How the Best Leaders, Coaches, & Teachers Drive Discretionary Effort
He saw through my juvenile behavior -
- which, according to him, was not masking my ability. My 8th grade core classes teacher, Mr. Yahnke, saw talent in me that was not only missed by other teachers, but something I certainly didn’t see myself. And, as a result, he was about to obtain vast amounts of discretionary effort from me.
Mr. Yahnke strived to engage me in class by asking for my opinion on any topic. He called on me when my hand was not raised and treated me in a way that made me feel smart. He complimented my work when appropriate, challenged me when it wasn’t, and was also quick to call me up front for a brief, private conversation when I was behaving inappropriately. He likely knew how close I was to falling off the academic edge, so he worked to help me discover my own intelligence and believed I was infinitely capable of achieving good grades.
When in his class, I went from a C- average to a high A average. Though I couldn’t have described it then, what I felt was Mr. Yahnke taught in a way ordinary teachers were not teaching which resulted in my discretionary effort.
Discretionary effort is the additional mental and physical output that one provides due to an environment or human interaction.
Those in positions of formal authority—coaches, leaders, teachers, etc.—can obtain discretionary effort from others, but it must be consciously provided by an employee, student, player, or anyone for growth to occur.
Discretionary effort can manifest quickly.
For example, how one feels after hearing a motivational talk or reading something that inspires them. It can result from fear or anger (not a healthy way for it to show up), but the real challenge is maintaining it over time; not hours or days, but months and years.
It also appears in expected ways.
People providing discretionary effort come early and stay late at work, they make an extra call, they do an extra lap, lift an extra set, do the extra credit, and engage on deeper levels within their respective environment. But it may also show in unexpected or unseen ways; calls from recruiters are not answered or messages returned, there is more thought about their role when away from the office/gym/classroom, those exhibiting discretionary effort generally perpetuate a positive growth culture and lead by example.
While every organization would love to reap the benefits described above from their respective team members, most are not willing to put in place the tools and processes that ensure coaches (I prefer to use the word "coach" vs. "leader," so I use them interchangeably) are behaving in a way to create discretionary effort.
To maximize discretionary effort, leaders would need to behave more like a high-growth coach, which is not the way most leaders are used to behaving. The highest performing coaches we studied in business spend more time with people on their teams by:
Being intentional in one-to-one meetings
Developing stronger trust relationships
Knowing the career goals of their people
Helping them make progress to company and career goals
Challenging the people on their teams to grow the output of their work
Though this topic will be expanded upon another day, coaching is more complex than leadership because it always involves a team—one can’t be a coach without a team; however, one can exhibit leadership behaviors with no team involved.
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