The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Congrats! You’ve Been Promoted: An Essential Guide for Helping New Leaders and Their Teams Succeed by Noel Massie

Episode Date: July 2, 2025

Congrats! You've Been Promoted: An Essential Guide for Helping New Leaders and Their Teams Succeed by Noel Massie NoelMassie.com https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1637633998 Noel Massie��s Congrats! You’ve Been Promoted! is an essential guide for equipping new managers with the tools and strategies to lead their teams successfully. Getting promoted is one of the most exciting events in a career. Yet many are placed in the role without any knowledge of what it takes to be a leader, let alone a great leader. You’re expected to sink or swim, and most companies don’t provide any support or leadership training either before or after the promotion. You want to be an excellent leader for your team, but where can you find the basic tools and strategies you need? Author Noel Massie, former vice president of operations for UPS, has walked in your shoes. And he knows what it takes to lead with both wisdom and confidence. Congrats! You’ve Been Promoted is the trusty, must-have guide for every new leader. It’s a mentor on your bookshelf! With professional and personal anecdotes, pertinent research, and exercises that help reinforce the concepts, Massie uses his signature straightforward style to impart the leadership lessons he learned during his six-decade career, such as: Understanding your team’s terms and conditions, and your own Establishing trust with your team Providing regular, actionable feedback Leveraging the B.E.S.T. Principle to keep discussions with employees focused and positive Applying the 4x5 Method to capture multiple perspectives on any situation . . . and many more. Give yourself the gift of starting off your leadership journey on the right foot. Your success—and that of your team—depend on it! For more information on Noel Massie’s Webinar and Masterclass content, visit NoelMassie.com.

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries and motivators. Get ready, get ready. Strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times. Cause you're about to go on a monster education rollercoaster with your brain.

Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. I'm Chris Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com. Beautiful. Please, you know when there are things that makes official welcome to the show. As always, Chris, my show's family loves you and educates you on all the greatest, smartest things to the wonderful minds that come on the show. We just have a, what do we 2,500 guests are the most smartest, brilliant, uh, people that share with you their stories, their journeys, their lessons of life, their overcoming cathartic

moments and how they survived. Cause that's kind of what human, it's kind of what living is. It's the grand survivor TV show that we're all living in the universe and the universe isn't friendly or kind in any way. We deserve nothing. You get nothing. You have to be, you have to, you have to make your world. So anyway, guys, we're further to your family, friends, and relatives. Help them survive as well. Go to goodreads.com, forges, Chris Foss, linkedin.com, forges, Chris Foss, Chris

Foss one on the tick tockety and all those crazy places on the internet. Opinions expressed by guests on the podcast are solely their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the host or the Chris Foss show. Some guests to the show may be advertising on the podcast, but it is not an endorsement or review of any kind. Until we have an amazing young man on the show, we're going to be talking about his latest book that just came out June 3rd, 2023. It is called, Congrats!

Your I'm sorry, let me recut that. Congrats! Congrats, your, I'm sorry, let me recut that. Congrats, you've been promoted an essential guide for helping new leaders and their teams succeed. Noel Massey joins us on the show. We're gonna get into it with him and all the good stuff that he's learned over a lifetime. He's imparted to you in this book that you're gonna wanna pick up or else.

Damn it, don't make me come back there and pull the car over, folks. Anyway, guys, Noel Massey has served as the vice president of USPS's US operations from 2016 to 2019. In this role, he's supporting and guided the package delivery and logistics services in the United States. Prior to his service as VP, he held several positions within the organization, including president of three separate business units, operational division manager, corporate schools coordinator, and he's currently a member of three boards right now. And he's previously served on multiple boards, et cetera, et cetera. He's turned he's been featured in publications such as LA Times, the Orange County Register

door to door and Harvard Business Review. One of my favorite things to read since being a kid. He has been a keynote speaker in a wide range of notable conferences and events and we'll get into some of the deets with Massey. Massey, welcome to the show. How are you, sir? Hey, Chris. Thanks for having me. I'm really honored to be on your podcast. You have a great show, great listeners, and I'm really pleased to be here with you this morning. Yeah. This is our second podcast that we've that we episode we've done. No, we've done this a couple of times before over the years, a couple thousand times before over the years. So thank you. It's an honor to have you as well, sir.

