While her target audience is college aged women in sports, her message and strategies are applicable to us all. Check out Doc Robyn’s nine secrets to great teamwork for some priceless wisdom and stay tuned for her incredible personal career journey story.

• Set expectations – You cannot expect someone to meet your needs or the needs of the team if you never tell them what those needs are.
• Hold each other accountable – If someone isn’t pulling their weight ask them what you can do to help them step-up to the responsibilities.
• Support each other (Check-in) – Know what each of your teammates looks like when she is stressed and how she likes to be supported. If you are not getting what you need from your teammates – ASK!
• Care enough to give the tough feedback. Trust each other enough to apply it.
• You cannot observe how someone is feeling. Only the external symptoms of feelings can be observed. Your interpretations of those symptoms might be wrong.
• It is impossible to observe why – You can see what someone does and how they do it, but never why. To know why they have to tell you. Never just make up why.
• Play brave not afraid – trying and failing is better than doing nothing.
• Never evaluate during competition – Adjust and move on. Stay in the moment. Perform when you are performing and save evaluation for after the game when you can do something about it.
• Celebrate and remember successes. Learn from and move past disappointments.

Generosity – the base from which all other behaviors arise. A commitment to mutual support that begins with a willingness to show up and creatively share your deepest insights and the promise to help another succeed. Generosity creates a trusting environment and a safe place that is essential.

Vulnerability – means letting your guard down so mutual understanding can occur. You can cross the threshold into a safe space after intimacy and trust have pushed the door wide open. This involves a place of fearlessness where risks are taken and invitations are offered to others.

Candor – is the freedom to be totally honest with those you confide in. Candor allows you to begin to constructively interpret, respond to, and grapple with this information.

Accountability – refers to the action of following through on the promises you make to others. It’s about giving and receiving the feet-to-the-fire tough love through which real change is sustained.

So, take the first step and ask for help. Cultivate a tribe that will help you move forward and consider these core mind-sets as you develop your team.

Malcolm Gladwell wrote in his book Outliers: “True mastery only comes after 10,000 hours of concerted effort.” I now really understand the magnitude of that statement. I’ve never been a patient person but I do understand the necessity of walking before running and developing the foundation of a project so it has a strong base upon which to thrive and withstand the test of time.

So many of my students, clients, and even contemporaries want their goals to happen overnight but it takes effort and a process to achieve any objective. My quest is to help people envision their end goal and then to develop a strategy to get there. Would that we could all wave a magic wand to make things happen instantly, but life doesn’t work that way.

Any kind of change takes time and a tremendous effort so give yourself a break if you are frustrated by not achieving your goals fast. Reward yourself for the baby steps and the incremental achievements along the way. If we focus on enjoying the journey, the end result will be all the more sweet.

If you break down 10,000 hours into 8 hour increments – you have 1250. Now consider 1250 full-time work days towards your particular goal. If you divide that by 365 days in a year, it works out to 3.5 years. It’s rare that we have 7 days a week and 8 full hours in each day to commit to our goals but it does show us that what’s important takes time. It may not take everybody 10,000 hours to achieve their goal but it certainly puts life in perspective when you accomplish a long term achievement.

So be committed, energized, and accountable about your goals and give yourself permission to take the time you need to make them happen. After all -  Rome wasn’t built in a day!

Integrity Day is a similar concept and allows you to take back your integrity so you can be true to your word about completing something you have committed to, whether personal or professional.

So rally your circle of trust or your personal Board of Directors and share a short list of tasks you really want to accomplish. Recite your goals out loud with them and leave them with a written account of your action plan. These need not be monumental tasks – anything from revving up for more effective networking to assembling your professional portfolio and everything in-between will work. You are in charge.

You set the goals and your accountability masters will give you the reminders and support to ensure that you follow through. When you accomplish the task you will regain your integrity as a person of your word as well as the self-confidence to move forward with future goals.

This exercise will also give you an opportunity to prioritize tasks in your life. This is the perfect way to “do it, dump it, or delegate it” to someone else, according to the Integrity Day founders and assess what is most important in your personal and professional game plan.

