The Steps to Increase Team Performance with Bill Lennan, Founder, 40 Percent Better

In this episode, Bill Lennan founder of 40 Percent Better,  discusses effective leadership, creating connections with your team, building resilience, and how small steps lead to big changes. In this episode, we discuss:

• His definition of leadership
• Why you should get comfortable with the struggle
• How leaders can support shy employees 
• His process for achieving 40% better performance and overcoming limiting beliefs
• Steps to "get up the ladder"
• The role of power dynamics in performance management and psychological safety

Show Notes:
The Resilience Shield
Alex Hormozi

Bill Lennan founded 40 Percent Better, a team-based approach to training and development that boosts productivity, reduces absenteeism, and tackles 'impossible' projects.  With over 20 years in the tech industry, Bill has developed groundbreaking products across the mobile, e-commerce, and education sectors.

His practical skills have driven success at major companies like Google and Walmart, as well as in smaller settings like hotels and restaurants. Bill excels at transforming underperforming groups into top-tier teams for global corporations, achieving impressive results with minimal turnover. 

Chapters

• 0:00 Building Leadership Skills Through Personal Growth
• 7:48 Building Genuine Connections Through Leadership
• 18:14 Building Leadership Skills and Team Dynamics
• 26:20 Understanding Power Dynamics in Leadership

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hey there, welcome back. I'm your host, jill Griffin. This week, I'm introducing you to Bill Lennon. He founded 40% Better, which is a team-based program that breaks down performance into consistent, repeatable steps that anyone can replicate. Bill has spent over 20 years in the tech industry, leading software teams, and his skills have driven success at major companies like Google and Walmart, as well as smaller settings like hotels and restaurants. Bill works at transforming underperforming groups into top-tier teams for global corporations, achieving impressive results with minimal turnover.

Speaker 1: 0:41

In this episode, we talk about his definition of leadership and also how to get comfortable with the struggle. In this episode, we talk about his definition of leadership and also how to get comfortable with the struggle. One of the things we go deeper on here is that how Bill was personally very shy and how he overcame his shyness, and what leaders can do to help support shy employees, because we need everyone's voice to be active in the workplace. He discusses his process of what he does at 40% better, and you'll hear him mention mental models. Think of those as like limiting beliefs and obstacles that get in the way of performance. We also talk about the steps to get up the ladder to promotion and how power dynamics play an important role in performance management and also psychological safety. Until next time, embrace possibility, be intentional and please be kind to each other. Hey, bill, I'm really glad to be having this conversation with you today.

Speaker 2: 1:33

Welcome, so am I. Thank you, jill.

Speaker 1: 1:35

So I ask everyone who is a guest to take us back and take us back to what did you think you wanted to be when you grew up?

Speaker 2: 1:46

to what did you think you wanted to be when you grew up? I wanted to be a cowboy, but I also wanted to be a scuba diver. That was the two things.

Speaker 1: 1:50

I love it. I love it All right. So take us through how you've created the success that you are today. Take us a little bit more like what happened in your early part of your career, and then, of course, we'll get into where you are today.

Speaker 2: 2:04

So my dad was in the military. He spent 20 years in the service and we moved around a lot. He worked in supply chain loading bombs and bullets onto airplanes, and every two years the government packed us up and sent us to a different part of the world. I learned to be comfortable with change and I learned that that was normal and not to see it as uncomfortable. Number one Number two I did start scuba diving when I was 12 because we were in the Philippines. Yeah, it was beautiful diving. If you can ever go there, I highly recommend it. Also, my dad always talked about how his success was only possible because his teams were doing all the hard work. When you're loading 1,000, 2,000-pound bombs onto an airplane, that is not a one-person job, and so he always said that all of his success was because the rest of his team ran really well and that his job was to make sure that was possible.

Speaker 1: 3:00

So one of the first things I'm hearing you say is that, while your father was in the military, the leadership takeaway is your job is to create capacity for others to be successful. His job is to mentor his team so that all of you are successful in the task 100%.

Speaker 2: 3:20

That's the first major takeaway. That's the first yeah.

Speaker 1: 3:23

Note that.

Speaker 2: 3:23

Yeah, and as a kid I learned that and that kind of stuck in the back of my head, even though I never thought about having a leadership role when I was a kid.

