Latest / CLEAR Performance Coaching / Podcast #20 - CLEAR Performance Coaching - QUICK START - Coaching Solves Problems - Full Version (Audio)

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Podcast #20 - CLEAR Performance Coaching - QUICK START - Coaching Solves Problems - Full Version (Audio) · CLEAR Performance Coaching

0:31
SPEAKER_00: So you can step in and show up on purpose every day.
0:54
SPEAKER_02: Good morning, everybody.
0:55
SPEAKER_02: Welcome back to Clear Performance Coaching Podcast, where we take ordinary leaders and help them become great coaches who create extraordinary results.
1:04
SPEAKER_02: As always, my name is Rick Timlick.
1:06
SPEAKER_03: I'm Sam Bracken.
1:08
SPEAKER_03: And I'm Kent Vaughn.
1:11
SPEAKER_02: And today we're in card 46.
1:14
SPEAKER_02: This is still part of our quick start card series.
1:17
SPEAKER_02: Card 46 is called Coaching Solves Problems.
1:21
SPEAKER_02: And this one goes after to me the deepest habit in leadership, which is solving problems yourself.
1:27
SPEAKER_02: Many of you guys were promoted because you were very good at what you did.
1:31
SPEAKER_02: And that very good probably took shape of you're able to see and solve problems.
1:38
SPEAKER_02: This, now that we are promoted, we want to be able to help others solve problems so that we can continuously unleash the capacity they have.
1:47
SPEAKER_02: Then they keep doing it, and we keep getting better, and it's just this incremental cycle of getting you know continuous improvement.
1:55
SPEAKER_02: So today's card says coaching solves problems and solves them better than heroics do, because the person closest to the problem almost always has information you don't.
2:05
SPEAKER_02: And the last episode, Sam, you talked about that Debings quote.
2:08
SPEAKER_02: What was it again?
2:11
SPEAKER_03: That the person closest to the problem really has the best chances of solving the problem or fixing the fixing the problem.
2:19
SPEAKER_03: Right?
2:19
SPEAKER_03: And one of the things I really love is that bright, beautiful people that solve problems raise pretty fast in organizations, and they reach a level where they probably tap out, right?
2:31
SPEAKER_03: They tap out.
2:32
SPEAKER_03: And then they continue solving problems, and instead of trying to help other people solve their own problems, they just still take on that problem-solving stuff, and they never teach the people that the subordinate to them how to solve their own problems, and they create this codependency.
2:57
SPEAKER_02: You know, it's funny, one of the expressions that I like to use when you become promoted is it's time to trade in your cape for better questions.
3:06
SPEAKER_02: Kent, what are the better questions?
3:08
SPEAKER_02: Like, how would you transition that?
3:10
SPEAKER_02: I was a great employee contributor, and I had the cape on my back that people knew that man is Superman, but now I'm a leader.
3:19
SPEAKER_01: Well, you know, it reminds me of a quote.
3:21
SPEAKER_01: He was a great leader, GE, and he said, when you are an individual contributor, it's all about you shining and glowing and being successful, right?
3:29
SPEAKER_01: But once you become the leader, the only glowing that should occur is the only shining or glowing from you should be the reflected glow of your team members, right?
3:38
SPEAKER_01: And so we think about, hey, my job now is to make everyone Superman or Superwoman instead of me being the only one.
3:44
SPEAKER_01: And that's really hard to give up.
3:46
SPEAKER_01: That's really hard to give up.
3:48
SPEAKER_01: Because the leader, you're used to, or as a whatever job you're in, you're used to doing that, you're used to getting the kudos, you're used to getting the recommendations, and and frankly, your job isn't that anymore.
3:59
SPEAKER_01: It is helping everyone else wear the cape, feel good about it, and be successful.
4:04
SPEAKER_01: And if we can change, really change our thinking and say, hey, the way I'm gonna look good is the reflected glow of all my team members.
4:12
SPEAKER_01: As they look good, I look better, right?
4:14
SPEAKER_01: And I assure you, if there's a team that looks great, people always give the coach credit.
4:18
SPEAKER_01: Hey, the coach is doing a great job, they're doing a great job, that leader's doing a great job, that VP's doing a great job.
4:23
SPEAKER_01: And we have to realign our thinking and think, okay, maybe day in and day out, I'm not gonna get that, those accolades that I once gave, but as I give them to others and as I draw it out of other people, you're still gonna be recognized and appreciated.
4:37
SPEAKER_01: It's just not exactly the same way.
4:39
SPEAKER_01: So we just have to change the way we think about it.
4:41
SPEAKER_01: Instead of everyone, everyone saying every day, you're awesome.
4:44
SPEAKER_01: How about if we remind everyone else how awesome they are, and frankly, then they're very quickly going to return around and say, Well, that leader's so helpful, they're so inspiring, they're so great.
4:55
SPEAKER_01: Listen, what I think it's just a it's a mindset change we have to make.
5:00
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, pride and ego is the enemy.
5:02
SPEAKER_03: That's the what that's what Ryan Holliday would say.
5:05
SPEAKER_03: Pride and ego is the enemy, and pride and ego probably helped you get in a position where you were called as a leader.