So give us your dot coms. Where can people find you on the interwebs? They can find me the fastest at go just by going to my website, which is noelmasie.com. And that'll take you to my website where there's links there for my Instagram and LinkedIn page and there's a contact form with my assistant's name on it Uh, and they can reach me there the the the most efficiently So give us the 30 000 over you what's in your new book? So I worked for ups. So your listeners are clare the brown delivery company that

We all know and love that you've been watching for years and years that I spent 42 years in the organization rising to the level of president, starting off as a college student, night loading. And eventually I became a supervisor in the early 80s, 1980, to be exact. And I rose through the organization to manager, division level manager, operations manager. And ultimately, it led me to being a president I was a CEO, but in Chicago, I was the president, Virginia, the president, Southern California, likewise.

And then ultimately, I became vice president of US delivery operations, where we have a couple hundred thousand employees daily, led by 17 business units. And in my business, I was the CEO of the company, and I was the CEO of US delivery operations where we have a couple hundred thousand employees daily led by 17 business units and in my role to the CEO and COO was to drive that Organization to success daily and that's all about development It's all about development and so one of the one of the main things real quick that was plaguing us pretty dramatically main things real quick that was plaguing us pretty dramatically at the tail of my career, which is 2019 when I retired and I went off and now I do a lot of things with small businesses. But development of the frontline individual, the leader at the frontline was our biggest challenge.

And so I wrote this book to help answer that. Oh, a team building and leadership. I mean, that's something we talk a lot about on the show, helping teams succeed and proper leadership. A lot of people, they leave workplaces. I think the number one reason why people leave workplaces is poor leadership or poor culture. Is that true? No, people quit people.

They don't quit companies, Chris. I love that. people quit people they don't quit companies chris. I love that people quit people People don't leave places where they're being appreciated And their work is valued and they're valued as individuals people don't leave Those workplaces unless there's you know, some it happens obviously, but unless there's something really good being offered to them people quit people They just they don't quit companies. That's a reality They don't quit companies the people quit people. I love that because that's very true. I mean I've seen toxic cultures. I've seen toxic leaders. I've seen you know all sorts of stuff, but

yeah, the yeah. So what what was the proponent that motivated you want to write the book? It seems obvious, but was there a sometimes there's like a moment that people have where they go, they are an aha moment where they go, you know what, I'm writing a book about this crap. I actually conceptualize this book, the idea for me came about ten years maybe a little more than that ago when I was Thinking through the next chapter for me, you know in my life and what I could do to be a

Contributor to others, you know, I believe very wholeheartedly That your value is about what you do for others, not what you can get from others. You know, you can't, one thing I say to young people all the time, and I said it to my two sons, which are 32 and 30 today, and they would say this to you and they're both doing very well in their lives. I'm really lucky to have them as sons, candidly. But that being said, I would say to them as they were growing up, you can't hope to get more than you give. Now, that's a simple phrase, but here's what that

simple thing means is that if you want to be good at anything in your life, it can be fishing. Okay, then you need to give something to that. You need to practice it, work it. You need to be mentored by people that are

good at it, but you can't hope to be able to get a lot of fish. If you don't give a lot of effort, okay, if you want a lot of fish if you don't give a lot of effort. Okay, if you want a lot of savings, you can't hope to have a lot of savings if you don't give a lot to doing savings, no matter what it is. Whatever it is you want to be, if you really are passionate about being it, then you have to invest in that thing. And so, so that being said, my motivation for this book is really about when I started my career and nothing's really changed. You know, you're in

your twenties and early thirties, whatever it is. And one day you were driving a forklift or delivering a vehicle. And the next day, because you worked hard and did a great job, someone goes, we're going to make you the leader of the team. And again, so you get promoted. And you know what you don't know? You don't know how to lead. You know how to drive a forklift or deliver a vehicle, but you don't really understand leadership. And leadership is not rocket science, Chris, but it's a science. Definitely. And a real key to it is understanding that in a leadership role, there are terms and conditions, values, as I call it, and that's the foundation of the book. I talk about the terms and conditions of leadership that people have. And if I were to ask any of your listeners, write down five