Speaker 1: 3:35

It also connects in with your philosophy of look for people that you're working with or, if you're hiring people, look for people who are good at the struggle. It fits right into your philosophy.

Speaker 2: 3:45

I love that. Yeah, part of what I've learned over the years has been that having skills is a data point. But if you aren't willing to do the struggle to make something happen with those skills, it's actually a drag down for the rest of the team, and most of my career has been at smaller companies or startups. You really have to be able to struggle to get startups to get going right.

Speaker 1: 4:12

There's a lot of I mean. So we know about the creative capacity for others and we also understand getting comfortable with the struggle. So right away, we have two major insights for people to take away. So take us through. Okay, so at some point you got training as a software engineer. What happened?

Speaker 2: 4:28

Yeah, so I was an accidental software engineer. Okay, I volunteered to help a friend of mine with a startup he was doing. I love it, not as a software engineer. I actually made two sales calls for him, okay, and then he said, hey, can you do more of this? And I was like, and this is when I was a shy introvert, so why? I said yes, I have no idea, but somehow my distress tolerance allowed me to go and take that on. But I wanted to learn about what I was selling and so I started eating lunch with the software team and I started asking them questions. Again, me being a shy introvert and having social anxiety and being able to do that at the same time was because I was willing to be uncomfortable to do a better job. Like, I recognized that I needed to know more than what I did to do my job well, and that turned into becoming a part-time software engineer at the company. Wow, it's a great pivot.

Speaker 1: 5:29

Yeah, really interesting.

Speaker 2: 5:32

And so I became this jack-of-all-trades at the company because I was willing to say, yes, I'll learn anything. And then that company crashed, as early stage startups often do. And then I went to the next company I went to. They wanted somebody who knew a bunch of skills, even though I wasn't that experienced, and part of the interview process was they wanted to know how I'd overcome challenges in the prior company. They basically asked me how well I could struggle.

Speaker 1: 6:03

Ah, I see the scheme here.

Speaker 2: 6:05

Yeah and so, and I had done some things at that company that the new company wanted to be able to do Not at the same scale, but I at least had a clue about things that to them was unknown. And then so I started working there as a software engineer. I learned more programming, languages, operating systems, databases, and then I built my first team.

Speaker 1: 6:30

So one of the things that you've talked about before that I think our listeners would be really interesting in is that how you recognize the shyness in yourself and that in order to hit some of your goals, which was to lead more teams, you had to find a way to embrace that shyness, maybe mitigate parts of it in order to be successful. So take our listeners through some of the things that you did tactically in order to make that change in yourself.

Speaker 2: 6:59

Right, right. So I started researching and talking to people who I knew that weren't shy about how did they do it? And part of it was I recognized that their beliefs about themselves mental models, you call it, principles were different than mine. They weren't afraid of other people and I was, and so when I started asking about how they weren't afraid, I started realizing they had a set of skills I didn't have, and that that was the difference was, if I could learn those skills, then I wouldn't be afraid anymore either.

Speaker 2: 7:37

It's kind of like, if you don't know how to swim, it makes sense to be afraid of the water, sure, but once you get good at swimming, then you can start doing a bunch of other water sports, right. And so I started off with how do I start a conversation with a stranger? And that was the very first thing, and it was two minutes walking into Starbucks ordering coffee and then asking the barista how their day was going, and that little simple starting point. It was two minutes, and I would walk out the door afterwards and congratulate myself for doing a rep.

Speaker 1: 8:14

Right, and I'm going to pause on that there, because everyone did. You hear what he said? He asked the barista how they were doing. He didn't talk about himself, he created a genuine connection by checking in with someone who. I'm going to make an assumption if you're in that role and being of service to customer after customer after customer, you probably aren't having a lot of people check in with you. But here's Bill, who's breaking through his own shyness by checking in on someone else and that's, I mean, it's just beautiful, but it's also. It really showcases how we can make genuine connections and it gets a little easier, as you say, when you do each rep yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 8:51

And so after two weeks that was easy and and then I okay, what's the next level? And so I went to start going networking events that were five minutes and then I went to longer ones and then I started presenting to my software team like actually building out slides, because I didn't know how to do that at the time and progressing up that stack until I was doing company-wide presentations.