5:10
SPEAKER_03: Now we got to get rid of the pride and ego so we can be a servant leader to help other people.
5:16
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I was just gonna add the dysfunction is you're the bottleneck.
5:21
SPEAKER_02: Like you are the constraint to that point because all thinking flows through one brain instead of the five or ten or fifty that are on your team, right?
5:30
SPEAKER_02: You become the constraint.
5:32
SPEAKER_02: There's a real cost when leaders solve everything.
5:36
SPEAKER_02: Walk me through what does the team over you know time period start to learn when that's the situation?
5:44
SPEAKER_03: To quote a to quote a famous line from Tommy Boy, they learn jack squat.
5:49
SPEAKER_03: That's the problem.
5:51
SPEAKER_03: That's the problem.
5:52
SPEAKER_03: They don't learn anything.
5:53
SPEAKER_03: If if the boss is always solving the problems for everybody, they don't learn anything.
5:57
SPEAKER_03: So sooner or later we got to transfer that knowledge so that they can solve their own problems, so the boss can have a life.
6:05
SPEAKER_03: If you knew how many people that I coach that don't have, you know, their personal life is just in shambles because they're working constantly, nonstop, because they haven't slowed down to take the time to teach people the skills they need to do their job and to solve their own problems.
6:24
SPEAKER_03: And sure, that's going to make them less effective in the short term, in the near term.
6:28
SPEAKER_03: But long term, it's going to build a much more powerful team.
6:31
SPEAKER_03: And it's worth the trade-off.
6:34
unknown: Yeah.
6:35
SPEAKER_01: You know, as I think about it, every one of us on this call has on our teams a number one or a number two who are superstars that you can give anything to.
6:44
SPEAKER_01: And you go, hey, wow, do this, this, this.
6:47
SPEAKER_01: And we've all had those people over the years, right?
6:50
SPEAKER_01: The thing I'd like you to think about is delegate not just for getting it done, but delegate for growth and development.
6:57
SPEAKER_01: Who else on your team needs an opportunity to do this?
7:01
SPEAKER_01: Who else will bring new ideas and perspective?
7:03
SPEAKER_01: We're not saying hand off the gold meg to them, but give them an opportunity to rise, to shine, to get better, to do better, and maybe have the number two person kind of guide them and direct them, right?
7:14
SPEAKER_01: But but if you're always going to the same one or two people and that person leaves their your team, you are in duck soup.
7:21
SPEAKER_01: You are absolutely in duck soup because you haven't developed everyone else on the team.
7:26
SPEAKER_01: And that's something we have to be thinking about as a leader, not just developing your replacement one or two people, but frankly, be the kind of leader that when other teams around the organization need someone, they come, they come to your team because they know you're developing a bunch of people.
7:39
SPEAKER_01: And you know what's really cruel then?
7:40
SPEAKER_01: You have people that used to work with you that have become awesome that worked all across the organization.
7:44
SPEAKER_01: And frankly, your impact increases in the organization.
7:47
SPEAKER_01: Because though I worked for him, he was awesome.
7:49
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's amazing if you think long-term about developing everybody on the team, not just the top one or two people, you change everything.
7:58
SPEAKER_03: That's how you build a legacy.
8:00
SPEAKER_03: That's how you build legacy right there, leadership legacy.
8:02
SPEAKER_03: I love this delegate to develop.
8:05
SPEAKER_03: Love that theme.
8:06
SPEAKER_03: I'm stealing that, buddy.
8:07
SPEAKER_03: That's a good one.
8:09
SPEAKER_03: That was brilliant.
8:10
SPEAKER_02: You know, it reminded me, I I was very privileged to be able to live in Japan and work within the Twitter production system.
8:18
SPEAKER_02: I got to watch the world's best problem-solving culture on earth.
8:22
SPEAKER_02: Literally, hands down.
8:23
SPEAKER_02: And here's the thing that struck me.
8:24
SPEAKER_02: You know, in Toyota, leaders are actually forbidden.
8:28
SPEAKER_02: It's culturally, they're forbidden from handing over the answer.
8:31
SPEAKER_02: The leader's job is to develop problem solvers.
8:33
SPEAKER_02: And the production line was kind of the gym that they did that.
8:36
SPEAKER_02: So every and on poll, which is stopping the line, is a coaching moment.
8:41
SPEAKER_02: It's not a rescue, it's an opportunity to coach.
8:44
SPEAKER_02: And so that stands out to me is like the company that defined operational excellence ran on leaders asking why instead of announcing what.
8:54
SPEAKER_02: So sometimes I could see being a new leader.
8:57
SPEAKER_02: I I'd wonder when's it right for me to give advice or just solve it?
9:02
SPEAKER_02: Like I hear you saying I have to ask a question, but that might create a conflict for the leader.
9:07
SPEAKER_02: How do I know the difference?
9:10
SPEAKER_02: Sam could be a good idea.
9:10
SPEAKER_02: We don't give advice.
9:12
SPEAKER_03: As coaches, we don't give advice.
9:15
SPEAKER_03: We offer up prototypes.
9:18
SPEAKER_03: Right?
9:19
SPEAKER_03: And every prototype has a trade-off.
9:21
SPEAKER_03: Right?
9:22
SPEAKER_03: I even when I'm asked for advice these days, I don't give it.