things for me that are non-negotiable in a relationship you're gonna have with someone in your life, whether it's a friend, a spouse, your job, there are things you expect that to give you. Respect, dignity, listening to me, not playing favorites, all these kinds of things are dynamics to show up in the workplace. But when you know what, when you're young, you're not even thinking about that. You got promoted, right? It's great. Everyone's high fiving you, clapping you on the back, you know, great when you're young, you're not even thinking about that. You got promoted, right? It's great. Everyone's high fiving,

clapping you on the back, you know, great deal, blah, blah, blah. And then you get, and you're 27, and here's what happens for real. You're 27, now you're leading the team, and one of the team members is 57. And they got 30 years in the company. And they walk up to you and you say,

hey, Larry, I need you to, I they walk up to you and you say hey Larry I need you to I would like you to whatever, you know blah blah. Larry goes. I'm not doing that. No And in that moment in that moment That is a tipping point That no from Larry is being witnessed by the other 19 members and you don't know what to do And my book was about teaching that person how to navigate that moment. What do I do? And so it's not just suggesting what they do. I have a structured skill development piece of the book. Part one talks about the terms and conditions of leadership, like displaying integrity at all times and being intentional, ethics and the importance of them. Not showing

favorites ever, right? Fairness is about many things, but it's about the thing the person the importance of them. Ethics and the importance of them. Not showing favorites ever. Fairness is about many things, but it's about the thing, the person that works for you, how they see it. And then part two of the book is really about here is a skill

development tactic, if you will. Here is a approach you can use so that when Larry says no, you don't get blindsided. You know what to do. You catch it like someone was hitting you a ball and you were playing shortstop. You know how to catch it. And so that's really what the book is about because derailment happens for new leaders generally in that first year to two.

They get promoted and go, no, this is not for me. I want to go back to driving a forklift. And then, and then, and then, and then, and then, and then, and then, and then, and then, and then, and then, and then, and then, and then, and then, and then, and then, and then, and then, and then, and then, and then, and then, and then,

and then, and then, and then, and then, and then, and then, and then, and then, and then, and then, and then, and then, and then, and then, and then, and then, had individuals, my manager, my first manager was amazing. His name was Glenn and he was really, really into developing his young people. Glenn was like in his mid 30s. We were like in our 20s. And he spent a lot of time with us.

But the one thing he would not allow us to do is not practice the skills necessary to lead effectively. We had to practice in front of him, in front of him. We had to role play like you. Then we pick you and say, Hey, Chris, you're going to be the disgruntled over the road, track the trailer driver. Okay, no, you're going to be his supervisor and he's about to refuse to do something in a group in a group of 20 or something other supervisors be watching you and Chris and I would use a tactic that was taught not manipulative, but it was intended to keep the person self-esteem high, make sure they felt important while

influencing their behavior in a positive way, because that's what leadership is. Leadership is the ability to influence the behavior of a team or an individual and to influence them to positive outcomes. So that was why I wrote the book because I lived it candidly with Teamsters at UPS, which is the largest employer of teamsters in the world. Wow. And so when you're dealing with union employees, you know, you don't just need to tell them to take, you know, take a hike, okay. It doesn't work like that.

You have to influence them in a positive way to follow you. That's how that's how it works. There you go. Well, I mean, uh, the, uh, I mean, that would, that would make pretty good sense for everything because uh, you know, the one thing about the UPS, isn't UPS largely, uh, uh, employee owned is that still, that's how we started in 1907, the founder of the organization, uh, really believed in having employees have a piece of the action and that would create an environment or a culture that would engage everyone to want to win.