So rally your troops, assemble your list, and pick a day to get your personal integrity back on track because you deserve it.

Over the years I have picked up some strategies that may also be helpful to you when you are faced with a negative situation or toxic people.

• Come to terms with the fact that you can’t please everyone. Let some of the naysayers in your life go so you can surround yourself with a positive posse that celebrates your strengths.
• Celebrate your mistakes and learn from them.  You are human and embracing your flaws with humility will liberate you to focus on what you do really well.
• Don’t respond if you are not calm. Take the time you need to cool off from a confrontation or emotional situation so you can respond thoughtfully and intelligently.
• When faced with a negative situation – take a deep breath (or several). You may even count to 10 to give yourself the time to release the tension and regain a sense of calm.
• Admit your mistakes and learn from them.
• Always have a positive go-to friend to reach out to so you can clear your mind and focus on the positive when the need arises.
• Never go to bed angry – cleanse your mind of the negativity of the day so you can have a peaceful sleep and recharge for a new beginning.

According to Albert Einstein, in the middle of every difficulty lies great opportunity.  So try and keep your cup half full and celebrate the positive since you have the power to release the negative.

Dave Pottruck former co-CEO at Charles Schwab was fired in 2004 because he did not turn the company around fast enough after the dot com downturn.   Needless to say, Dave understands risk and its consequences.  Dave is a very wise man and has illustrated the different kinds of failure relevant to a work environment.  Here Dave defines a Noble Failure for a team or individual in the workplace:

• Performed a careful and thorough analysis of the opportunity;
• Prepared a thoughtful and comprehensive plan (including contingencies) to attack the opportunity;
• Was completely committed to the success of the venture and worked endless hours to make it succeed;
• Gathered the resources needed to do the job right;
• Effectively executed the plan and adjustments to the plan;
• Took personal accountability and went back and did a post mortem to maximize the learning from the failed effort.

According to Dave, if you did all 6 then and still did not achieve success or the desired outcome, then you have a Noble Failure.

This kind of failure doesn’t get you rewarded or promoted. But it doesn’t get you fired either. You aren’t penalized for taking the chance to do something bold. Arguably you are ahead of the game in that you are more valuable to the organization since you are now experienced at why innovation and change are hard to pull off.

What most bosses are unwilling to tolerate is Ignoble Failure.  Dave said the two problems with accepting just any failure is that you don’t know if the idea or the execution was wrong and you send a de-motivating message to the organization that sloppiness might be tolerated on something as important as change or innovation.

The lesson learned is to try your best, take a risk, and work hard with a plan, resources and personal accountability in all you do. If you fail then it is an honest and Noble Failure that nobody will fault you for and there will be valuables lessons to learn from. The Ignoble Failure is a tougher pill to swallow since the post mortem will show that the weakness comes from your lack of motivation, accountability, and work ethic. Both versions have valuable lessons but I prefer to fail nobly.

I have come to believe that while some leaders are born, most are developed and our current professional marketplace does not place enough emphasis on training effective leaders. This leads to discontent amongst the troops and ultimately low morale and low productivity. There are some enlightened organizations that train from within but I wish it was part of every organization’s professional development curriculum.

Liz Wiseman, worked at Oracle for 17+ years and considers herself a genius watcher. She was the VP responsible for the company’s global talent development strategy and ran the Oracle Corporate University. Her book: Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter teaches valuable lessons for current and aspiring leaders.

During Wiseman’s 17+ year leadership watching and developing experience at Oracle, she discovered that some leaders drain intelligence and the capabilities of the people around them. Their focus on their own intelligence and their narcissistic need to be the smartest person in the room had a diminishing effect on everyone else around them. For them to look smart other people had to look dumb or incompetent and in turn, the Diminishers created a vacuum suck of all the creative energy in a room. Meeting times were doubled and other people’s ideas suffocated and died in their presence. From these so called leaders, intelligence only flowed one way – from them to others.

The Multipliers, on the other hand used their leadership intelligence in a much different way. They used their intelligence to amplify the capabilities of others on their team. People got smarter and better in their presence and ideas flowed freely and challenges were overcome. When these leaders walked into a room the energy level went up on the team and difficult problems were solved because every team member had a say and was involved.