Speaker 1: 9:19

So I know you tell a story that you and I have talked about and I would love for you to share with everybody listening, about how you went into a company and they gave you as the as leadership executive, leadership said to you we're giving you the worst team in the company. Sure, tell us about that and what you did and how you turned it around.

Speaker 2: 9:39

Of course, of course. So this is a few years ago went to a company, as you said, the day that I started blasting, the CTO said was you know, by the way, I'm giving you the worst performing team in the company, good luck. And I, I you're like thanks, thanks, yeah, okay, I like a challenge, right, not quite the way to end a pep talk, but okay, whatever you know, it is what it is. And then, six months later, I walk into the office one day and he says hey, bill, can you come talk with me? And I said, sure, what's up? And he said what have you done to your team? And I said what do you mean?

Speaker 1: 10:15

You get a moment of panic.

Speaker 2: 10:16

Yeah, I did actually yeah, I was thinking, uh-oh, did they all just quit? I don't know about it yet. He said I gave you the worst performing team in the company and they are now the best performing team in the company. Wow, now, the best performing team in the company. Their coding throughput went up by 40% and we've spent eight years trying to make them more productive and happier and it hasn't worked. And now you've got this very productive and also very happy team. How do you do it? At the time, I didn't know how to explain what I was doing and I just said well, I take good care of my people. I didn't understand at that point in time that the way that I thought about leadership and the skills that I had built up and the daily habits that I had were so different from my peers and, frankly, from that particular executive, and that I was helping them just get one percent better every day. And it was.

Speaker 1: 11:02

It was this stack of baby steps and I think anything's a couple of those like share a couple of stories, an example, so that anyone listening can take away an actionable insight.

Speaker 2: 11:13

So, again remembering that my job is to help make them more effective, which is what's the friction between where they're at right now and a better level of performance? And I think the first starting point for any team is you remove the friction. I've had companies that had really ugly business processes around project management and how to get code done. And so I come in, I look at the process, I talk with the team and I figure out how do we make this smoother, how do we just make this a whole lot easier, get everybody to be happier with it? That's a really simple example where their project management process frustrates the team. The problem is that if you don't have the mental model of removing the friction for the team, other team leads just said oh well, this is the way it is, there's nothing I can do about it.

Speaker 1: 12:04

It's almost like learned helplessness, like I can't do anything.

Speaker 2: 12:07

That's exactly what it is right, Just the way it is Right yeah.

Speaker 1: 12:11

I also don't know. It's. A mentor of mine said it this way once and I love it, so I'm using it you are a fish in a fishbowl in the ocean, so you think you can see everything, but really you're just in this little cubic square space and you think you can see and you really can't. Exactly you, I mean, obviously your story is what you created there and then, of course, what you now with running your own company. But how do you create that the awareness for them to see a different way of going about the tasks and challenges in front of them?

Speaker 2: 12:49

Baby steps. It's always. You know, I never had the idea that we need to make some huge, profound leap overnight. It was always little pieces, and so you know, one of the habits that I have is I do weekly one-on-ones. It's only 15 minutes and it's all about you, and it's just like what I asked the barista. It's how's your day going? Right, I want to hear their complaints, I want to hear the friction, and I don't care what it is. I have moved team meetings around so that people could get their kids to school, get their kids home from school, get their kids to sports, right, and that seems inconsequential, but it makes the team happier.

Speaker 1: 13:29

No, I would say. Many employees are right now clapping saying finally a leader who cares about our outside of the work performance.

Speaker 2: 13:36

Yeah, because I want you present in the meeting. And if you're thinking about you know I'm dialing in from my car then I don't really have your attention, right? Or you're thinking I hope this meeting gets done in the next 10 minutes because my kids got to get water polo right.

Speaker 2: 13:54

Then it takes you out of the space of the team and I'm all about I want you 100% in the space of the team or 100% out, like I really want to. I want either all of your attention or none of your attention, and I want to make sure that, because you get into flow better, right, you operate better when you're, when you're in the team, and so I move meetings around all the time, like I'm more than happy to do that. Everybody else on the team is happy with it.

Speaker 1: 14:25

They now know that I'm thinking about taking care of them, right, right and and which creates a level of psychological safety which I know is really important to you. And another thing that you and I have talked about previously is the value that a shy employee brings to a team, oh yeah, and that we're not going to overlook them. So I'd love for you to talk a little bit about that.