And he was right about that. And so the organization was private for 90 of its first 90 years, which I was, when I was made a leader in the organization, I became a partner, right? I mean, I got stock and shares for the conversation. The organization went public in 99 for a myriad of reasons to raise capital really to go international, but even with that, if you are a leader in an organization with a share of stock, your stock share is 10 times stronger than a public share. So,

you have a ten to one vote advantage. So, the organization really kept control of its decision making to the owners, right? The owners own have a ten, ten to one vote advantage to a publicly traded chair. So, what that does is it keeps the

public out of the organization's business candidly? People got people buy the stock because it pays a six percent dividend five point seven or something And and and so a lot of institutions on it, but they don't get to tell the organization what to do The organization is run as a partner driven organization and about 70% of delivery drivers also own stock in the company. So yeah, you have a culture Where it really is a team. It's really a team. It was the vision of the owner Or the founder Jim James E Casey in 1907 when he was 19 founded the company Irish Irish Catholic American and I think for your listeners if you were Irish in 1907, you weren't at the top of the hierarchy Okay, the Irish were traded pretty pretty pretty badly during the terms Because if you were Irish in 1907, you weren't at the top of the hierarchy. Okay.

The Irish were traded pretty, pretty, pretty badly during the turn. So Jim Casey, when he built the organization, never forgot how he experienced that as a kid. So his number one thing was setting values and tone through writings and legacies and discussions which are legendary candidly, that we would value our people and there's some non-negotiables. Integrity would reign as our number one value. Ethics would reign as a value. That we would pay our people well and we would treat them fairly. And that's the culture I grew up in and it works and that's why the organization is 118 years old and And we just and they just I'm not there now, but they just keep on trucking, you know Yeah, keep on trucking. I like the analogy there. Tell us about your life. How did you grow up?

How did you get affiliated with UPS? What was kind of your journey through life before you got there and and Kind of give us a sur a surprise in your words of you Know your experience. I was really the classic Uh employee that ups built this foundation on meaning that I was I was I was 19 at the time when I got hired and I was a college student at san jose state university But the difference for me is I had just finished an internship for one year at IBM

as a lab tech. I was an electrical engineering student. So, but in any event, I needed a part-time job to pay my tuition at college and UPS was hiring. So, they hired me and I started off loading trucks at night. It worked for me 11 to three in the morning and I could go to class during the day, blah, blah, blah. But after a few months, I was approached by

the manager to become a part-time supervisor or a leader in the organization, supervising people that would do a night loading, that kind of stuff. And I got promoted after a few months and I was a part-time supervisor for three years or so to 1980, and I was going to take a job at Hewlett Packard. And I told my manager that I was going to be leaving and taking this job at Hewlett Packard. And he was like, hey, wait, wait, wait, whoa, whoa, whoa. He goes, we had something in mind for you. We were going to promote you into a full, fully partnership

leadership job. And so I was never expecting that, but I loved what I was doing. I really did. And I stayed. And the reason I stayed at UPS versus becoming an electrical engineer was I loved what I was doing. Period. I think that that is a really important point. You know, I'd say to your listeners is that love what you do every day because I had 42 years Where every day I got up and I loved what I was doing. I'm a social person I wanted to be leading other people and I understood the responsibility of that now

Why because my grandfather who was born in 1900 was a barber. And as a kid, I swept hair in his barber shop when I was like seven, you know, and I talk about that in the book quite a bit because he was a very stoic man. He was one of high character. He had a barber shop in Oakland, California, where I'm from originally originally and and you know, he was a business owner and in the in the early 60s and he had three other barbers in his shop and he ran one chair and the other three but the one thing about my grandfather is that he was a person of very few words and he was high. I never saw him get upset one time in my life, but I saw him make upset one time in

I'm talking about barbershops. Our barbershop is a vibrant, really vibrant, lively kind of place. You know, people would be talking sports and blah, blah, blah. But if anyone made an uncomfortable moment in the shop, all my grandfather had to do was look at that customer.

All he had to do was look at that customer, tilt his head to the side and he had a sign. He had a sign. He had a sign. your life will largely depend on how hard you work and who you hang out with. So work hard, choose wisely. And he said people aren't different. He says never buy into this narrative that people are that different because they're not.

