Latest / CLEAR Performance Coaching / Podcast #16 - CLEAR Performance Coaching - GET PEOPLE UNSTUCK - The Breakthrough State

Transcript

Podcast #16 - CLEAR Performance Coaching - GET PEOPLE UNSTUCK - The Breakthrough State · CLEAR Performance Coaching

• 0:21
  SPEAKER_02: This is where leadership leads performance practically.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_02: So you can step in and show up on purpose every day.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome back to the Clear Performance Coaching Podcast, where we take ordinary leaders, help them become great coaches who create extraordinary results.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Rick Timlick and I'm joined by Sam Bracken.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm Kent Vaughn.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: Today is the payoff.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: We've been talking about the stuck state, and today's card 42 is the breakthrough.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: The unstuck state.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: We finally get to get into the rewards of our journey.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: And today we're going to kind of walk you through the breakthrough funnel, the three questions in a very deliberate order, the power of prototyping, and the science of the, as we were just talking about before we started, the aha moment.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: The aha.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: And here's the headline before we start.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I want you guys to riff off of this.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: Breakthroughs are never found by the coach, they're hosted by the coach.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: What do you think of that?
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: Just as a launching statement.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_03: I love it.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_03: The breakthroughs are in the individual.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_03: Again, remember, as a coach, you're on their agenda and you're trying to get them to have the breakthrough.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_03: You can have all the insight in the world, and it won't do you any good.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_03: It's their breakthroughs that matter.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_03: I love that.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: You know what?
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's counterintuitive too.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: As a leader, we think I need to be the one to tell all the, share all the pearls of wisdom.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: I need to have it all there.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: But if it comes out of me, it's mine, it's not theirs.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: So what I sometimes say is shut up and listen, or shut up and ask a question and shut up, right?
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: Get it from them.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: Get it from I love that idea.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: You can you can guide and help and direct, but if I'm going continually to this continuing to dispense the wisdom and the ideas and the prototypes, forget about it.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, here's what I find.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: When I'm the leader that speaks first, then I own it.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: I own the outcome, I own all the decisions, I own everything, and it's easier to default.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: As soon as I can get them to start saying what their breakthrough is, ownership starts to happen in them.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: Can I give an example of this?
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: I run a council in Knoxville, Tennessee, where I live.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's a communication council for my church, actually.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: And we meet once a month.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: And last month, after working together for, you know, uh some of them are brand new, right?
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: But they they're always saying, What do you think?
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: What do you think?
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: What would you do?
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: What would you do?
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: And last month I said, I turned on this in there and said, Next month, I want you to tell me what you think about each of these three areas.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: All of you, all of you.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: And we're gonna begin with that, not you looking at me and saying, What to do, right?
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: And and I knew there were some people that had some success in each of those areas, so I asked two or three people to speak about it.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: I said, Okay, next month, next month, I'm gonna be asking you to share what you've done, what you've learned, and what can we do better in these areas, right?
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: Well, this month, we just had that meeting literally Sunday night.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: And you could tell people think, was he really real about this?
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: So I said, Hey, we had this first thing, what do you all think?
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I was just quiet.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: And then one person said, Well, and by the end of the meeting, you couldn't shut him up.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: By the end of the meeting, they had so many things, but I had to really force that because you know I call it leading the witness as a leader, Rick.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: If I say, I think we should do this or this or this in our company or in this now, the other, you know, because we all have companies and we have this one clear coaching together, then people say, Oh, well, Ken wants to do that, let's just do that.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: And that is the worst mistake I can make.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's the worst mistake I can make.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: I've just got to keep going back to them.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Sam, when when you find that as as leaders, they skip right to what will you do?
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: What do you notice happening?
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_03: It's it's funny because you know we have this process to get people on stuck.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_03: You look at yourself, look in the mirror, current state, then you go to the future state, then you identify the barriers, then you then you talk about the possible breakthroughs.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_03: If you go from the current state to barriers, if you go to I'm sorry, if you go from current state to breakthrough, you you don't have you have missing information, and you'll get stuck, you'll stay stuck.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_03: So we like to follow this sequence of current state, desired future state, barriers, and then you get to the uh, then you get to the breakthrough.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_03: Now that's my favorite state, my favorite state, because it leads to aha.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_03: And the best way to talk about this is to say, okay, when you get to the breakthrough state, you're looking at things that are within your control, you you've gathered new data, new information, new understanding about barriers, and then you're saying, what are the possibilities?