Speaker 2: 14:46

I used to be one of those shy introverts and I had social anxiety quite quite badly. I recognize that the shy people on the team are oftentimes very, very smart and the fact that they don't speak up is completely unrelated to how smart they are. I have this process that I use of system to get them to speak up more in the in the team meetings, that I use a system to get them to speak up more in the team meetings, and the first thing is in the one-on-ones they talk about whatever they want to and I want them to feel, as you said, psychologically safe in a one-on-one context and usually, if I'm patient, shy people will get to that place and I now have insight into how smart they are. Me having a clue about oh my goodness, this person is brilliant gets me more excited about getting to speak up in the team meetings. Now I'm calling on them and asking them for their ideas.

Speaker 1: 15:42

So you're creating and holding space for them in meetings.

Speaker 2: 15:47

Yeah, space for them in meetings, yeah, and it's. I tend to think in terms of maybe this is engineering thing, but I'm very literal and I found that I need to be very like this is the behavior right. So I'm very behavioral driven, right. So I want them to be able to speak always whatever's going on In the team context. When we're having that happen and I'm making that space, I actually oftentimes will have the folks that are the noisiest a conversation with them about in our one-on-ones about. A conversation with them about in our one-on-ones about. I love your contributions, they're awesome, and I'm afraid and I'm very clear about my fear that the people that are the shyest on our team, your friends, have some really good ideas that they're not putting out into the team context. So I'd like you to be a little bit less aggressive about giving answers, even though I know you have great insights, so we can get them to start to put their insights out also.

Speaker 1: 16:56

Has there ever been a challenge with that employee feeling like wait, you're telling me to not contribute or not bring value?

Speaker 2: 17:05

I have so far knock on wood, 100% not had a problem with that, and the reason is I'm very careful about number one. I don't say it on day one, sure, right, I make sure that they trust me, that I've been there for a while, right, and also that I frame it in a context that's beneficial for them, right, where they don't feel like I'm putting a negative imposition on their career. And and I've had people come back to me months later and say, wow, that was that was amazing. You did that because I've now realized that that person that was shy is brilliant and my ideas that I've put out in the past have actually caused us problems that they would have had a better solution for.

Speaker 1: 17:49

Yeah, and yeah, also excellent leadership training for them to really, if they, as they work on their career trajectory and wherever they're going next, creating space for others and making sure that you're helping people who are maybe more quiet than the norm of the team, creating space for them. And you know that, that that old adage of like two ears, one mouth use them proportionally. Exactly that space, really good. Okay, yeah, take us through where, what you do today and how you work with teams. Um, you know your company is 40 better, which is amazing name, so tell us what you do it's a training program.

Speaker 2: 18:28

Um, the first two months of the program is learning and homework. It's just like going to school, right? It's helping people understand a set of mental models about how to approach leadership that they probably never heard before has been my experience. A lot of people I've talked with and I said, oh, here's how I think about it, this is my mental model. They go, wow, I've never heard that before. I get a lot of that kind of feedback.

Speaker 2: 18:51

It's what's the mental model? What are the skills to support that thing, to make it actionable? Right, it doesn't do any good to hear a mental model if you can't do anything with it. And then, what are the habits that you need to be able to implement to get your team to get to be 1% better every day? Basically, because it's about again, it's back to behaviors, right? What's the behavior that I can teach you, jill, that's going to have your team operate better? And I could start with the behavior. But I want you to really understand why and to recognize oh, wait, a minute. Now I know I get why I'm doing this, right, and here's how to do it effectively with the skill.

Speaker 1: 19:29

Just share an example of like a recent win or a recent challenge and how you handled it with one of your clients.

Speaker 2: 19:35

I had somebody who wanted a leadership role and they wanted to move up the ladder and they didn't know how to go up the ladder, like they just didn't know how to move ahead. Right, and part of the problem as we were talking was they were shy, introvert, weren't comfortable talking with strangers, incredibly effective, had done a bunch of amazing work but couldn't network. And that has a bunch of knock on effects, because if you're uncomfortable talking with strangers, then when you go to an interview, then you're not nearly as comfortable talking with the interview team and you're probably not networking as well as you could. And so we started with okay, let's start with the baby step of talking with strangers and get you into Starbucks or the equivalent and starting conversations. We were able to do that. And then it was okay, let's get you networking. And we were able to do that.