9:25
SPEAKER_03: Because people don't take advice.
9:27
SPEAKER_03: They do what they want to do and they don't do what they don't want to do.
9:30
SPEAKER_03: So what I like to do to get them to think is offer up prototypes.
9:34
SPEAKER_03: Now, here's some rules about prototypes.
9:36
SPEAKER_03: Every prototype has a trade-off.
9:39
SPEAKER_03: It has a trade-off.
9:41
SPEAKER_03: And don't be so married to a prototype that you're close off your thinking and your creative, your creative thinking and your critical thinking.
9:48
SPEAKER_03: Every every prototype has a trade-off.
9:50
SPEAKER_03: And then I usually start with extremes on both sides.
9:54
SPEAKER_03: One prototype is always do nothing, see see what happens, see what the trade-off is of that.
10:00
SPEAKER_03: And the other prototype is go to the extreme and do that and see what the trade-off is of that.
10:05
SPEAKER_03: And then I usually try to build cases in between.
10:08
SPEAKER_03: And then interestingly enough, as you're brainstorming different prototypes, what happens is people's minds start to open up.
10:17
SPEAKER_03: Their creative and critical thinking start to open up.
10:20
SPEAKER_03: And then they start offering, and I may offer up, just to get the conversation started, may offer may offer up a prototype or two.
10:27
SPEAKER_03: But then I'm saying, what's a prototype from you?
10:30
SPEAKER_03: Tell me a different prototype.
10:32
SPEAKER_03: And then I'll go off to five or six or seven different prototypes.
10:35
SPEAKER_03: And then I'm saying, okay, as I do this, we're saying, okay, is there one that's leading here when it's a better prototype?
10:42
SPEAKER_03: Or can you combine a couple of prototypes to make another best prototype?
10:46
SPEAKER_03: And then I walk them through this, this, this, this process.
10:50
SPEAKER_03: They're the ones all the while that are making the decisions, coming up with creative solutions.
10:55
SPEAKER_03: Really, I'm challenging them to create the the best prototype to give them the optimum trade-off.
11:02
SPEAKER_03: And then they usually come up with something.
11:05
SPEAKER_03: And then that sets the stage to get them to commit to do something.
11:11
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
11:12
SPEAKER_02: Ken, what about you?
11:13
SPEAKER_02: You know, as you think of owning the problem as a leader versus coaching the problem as a leader, where would you kind of guide towards?
11:22
SPEAKER_01: Well, the fact is, if you're the leader, you own the problem.
11:25
SPEAKER_01: You at least you own the outcome, right?
11:27
SPEAKER_01: You own the result.
11:28
SPEAKER_01: You can never walk away from owning the result.
11:31
SPEAKER_01: And if I think about solving everything from the perspective of there's only one way to do it, my way, then, as you said earlier, you're going to be this tremendous bottleneck, right?
11:42
SPEAKER_01: And I don't want to be the bottleneck.
11:44
SPEAKER_01: If you've ever been the leader and I have, who answered all the questions, came up with all the solutions, how many times have you gotten to the end of the day and you thought, my brain is fried?
11:52
SPEAKER_01: I can't come up with another idea.
11:54
SPEAKER_01: I can't come up with another solution because I'm expecting them all to come out of me.
11:58
SPEAKER_01: And that is such a short-sighted way to be a leader.
12:03
SPEAKER_01: Versus, you know, what I often say to people is when they ask my opinion, say, you know, I got I definitely got opinions about that.
12:09
SPEAKER_01: I got a lot of opinions about that.
12:10
SPEAKER_01: I would like to hear what you think.
12:12
SPEAKER_01: Tell me what you think, and then let's come up with some ideas, and then that'll spawn something else, and spawn something else, and we may never get around to what I thought, right?
12:19
SPEAKER_01: Which is totally fine.
12:20
SPEAKER_01: But if I lead with my thinking, then they'd call like, now we know where he is, now let's go talk to somebody else, instead of, I got a lot of ideas, but you tell me what you think.
12:28
SPEAKER_01: And then one person will say something, then another, and then all of a sudden you're you're down a whole different path, which is exactly what you want.
12:34
SPEAKER_01: You want the path to the solved.
12:36
SPEAKER_01: But again, I'll say what I keep saying, that is, this is exactly the opposite of what we teach you in business school.
12:42
SPEAKER_01: All three of us have MBAs.
12:44
SPEAKER_01: It's the last thing we never learned of this in MBA school.
12:46
SPEAKER_01: We never learned this in business school.
12:48
SPEAKER_01: It's exactly what we were taught not to do.
12:49
SPEAKER_01: We were taught to do to look at the data, gather all this information, look at this and the other, and make a decision.
12:54
SPEAKER_01: That's what we were taught.
12:56
SPEAKER_01: It is not what a leader as a coach does, and it's certainly not how you develop other people.
13:01
SPEAKER_01: And it's so it's so much the antithesis of what we naturally think as a leader.
13:05
SPEAKER_01: We think as a leader, and I need to make all the decisions, and I need to come up with all the answers.
13:10
SPEAKER_01: Good luck with that.
13:11
SPEAKER_01: You top out then, versus come up with all these other ideas that make you better and better and better, and it helps you and everybody else move up.