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_03: What are the possibilities here?
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_03: And you're brainstorming ideas on how to get to the future state or how to overcome the obstacle or whatever it is you're trying to do.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_03: And remember, a prototype is just a prototype.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_03: And you as you throw out a prototype, every prototype has a trade-off.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_03: And this allows you objectively to say, well, here's a prototype A, and here's a prototype B, and here's a prototype C.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_03: And you look at different prototypes, they all have different trade-offs.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_03: And the way I approach it is I always have an extreme prototype, and then I always have a do-nothing prototype, and then I have prototypes in between, right?
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_03: And what this does is it's like you're a gardener, or it's what this does is it's like you're a farmer and you're trying to grow a crop.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_03: And as you do these prototypes, and and you may offer a couple of prototypes.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_03: You know, Kent says coaches don't give advice.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_03: We don't, because people don't take advice.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_03: But coaches can give prototypes, right?
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_03: But but as you give a prototype, then you ask for a prototype.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_03: You give a prototype, you ask for a prototype.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_03: So you're pulling prototypes out of them, and then you can always combine prototypes, right?
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_03: And then what you're watching for, what you're looking for, as you're looking at the various prototypes and the various outcomes that each prototype might have, the trade-off that that prototype might have.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_03: You're looking for light.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_03: You're looking for their eyes to get bigger, you're looking for that aha moment, and they and they'll say, I know what I'm gonna do.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_03: I think I'll do this, or it's clear that I'm gonna do that.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm like, okay.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_03: And then it's it's a thing of beauty.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_03: It's an absolute thing of beauty to see someone work through scenarios based on the correct data, correct information, their own understanding of their own obstacles and their what their part in it is, and then possibility thinking around things they can control and then making a decision is one of the most beautiful things on the planet.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_03: So that's why this is my favorite stake.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I love your excitement out of that.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's fantastic.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: In our own work, when we help companies try to be more innovative, you know, whether we're setting up innovation teams or things like that, you know, we talk about divergence and convergence.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: And relative to what you said, when I'm generating ideas, when I'm generating prototypes versus I'm evaluating them, those are competing mental models.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: So if I evaluate too early, generation shuts down.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: And what I love about what you said is it is that, hey, let's get into prototype generation first, back and forth.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: What else?
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: What else?
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: What else?
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: Like, and watch that excitement grow and watch the light fire up inside of people, and then we can say, okay, now that we've got a list we're all excited about, now we can kind of get into evaluation, you know, that kind of funneling it out.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: And to me, what we usually do is we turn it into three questions.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: There's the coulds, you know, which is pure divergence, like no judgment.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: We're suspending judgment.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: We could do this, we should do this, and we will commit to this.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: And and the order really is about cognitive architecture with the people that we work with around innovation, but it feeds exactly to what you're saying, right?
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: Like that creativity piece, we've got to generate prototypes first, and that lights up the fire inside of us.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_03: It actually helps us narrow, take a complex problem that's maybe really vast.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_03: And those three questions you just suggested help us narrow on what best course of action to take.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_03: That's why I love that.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_03: It helps us narrow the focus so we can take action, inspired action, which is, by the way, the last piece of the getting unstuck model.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: Ken related to this, right on the card it says the best idea wins.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_01: When you've done this before with people you've coached or lead or led, whose ideas do you allow in the room?
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: And can the coach really contribute to ideas?
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I think you can absolutely contribute to ideas, but it speaks to what we were talking about a little while ago, and that is if you start with your ideas, then they're just gonna keep looking at you for ideas.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: Well, what do you think?
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: And what do you think?
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, when I first learned this was decades ago when I was 10 years younger than everyone that worked for me, and I've been there 10 years less than the organization than everyone that worked for me.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I just I thought, I don't know all the answers, I gotta figure this out.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so I had to learn, I quickly said, Well, what do you think?
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: What do you think?
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: You've been here 20 years, I've been here two years, right?