Speaker 2: 20:32

She's now a project manager at Google running huge projects, because we kept helping her understand what the next little step was to get her to be comfortable in the process. And that and I think you know people oftentimes they they see somebody performing at a level and they don't understand or they don't think about what are all the little pieces it took to get them up to there. I'm really comfortable. I really enjoy public speaking right now, but that's 200 steps. There were little tiny pieces that I had to take. Small reps, small wins.

Speaker 1: 21:10

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 21:10

Small little, yeah, and each time it was okay. What's the next step up? And what is the thing that makes that hard for me? Because if it's easy, then it doesn't matter, right, but what makes it hard? And then also, you know, being a parent, every time my kids come to me and they have an emotional challenge, we do this exercise. I'm like, okay, let's talk about it. Same thing I do with my teams, right, right, if you happen to want to move to a different kind of a role, how do we help you get there? Right? What's the emotional?

Speaker 1: 21:41

challenge and recap those steps for us so people can understand some of those steps.

Speaker 2: 21:46

So the first step is what's your aspiration, right? What do you want to be able to do? And then, okay, that thing might be huge. Right, I want to be a standout comic. Okay, great. What are the baby steps right? How do you break that down to be something that's approachable? Have you ever written a joke? Have you ever tested a joke on your family? What are the starting points to get you to the littlest piece, to start working your way up that stack? It's always break it down to the smallest thing, the system, right, it's the same system. It's like we learn math through systems, right? And irrespective of where you max out on math, everybody starts with counting, that's. It Doesn't matter where you are out on math, everybody starts with counting. That's. It Doesn't matter where you are in the world, everybody starts with counting. And then addition and subtraction and multiplication and division, and then, depending on where you go to school, fractions or decimals, and then I think geometry is the next step, but bringing it back to that laddering like when you're thinking about it.

Speaker 1: 22:45

what are the actual actionable steps that someone can take away from listening, thinking about?

Speaker 2: 22:49

it. What are the actual actionable steps that someone can take away from listening? Sure, the first thing is really just looking at around at people that are successful at something and and understanding they had to start somewhere. What is the starting point and what is the way they were thinking about it to get started Right? And most of the time people don't start off thinking that they're going to be whatever. You know the the, the big, the place they're at right now.

Speaker 2: 23:15

I'm not sure that Michael Phelps started off thinking he was going to be a well-known Olympian, but he started off thinking I want to learn how to swim. And then he got a little better, a little better, a little better, a little better, right, and he had to make a decision at some point in time, like I'm going all in on swimming. So it's like that with everything, and it helps when you've got somebody there who can guide you along the steps or that you can ask like okay, but you have to be able to break it down to the most fundamental baby steps and then be willing. The fundamental baby step is the minimal thing you can do where you're emotionally uncomfortable, but you can still do the step, like when I went into Starbucks.

Speaker 2: 23:54

It was scary, and it was scary for well. The first time was definitely the worst Because the first time I walked in I didn't even say the script, I just walked in, got coffee, walked back out and said, well, I couldn't even do it. Then the next day, when I went in, I was able to say how's your day going? I had no idea what they said. Sure, I just said thank you and walked out the door and was like, oh my God, I did it once.

Speaker 1: 24:19

So bringing it back, breaking down the steps, understanding that you might be uncomfortable, but that you can.

Speaker 2: 24:30

Still, it's not so outrageously uncomfortable that you can't do it. Right, what's next? Do the reps until it becomes easy. Okay, it's repetition Again. Going back to math, right, we've all done a lot of math so that you know that seven times three is 21, because you know how to do multiplication in your head and you've memorized the multiplication table. And so you do the reps until that thing becomes comfortable and easy, and that's what builds your self-confidence. And then you go to the next step and you say, okay, what's next? And you, you have to look around to figure out what's the next level.

Speaker 2: 25:07

Unless you know you get somebody like me who says okay, here's the starting point. If you're in our program day one, here's what you're going to do.

Speaker 1: 25:14

Right. But if you're self-directed right, we want to be able to help people.