So why do some leaders boost the mental IQ in a room and others suck the mental life out of their employees? The Multipliers bring out the intelligence in others by building collective and viral genius in an organization.

Wiseman identified 5 disciplines of Multipliers:

1. The Talent Magnet: Attract and optimize talent
2. The Liberator: Require people’s best thinking
3. The Challenger: Extend challenges
4. The Debate Maker: Debate decisions
5. The Investor: Instill accountability

By extracting people’s full capability, Multipliers get twice the resources from people than do the Diminishers. Wiseman shared a success story about Bill Campbell, former CEO of Intuit who fully admits that he is a recovered Diminisher. A courageous team member called him on his micro managing, intelligence draining leadership style and pleaded for him to give the team space to create ideas and solve problems. It was a hard lesson for Campbell to learn but in the long run it gave him the insight he needed to become a more effective leader.

He now subscribes to the philosophy of creating brilliance in others on his team by empowering them to succeed. This is a difficult lesson for many of today’s unsuccessful leaders who don’t have the professional development resources to learn to become Multipliers. Others don’t have courageous team members to call them out on being ineffective leaders so they continue to diminish and dysfunctional teams plod along.

If confronting your diminishing leader is not within your comfort zone, or you fear job security, perhaps a mysterious copy of Liz Wiseman’s great book in an office mailbox will plant the seed anonymously. Are you a Multiplier or a Diminisher?

The Power of a Personal Coach

Debbie utilized the expert resources of a personal and executive coach, Silver Rose, whom she first encountered when she brought in Silver as a consultant on a project while she was still working at the firm. Debbie hired Silver personally and began exploring an exit strategy and new options for her career future.

Her professional reinvention began with weekly 1:1 calls with Silver and detailed homework assignments on self assessment and personal tracking. She conducted informational interviews with business peers and joined a mastermind group that works as an advisory board of sorts to provide motivation and accountability – all under the tutelage of her coach. Debbie also joined Toastmasters and a few networking groups for outreach, education and the personal growth opportunities.

Silver gave Debbie permission to explore and she realized that golf – her passion – was also an educational tool and a business opportunity ripe for developing. Her knowledge about how to generate business through golf empowered Debbie as a resource others wanted to learn from. She also saw a tremendous opportunity to build confidence in businesswomen through strategies incorporating golf.

Move Over Boys – Women Are Playing Golf, Too!

According to Debbie:

“It’s a known fact that women, as a group, don’t participate in the game of golf to the extent that men do. For the most part, they see the game of golf as a mystery to which only men hold the key. Yet, the message businesswomen hear today is that golf is a widely accepted playing field for conducting business and they are missing out on opportunities by not participating. The golf community has created women-only golf clinics targeting the female executive. Statistically, women are the largest new group coming to the game of golf today. Yet, often frustrated with their skill-set, they are also the largest group that leaves the game and does not return.”

So Debbie capitalized on demystifying this critical business skill that can be used successfully on the golf course. Her business – Golf for Cause teaches women (and men) how to use golf as business tool, to create opportunities, to forward relationships because it’s more than just about going out and hitting golf balls. Golf for Cause provides the keys and the tools to demystify the game.

In her new role, Debbie enjoys being 100% responsible for the success and failure of each strategic decision in her company. She has control over her schedule and her work product matches her integrity and is a more accurate and rewarding reflection of who she is and what she wants out of a career. Debbie also appreciates the opportunity to set a positive example for her children by doing something that makes a difference and by giving back to her community.

Making Money Playing Golf

While the new career sounds too good to be true, Debbie has learned a lot over the years. Her initial business plan was not realistic and included programming that does not fit her business model today. That took some tweaking and adjusting over time. With a small staff of only two (including Debbie) she doesn’t have a large team to rely on as she did back at the firm. Debbie has learned that she can only control so much and that delegation is not always an option. A perfectionist by nature, Debbie also learned that delivering the perfect program was unrealistic. “At some point you need to step up to the ball and hit it off the tee!”