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: And and if we can have that mindset of even if they've only been there two years, they weren't born when they grew up, came here.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: They come with other examples and experiences and ideas.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so the more we can get them to and keep saying to them, well, what do you think?
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: And what have you seen that worked?
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: And where did you do this, that, the other, right?
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: And and keep going back to them to this, what could you do?
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: I love these three questions.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: What could you do?
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: And keep getting them to generate that what could you?
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: And you said something really important, Rick, that sometimes I forget, and that is you don't judge any of them right now.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: We're right now just throwing them out.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: You're just throwing them out because this moment we start judging, we shut down the creativity side.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: We got we're not going to critical thinking right now.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: We're in creative thinking here.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: We're creatively coming with all that we can, and we'll get plenty of time for critical thinking later.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: And now that may be in five or ten minutes.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: We're not saying days, weeks, or months, right?
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: But we'll just keep the creative juices going.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: Let's throw it all out there, not say, well, we tried that before.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: That'll never work.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: We'll never get funding for that.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: Well, good luck with coming up with any good ideas, right?
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: So we're trying to really get people to do that.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I really, of all the things that I struggle with, this is the thing I struggle the most with.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: Because I grab an idea, I love an idea, I grab it, and I want to say, that's a great idea.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: I love that idea.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: There could have been 20 great ideas.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: How about if I just, again, take my own advice, close my mouth, and let's keep saying what else?
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: What else?
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: What else?
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Sam, you're great at that.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: So are you, Rick.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_03: Ken, I love the fact that you separated this between critical and creative thinking.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_03: That's really insightful because when you're prototyping, brainstorming, and prototyping, that's creative thinking.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_03: That's creative thinking.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_03: When you get to the point where you pick one, that's critical thinking.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_03: That's the aha moment.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_03: So that's where the data should line up, the history should line up, you know, your facts and feelings should all line up.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_03: That's where you get the energy from it.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_03: So really good insight to let the creativity just go, let it have its own little moment, right?
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_03: And then as you're looking at that, start getting critical once you have several different scenarios or several different prototypes, then you can apply the lens, you can put the critical thinking lens in front of it, and then that helps you make decisions.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_03: One of my favorite things is you take direction and make decisions on data, right?
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_03: And but you understand feelings because feelings help us fuel the energy to do the work, but you take direction from the data.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_03: The data, the data is going to give you better direction than your feelings, oftentimes.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: Sam, I like that you intentionally use the word prototyping.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think there's just genius in that.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: And here's what I mean by that.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: When we make a commitment to a, especially a big plan, that can trigger stress in us.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, think of buying your first home or your first car or you know, taking on your first leadership role.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: We've committed to something that's big, and there's stress that comes from that.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: So our brain automatically prices it in kind of total failure.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: You know, what if I can't make the mortgage payment?
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_01: What if I fail at this?
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: Everything's kind of lost, right?
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas prototyping, that word itself says, I'm going to conduct almost small tried and survived experiments, and I'm going to do that as a cycle of learning and exposure so that I can grow.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: And the brain stops thinking this is dangerous and starts to think, hey, this might be workable.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: And so I love the word prototype.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's not just about learning faster, it's kind of how you sneak action past your fight or flight brain.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I'm so glad you talked about the mechanics of that psychologically, the way our brain works.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_03: But it's funny because when you say the word prototype, it's a little itty bitty thing.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_03: It's not telling you what to do, it's it's saying, oh, it's a prototype.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_03: It's like here, it's not saying you should do this and you should do that, and we could do this and do this.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_03: And it's not intimidating, it's just an idea.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_03: It's an idea, it's not threatening at all.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_03: But what it does is it gets the juices going, like it gets things moving.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_03: And that's what I love about it.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_03: And there's not a bad idea.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_03: And like if you if you knew some of the prototypes that I have suggested to people, you would be horrified because like they're just crazy.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_03: I'm like, well, let's go.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_03: Pretend everybody's a cartoon.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_03: And if you don't like them, just pretend they're you know they're a cartoon and you know they're Roadrunner and you know, whatever.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_03: But it's just it's just to get them out of the stress response and into the creative kind of I got this, I got the sense of control, and it's moving them past the bad stress, which we call chronic stress, and getting into the good stress, which is you stress, which is stuff that you feel like you have a sense of control over.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_03: It's sort of a trick.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_03: You're right.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_03: I love it that it's a trick.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's brilliant.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: And it's funny you said cartoon.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: I actually coached somebody who actually developed their own prototype, which is in a stressful situation, I'm gonna mentally envision creating a meme out of this.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: And when they did that, it instantly dropped their physiological stress.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, I think it's important to when we're prototyping, that we pay attention to the body language of the people we're coaching.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_03: Really be aware, watch it.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_03: Rick, you you really alluded to this.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_03: You watch their language, you're looking at their eyes, you're seeing their shoulders.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_03: Are they uptight or this?
