Many years ago, I had a colleague whose husband was part of the coaching staff of a women’s Division I basketball team. He was good at his job, but had a dream of coaching individuals.

A few years later, he took a leap of faith—with the support of his wife—and followed his dream. Today he works with high school, college and NBA players. Getting there, however, was a challenge. He experienced doubts, fears, frustrations, struggles, and financial shortcomings. The only things that were consistent through the nine years between when he began his business and today were his faith and his passion to make players better, no matter their level of play.

UMW College of Business Dean Lynne Richardson

College of Business Dean Lynne Richardson’s weekly column in The Free Lance-Star discusses people who aren’t approachable in the workplace. Read DO YOU HAVE A ‘NO’ FACE OR A ‘YES’ FACE?

I recently heard an impactful story. Perhaps it might touch you.

Thomas Jefferson was traveling by horseback with a group of colleagues. As they approached a river, they met others at the river who were on foot. The river had overflowed its banks and the current was swift. To cross the river was going to be a bit dangerous.

I’m amazed at how people do something that will probably not be in their best interest and later say they knew it was a mistake. It’s an epidemic of not listening to our instincts.

ADAM GRANT, author of the bestselling book “Give and Take,” says, “A sense of appreciation is the single most sustainable motivator at work.”

The key word in that sentence is “sustainable.”

I recently had one of the most energizing and challenging experiences I have had in my 30-plus years in higher education. Two of my colleagues and I taught—or perhaps the more appropriate word is facilitated—a business ethics course.

Our backgrounds were similar, yet very different. One of my colleagues is a philosophy professor and the other is an accountant. My expertise is marketing. So we brought quite a variety of experiences and perspectives to the classroom.

I had a conversation with a young person who began her first job less than a year ago. The topic was pay in the workplace.

There are four young women at her workplace. One makes a salary about 60 percent more than the others and is, according to the person I spoke to, doing essentially the same job. How does my young friend know this? Because of the structure and work done in the organization, they can know the salaries. So while the salaries are not public, they are internally known. These female employees are all white and under 30.

A FEW YEARS into my first job as a dean, I had to make a personnel decision that I knew was not going to be well received by the general public. It was not a hard decision to make, as the person had done some pretty bad stuff. Suffice it to say, the university attorney and president agreed that the action had to be taken. We were not firing the individual, but were removing supervisory authority.