He says whether they're in the Europe or whether they're in another country or whether they live in another state, all people basically want the same things. They want safety in their lives, the ability to make a living, to be respected and treated well. He says those are the basic things people want to be able to do. They want to be able to raise their families, have a roof over their head Respecting their lives and living a good community. That's what people want He says never let you sell you never let people sell you that because people are different races ethnicities nationalities because he also worked on the railroad Hmm. And so before he had his barbershop He took tickets on the railroad across the US as a porter back in the day where they would come punch your ticket

Blah blah, and so he learned a lot of lessons Thing about this. He was born in 1900. Yeah, right now. I'm like this is a 60 So when he's talking to me like this is like he's like 60 something So he lived through the roaring 20s. He lived through World War one. He lived through World War two He lived through the Great Depression. He lived through World War II. He lived through the Great Depression. He lived through all these things. And he was just a very wise person. So I was privileged to have him early in my life. So by the time I was an adult and I got to UPS and the founder and organization had these values, that made sense to me. And

it was a place that I felt I belonged in, in the rest is history. Well, the rest is history, as they always say. You got to love it. So tell us about your website. What are some of the offerings we have here as we round out the show? What are some of the things that you do here? I see some expertise, a blog, podcast. Tell us about some of the offerings you have here on the show people can partake of. On the website, it's pretty comprehensive around a couple of things. Number one, if you want to buy a book, you can do that on Barnes and Noble, which Simon and Schuster is my publisher incidentally, and you can get it on Amazon, obviously, because you can get anything on Amazon, right? I'm a publisher. I'm a publisher. I'm a publisher. I'm a publisher. I'm a publisher. I'm a publisher. I'm a publisher. I'm a publisher. I'm a publisher. I'm a

publisher. I'm a publisher. I'm a publisher. I'm a publisher. I'm a publisher. I'm a publisher. I'm a publisher. I'm a publisher. I'm a publisher. I'm a publisher. I'm a publisher. I'm a publisher. I'm a publisher. I'm a publisher. I'm a publisher. I'm a publisher. I'm a publisher. I'm a publisher. I'm a publisher. I'm a publisher. I'm a publisher. I'm a publisher. I'm a publisher. I'm a publisher. I'm a publisher. I'm a publisher. I'm a publisher. I'm a publisher. I'm a publisher. I'm a publisher. I'm a publisher. I'm a publisher. I'm a

publisher. I'm a publisher. I'm a publisher. I'm a publisher. I'm a publisher. I'm a publisher. I'm a publisher. I'm a publisher. I'm a publisher. I'm a publisher. I'm a publisher. I'm a publisher. I'm a But when you go through the chapter on ethics, there's a master class series, it's like 10 minutes, 12 minutes long, that matches, aligns with that chapter. So that's on my website to be purchased. That's 99.95 if someone wants to buy the master class. It's also a really effective tool to run workshops, right? If you have a team and you wanna discuss the importance of integrity, fairness, ethics, you wanna learn what I call the four by five method,

which is how you deal with conflict or how you handle conflict, not deal with it, how you approach conflict or you want to learn the seven steps of effective training. Those sessions are in the master class. And then, and then if a person is interested in more than one book, they can buy multiple books. Obviously the more effective way to do that is through my website. If you're gonna buy like 50 books or something. My assistant, Kayla Bozeman,

and that's K-A-Y-L-A-H-B-O-Z-M-A-N. At gmail.com or at noelmassey.com. She can facilitate a large order and we give discounts for both obviously. Oh, wow. Yep. Wow. The, uh, uh, so you've got those on the websites. What, what does your perspective client look like?

What is, if people are out there listening on LinkedIn or other places that hear this over the next couple of decades, uh, what are, what are some of your perspective clients that you, you know, the, the right fit for you, you think? You know, obviously I spent in a fortune 500 company 42 years and where that took me as a president, we had over 1.3 million clients and where it took me on a weekly basis was in front of those small business owners, right? They had 50 people or 20 people But but I don't care if you have a donut shop if you have a manager running that donut shop

They need to be developed and you as the owner own doing that if yours I work with small business owners a lot Candidate when you ask who do I talk to I have a number of small businesses with a couple hundred people do I talk to? I have a number of small businesses with a couple hundred people, one of them has like 4,000 people, but the small business owner generally doesn't dedicate resources to developing the flesh and bone of the organization, which is the leadership at the front line. That is where culture happens. Okay, first of all, here's what happens in any business, whether it's UPS with 450,000 people or a company with 15 people, culture is built at the top. It's executed at the bottom. Oh, period.

