Hidden Metrics

In this episode of The Impostor Syndrome Files, we talk about how to define success in ways that go beyond traditional performance metrics. My guest this week is M. Nora Bouchard, executive coach, leadership advisor and author of Hidden Metrics: The Coach's Secret to Success That Really Matters.

Nora shares how nearly three decades of coaching leaders has shaped her perspective on what drives meaningful leadership and sustainable career success. We explore why traditional metrics like KPIs often fail to capture what keeps people engaged at work and how leaders can reconnect with a greater sense of purpose without walking away from their careers.

In our conversation, we discuss the importance of creating a personal vision for your leadership that is grounded in your values and strengths. Nora introduces the concept of "hidden metrics" and explains how using your own internal measures of success can increase engagement, strengthen decision-making and ultimately improve performance.

We also talk about why so many leaders never intentionally define what leadership means to them, the importance of making your leadership values visible to others and how greater self-awareness creates more trust and consistency for your team. Finally, Nora shares practical advice for getting started, recognizing where change is needed and asking for support instead of trying to navigate every challenge alone.

About My Guest

M. Nora Bouchard is an executive and leadership coach with over 10,000 hours of coaching experience. Known for her engaging, relatable and insightful style, she helps leaders at all levels reconnect with what matters most in their professional lives—the unmeasured moments of growth, integrity, and purpose that define meaningful work. Over three decades, Nora has partnered with organizations ranging from Fortune 500 companies to ambitious nonprofits, guiding leaders to honor both their results and their values.

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Connect with Nora:

Book: www.hidden-metrics.com

Website: https://www.mnorabouchard.com

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Transcript

Kim Meninger

Welcome, Nora. Thank you so much for being here. I know this has been a long time coming. We've had to do a lot of rescheduling. I'm so glad we're finally here. I would love to start by inviting you to tell us a little bit about yourself.

M. Nora Bouchard

Well, hi Kim, I'm so happy to be here too. Yes, it's been a few.. well, it's been a long time since we first connected, so I'm really glad we get to do this today too. I am an author and executive and leadership coach and a facilitator. It's kind of interesting, I'm doing a lot of that lately, but and I've been doing this kind of work helping develop leaders for I don't know almost 30 years, probably closer to 30 years, and everything from developing training programs to primarily coaching one on one since the mid 90s, actually, so I know your listeners can't see me, but I am very young looking for my age. [Of course.] Anyway, so I love what I do. I love seeing leaders really like experience their aha moment, and then start working on it to create new habits and new ways of doing work that really brings them meaning and satisfaction, so that's why I do what I do, and I do have a new book out, it's called It's Called Hidden Metrics, the coach's secret to success that really matters, and it is all about how do you find that meaning in leadership, especially if you're a newly promoted leader, you know someone who's still trying to get their footing, still trying to understand what's going on, still trying to find their voice again in this new role, something that a lot of women struggle with at times, just because male-led organizations tend not to be as open to hearing what they have to say.

Kim Meninger

Absolutely.

M. Nora Bouchard

Unfortunately.

Kim Meninger

Can I back up for a minute, because I would love to hear more about what it looked like to be developing leaders in the 90s versus how it looks today, and so what, what has that, where, where are we on that journey?

M. Nora Bouchard

Actually, it has changed a lot. It really has. So, primarily back in the 90s, it was still at least in the client groups that I worked in, which were mostly large multinationals, Fortune 400 companies, mostly male run now the gender split is really very different. It's I wouldn't say it's 50-50 but it is much closer to maybe 30-70, 40-60, which is really nice, but beyond gender, I also see that people are so much more open to seeing alternative ways of doing things. I think people nowadays are very, they're very mindful of how they're spending their time, what they're doing, how they're contributing, if what they're learning is really going to be a value not just to them and the workplace but to the world. I think people are also much more open to the woo-woo factor, which I've always brought, and because I tend to be very direct, straightforward kind of person. A lot of left-brained individuals love working with me because I get them, I can speak like they do, and at the same time I can encourage them to try something new that might involve some breathing or meditation or shifting how they perceive things in the moment, there I find people nowadays are much more open to that, and that makes my job easier, and it makes their goals so much more achievable.

Kim Meninger

That's a really interesting point because I think that's where sort of growth mindset comes into the picture.

