, really, for giving more meaningful feedback. But she says in there, “As leaders, our job is to care personally for our team members and to challenge them directly.” And I think that “care personally” may be “I care intrinsically about your worth as a human, but also, I care about who you are, not in just what you produce for me, or for our team, or for our company.”

“I know you have outside interests. I know that you have a life outside of work. I know that you’re gonna bring all of who you are to the workplace every day.” So, I think we can hold that. We can support that. And at the same time, we can really get clear on – what is it that we need from you in this role? What is it that we expect from you in this role, and how does your unique ability, how does the thing that you are wired for, you’re a genius at, how does that connect to what we need from you in this job?

And I think there is the place of meaning, right? Like when we can connect what is it that you’re best in the world at, what we need from you in your role, and how you – what are the ways that you behave that really bring out the best of who you are, I mean, I think there is really this sort of like the middle of those concentric circle, is this idea of really meaningful work with people.

I agree with you conceptually. I think what becomes hard is when people say, “Okay, how do I put this in practice?” Is there an example you could share with us, Zach, of how a leader, a manager, or executive, or an entrepreneur wrestled with this very concept with one of their employees who maybe was torn? I mean, we hear these people commenting about generational differences, and somehow, the younger cohort gets slammed, I think, unfairly by comments that, “Oh, they really don’t want to work” when maybe it’s just not meaningful to them.

Right.

So, how do we turn the corner on that to show it really is. Because you can bring something special to the workplace. All right. You’re not going to be the rock star, being on stage, and having all these people applaud, but you can do X, Y, Z. Help us take the theoretical and put it into the practical, maybe in a performance review or somebody just doesn’t seem happy at work. How do we go about having those conversations?

Sure, absolutely. And I think it really starts with hiring, right? We – so oftentimes, you get down the road with an employee, and when we come in and start helping a business, like they’re – our people aren’t finding the work meaningful or they’re not engaged. Well, you bait and switch them.

You told them this was gonna be this kind of work or this kind of job, and they were gonna get to do these kind of things, and then they actually come in and that’s not what you need from them at all. I also think, as employers, as leaders, we have a serious job in duty to make sure that we’re really clear on expectations. We’re clear on what we need from this position.

I heard one of my colleagues used this quote last week, “Unclear expectations are just premeditated resentment.” So, when we’re working with a team to make sure we’re clear, as employers, what do we need from you? What do we expect from you? And from the team mate as well, what do you need from us? And to really dig in – and I love your question on how do we get very specific about this. Well, one of the tools that we use – and I’m happy to send you a link to this too and you can put it in your show notes.

We recommend that, at minimum, every teammate is getting to have a quarterly conversation with their leader. And at that conversation, we use a tool called the “Personal Roadmap” where we talk about – what is the mission of this person’s role? What is it that they’re here to do? What is it that you bring to the table that no one else does, no one else brings this ability to the table in order to do what? You know, I bring my ability to fill in the gaps in order to move the mission forward of the organization, whatever that is.

We start to get clear on that, and then we work through – what is it that is their craft? What is it that they are uniquely educated, skilled at? What are they passionate about, and what’s their genius in their lives that’s sort of deep meaning for them? And then we start to work on – how can we help you grow personally, professionally?

What’s your current focus? Again, there, we’re driving clarity and really figuring out how can we best support them in their work. And then, are we compensating them well financially, emotionally? Are we giving them the resources they need? Is this a psychologically safe work – place to work? All of those things add up to we are creating a place where you can be seen and bring your whole-hearted self to work every day. And I think, yes, the younger generations are a lot better at that.

We have things to learn from them in this area because they’re – they have been raised to talk about these harder things that I think some of us, who are a little bit more towards the middle or end of our careers, we’re taught you don’t bring this to work. And then, on the other side of that is resentment and not feeling like there’s a meaningful place to make a contribution.

All right. I’m gonna be a little contrary on you, Zach.

Sure.

Okay. If I’m a manager, I might be afraid to have that conversation because now the employee expects a raise or a promotion because I’m basically patting them on the back. And I don’t mean in, “Yes, performance review. You’ve met the criteria. You’ve met expectations. Maybe you’ve exceeded expectations, which is fabulous.”