13:18
SPEAKER_01: I just can't say that enough.
13:20
SPEAKER_01: And when Sam says, you know, he doesn't give advice, I I try really hard to say, I have thoughts, but you tell me what you're thinking.
13:26
SPEAKER_01: You're the one standing right there by the job, right?
13:28
SPEAKER_01: And we get there and thinking.
13:29
SPEAKER_01: I love this idea of Sam's.
13:31
SPEAKER_01: He always says, Well, we could do nothing.
13:32
SPEAKER_01: What are the pros and cons of that?
13:34
SPEAKER_01: Or we could do something really crazy.
13:36
SPEAKER_01: Okay, what are the pros and cons of that?
13:38
SPEAKER_01: Now, what's in between, right?
13:39
SPEAKER_01: I love that you get that thinking going, and now you're bubbling up all kinds of ideas that would have never occurred to me.
13:46
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
13:47
SPEAKER_02: You know, it's funny when I listen to you, I hear this often in organizations.
13:52
SPEAKER_02: We've done that.
13:53
SPEAKER_02: We we've tried that, we've done that.
13:55
SPEAKER_02: It doesn't work here, right?
13:57
SPEAKER_02: And yet, what I invariably know about the we've done that is they've tried a specific way that didn't immediately get the results they were looking for, and then they switch tactics.
14:09
SPEAKER_02: And at some point they just go back to the tried and true that they know.
14:13
SPEAKER_02: To me, this is about, you know, when a known solution comes to your mind, your brain's going to actively suppress the search for better ones.
14:21
SPEAKER_02: This is invariably what happens.
14:23
SPEAKER_02: Studies show experts literally stop seeing better alternatives sitting in plain view.
14:29
SPEAKER_02: So a leader's 20 years of experience is simultaneously their best asset and their blind spot.
14:35
SPEAKER_02: And to me, coaching the problem recruits a brain that isn't locked into an old answer.
14:40
SPEAKER_02: So when I hear we've done that, you know, I go back into tell me about that that you did.
14:46
SPEAKER_02: What did you hope for?
14:48
SPEAKER_02: What did you expect?
14:49
SPEAKER_02: What did you try?
14:50
SPEAKER_02: What were the results of that?
14:52
SPEAKER_02: What other things did you think of and consider related to that?
14:56
SPEAKER_02: And you start to find out that they were actually locked into the idea that they felt was the best one and didn't search for others.
15:04
SPEAKER_02: Do you guys ever come across that old, tried and true?
15:08
SPEAKER_02: We've done that.
15:09
SPEAKER_02: You know, I hear what you're saying, but you know, there's there really is nothing else.
15:13
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I get that all the time.
15:15
SPEAKER_03: Well, I've tried that.
15:16
SPEAKER_03: And then I look at them, I said, Well, you half asked it because it didn't work.
15:19
SPEAKER_03: I've seen it work in 10 different places.
15:22
SPEAKER_03: I I don't have a problem with challenging that.
15:24
SPEAKER_03: Well, we've done that, or we really you have.
15:26
SPEAKER_03: Well, I think challenging that with questions, like you said, is is much better than what I just said, which is more mean.
15:33
SPEAKER_03: But I think that's good.
15:34
SPEAKER_03: Another note here is one of the things that I do as a leader is when I get an idea or a prototype in my mind, I'll go to my team and I'll say, How do we make this better?
15:46
SPEAKER_03: And I'll throw out my prototype and get them to add to the prototype.
15:50
SPEAKER_03: And then oftentimes that leads to a whole new prototype that's way better.
15:55
SPEAKER_03: But you but but in the end, if you don't have a growth mindset, prototypes don't do you a damn bit of good.
16:01
SPEAKER_03: Like you gotta have a growth mindset, you gotta be open to learning and adjusting and looking at things from different perspectives.
16:08
SPEAKER_03: Prototypes is just that's all it is, just looking at things from different perspectives.
16:13
SPEAKER_03: And if you don't have a growth mindset, right, you're constantly learning and adjusting and growing and and and realize that everybody has something to teach you and you have something to learn and you have something to teach, that it prototyping doesn't do you any good.
16:28
SPEAKER_03: But but the growth mindset is sort of the uh foundational thing underneath prototyping or brainstorming around solution.
16:36
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I I totally agree.
16:39
SPEAKER_02: In fact, I if I'm going to the cards, one of the best ways to teach people to solve their own problems is to look at the problem differently.
16:46
SPEAKER_02: I have this expression that I often use is a problem well defined is half solved.
16:52
SPEAKER_02: And so sometimes with the teams that I'm working or coaching with, we'll slow down just to make sure that we really feel we understand the problem well.
17:02
SPEAKER_02: Like let's really understand the nature of the problem.
17:06
SPEAKER_02: And then it's I find it's funny when we do that, the creativity starts to really amp up.
17:12
SPEAKER_02: Like the their energy around solving it starts to really amp up.
17:16
SPEAKER_02: And it's because we've defined the problem a little bit better than they might have sought before.
17:21
SPEAKER_02: I don't know if you guys have experienced that as well.
17:24
SPEAKER_01: Kim, what have you seen out there?