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_03: Are they relaxing and are there is their are they taking deep breaths?
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_03: Is their energy changing?
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_03: Then that that tells you you have them and that we're on the good, we're on the good path.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: I was just thinking about this.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: A couple of months ago, you were telling us about two leaders you met with who had just had some reviews with the accountants or the board or whoever else, and they the results were abysmal, and they were both worried about losing their jobs, and things had gone to heck in a handbasket, and so you went in to kind of help resuscitate them.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so the energy, I'd like what I'd like you to tell us about is just take us through quickly that journey with both those leaders, where they at the beginning, man, I'm out of here, I'm gonna get fired, I'm not gonna have a job, I'm not gonna pay my mortgage or pay my kids' college tuition or whatever it is.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: So you walked them through this.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: So just at a high level, what did you do?
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: Just reinforcing what we've already talked about in this in the last few podcasts, and what changed in the energy in the room with them?
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: What changed?
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: Because sometimes you run those folks, and they're boys, they're you know, they're out of it, they're checked out completely, which could have been the way those folks were.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'd just like you to kind of walk through some what changed in their energy.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: Because what we often think as a coach, I need to go rah-rah, you can do this, you're smarter than that, work harder, work smarter, and I need to be the rah-rah-rah-rah to get it out of them.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: And we know, but we all know that lasts about 30 minutes, if you're lucky.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: Probably more like two minutes after you walk out.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: So, what did you do differently?
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you we've talked about it, and then and what happened to that energy from them?
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_03: So, so what the first thing I do as a coach is I look I look physiologically at people physically, like the tone in their voice, how they sit up in their chair, are they smiling or do they have a resting, frowny face?
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_03: Right?
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_03: Like I look at them and then I gauge what's going on with them.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_03: And what I'm trying to see is are they in a chronic state of stress or are they in a or are they in a good state of stress?
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_03: And and I'm making an assessment of here of this.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_03: Now, I work with a lot of young and middle-aged, seasoned people that run very difficult businesses, and millions of dollars are on the line, and there's a lot of pressure, man.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_03: There's a lot of pressure.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_03: A lot of pressure.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_03: And we know that pressure is good.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_03: Pressure is the only way to improve.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_03: So what I look for, I look for, are they in oh crap?
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_03: Are they in uh-oh?
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_03: Are they having chronic pressure, stress that like puts them on the verge of collapse or they're just surviving?
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_03: Or do they have the kind of pressure that makes them feel like they're gonna come out of the end zone screaming and kicking someone's butt?
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_03: I look for that, right?
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_03: And if I see someone in a in a loaded, what a high load, high stress situation, then what I do is I first understand that.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_03: So what I do is I I have a process for pulling them out of bad stress and putting them into good stress, or taking them out of uh-oh, and getting them into aha.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_03: And the first thing I do is understand them.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_03: Active listening.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_03: Tell me what's going on.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_03: Like you look like you look like crap, and you look like you're carrying the weight of a thousand tons.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_03: Tell me what's up.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_03: Inevitably, there's some KPI that's off, there's something that's wrong.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_03: They got some heat from a corporate executive coming on them, and inevitably there's something.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_03: So I understand the situation and how they're feeling.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_03: Now, what this does is it drops emotion because understanding reduces high emotion.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_03: If you meet high understanding with high emotion, it reduces that emotion.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_03: As that emotion is reduced, then we look at the data, we look at the analytics, let's look at the facts, let's see where the real challenges are, let's see in the numbers where the real and I look for the year-over-year numbers, the month over-month numbers, and we try we try to find a pony somewhere, right?
