Latest / Unstuck Pod / Lead Like a Coach (Eric Wojtkun and Jamie Schneiderman)
Transcript
- Jamie: Hi and welcome to the Unstuck Pod. very excited today to have Eric Voiken ⁓ with us. Eric, welcome. Eric Wojtkun: Good morning. Jamie: Glad you're here. So wanted to have you start by telling everyone about your quite your fascinating background, really, really interesting background. and you know, I think let's start there and then let's see how it got you to where where you are today. Eric Wojtkun: So at first, thanks for having me on today. It's a great opportunity to get out there and get to know some more people and the community you're building is the type of person I am. I'm a community builder. So how did I get there? I I'm living in my 21st house where I've lived someplace for more than three months of my life. ⁓ I'm an army bret, born ⁓ overlooking Pearl Harbor at Trip Army Hospital got to travel the world with my my family as a kid. And then I started my own career in the military after West Point. I went to West Point, parents signed for permission to slip at 17 and off I went. ⁓ after graduating from there, I ⁓ served nine years in the US Army Infantry. got to visit Germany, did tour to Bosnia with I-496, which was putting everything learned in the leadership into practice on a on a literally a world stage with watching the ⁓ work and guarding the war crimes team as they came through our sector. Towards the end of our tour. back, stole an Army nurse from Army, Martin Army Hospital in Fort Benning. And lovely wife has been with me now for okay, we're going on 28 years here in a in about a week. or two weeks on the 27th. So it's been awesome. We have six kids. shortly after I back from Kosovo, I started doing some soul searching. on my second deployment in 2000, got went over there with the 101st Infantry Division. ⁓ when I got there, ⁓ I said, hey, I want to be able to do all this. And so I looked around for other careers where I could serve the country, and that's how I joined the Bureau. And FBI picked me up after a little bit of searching and time. What that did and brought me into was a world that exposed me to everything. I ⁓ was of few blessed folks to work almost every major violation in some way, shape, or form, the FBI touches. Violent crime, gangs, drugs, public corruption, ⁓ color of law, protection of ⁓ minorities and housing, all Gary, Indiana. it really Maryville office, but Gary, Indiana was the the focus of my life there. came back to DC and I started crisis management. I was kidnapped from one assignment and brought into this one, which ended up being great. it brought me into a world of understanding and responding when something went boom. I was in the middle of it at the command post navigating the investigations and learning how to do that. Great mentorship, great lessons. And the highlight of that tour was ⁓ being the crisis management supervisor, reporting to the executives, making sure it worked for the papal visit. That was absolutely incredible. when Pope Benedict came to town. after I got to do some national security cyber stuff and eventually to CERD ⁓ to do deployments at crisis response for another two years. Fa fabulous, fabulous assignment on call twenty-four hours a day, four hour pager, flying off to Alaska to California. it just ⁓ really me grow professionally. finished up that tour, went to Atlanta where I did it again ⁓ at the office level, and then I took over national security investigations. So cool. Every one of this was coaching. And when I retired from the bureau after another stint at headquarters, working ⁓ up at all the around the intelligence community and inside the Pentagon, I realized after a short stint in industry that I really want to coach. Why? the real reason I wanted to coach is that ⁓ from I was a child in Boy Scouts to being an army officer to being in the it was all about people and helping people achieve the their designs for greatness ⁓ and making a family run was my highest aspiration. So that's the kickoff. So I I've been all over the place. This is the twenty first home and twenty-fourst experience. Jamie: like like ⁓ yes that's a lot of moving around that's a lot of different places to be but it's also like a pretty incredible career across I mean a wide range of I say law enforcement obviously a lot more than that military law enforcement et cetera et cetera like it's kind of it's insane for me like listening to it ⁓ but ⁓ but that's awesome and and I appreciate everything that you've done. So so let's let's talk I I I do so so you shifted from Working in all these places, doing all these You know, you say it's about people, but the actual work you're doing is feels different. So so let's talk a little bit about the work that you are doing, and what that looks like. And then ⁓ want to compare what's w so wh wh which which is a more stressful day, right? And it you know, like so that so that's the ⁓ I I heard a lot of things in there ⁓ Crisis management, FBI, military, you know, you name it. I there's a lot of different things. let's jump forward and Let's talk a little bit about ⁓ about coaching and and what what you love about it, what you love doing, what parts it are easy and natural, what parts of it are stressful. Eric Wojtkun: So the best thing about coaching, it's not something you sell. It's something that people need. They they want. And that's how they come to you. I to coach people who want