Since golf is now her livelihood, another important lesson learned was to identify which programs work well and which generate meaningful revenue. The economy has also been a challenge and the meeting & events industry has taken a particularly hard hit. Many companies have cut training and professional development budgets entirely. Debbie learned quickly that she needed to stay flexible and open to new ideas and partnerships in order to grow her business.

A personal goal for Debbie was to keep her schedule free enough to travel with her daughter, a student athlete, to national tournaments and college recruiting trips. This was a liberty she gave herself with the new business that would not have been possible at the firm. She also set up administrative systems to enable the business to run smoothly in her absence.

“I set up systems such that I have an assistant who works remotely and maintains my database, follows up on various tasks as needed, brings forward ideas, keeps me on task, etc. Finding the right person was an incredible challenge as I spent a lot of time and money getting systems in place and then checking, redoing, and re-educating.  With the right person in place – I’m free to work “on” the business and not “in” the business.”

Mission Accomplished

The mission of Golf for Cause as an organization is to develop and deliver products and services that move others to use golf as a dynamic strategy to achieve their objectives, focusing primarily on business professionals new to the game, especially women.

While Debbie benefited from the expert counsel of her coach, Silver Rose, she also suggests that women seeking a career change develop a support network to help stay properly focused on goals and to provide a level of accountability.

She suggests that new entrepreneurs work with a good accountant from the start to better understand which strategies are effective and meaningful tax-wise for the business.

Birdies, Bogeys, and Business

Debbie’s repertoire of golf educational opportunities provides a myriad of topics such as:

• The secrets even successful business owners and managers don’t know
• Create an even more rewarding business environment
• See how your business success and your golf game are a reflection of who you are
• How to improve both your business and your golf score

Participants usually spend half the day in the classroom using golf as a metaphor to learn what differentiates being an entrepreneur, manager, or technician and the how this applies to the business world. After the classroom session, participants hit the course and play 9 holes of golf in a strategic format. All levels can participate, even never-played-before beginners. The day ends with a facilitated de-brief session, awards, and refreshments. An ideal group size is 6-40 participants and Debbie customizes programs to fit an organization or individual’s needs.

The reviews are in and Debbie consistently scores big with her clients!  The programs are experiential and golf anchors the learning. Debbie’s repertoire of golf educational opportunities provides a myriad of topics such as:

Mental Mulligans: A fun and enlightening team-building workshop for your group that reveals how you show up in and out of the office, on and off the golf course. Learn to understand different behavior styles on the golf course and how they impact your game and your success in business!

Get in the Game – Business Golf with On-Course Mentoring: A great way for business professionals to add golf to their business tool boxes.

Tee Off Program: A half-day outing designed to prepare the newer (or non-golfer) who wants to make a positive impression when playing in a charity or industry golf tournament.

Nine and Wine: A golf mentoring program offering a casual golf experience, designed especially for new golfers (men and women) to help them feel at ease on the tees. Golf up to nine holes with a mentor with facilitated debrief, networking and hosted happy hour after golf (“wine” not “whine!”)

Birdies, Bogeys & Business – Success On & Off the Course: a program that Debbie co-created and delivers with Joyce Friel from Peak Performance Consulting (www.peakperformancecorp.com).  This half-day program uses golf as a metaphor to learn what differentiates being an entrepreneur, manager and technician – and the implications for you and your business.  Explore your ownership mentality and create an even more successful business environment.   

All Golf for Cause programs are designed so that participants at any golf skill level can participate, even never-played-before beginners.  Ideal group sizes range from 6 to 40 participants and Debbie customizes programs to fit an organization’s or individual’s needs.

By discovering new fairways and approach shots for defining business objectives, relationship development, and marketing strategies, Debbie Waitkus has turned golf into gold.

Favorite Quote: “The bad news is - time flies. The good news is that you’re the pilot.” Michael Althsuler

Advice and Action Steps:

• For all the perfectionists – let go already and just do it!
• Consider a professional career coach and/or a resource team to assist you.
• Find a good accountant early on if you begin a new business.
• Really think about what you are passionate about doing – your next career may be right under your nose.

Resources:

Golf for Cause www.golfforcause.com

Silver Rose, Coach  www.silverspeaks.com