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_03: We don't just look for poop.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_03: We try to find a pony.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_03: We're looking for through the data, so we understand them, we look through the data, and we and I probably haven't got them to use stress.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_03: I haven't got them to the aha moment yet.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_03: So the third thing is really critical.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_03: I say, okay, what can you control?
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_03: What can you control?
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_03: And we identify, we make a list of the things we can control.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_03: I take them out of being afraid of the future, take them out of regretting the past, pull them into the moment, say, okay, what can we do right now?
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_03: What can we do right now?
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_03: And then once I get them there, then I start to see them relax.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_03: Then I'm looking for physiological signs that their breathing changes, their posture changes, everything's changing, right?
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_03: And then we talk about possibilities or we prototype solutions.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_03: And then we pick a then we pick a prototype, and then we make commitments off that prototype, and then we move to the next topic.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_03: So that's a that's a pretty simple way that I get people from uh-oh to aha, right, to help them have a breakthrough.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_03: This is really fun to do.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_03: When you get good at this, to notice this to help people, it's like they look at you, and this is a lot, Rick.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_03: You talked about this in in our conversations previous as we were doing a video on this.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_03: A lot of this comes through when you come into their room.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_03: The real work for leaders is the work we do before we ever get to work.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_03: And when you when you walk in the room, are your people saying, Oh, oh crap, there's the boss, or are they saying, Oh, that's awesome, there's a boss.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_03: Like he's coming to say hi, or she's coming to say hello to me, and she's not gonna grind on me.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_03: It's it's a it's a frame of reference that really, really helps you help people grow.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: You've got they've often got regret from the past.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: I should have done this, should have done this, should have this.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's this huge fear of the future, right?
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: That's always there.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: What about that?
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: And you say, okay, you got those right now.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: What can you do now, right?
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: What can you do now?
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: Which I love that idea of bringing them back to.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: Now they start to, but before that, even you said something I think is so important that they've got high emotion, and high emotion must be met from us with high understanding.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_03: High understanding.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_03: You meet high emotion with high understanding.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_03: And then it reduces the emotion.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_03: Because if you hit high emotion with high emotion, you'll get triggers.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_03: And you'll get chronic stress.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_03: You meet high emotion with high understanding, it reduces the emotion, and then you can introduce facts and really start getting some meat on the bone on what strategically you should do to fix a problem.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: You know, when we talked about the breakthrough state, both of you guys mentioned light.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I want to just set up something, but I'd love to hear from you both around the light that we talk about here.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_01: And so here's uh I'll geek out on some neuroscience.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_01: You know, when I got my master's of neuroscience here, one of the things that you can do is you can actually see the signature of aha moments in people's brain.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: And so here's what you see, here's the pattern.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_01: There'll be a burst in the right temporal lobe just before a solution surfaces.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: But what has to happen before that is there's a moment of like quieting your visual attention.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: So you'll see people kind of look away or close their eyes for a second, and then the burst will happen, and then the insight will come out.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_01: And so there's the science of the light in the brain, but you guys describe light through breakthroughs so much more holy, whole person view.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_01: Tell me about that.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_03: Go ahead, Kent.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: Sam, I always turn it tofer to Sam, but you know, I I think about a specific example a while back with a leader where when I just said, and and why do you think that's so?
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: Why do you think that happened?
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: Why did they do that instead of this?
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: You wanted to do that.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: Why do you think they did that?
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: And they were that leader was really quiet for a minute, and they said, probably because the last few times when they've come to me, I responded in this way.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: And it was a real breakthrough for them when instead of me telling them and me asking, well, why do you think that happened?
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: Which is what you you know, Sam is the best at asking questions I've ever seen.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: Why do you think that happened, right?