17:28
SPEAKER_01: I think no matter what problem you're facing or situation you're facing, at first glance, you're only going to see part of it, right?
17:34
SPEAKER_01: And so if we have that mindset of, well, what else is there?
17:38
SPEAKER_01: Let's really define it.
17:39
SPEAKER_01: I love what Sam said about a growth mindset.
17:43
SPEAKER_01: Or do we have a growth mindset, or is there only one way to do it?
17:46
SPEAKER_01: Well, in some cases, there may be, in fact, only one way to do it.
17:50
SPEAKER_01: And certainly when we're talking about, for example, one of our clients builds cars, right?
17:54
SPEAKER_01: And building cars, you got to put them in a certain order.
17:56
SPEAKER_01: You got to put them together a certain way, right?
17:58
SPEAKER_01: And so in some cases, there is only one way to do it.
18:02
SPEAKER_01: We understand that.
18:03
SPEAKER_01: But but most things aren't that way.
18:06
SPEAKER_01: There are lots of ways, at least to look at it differently, or to learn better ways to do it, or or whatever.
18:12
SPEAKER_01: And if we have this growth mindset of just because we did it that way yesterday doesn't mean we have to do it that way tomorrow.
18:18
SPEAKER_01: It's really important.
18:19
SPEAKER_01: You know, it's interesting in a post-COVID world how if kind of everything's up for grabs, right?
18:24
SPEAKER_01: You know, it's like, hey, wow, we don't even do we really have to do that anymore.
18:27
SPEAKER_01: Is that really important anymore?
18:28
SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's so many things, and the more we can cause, I think, really think about let's open be open to new ideas and and and new approaches.
18:36
SPEAKER_01: On the bottom of that card, it says what you already talked about, Sam.
18:40
SPEAKER_01: Be conservative, be radical.
18:42
SPEAKER_01: Once you get the right idea, go with it, right?
18:44
SPEAKER_01: So look at if we could do nothing, we could be crazy, but let's really try to look through it, look at it differently, create different scenarios that address the challenges, right?
18:54
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I love the prototype concept.
18:56
SPEAKER_02: You know, in in large, large-scale manufacturing environments that we've helped to embed continuous improvement, there would be all of those prototypes.
19:05
SPEAKER_02: And you you'd rank them almost by you know the effort to implement and the impact to the organization.
19:12
SPEAKER_02: And you start to get a sense of I've I've come up with all kinds of harebrained ideas and they fit all over the map.
19:19
SPEAKER_02: And some of these I could just go do, and some of these I need budget and authority.
19:24
SPEAKER_02: And some of these were good ideas, but actually it might not even solve the problem.
19:29
SPEAKER_02: But we've we've got into the habit of continuously throwing out ideas and suggestions to solve that.
19:35
SPEAKER_02: So I love the prototype concept, and we we've got different versions of that.
19:39
SPEAKER_02: But Sam, what have you found as you push this prototype language forward?
19:45
SPEAKER_02: How do people start to reflect on that and and look at how they're going to solve problems?
19:51
SPEAKER_03: It opens up their creative thinking when you prototype.
19:56
SPEAKER_03: When you ask them the question, well, how would you solve this problem?
19:59
SPEAKER_03: Give me a center line, give me a give me a way to approach this problem.
20:04
SPEAKER_03: What would you do?
20:05
SPEAKER_03: And a lot of times, if they're doing the real work on the front line, they come up with great solutions.
20:11
SPEAKER_03: And the more I can get them to lock into their creative and critical thinking, the more I get aha moments.
20:20
SPEAKER_03: This is, you know, we talk about aha moments or oh crap moments.
20:24
SPEAKER_03: Brainstorming or prototyping leads to more aha moments than any other thing.
20:30
SPEAKER_03: And when you have an aha moment, guess what else you have?
20:33
SPEAKER_03: I got this.
20:34
SPEAKER_03: You have aha and you got this confidence.
20:36
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, this is the way to go.
20:38
SPEAKER_03: I got this.
20:38
SPEAKER_03: And then and the likelihood of them taking inspired self-activated action is marginally improved.
20:46
SPEAKER_03: It's big, much, much better.
20:48
SPEAKER_03: And so it it opens their thinking up.
20:51
SPEAKER_03: It just opens their mind up.
20:52
SPEAKER_03: I love that about so one of my favorite things to do in coaching is to see someone that has a closed mind, that's discouraged, dejected, and then all of a sudden, 20, 30 minutes later, they're on fire because you help them figure out some idea that they didn't think through initially, but now they know it's gonna work.
21:11
SPEAKER_03: And then they got this massive light behind their eyes, they're full of excitement, and they're ready to go to do whatever they need to do to get the outcome they want because they have a sense of control, they've been challenged, they have a prototype that they they have a high degree of behind it that is probably gonna work, and then they make it work, and that's it's a very powerful concept.
21:32
SPEAKER_03: I love it.
21:33
SPEAKER_03: So I hope that answered your question.
21:34
SPEAKER_03: I was all over the place a little bit, but no, it was brilliant.
21:38
SPEAKER_02: Like the question was how do we see this you know in real life?
21:41
SPEAKER_02: And to me, here's what I notice from the science side of it is when we're dealing with problems, our threat response can be high.