M. Nora Bouchard

Exactly, exactly, you know, it's how there's that old Einstein quote, or at least they attributed to him, that you can't sell. Of an issue at the level of learning or education or understanding that you currently have, you have to go beyond that in order to solve something new, and I really believe that people are looking for answers in ways that they had never done before. I mean, I remember years ago one client in particular, he just admired his father so much, and yet I, you know, and he wanted to emulate him and his success, and I, I just felt that that wasn't going to be successful for this and this person, and he, you know, I would offer up new ways of thinking about things, and he's like, "Wow, my dad would never have thought of that, or never have done that, or "No, I don't, I don't think that's right, this is what I was taught, and you know, he, he was stuck, he was not moving ahead, but people now are, you know, tell me what you got. Give it to me. I want to know. Give me a new way of looking at things.

Kim Meninger

What do you think changed? Is it just the availability of information?

M. Nora Bouchard

You know, I honestly, you know, I think the prevalence of yoga, that you know, I mean, there's still people who believe that yoga is, should not be paid attention to, because it's not, it's not of the Western religious Christian orientation, or that's what they think, but I think most people are willing to play and dabble in it, really find the value, and not just the physical changes that come with yoga, but the emotional, spiritual, and mindset changes that come along with it, this sense of peace, understanding that you can actually have an impact on that you don't have to be a victim to your emotions, you can learn to breathe through it, and then see more clearly. So, I honestly, I think part of it is yoga, as has really opened up people's minds to it, I think that, especially for the younger generation, so I'm Generation Jones, which is.. have you heard of Generation?

Kim Meninger

That's the first time I've ever heard that.

M. Nora Bouchard

So, the tail end of the Boomers, we actually kind of missed out on everything that the boomers, we were too young for Woodstock or the Vietnam War, and so all of these major milestones that the Boomers experienced, we did not, so we're kind of like from the late 50s to the mid 60s, so it's only a 10 year gap, basically, and you know, we, we, we have a similar sensibility to the to the boomers, but we're also much more open-minded, much more focused on work and life being in balance, or really understanding what our gifts are, and wanting to give those out, and not just feel like we're in it for the money. Although, quite honestly, I have a bunch of siblings who are older than me, and they were all boomers, and they were, they're like the most liberal people I know, they're like they're still hippies deep down, so you know, I think that the newer generations really are taking to heart the ideas that we started to crack on to when we were younger, and that was, you know, life should be balanced, that it isn't all about making money, it is about spending time with your family and having good quality of life, and so I think the younger generations get that, and so I think that shows up as well in the workforce.

Kim Meninger

I think it's interesting that you are talking about leadership in the context of these themes around balance and purpose and self-regulation, and you're not talking about it in terms of decisiveness and assertiveness, and like some of the things that we traditionally associate with leadership, and so I am curious, what your sort of set the central thesis is of your, your work on leadership.

M. Nora Bouchard

Well, you know, I think first of all, fabulous question, I am not a traditional kind of coach who's going to worry about your KPIs, and in fact, I write about that in Hidden Metrics. That has so little meaning to me. If it has meaning to my clients, that's fine, I'm going that direction. But what I find is that most people, most leaders these days, really want to know that they're not wasting their lives at work, that they're really doing something of meaning. And when we figure out what that is, and we start creating these hidden metrics around those things, stuff changes, not only do they reach their KPIs, not only do they hit all their targets, their traditional, their traditional metrics, they, they are finding ways of doing it that, that are mindful and meaningful and satisfying to them, so let me give you an example, so one of my clients was head of her tech company's business development team, and every year she just, you know, she always blew everybody out of the water with how much she would bring in work wise, and her bosses loved her for it, but she'd been at this company a long time, and even though they would keep bringing people in to support business development, she just was not feeling very inspired anymore. Yeah, and it was nice getting the bonus at the end of the year, that was great, and at the same time she wanted to do more, and so we spent time figuring out what, what would bring her meaning, and for her it was about being of service, and she didn't feel like she was doing that in her job, and she was to with her clients to a certain extent, but it wasn't enough, so she went to her boss, and she said, "Hey, listen, I want to start developing the business development team, especially the really, the really newbies coming in. And her boss was like, "Absolutely not, we need you where you're at, I don't want you spending any time doing this, and she was, she was so demoralized. I mean, this was, we had spent time figuring out what was going to bring her this satisfaction and make her feel like every day was worth it, and here, here's her boss saying, "No, you can't do it, so we ignored him, did it anyway. We worked out a way, so that she would take two newbies every three months and spend four hours with them a week, so 10% of her time with them every week, just getting them up to speed, helping them improve their sales, and after three months she saw this progress that they were really, really getting the hang of it and bringing in more work. In the meantime, she was still doing what she was able to do, and she was still pulling in the numbers. It wasn't like it was like the difference between, instead of a 30% increase, it was like maybe a 28% increase over that first quarter. So she wasn't really losing all that much, she did it, she kind of graduated those two people after three months, and then she brought on another two, did the same thing after six months. She went back to her boss, and she told them what was going on, and they were up generally up for that, that half year, because it wasn't just all on her shoulders now, and she was feeling so good about what she was doing. She, she couldn't wait to come in. Oh, and then the other thing, too, was, of course, with all the meetings, you know, you have meeting after meeting after meeting, once you get to a certain level of leadership, and she, she started finding some real interest in these meetings again, because she kept going. Now, How's this going to affect these two people that I'm working with now, what questions are they going to have? I'm going to ask those questions now, so that when they ask me, I have answers. So her level of attention increased, her level of engagement increased, and she still hit her numbers.