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: So then you can see that.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: But I hadn't even thought about, didn't wasn't even aware, Rick, of this physiological thing that goes on in people's brains where light actually you see them light up, and you're like, oh, there's actually a real reason why that happens.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: I, you know, for those of us, and I'm just gonna say it, for those of us believers, which is all of us, we think there's some divine stuff here as well that is trying to guide and help people, and there it most assuredly is, and there are these physiological things that happen with which enlighten people as well.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_03: I would echo what you said, Kent, and then say and say lighting the light is a learning breakthrough.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_03: It's a learning breakthrough.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_03: It's some kind of where you have experience and you've had questions, and then you've had some breakthrough that answered the question, and you have an aha moment because of a learning breakthrough.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_03: Now that can be spiritual, that can be problem-solving things, it can be physical, it can be analytical.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_03: There's a lot of things that you give you an aha moment.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_03: But I use the word light because to me, light is the ultimate source of energy, and it's love, it's everything that if you're a believer, a faith-based person, light comes from love of deity and those kinds of things.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_03: But it also works intellectually and biologically, and I mean I like to frame it as an aha moment as some learning breakthrough that you now can apply that will change the trajectory of your life.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: You know, this reminds me of something we all heard Stephen Covey say many times.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: And if you've read any of Stephen Covey's books, you've read it.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I talk to leaders about this more than not as much as I should.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: He used to always say, be a model, not a critic.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: Be a model of the right thing instead of criticizing, right?
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: And it's so easy to become a critic, especially as a leader.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: You want to criticize this, criticize that.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: He said, be a model.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: That attracts people.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: And then he said, and speaks in what's what meeting what made me think of this was the final part.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: He said, be a light, not a judge.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I love this idea of helping people create light, helping people pee light.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: I was just having this conversation with my daughter the other day, and she was struggling with some stuff going on in her family.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Sweetie, be a light to everybody in the family.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: Don't be a judge to your husband, to your kids, whatever else.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: Be the light, be the light, and because light attracts people.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: People are attracted to light.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's why Steven said that.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: Be a light, not a judge.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody else needs a judge.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: But if we focus on being a model, not a critic, being a light, and stop judging, it's amazing how people are attracted to that.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_03: You know, it's interesting you say this because there's a lot of people that have judger mindsets out there.
• 27:32
  unknown: Yeah.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_03: And a judger mindset, you know, is just the way someone processes.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, there's an argument that says there's nothing wrong with a judger mindset.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_03: But I'm I much prefer a growth mindset, a learning mindset, a curious, curiosity mindset, constantly growing, constantly learning.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_03: To me, that's where light lives.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_03: And judger mindset, I don't know if it leads to darkness, but I don't know if it leads to light either.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_03: So I prefer a growth mindset.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_03: And it's really hard to coach people that don't have growth mindsets.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_03: They have judger mindsets, you have to really shape their paradigm, their perception, their frame of reference to get some growth in them.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_03: But it's an important distinction.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I like that distinction.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: You know, here's maybe a shadow cousin of that, and and I'm guilty of this, and so I'd love to hear from you guys.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_01: So Paul Freeman has a question.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_01: How does the coach resist the urge to celebrate their own cleverness when they can see the answer 20 minutes before the coach even starts to get close to it?
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_03: That is such a good question.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_03: And you're guilty all the time.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_03: Here's the challenge, you guys.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_03: I would say 99% of the problem that people bring to me, I know the answer to fix the problem immediately.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_03: Like, because I'm an old soul.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_03: Like we've been working a long time.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_03: You know, we've been in we've been in business running strategic business units and doing things for a long time.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_03: We've overcome a lot of obstacles, and we know the answer pretty quickly.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_03: The key is to understand you knowing the answer doesn't do them a damn bit of good.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_03: But they need to know the answer.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_03: They need to know the answer.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_03: And you knowing the answer helps you frame the little lesson you need to give to them so they can discover the answer.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_03: That's a really integral part of coaching because you're gonna know what they should be doing.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_03: The key is to get them to learn what they should do, because you can, again, you can tell them what to do and they won't do it.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_03: People do what they want to do and they don't do what they don't want to do.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_03: So the key is that we need to foster it out of them, and and that's why we use prototypes.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and and Ken, you use this term, and here's where I'm guilty.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_01: This is me being totally honest in confessional time here.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_01: Leading the witness.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_01: So if I know the answer and I see that we're uh we're 20 minutes off from getting there, I'll start leading the witness to get to where I want them to be.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_01: But the reality is that's just my answer.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_01: And there could be 50 other prototypes that might be good or even more effective that we would have done to.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_01: I know that about myself.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_01: I see the answer.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_01: I lead the witness.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, let's just get to where I know you need to go in the first place.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_01: Guilty.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_01: All right, I I think this has been a great episode talking about that breakthrough state.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_01: What would you guys want to leave each of us with just as we think of closing this episode?