But if I’m giving them all these kudos every quarter or more frequently, then they’re gonna say, “Well, if I bring so much value, then I deserve to have more compensation. I want a raise, I want this,” and if they don’t get it, then now they’re really unhappy.

So, how do we overcome the fear of having that conversation, and conversely, overcoming the fear an employee might have about being totally honest with their manager about what really gets their motor running and makes them have meaning in their work for fear that, “They really want me gone. They feel threatened, and now they’re gonna give me the scutwork I don’t want to do.”

Yeah, that’s a – I mean, I think that that’s – I don’t know that that’s contrarian. I think that those are all really valid points. I mean, I think it comes down to the fact – you mentioned this, but when we’re working on these issues, one of the things that has to be committed to on behalf of the leaders, the owners of organizations, is we are going to create a place where you can bring your whole self to work every day.

It’s why the most vulnerable emotion we experience as humans is joy. Because we start to dress-rehearse tragedy. We start to think about when’s the other shoe gonna drop? And in organizations, what you just described is exactly what happens. I’m afraid that if I give you kudos, if I tell you you’re doing a good job, if we celebrate too much, you’re gonna get lazy, you’re gonna expect all these raises, and you’re gonna to leave because I can’t give them to you.”

So, we start to tell ourselves that story. That story becomes true. And then on the other side of that, what happens is people don’t know if they’re doing a good job, if they’re doing a bad job. They don’t really know what contribution that they’re making is actually mattering the overall vision of the organization. So, we really start to create this environment where self-protection is needed, right? “I need to protect myself. I can’t really be vulnerable in the workplace.

I can’t really bring my whole self to work every day, so I’m gonna show up protected. I’m gonna stay small.” And there’s no way people can make a meaningful contribution, a good contribution or even a contribution that’s gonna move the company towards greater profitability, better results if people aren’t able to do that.

So, our job as leaders is to really create a place that’s courageous, a place where vulnerability is the norm, a place where self-protection is not needed or rewarded. Because if it is, if one leader, if the senior leader is creating a place like this is not – these conversations are not okay to have, then yeah, it’s not – it’s not gonna work.

And that’s too where we have to sort of step into the messy middle of when we’re having those conversations, like you said, “Hey, I’m telling you you’re doing a great job,” there’s all these things that are going really well, “I’d like a raise.” “We actually do that at this time or we’re not in a position to do that, and I’m sorry, and here’s when we can have that conversation.”

Again, a lot of vulnerability. But I would say, what are we keeping ourselves from if we’re trying to protect all of those “might have” conversations or “might bring up” topics? We’re not gonna be able to get to the healthiest place of functioning together.

Agreed. It might not be the healthiest place, but it’s still functioning. It’s still. And for the employees who may not feel 100% that they’re doing meaningful work, they may still be very good at what they do. They might be so good at it that they could do it in their sleep, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re at their peak level. I mean, the organization is stumbling forward, shall we say. It’s not – it’s not optimal. Maybe it doesn’t need to be optimal.

But it’s really interesting what you’re pointing about, the importance of these conversations. I agree with you.  I think it is valuable for the leaders that have the courage to have those conversations. And of course, having hired the right people makes it easier in terms of being able to manage expectations. But the larger the organization the more you can have nooks and crannies and sort of these hidden corners where people can hide, and how do we deal with the accountability of maybe a manager or a leader who’s not really following that mantra?

Yeah. And I mean, I think you just hit the nail on the head. It – culture always defaults to the worst behavior that we allow. So, if we are allowing a manager within the nooks and crannies of an organization create a psychologically unsafe place to work or they’re not clear on expectations of their teammates, people don’t know what they’re supposed to be doing, what they should be held accountable to, the culture of that team is gonna default to that behavior.

And so, I think that’s why it’s really important to get clear on our – for middle management, for senior management – what is it that we expect of you in this role? We expect you to be driving clarity. We expect you to be equipping your team so that they can have autonomy within their role, and we also expect that you’re talking about and everyone’s clear on the results that they are working towards bringing forward for the organization.

You kind of talk about the importance of this work. I mean, to use sort of a meta massive example, there’s a huge organization, Boeing, who’s kind of going through the results of what happens when we create an environment where profit is the number one thing, but we didn’t also prioritize psychological safety at the same time.