Speaker 1: 25:18

What can they do today with that? Switching gears a little bit when you think about what you said previously around psychological safety. You're talking to people who may be more extroverted and you're saying, hey, create space for some of the others. You're creating a one-on-one relationship with both the person who maybe is more talkative and the person who's less talkative. So they both know they're not being singled out, but they understand and trust that. It's about creating an environment of inclusivity and belonging. You are working with the individual who might be more on the shy side and helping them one-on-one to build a relationship with you and encouraging them to speak up in meetings. Is there anything else that you would give tips for leaders today to really create? You know it's about. It's about increasing team dynamics to increase performance, but one of the ways to do it is to create a culture of safety and belonging.

Speaker 1: 26:12

So is there any other tips that you would give people that are listening what they can do today to create safety and belonging.

Speaker 2: 26:20

I think it's about power dynamics. I think that's the other part that goes completely unrecognized by team leads, completely unrecognized by team leads. And most of the team leads that I talk with don't understand on a day-to-day basis that their teams of individual contributors are what's moving the company forward. They're writing code, they're doing sales, they're doing marketing, whatever it is right, helping the customers, and so, as a team lead, because you're managing the people that are actually doing all the work, you actually have a lot of power with everybody above you in the org chart. Almost zero team leads actually understand this that they can go and they can talk to their boss and they can say, hey, my team needs whatever it happens to be.

Speaker 2: 27:12

And I got this insight from one of my early CEOs at a point when I was really nervous asking for things from him, and he laid this out for me and because of that, I never felt blocked about talking to executives about stuff for my team. Now, early on, I didn't know how to ask for it effectively and so I got no's. What I realized over time was there was a really effective way to ask so that the execs would say yes when I said we need computers and monitors, hotel rooms, training, whatever it happens to be. But my knee-jerk reaction for my team once I realized the power dynamic was always yes, you need something, let me see how I can go make it happen. And what I hear now is a lot of team leads who say, oh, we can't do that because they don't know how to ask for it and they don't understand the power dynamic and I think that's a real. For me, that was a a huge game changer.

Speaker 1: 28:09

So you're saying when a leader understands the power dynamic, they are able to ask for things, that then the results of those asks are what helps create psychological safety.

Speaker 2: 28:20

It does because the psychological safety happens when the team knows you're there to take care of them. Okay, right, like that's. A huge part is, if the team doesn't recognize the leader is there to take care of them, then they're not going to give you their best work, because it's vulnerable and scary. And and if you're not taking care of them, they're not going to take care of you.

Speaker 1: 28:42

All right. Well, I'm going to ask you what are you reading or watching, or I don't know, scrolling through these days that would be really interesting to share with our listeners and just kind of spark some creativity.

Speaker 2: 28:55

My background's all in engineering, and so sales and marketing are very new things for me. So I'm a huge fan of Alex Hormozzi's. Alex, I think, is the best speaker on sales and marketing that I've ever experienced, and I've started reading a lot of books on sales and marketing and I think having the breadth of understanding, irrespective of where your role happens to be, helps us be more effective inside the context of work. There's a book called the Resilience Shield. You know, one of the reasons that I've been successful is I'm I have a high degree of emotional resilience, because this is a really good book on different facets of emotional resilience and and how to how to very tactically make them happen and how to build more and more emotional resilience in the course of your life. I just ran across this book and I was like, oh my God, this is amazing.

Speaker 1: 29:57

I think that's I mean when we just kind of look at what's going on, you know in people's lives day to day what's going on in the world, that level of emotional resilience. I think it's a great tip. I will put both of those recommendations and follow them on the show notes along with all of your contact information. I think it's a really interesting conversation for people to really think through, not only creating psychological safety, but also how to bring out the best. And whether you're the more introverted or extroverted employee, we need you all. We need all of you to come to work to create that success. And I also think the idea of taking those small incremental actions to get the reps right. It's almost like weight training You're getting those reps and with more reps and time you really are able to take chances and learn how to do something that you didn't know before.

Speaker 1: 30:46

And I love that last part about get better at the struggle, because there's always going to be. It doesn't matter what it is. None of us are getting out of this without a struggle in some capacity. So I think those are really really great takeaways. So thank you, bill. I really appreciate you being here and sharing these tips today. If anyone has questions or comments or wants to ask Bill questions, we will get them to you. No-transcript.