Kim Meninger

Wow, that you know, I think that's a really powerful example of the importance of feeling a sense of purpose in the work that you're doing, and I do think that there is a lot of superficiality that, that comes with work, if you've been doing. It for a long time, and of course, money is important to our ability to have the lifestyle that we want, but it's not enough to feel that same sense of fulfillment, right? So, so can you kiss it? Sounds like we're heading in the direction of the heart of the book, and I want to understand what is a hidden metric, right, as opposed to a KPI, and you know, sort of corporate metric.

M. Nora Bouchard

So the hidden metrics that I create with my clients start with a vision, a vision of what you want, and that's based in what is meaningful for, for you, so for her in that situation, it was about being of service, giving back. She already did that in other aspects of her life, and her church life, and her community. She wanted to do it at work, and so the vision was that she was going to start. Her vision was that she was going to really train, instruct, and guide these people. That was her vision, and what we relied on to get her there were her values, and so we spent some time exploring what her values were. I call them your personal guidance system, instead of GPS, it's your PGS. Your personal guidance system, these are the things that you know are right for you. This is, this is so personal and so unique to each individual, and even if they come up with the same values, they may use them differently, so that's very, so we identify what those are, and those actually kind of act as signposts, so if you're thinking you're on a journey, you've got the vision, which is your destination, you've got your PGS, which is going to keep you on that road going forward, because you know when you cross a line on your own values, you feel it. It's like I write about it being it's like wearing your shoes on wrong feet, they're there, but and you can move forward, but it feel it's wrong, you just know it's really wrong, and then so we identify what those, those values are, and then we take a look at your strengths, because strengths are what keeps you engaged, if you're actually operating from your strengths on a daily basis, your level of energy and engagement and excitement about work really thrives. It just explodes, and so that almost acts as like the fuel going towards that destination. So, when I'm coming up with metrics with my clients, we're thinking about those three things: your vision, your values, and your strengths, and we create a series of metrics. So it might be okay. For my example, it was, how many people do you, do you want to be working with? She said two at a time. Okay, that's great. That's not overwhelming. It's not super obvious to the boss. If you took all of them, I might be a problem. This one we could keep kind of on the QT. And then, and then we think about timelines. How fast do you want to go? How long do you want to work with these folks? What values and skills or strengths are you going to use to make this work for you? And so we come up with a plan like that, that's very tangible, it's very practical, and you work the plan.

Kim Meninger

I love that, and I feel like what you're saying too is that if we take a more holistic view of ourselves in our lives and apply that to our work, that that is not a distraction from, but can actually be an accelerant, right?

M. Nora Bouchard

Exactly, exactly, but you know there's still the traditional mindset that we have to be focused on these corporate goals, the assigned goals, you know, that you have to be paying attention to those things in order to achieve them, because what you focus on, what you measure gets achieved, that's the general mindset. I just don't think they're very inspiring. I don't think that they speak to anybody's heart. I don't think that somebody is going to be sitting on their porch when they're in retirement, rocking back and forth, thinking about that one KPI they hit, and you. Know 2027 No, they're going to be thinking about, do you remember? I wonder what happened to those guys that I trained. I bet they're, I bet they're so successful now. That is what people are thinking now.