to be coached. If you don't want to be coached, and if I'm not the right fit for you personality-wise, I'm not the one to work with you. So the best part about ⁓ my and executive coaching is working with the willing, working with the people who want to better. so That's what makes my job blessedly easy and rewarding the same time. That's not the that the executives live in. That's not the world that managers live in on a daily basis where you always have, no matter what organization you're in that 10% that doesn't want to know, necessarily get along with your your objective, your company forecast, your company strategy. Your company vision or values. And so helping people navigate that those tough moments that I went through in my life is is wonderful because they get to benefit from all my gray hair. They get to understand why I'm stressed out or was stressed out. and I can give them problem solving techniques to try to move, to experiment with, to listen effectively, to resolve conflict before there is a conflict. And then The beautiful part about my day is I can go in, I can teach a lesson, we can do a practical application, and then the next week we get feedback. do we still need to grow? How do we grow? And then we do it again. And it's a constant iteration where all getting better. and I can provide more tools ⁓ or can provide more role rehearsal. And for some executives, it's just for me to sit back and listen. Because they just need somebody who is not inside the business where they can vent and say, I got this problem. And if they vent that inside a business, it's ⁓ destructive. So they just need a sounding board who can help without retribution fears or pleasing the boss fears to work through a strategy and have point-counterpoint and have an intelligent peer-to-peer discussion. And that's not something you get every day. Jamie: So do you need to know anything about the business or you just need to Eric Wojtkun: ⁓ yeah, so you the the one blessed thing about my background is I I'm I I always loved history. I love how things work, the mechanical, I love how computers work. So in my life, even though I'm a history major in legal studies and homeland security mass, you know, master's person, what ended up happening is I found out how does the world work? When I w went and interviewed people who were Undergoing threats from the Klan, ⁓ when I was interviewing people who were being defrauded money, I learned about businesses. I learned about their fears. I learned about how hard they worked. And gave me like this incredible understanding and respect for all these people I was protecting because they were living in a world that they didn't have some of the blessings I had. I knew my income was coming in, I knew where it was going. my family was okay. So that me a long ⁓ list experiences in which I could go and talk to people across any business, across any foundation. The foundations and the principles of any business are all the same. Problem solving is the same. It's just understanding how to listen and help somebody work through the logic process. I ⁓ go all the time to the Oda loop. The observe, orient, decide, and act. That is the basis of all decision making. I don't care if it's a business decision, a personnel decision, or anything else. And that is how I like to bring people back. What is the situation? What's your experience say? Can I contribute to that discussion? What's the logical decision to make? How do we act on it and hold it accountable to ourselves and to the effect? Business, person, whatever. It's it's not rocket science, but it's something that when you get to step outside of the moment in the crisis and and have a quiet place to think, answers find a way to the surface that make a whole lot of sense. Jamie: So excuse me, I wanna go back to something you said early on when you talked about people have to find you find you or want want you to be coaching. Like you don't have to convince them they have to want it. So I would imagine so so I was a founder of a of couple companies for ⁓ years, and ⁓ in that time, you know, you you discover that being a founder is both you know, the greatest thing and the worst thing, and you have to be incredibly thoughtful and open-minded, and you also have to be incredibly stubborn. And so the question becomes, when do those things come out? So you must work with people who desperately need what you have, but also must be at times not open-minded, a little bit stubborn, a little bit hard to break through. So what What do you do when that's the case? ⁓ and what advice do you give them when that's the case to kind of move them forward? Eric Wojtkun: So in the examples that I've had since I I started this business, the the easiest way for me to do it is to know what your strategy is, know what your dream is, what's your vision? First, let's define your vision. Where do you want to go? So, Jamie, in five years, where do you want this business to be? Where do you want what do you want this podcast to mean to the world? What's your contribution? And holding you back? Let's listen, let's go through our personal inventory, let's see what our strengths are. What if what of our it's not necessarily a weakness, what aren't we as great at at? Where do we need help? What do we need to modify? And then we have that common understanding, because you develop yourself, but I can help refine your thinking, that's where the stubbornness