21:50
SPEAKER_02: And and a good leader who acts as a coach lowers that threat response with asking questions because it starts to elicit everybody else getting involved.
22:00
SPEAKER_02: When I ask questions, I signal to you that you're capable, that you're you're you're good, that your contributions matter.
22:07
SPEAKER_02: When I just give the direction, I signal to you that you're not competent enough.
22:13
SPEAKER_02: And so that difference is really to me what you're kind of describing.
22:16
SPEAKER_02: How do we unleash the energy and creativity?
22:19
SPEAKER_02: We do it through coaching, we do it through asking questions.
22:23
SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm thinking, we know we talk a lot about the organizations that we work with a lot, but the fact is, whether we're in a healthcare organization or financial institution or any other kind of organization, you have the same exact thing.
22:36
SPEAKER_01: Because we work in those two, right?
22:37
SPEAKER_01: You've you've got all these nurses doing this work, or all these uh financial analysts doing this work, or whatever it is, right?
22:43
SPEAKER_01: They're all doing the work.
22:44
SPEAKER_01: And and as we involve them and their best thinking and their ideas and realize that one of the watch outside wins, that we're looking for the best idea, we're trying to get figured out how to make this better, and there are going to be probably several good ideas.
22:57
SPEAKER_01: If I'm just a leader that's gonna die on my sword with my idea, people aren't even gonna bring ideas, they're not even gonna talk about it.
23:05
SPEAKER_01: But when when someone has a totally different idea and you say, good, you're seeing it differently.
23:09
SPEAKER_01: Tell us more about that, instead of, oh my goodness, you kidding me?
23:13
SPEAKER_01: I don't have time for this.
23:15
SPEAKER_01: Well, maybe at the moment you don't.
23:18
SPEAKER_01: But avoid groupthink and try to break with tradition because there isn't just one way to do most things.
23:24
SPEAKER_01: There's usually a lot of ways to do things.
23:26
SPEAKER_01: We're just used to doing it a certain way.
23:28
SPEAKER_01: Now we know that certain things have to be in an order, right?
23:31
SPEAKER_01: But not a lot of things are not that way.
23:33
SPEAKER_01: Or maybe we need to kind of refigure well, what could we do differently so we could change the order of that?
23:39
SPEAKER_02: Don't know.
23:41
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
23:42
SPEAKER_02: You know, it's funny you mentioned nurses.
23:43
SPEAKER_02: We're we're in the process of writing a large paper geared towards hospital CEOs around nurse retention.
23:50
SPEAKER_02: And and then one of the number one findings in the U.S.
23:53
SPEAKER_02: is the gap between when a nurse reports something and when it's actually actioned, if it is actioned.
24:01
SPEAKER_02: And so this the signal from the organization is you don't matter.
24:07
SPEAKER_02: What you're saying doesn't matter.
24:09
SPEAKER_02: But the reporting matters, not the closure of the reporting.
24:13
SPEAKER_02: So they measure the reporting, they don't remeasure the closure gap.
24:19
SPEAKER_02: And that's because they treat it as a program, not as a system of operating.
24:24
SPEAKER_02: I I find this lots that we create metrics to try to get people to do something, but the incentive behind the metric is just to report on the metric.
24:37
SPEAKER_02: We're not actually helping people, we're not unleashing creativity, we're we're not listening to back to the beginning.
24:43
SPEAKER_02: What is the challenge that they're actually facing?
24:45
SPEAKER_02: We're just reporting on it.
24:47
SPEAKER_02: And and then organizations wonder why are my brightest thinkers not contributing anymore?
24:54
SPEAKER_03: Because they're not being heard.
24:56
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
24:57
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, they're not being heard or understood or activated upon, right?
25:01
SPEAKER_03: Sometimes, sometimes when your people have as good an idea as you do, and it's probably going to give you the same outcome, why would you use your idea when just use their idea?
25:12
SPEAKER_03: The likelihood of them implementing your the idea that they come up with is far greater than what you have.
25:18
SPEAKER_03: And again, this is a pride and ego thing, man.
25:21
SPEAKER_03: If you can just pull it out of them, this is the hardest thing to become.
25:24
SPEAKER_03: It's the hardest thing to do as a coach is to pull the answers out of somebody and not give them the answers.
25:30
SPEAKER_03: Nine out of ten times when I'm with somebody, I know the answer like immediately within the first couple minutes.
25:35
SPEAKER_03: And my job is not to give them the answer.
25:38
SPEAKER_03: If I was a consultant, that would be it.
25:39
SPEAKER_03: Or if I was someone's boss, I would say, hey, go do this, right?
25:43
SPEAKER_03: But but as a coach, my job is to pull it out of them and then get them to make a commitment around it so they can take inspired activated action to that commitment.
25:52
SPEAKER_03: And this is this is the trick.
25:54
SPEAKER_03: It's the hardest thing to do as a coach.
25:56
SPEAKER_03: Put your own ego and pride aside, be curious, pull out information from them that will help them do better, and then get them to commit to something they the idea they've come up with, and then report back on that commitment to see what it did.
26:12
SPEAKER_03: This is this is the essence of coaching, but it's really hard, it's really hard to train your mind to do this.