Kim Meninger

Yeah, it's such a good point. And I think we do live in this very sort of all or nothing or binary world where it feels like either you're all in on your career, you're really focused, or you're, you're not, you're not in it, right, and so you're not going to get career wise to where you want to go, as opposed to seeing all of the pieces working together in this way, because I love what you're saying about values. I think about that a lot too. And when we are out of alignment with our values, everything feels harder. It's just like you're talking about the shoes on the wrong feet. I think that that is one of the biggest gaps that I see, is people feel they're experiencing more conflict, they're experiencing more fatigue, more burnout, more stress, because of a values conflict, and they can't necessarily put their finger on it. They don't define it that way, but when you get to the heart of it, that's really at its core. And so, getting to this deeper place of who am I, and what you know, what are my values, doesn't it? Doesn't require you to leave your company, which I know is scary to a lot of people right now. It doesn't require you to totally up overhaul your life. It just means really redesigning.

M. Nora Bouchard

Exactly. You know, and that's so true. And I think one of the things that, well, the first part of the book is really helpful for people who are newly promoted, whether it's their first or their fifth promotion, and, and it is about learning to identify those values that are different from the ones that you have, or maybe very similar, and I talk about them in terms of expectations, so these are hidden expectations, and I list 15 of them, and you know, and I think it's important for new leaders, especially to recognize that this is now an expectation of me, essentially a value, a value that they're placing on me. How does this fit for me? How do I work with this? Am I aware of this? And I also think that a lot of leaders, whether they've been around forever or they're brand new, don't spend time thinking about what their leadership should be.

Kim Meninger

Yeah, I agree with you,

M. Nora Bouchard

You know, they, they'll follow somebody else's lead, or they'll try to fit into somebody else's idea of what leadership is about, or they'll stumble along and just shoot from the hip, but they haven't really been deliberate about defining and creating their own leadership, and in fact, I have a workshop I'm doing with a client group in the next couple of months on that specific topic. How do you define your leadership? One, nobody does that, you know. And so I'll work with a client, a brand new client, and I'll ask them, so how do you define your leadership? And almost all of them say, I lead by example, and I'm like, you know, that's a bare minimum, that's like ground level, that's basic. If you're not doing that, you are not going to be a leader at all. What else do you do for your people, you know, and, and most of them have not spent 15 minutes even thinking about it.

Kim Meninger

And I think that's really unfortunate, because I often think about that identity piece that you're talking about as a, it's, it's sort of a guide in and of itself, like I think about really measuring the gap between that articulated version of who we want to be as a leader and how we're actually showing up, and using that as a way to assess, you know, am I on track, what changes do I need to make to shrink that gap, and if we don't have that as an anchor or some kind of a framework to bump this up against that, we kind of feel lost and rudderless.

M. Nora Bouchard

Exactly. Yeah, you know, it's so true. And, and I think that idea of checking in with yourself, how am I doing? I mean, because you kind of expect your people, your squad to be doing that, you know. Do you do it as a leader? I think that's a really important point.

Kim Meninger

Well, and I'm curious, what your thoughts are too on how much of this do we share with our teams, with our leadership, right? Like, how, because I think there's value to, to socializing some of this as well.

M. Nora Bouchard

Yes, absolutely, 100% And in fact, I do recommend to my clients that they share it with their supervisors in a one-on-one, at a minimum, and then also with their team, their or their squad, maybe not. So I differentiate between a squad and a team. Squad are your direct reports, your team are your peers. So I would, you know, I'm good with them talking about it with their squad and their supervisors, the peers. I don't know if everybody's doing it on the peer team, I think that's a great thing, but I think it lets people know what to expect from you,

Kim Meninger

Exactly, exactly.

M. Nora Bouchard

And it encourages them to hold you accountable.

Kim Meninger

I think that's a big piece of it as well, I think that it creates accountability across the board, because on the one hand, if I say, you know, these are my values that I want to prioritize, and somebody sees me stepping outside of that, they can provide that accountability for me, but also, if I understand that that's who you are, I'm going to manage my behavior accordingly, as well, and I think we're going to have more trust. We're going to work together more effectively. It's just going to be a more collaborative environment.