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: I'll share initially, and it reminds me of a situation I had as a senior leader probably 10 or 12 years ago.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I was with my immediate team, and we had under them were hundreds of people, right?
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so we're across this organization, and and at the end of a meeting, I was actually kind of bemoaning why something had happened and I wasn't aware of it.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: Why wasn't I aware of that?
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: I should have known that.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: If I'd known that, I would have acted differently, would have done something about it, so on and so forth.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought, why?
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_00: Why didn't I know that?
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's just crazy.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_00: And then after the meeting was over, my number two person came up to me and said, Hey, can we talk for a minute?
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: I said, Yeah, sure.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, Hey, I want to apologize.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: I said, Why?
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, Because I knew that was going on, and I was sure you knew and you would know what to do, and so I didn't tell you.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Hey, listen, anytime you see something you have and I please don't assume I know and don't assume I know what to do.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: Let's talk about it.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's why we have these meetings, right?
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: To have a conversation about it.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought to myself, yeah, wow, I'm glad we had the conversation, but really sad that he thought I would already know and I already know what to do.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of that, I was open to, what do you think?
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: What are we seeing?
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: How would you deal with it, right?
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so I I felt like I owned at least half of it that he didn't come to me and he did bring it to my attention because he assumed I already knew and that I would take care of it.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: So it tells me that I was probably a whole lot more of an uh oh leader, do this, do this, do this, instead of open to what do you think, how would you solve this, right?
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: So that was really a wake-up call at that night when I walked away thinking, wow, what do I need to be doing differently?
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_00: So people don't assume, well, Kent knows and he'll do it, and and he instead of we're in this together.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_03: So so for me, it's the biggest takeaway that we could we could give you is these three powerful questions when you're working with someone.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_03: The first question being, what could you do?
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_03: which is like the world of possibilities, right?
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, the endless possibilities.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_03: It's a very wide, very wide, broad question.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_03: And then after they express themselves on what could they do, then we sort of get a little narrower and we say, okay, based on the information you have and um your own character and your own values and virtues, what should you do?
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_03: This gets narrower, right?
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_03: And as you do that and you listen and understand them, finally you get to this, okay, so what will you do?
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_03: What will you do?
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_03: And here's the key as a coach, your power comes right after this.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_03: What will you do?
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_03: And then will you commit to do that?
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_03: Getting a commitment around what they decide to do is the most critical part of coaching.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_03: Because then they can go do it.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_03: And then when they come back, they're gonna report on it, and they're either gonna do it or they're not gonna do it, and you haven't told them what to do.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_03: So it's really important that every coaching session you have, you you there's commitments being made by you and by the person you're coaching.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_03: You commit, I commit.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_03: Now, why is that so important?
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_03: Because that's an agreement, that's a contract, and that's how people change, right?
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_03: Motivation is motivation comes and goes.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_03: But the way you make true progress over time is making ikimi commitments.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_03: This is how your personal power grows, how your character grows, how you become a better person.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_03: And it's a very powerful notion.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_03: So this is one of the best tools.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_03: Prototyping and making a commitment off the prototype is one of my one of my favorite things because of the power, the power that it carries, and the the change it can make.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, I agree.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I hope everybody listening got the sense of the excitement around this card.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it's for a very intentional reason from us.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_01: This is where we really take ordinary leadership, help them become great coaches that generate extraordinary results.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_01: This is probably one of the core cards to do that.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_01: And here's the beauty: you didn't have to be a genius.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_01: This isn't about innate talent.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_01: There are three questions set in the right order.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_01: And when we say those questions, that's the method, right?
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_01: And it's learnable by every leader listening to this in their truck or car or on the airplane right now.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_01: So our encouragement is practice those three questions.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_01: What could you do?
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_01: What should you do?
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_01: What will you do?
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_01: Help them get through that breakthrough state.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_01: As always, thank you very much.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_01: We encourage you to watch and read the show notes.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_01: We have additional tips, tricks, and comments.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_01: Links to our website at www.clear performance coaching dot com.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_01: And until next time, thank you for listening.