That's it. That's another shirt coffee cup line right there. Culture is built at the top, but it's executed at the bottom. And all you have to do is look at some of the large organizations with CEOs that failed Miserably like the CEO of uber was ousted right now. They have a new new guy and he's doing really well Well, why because the culture the board felt would eat that he was driving was not the one they wanted in the organization And this guy founded the company and that's happened to the founder of Papa John, same thing, right? He founded the company.

He's no longer the CEO, why? Because he didn't fit where they wanted the culture to go. Culture is built at the top, but it's executed at the bottom. And so developing the frontline, which is the people who give your direction to others is the responsibility of leaders. So developing them brings value. And when you wake up in the morning the person who will give your What do I want my manager to get better at? And you ask that manager, write down the five things you think you're great at.

Now tell me why you're great at them, okay? And you write down the five things you think the manager should get better at, and then you compare those two lists, all right? You'll come out with something, better listener, more patience, more, whatever it is, you should coach them. What do coaches, and this is one thing I say to small business owners, which I've worked with many that I would meet with like five or six a week in my professional life,

like 150 a year, and the conversation would always go to development and leadership and they'd say, no, what do you think, blah, blah, blah, whatever. And I'd say, well, here's what I would say to you, John, who own company X. I'd say when you watch an NBA team, does the head coach stop in the middle of the game and go get a sandwich? No. Does NFL head coach, when the game is going, does he take some time off and stop watching what's going on?

No, on the field, no. I said, they spent an amazing amount of time during the week even practicing and preparing. Yet when the game's on, it's game on. That's the requirement of a leader. The leader is expected to be there for their team in critical moments, coaching them, because that's what leadership is. It's stability to influence the behavior of a team or an individual.

And to do that, you must coach them. And that's really what I spend time with on business owners, not their spreadsheets and profit and loss and their marketing plan and I go here's how this works okay. When you have great people under you they do great things you need to spend your minutes making them great. Making them great as it were. Valuing them. That's right. Valuing them as well. So this has been very insightful. No, as we go out to give people your final pitch out to order up the book and access your services on your website and your dot coms. Again, you can reach me by going to noelmasie.com. And that'll take them to my website where they can see content, purchase a book, contact me,

set up a meeting if they'd like to have one that's deeper and they want some team development. We can certainly facilitate that. My assistant again is K-A-Y-L-A-H-B-O-Z-M-A-N Bozeman, Kayla Bozeman. She's great. She follows up immediately with people. She's detailed. All the things I talk about. And your folks want to have a deeper discussion on some of the topics they heard today, then I am happy to spend some time doing that with them. Thank you very much, Noel, for coming to the show and sharing your insights. Man, you've And I am happy to spend some time doing that with them.

Thank you very much, Noel, for coming to the show and sharing your insights. Man, you've had quite the journey. And a few people in today's world have the opportunity to stick to one company and raise their way, work their way up through the thing. And so having those beautiful success stories are amazing. And sticking to one thing the whole time

and making it work and building success with it. You definitely become a master of the trade. So thank you very much for coming to the show, Noel. Hey, Chris, thanks for having me. You know, you have a great show and it's well known and renowned, if you will. And I was really privileged to be a guest on it today. We're privileged to have you come on

and share your life story with us because, uh, you've lived a life. I mean, it's a journey. It's wonderful stories that you can tell. And of course the lessons that you have in your book. Thank you very much, Noel. Thanks, Matt, for tuning in. Go to goodreads.com, Fortress, Chris Posse, and all this crazy place.

The internet order up Noel's book, wherever fine books are sold. It is called Congrats. You've been promoted an essential guide for helping new leaders and their teams succeed out June 3rd, 2025. Thanks everyone for tuning in. Be good to each other. Stay safe. We'll see you next time. And that should have us.