26:20
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
26:21
SPEAKER_02: It's funny, we've seen this.
26:22
SPEAKER_02: I'll use a sports analogy, and I might lose some fans for this analogy, but here's the analogy.
26:27
SPEAKER_02: You can either have a team of champions or a championship team.
26:31
SPEAKER_02: And to me, there was a period where the Miami Heat had a team of champions and think they couldn't pull it off.
26:38
SPEAKER_02: Whereas the Chicago Bulls was that team of champions and their legacy still stands for itself, right?
26:45
SPEAKER_02: I think it's the same kind of thing that what you're saying there, Sam, is it it's no good if you just have that one source of all power, all knowledge, all wisdom, and the rest of us are just kind of standing around like goofs.
27:00
SPEAKER_01: I love that idea of we're a championship team, not a team of champions, right?
27:05
SPEAKER_01: I love that that we're we're gonna find a way to get it done together.
27:09
SPEAKER_01: We can't do it just on our own.
27:11
SPEAKER_01: At least not long term.
27:12
SPEAKER_01: Long term we can't just do it on our own.
27:14
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
27:14
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
27:15
SPEAKER_02: In fact, Kent, your expression is about ships, right?
27:17
SPEAKER_02: What's that quote you use often?
27:22
SPEAKER_02: There's so many of them.
27:24
SPEAKER_02: Something rises with the tide.
27:26
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
27:27
SPEAKER_01: Well, rising tides lift all boats, right?
27:29
SPEAKER_01: So as as the tides rise, everybody gets better.
27:31
SPEAKER_01: So I like the idea of how do we help everybody get better.
27:34
SPEAKER_01: You know, it's so interesting.
27:37
SPEAKER_01: It's so built into our mindset, certainly in the United States, somewhat in Europe and Asia perhaps, but not as much as in the United States.
27:45
SPEAKER_01: In the United States, it's it's about win, win, win, I'm I'm gonna win, I'm gonna win, at all costs, I'm gonna win, in instead of how do we win?
27:53
SPEAKER_01: How do we be successful?
27:54
SPEAKER_01: And we we think of this competition.
27:57
SPEAKER_01: Competition is great in the marketplace, right?
28:01
SPEAKER_01: But in our organization, there shouldn't be competition.
28:04
SPEAKER_01: We competing for resources, competing for who has the best answer, competing, competing for who gets recognized.
28:09
SPEAKER_01: How about if we recognize that we're on the same team and that together we can do far more?
28:14
SPEAKER_01: And so let's stop competing with each other.
28:17
SPEAKER_01: The problem is we often take that same mindset to the home, and we're competing with our spouse or our kids or whomever else, and thinking, wait a minute, that's not what I want at all.
28:26
SPEAKER_01: How do we all get better and instead of me being, you know, always, I've always got to be in front and I've got to, you know, and and show them exactly the way to do it.
28:36
SPEAKER_01: How about if we do it together?
28:38
SPEAKER_01: There's way too much competition between teams and between departments.
28:44
SPEAKER_01: Instead of, hey, we do this together, let's help each other out.
28:48
SPEAKER_01: Way too much competition.
28:51
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, I agree.
28:53
SPEAKER_02: I blame the modern psychology movement for a lot of that.
28:57
SPEAKER_02: You know, very finally Adler, Freud, but Adler really talked about individual psychology, that we're striving for superiority and the need to overcome inferiority complex.
29:09
SPEAKER_02: And most of us in the Western world, we bought into that.
29:13
SPEAKER_02: Whereas you look at the eastern world and even you know, some of the third world countries, they realize the value of community, the value of we thinking is far more superior than that individual.
29:29
SPEAKER_02: So in terms of the coaching cards, you know, we you talked about the watch out cards.
29:35
SPEAKER_02: What's the best way to apply these watch outs if I was just an individual coach that's trying to improve instead of giving answers, asking better questions?
29:47
SPEAKER_01: Hey, can I say something here?
29:48
SPEAKER_01: I want to put a can I put a plug in here.
29:50
SPEAKER_01: This is kind of out of place, but actually it's exactly perhaps the right place.
29:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
29:53
SPEAKER_01: This is a great plug plug for the clear performance AI supercoach, right?
29:57
SPEAKER_01: Because in the super coach, where you practice situations, and just last week I was doing a coaching call of leaders that were training how to be coaches, and several of them said, you know, I actually brought a problem to the supercoach that wasn't with someone that I was coaching.
30:12
SPEAKER_01: I said, How would you handle that, right?
30:14
SPEAKER_01: And what the coach, the when you do the role-playing with the super coach, one of the things it will do is it will say, You didn't ask any questions.
30:22
SPEAKER_01: You just told, you didn't listen, you gave advice, you know, you gave advice.
30:27
SPEAKER_01: And so asking questions, that's one of the great things, benefits from the AI supercoach.
30:33
SPEAKER_01: You can actually put in situations you're facing that's not necessarily someone you're coaching, and say, How would you handle this?
30:38
SPEAKER_01: And then it will say, Here's some cards you might want to look at.
30:41
SPEAKER_01: Would you like to role-play that?
30:42
SPEAKER_01: And then you role play it, and then it'll ask to say, you didn't listen, you didn't ask questions, you're told you gave all the answers, and it does all these things to help guide you.