will hit. I have founders who You know, they they might be a stickler. It's like I gotta have my hand on every decision my team makes because I'm st I I am the focal point. Well, how are you gonna get out of that? You wanna be a big company, you want more than three contracts, you want nine, ten, twenty, and you're gonna need multiple teams to do it. How do you get out of that loop? And constantly bringing them back to why are what are you going to do to come out of this? You know the answer. What do we take the step with? it could be that. It could be That the founder is an ideas guy. We have so many geniuses out there who can solve a problem and they just want to solve a problem, but they don't know how to monetize it. Or they're afraid to take the next step to monetize it. So, well, what's holding you back from paying your mortgage this month? answer that question. And the best, what's the easiest solution to go with? In order to get to your goal of having your product in use, your intellectual property used, and you being able to pay the mortgage. Keep the wife happy. I've done both of those things. And so for me, the answer is know their vision, know what their end dream is, what is their end state? Because for every person I've ever met in life, they want that and they're willing to work towards that. And it doesn't mean they have to give up their dreams. It doesn't have to mean they have to overhaul themselves. It means they have to be like water. When they hit the rock, go around it, go over it, go under it, over time wear it down. But let the process work. that's just a quick analogy in my head as you were giving me the visions. It doesn't matter who we are, that's who we are. I my mentor does it with me, I do it with others. And Just keep moving forward. Just keep moving forward towards your goal. And let's do it one step at a time together. So that's how I overcome it. Jamie: No, no, I think which is which is great. So so are are you typically work like what's ⁓ an engagement look like? So how long are you working with people for? Does it vary dramatically? Like how do you define some of those things? Eric Wojtkun: So I do is tailored to the to the need of the person. So I like to work a minimum of the three-month engagement if it's one-on-one coaching. Why? Because it takes that 90 days to to know the person, to find the problem, and devise system or the parts ⁓ how you're to get out of, you know, solve chip chip away that problem, right? That's a minimum of 90 days. my preferred engagements. one of my fellow coaches said, I'd love just to say I am plan on looking at this seven years from now. You know, when you're ready to move on, I'm ready to move on. ⁓ ideally that would be great. You know, let's address address one set of issues and then go to the next set. So take the immediate, you know, we say it in the military, 50 meter target, reduce those, move forward, make our progress. Look at the 100 meter target, take the 100 meter target down. Look keep ⁓ down range, and then you're starting to move. And then you can start ⁓ moving downrange yourself. but that's really ⁓ the engagement. So the I make at least a 90 day plan and I would like to do a year plan. I break down the year plan into ⁓ quarters when I talk to them. What's your first set, what's your second set, third set, and fourth set of goals. Why? Because that's an operational period where you can take a lot of individual actions, stack them up, get individu get you know, your KPIs. Get Get your your known metrics so that you can prove to yourself that you're growing or the results are coming in. And then we can adjust the next 90 days afterwards, but we still know what where we want to be at the end of the year. So I structure that, it's tailored to them. There's no cookie cutter. If they've already got a vision, then and the vision's good, I want to go to their marketing. I want to go to execution. What's keeping that vision from going? So that's how I'll tailor it. So they they don't need every every block right away. We might revisit it, but I wanna make sure that we hit immediate, actionable, definable goals and objectives that can start taking effect at the very first meeting to get them results. Jamie: Interesting. So okay. So now I want to shift gears a little bit to okay, so you back to your point, which says someone, I'm not gonna force someone to work with me. I can't force someone to work with me. They have to want to do it. How so how do people I say find you, get to know you, ⁓ figure out? Because it feels like that relationship, that connection is so important. So how do you know before you've actually started to work together? Eric Wojtkun: usually it's about building trust. So I'm I'm I've taken the trustedge certification. So I'm a trusted certified coach to coach as well. Brian Tracy addresses it at focal point in his writings. it's that connection. So first off, you've already done this a couple of times in the interview. You've reflected words back to me. So what does that mean more? Explain more. So you're you're you're coming back and you're showing that care, you're showing that right there. You're that. You're asking that tough question, but then the next part is is so what is that pain point? What's it worth to you to get over it? What's it worth ⁓ and you receptive to that? I have a tool to fix that. I have coaching that can fix that. I can accompany you while fixing that. It's