And Google has done a lot of studies on this. Well, what we sacrificed, an environment where we can bring up mistakes, where we can talk about what’s going wrong, we can make sure that we are taking time to fix things not at the cost of safety, but with both things prioritized. The research, that’s kind of coming out right now about that environment. And at the end of the day, lives were on the line because we’re not creating a vulnerable, courageous place. Like that’s why this work is so important.

It’s terribly important. I mean, the Boeing example is just one recent one that made headlines. But many years ago, when that space shuttle exploded, it was because of an O-ring that failed and an engineer that had mentioned that warning. I mean, a huge national tragedy. The Alaska Airlines flight that had the door fly off, same thing.

And interestingly, same line of planes that, in 2018 and, again, five months later in 2019, two of the same airlines, different – the Max 8 versus the Max 9 crashed and killed hundreds of people because we created an environment where an engineer can’t speak up about an issue that’s going on. I mean, lives are on the line in this example. But in our everyday work, the best work is on the line if we’re not working towards creating these, I mean, brave, courageous cultures.

Very true. I mean, it may not be somebody losing their life as in – as in these airplane examples, but it could be the loss of customer satisfaction and lost sales because it’s like, “I can’t deal with these people. I’m gonna go someplace else because they’re rude. They’re not listening.” But let me ask you this. If the top leaders don’t realize that they’ve created this kind of culture, for whatever reason, they’ve got blind spots, how do they snap out of it?

Yeah, that’s the million-dollar question, right? I mean, I think the work of leadership is the work of self-awareness. Leadership is a process, is a continual journey, and I mean, I think working to be able to see those blind spots to bring – I heard Brene Brown say, “I’ve never met a transformational leader that didn’t have a coach and/or therapist by their side.” Because, oftentimes, if you’re the senior leader and you’ve not created a safe place to work, there’s probably not someone on your team who’s gonna come to you and say, “Hey, you’ve got massive blind spots in this area.”

“You need to work on these things.” I mean, I think that that’s why it’s important to have a coach. That’s why it’s important to continue to do the work of being a transformational leader, to be others-focused, to be inwardly sound. There’s not an arrival point there, right? This is a continual journey that we’re on.

Very true. Very true. I like what you’re saying about the transformational leader and the need for self-awareness. And I would also add to that, that if anybody in an organization has the courage to come to a leader and say, “You need to look at X, Y, Z,” that they don’t drink somebody else’s Kool-Aid and actually do it.

Yes. Yeah, absolutely.

‘Cause that gets blown off, and then that person is called a disgruntled employee and were off to the races.

They’re the problem, right? It’s not me. I’m not the problem. It’s a them issue, right?

Yes. Exactly. Exactly. Couldn’t possibly be me because you know who I am. [Laughter]

Right. Yes, yes, yes.

Which is a shame because I think as you mentioned before, we should really never stop learning regardless of what our income level is or title in an organization. If anything, the higher you go the bigger the responsibility to be able to nurture the organization that looks up to you. So –

Yeah, absolutely.

We’ve covered a lot of ground here in terms of accountability and meaningful work, Zach. Is there anything else you think we should – we should know that we haven’t touched on?

One other tool that I think is really important that I’ve found for leaders, if you’re leading and you’re like, “How am I doing? How am I showing up?” I mean, we have a great tool that we use. It’s a 360 that really asks that question. Where are you showing up well? Where are you showing up in a way that’s gonna continue to grow and scale a healthy organization? What are the things that you’re doing that are gonna hold you back in getting that feedback from the people that you lead, the people that are in it with you every day, I think it can be a really great self-awareness building exercise. And there’s so many really great 360 tools on the market.

That’s good to know. Well thank you, Zach. This has been great. I appreciate your time and the advice that you shared about meaningful work and accountability so that organizations and the people that run them can take things to the next level. If you’d like to know more about Zach, if you’re listening, you want to know more about his work at the Intention Collective, that information, as well as a transcript of this interview, can be found in the show notes at BusinessConfidentialRadio.com. And Zach is also gonna supply some links for me that I’m gonna add to those show notes.

So, thanks so much for listening. Please be sure to tell your friends about the show and leave a positive review. We’ll be back next week with another information-packed episode of Business Confidential Now.

So, until then, have a great day and an even better tomorrow.

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