M. Nora Bouchard

Yeah, trust, absolutely. You know that people need to know what to expect from you, and if you are leading from the hip, you're not. It's going to be hard to predict your behavior.

Kim Meninger

Yes, you're right.

M. Nora Bouchard

It’s going to be hard to know what it is you really want.

Kim Meninger

Yeah, and I always say that the hardest person to work with is the one that's unpredictable, right? You know, I, you, if you have someone who's a little bit like curmudgeonly, and maybe you know, maybe difficult to work with, but they're predictable, you can handle that. It's the I don't know which version of this person I'm going to get today that's the hardest for us to process.

M. Nora Bouchard

Exactly. We used to call them years ago, we used to call them slot machine managers, you know, pull the arm down on a slot machine, you have no idea what you're going to get that day.

Kim Meninger

Yeah, that's a good way of thinking about it. Oh, wow.

M. Nora Bouchard

Yeah, yeah. So, you know, I just, I've been working with this whole concept of hidden metrics, you know, almost from the beginning, and, and I, and it's only in the last two years I actually gave it a name, and it's really starting to catch on in the coaching community, which is nice that coaches recognize this is what we do naturally, because we want you to be engaged, we want you to really invest in the coaching, and if it's only going to be about making your numbers for next quarter, that is, that's not going to inspire you, it's not going to keep you attached to outcomes.

Kim Meninger

Can I ask you a question about the practicality around? I think that a lot of times people think about the work we do, or this kind of a conversation as a nice-to-have. It feels like a, oh, that sounds like a luxury I can't afford because I have, you know, kids at home for the summer, and I've got a really busy job, and all of these life priorities, and I can't take my eye off the ball right now. We've talked about the fact that this, when done effectively, is actually a way of accelerating the process, but I think that the getting-started part is really hard for people to figure out how to do so. Any tips on, like, step one?

M. Nora Bouchard

I think step one is noticing what could change, what could be better, and could just be dealing with all the chaos in your life, you know, that might be the first step, and it is, it is kind of scary. It's like I have a friend who's a New York Times bestselling author, and she writes a lot about World War One, and it's about pulling your head out from the foxhole and looking around and, and really seeing whether you know where the bullets are really flying, so I think that's really the first step, and you have to notice what can be different, what needs to change, and then you have to really give yourself a chance to breathe and take that first step, and it might be asking for help. Fact, I, my first book is called May Day: Asking for Help in Times of Need, and I find that most people, not as far. Don't ask for the help they need. They especially don't do it at work. It's hard to do it at home. If, if you are thinking that nobody wants to help you, then you will never ask. But the reality is that most people will help. I, I can't think of an instance in my life where I've asked for help and somebody has said no.

Kim Meninger

Yeah, yeah, I think that's a great reminder too. I think the vast majority of people want to feel like they are off service, going back to values. Right?

M. Nora Bouchard

Right, exactly. You know, it's a years ago I heard that the word community, the Greek root of it, is about gifts. What is your gift that you're bringing to the village or to the tribe? So, community is all about that gift, and people want to do that deep in their souls. They want to help. So, I think it's being aware of what could change, asking for that help that you need, and being brave enough to know that it can get better, you know, and work with a coach, or work with a friend who's worked with a coach, so they can point you in the right direction for you, or go talk to your boss, or talk to your spouse and say I need more help.

Kim Meninger

Yeah.

M. Nora Bouchard

What do we need? How do we make it happen?

Kim Meninger

I think that's a really powerful part of the conversation, and, and I always struggle with wrapping up because I feel like we could keep going and going, but I want to make sure that for people who are listening and want more of you, your work, your book, where can they find you?

M. Nora Bouchard

Well, they can find the book first of all on Amazon, and again it's called Hidden Metrics, that's in Kindle and in paperback. You can also go to the book's website, which is hidden dash metrics dot com and if you want to learn more about me and my coaching and facilitation, or even my writing work, feel free to go to my website, which is M Nora Bouchard dot com so that's M-N-O-R-A-B-O-U-C-H-A-R-D dot com. I had to make it as long as possible. And you can learn more about me and the other services that I, that I provide, and who I've worked with in the past, and some good success stories.

Kim Meninger

Wonderful. Well, I will make sure those links are in the show notes. And thank you so much for being here, Nora. This has been a fantastic conversation, and I really appreciate your work.

M. Nora Bouchard

Thanks so much, Kim. It was lovely conversation.