30:51
SPEAKER_01: It is as you like to say, Rick, and I love that.
30:53
SPEAKER_01: It's the practice, Jim, is gonna be practice with this, and I'll tell you honestly, I so easily devolve back to tell them what to do, sharing the idea.
31:04
SPEAKER_01: It's just so easy to go back to that, and that isn't what great leaders do.
31:09
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I love that you mentioned the super coach.
31:11
SPEAKER_02: Part of the design is inherently looking for the watch outs in the role play.
31:16
SPEAKER_02: So, did you, you know, did you do this?
31:19
SPEAKER_02: And are you asking the powerful questions that we suggest would be helpful to you?
31:24
SPEAKER_02: And so you're right, it's a good way to kind of step into that aspect to say, hey, before I have that real life conversation, I'm gonna do it in in my little practice gym to make sure that I'm competent.
31:35
SPEAKER_02: And I see some of those areas that I might be blind to my own style.
31:39
SPEAKER_02: Kent, Sam, how would you land this plane today in terms of clear coaching challenges?
31:46
SPEAKER_03: I would say use prototypes to get insight and solve your own problems.
31:53
SPEAKER_03: Right?
31:53
SPEAKER_03: People know how to solve their own problems, and now we have a tool called the prototype.
31:58
SPEAKER_03: Now we have a tool called the prototype or brainstorming or whatever to get the insight they need to solve their own problems, and then you're truly delegating and developing your people to steal Kent's quote.
32:11
SPEAKER_03: I'm sorry, that was so good.
32:13
SPEAKER_01: I had to do it.
32:15
SPEAKER_01: You know, it reminds me of a team I saw years ago in a hotel called the Opry Land Hotel, where we've been teaching them these this process for a while, and this team had gotten really good at this, and they were a team that had really struggled before, and they'd really gotten good at prototypes and working together and best idea wins, etc.
32:32
SPEAKER_01: etc.
32:34
SPEAKER_01: And they would have a monthly report out to the general manager of the hotel, and I noticed one time that they started to walk with kind of a swagger that, hey, we'll figure it out.
32:43
SPEAKER_01: Together, we can solve any problem.
32:45
SPEAKER_01: And it's almost like they were saying, throw any problem at us, boss.
32:48
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't matter what it is, we'll figure it out.
32:50
SPEAKER_01: Because they had figured out together as a team that they were so smart, they were so hardworking, they were so bright, and they just best idea went, won, right?
32:58
SPEAKER_01: And it became amazing.
32:59
SPEAKER_01: And that started to affect organically other teams as well.
33:02
SPEAKER_01: As they said, why are you guys doing that, right?
33:04
SPEAKER_01: And that's really what we're trying to do.
33:06
SPEAKER_01: How do we raise any team, any team gets better then, and then it helps everybody else say, Well, what are they doing?
33:10
SPEAKER_01: Well, they're doing this, this, and this.
33:11
SPEAKER_01: Okay, wow.
33:12
SPEAKER_01: All right, great.
33:13
SPEAKER_01: Best idea wins.
33:15
SPEAKER_01: Together we do it.
33:16
SPEAKER_01: It's not me, it's us.
33:18
SPEAKER_01: And what is it?
33:19
SPEAKER_01: There's no what is there?
33:20
SPEAKER_01: There's no I in team, right?
33:22
SPEAKER_01: No I in team.
33:24
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
33:25
SPEAKER_02: You know, I I'd echo that.
33:26
SPEAKER_02: In Ontario, Canada was the first non-Japanese plant for Toyota to make the Lexus line.
33:34
SPEAKER_02: And they did that for three reasons.
33:37
SPEAKER_02: But one of the strongest ones was the workforce.
33:40
SPEAKER_02: They really spent time educating their workforce and empowering them to be problem solvers, not order takers.
33:49
SPEAKER_02: And that was the way that Toyota felt comfortable, that they've replicated, you know, kind of the exact standards exclusive to Japanese plants by empowering their workforce.
34:01
SPEAKER_02: And so to me, this is this is the genesis of this card, you know, coaching solves problems.
34:05
SPEAKER_02: And it's inherent in our tagline.
34:08
SPEAKER_02: An ordinary leader is the best problem solver on the team.
34:12
SPEAKER_02: A great coach builds a team of problem solvers, and they get to work on better problems.
34:17
SPEAKER_02: It's the same talent, it's a different multiplier.
34:20
SPEAKER_02: So for us, you know, that ordinary leadership becoming great coaching, and that's where extraordinary results come from.
34:27
SPEAKER_02: And we've we've got a body of evidence throughout the globe that demonstrate that to be a true statement.
34:34
SPEAKER_02: So from Kent, Sam, and myself, we want to thank you for continuously being with us on this journey of helping you become a better coach.
34:43
SPEAKER_02: And stay tuned for the next episodes.
34:45
SPEAKER_02: And please, as always, have a look at our show notes about upcoming events or future podcasts or any of the questions or stuff we've talked about in this episode that'll help you on your journey to be a better coach.
34:57
SPEAKER_02: Thank you, everybody.
34:59
SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
35:00
SPEAKER_02: Have a great day.