the wording that that person needs. ⁓ for some people it's you know going to be that person rec yeah helping that person recognize that there is a chink in their armor. There's some component that's keeping them from achieving their true destiny. And they know that, they want to close it. So that's how you know I would address that issue. Let me help you close the gap of your pretty impressive program and you're gonna fly higher. For other people, It may be about how do I actually form my team and maximize their strengths and minimize their weaknesses. I haven't really worked on that. I want a team, but something's stopping me. Well, let's build that team. And for other people, it's like, I know I'm I'm the vision guy, but I can't make a structure to save my life. Then I will turn on the compliance mode and say, I can help you find structure. Let's do that. So for each type of person, it's it's finding that outlet. It's finding how do I how do you compliment them and say, build that out. Let's build you stronger. Let's make take your take who you are and make you a stronger person, leader, mentor, coach, businessman, and and move forward. And that's the way to do it. It's once you understand that you they trust you and you have the tools or the method or the ⁓ communication ability to help them grow, it falls into place naturally. Jamie: And and how do okay, so so let me let me do this. So how do people find you? So ⁓ like how do you get found? Eric Wojtkun: So ⁓ to that point, I'm building myself out too. I'm a few days away from launching EricWeakin.com. I I'm on the focal point website. I go out, I do a lot of local networking. right now there's a lot of LinkedIn networking that I've been doing. outreaches is like how I met you. ⁓ try get out there just meet people, meet interesting people. I'm I'm a firm believer in the champion network. Once you make a contact, once you have a friend, ⁓ going back to your old friends and your old old networks at work, making things move forward is the best way to do it. So that that's how to do it right now. I'm on LinkedIn and it's easy to find me there and schedule a connection. you can find me on the focal point website as well, but pretty soon it'll be Ericwicken.com. Very ⁓ very Jamie: Okay. Well we'll have we'll put we'll put ⁓ we'll put links in the description so that people can find can find you and stuff. So ⁓ okay, so one one like last point I wanted to go over with that. So you're building your own business. So you it was you've done all these ⁓ these kind of very, very cool different things and you're building now you're building this business. and I love the answers about how you're thinking about and and sort of contributing from a coaching perspective. So if you were gonna give advice to someone who's not sure whether they need coaching, don't need coaching, not sure what they need, like they're just not sure how to even go about thinking about that, ⁓ and whether it makes sense for them. How What would you say? Eric Wojtkun: That's the very When you start asking yourself what can I do better, and there's gaps in your knowledge, that's the first sign. That's the very first sign that you should be looking for somebody to help mentor, to help be advisor, to be a peer advisor, whichever whichever stage of business you're in. I'm a firm believer in factional CFOs. I'm firm believer in factional CISOs for small businesses. And think of me as a fractional strategic advisor, somebody who can sit behind you be the sounding board. So it for an example, the typical things I would look at is when you when you hit Friday, are you able to hit the off button and say I'm focusing on my family? When the end of the day comes, are you still way behind? That's a typical indicator that you want a refocus. If you're working with employees and you've now said for the hundredth time they just don't get it, I cannot communicate with them, then it might be a sign that there's ways to learn how to communicate with different personality types, different generations. there's so much knowledge out there. my daughter's a teacher now. ⁓ ago we homeschooled all of the kids and she's teaching in in a small school, small Catholic school in Arizona. But what we learned is that ⁓ can we there is so much science out there to teach somebody, coach somebody, to move somebody. to ignore that science and those those resources is almost criminal. for ourselves and for our businesses or for whatever. So reach out and find the person that connects. Find the method that works that you understand. that's the important part. You might have heard ⁓ I will tell you right now, I'm now reading like my my six different leadership book this year right now, right? And different philosophy and I talk different people. You know what? They're the exact same thing I learned in Boy Scouts. It's this patrol leaders handbook I got in 11 when I was eleven years old. It's how do you plan something out six weeks in advance? Three months, a year, six weeks. What's your execution checks? Same thing. Same exact thing. How do you resolve conflicts between people? You stop, you breathe take a breath, you listen, you make a connection. 11 years old, Boy Scout handbook, leaders handbook. It was all there. That same thing was taught in the military. The same thing is taught in business schools, in different ways, in different formats. And now it's taught by a dozen different coaching places, the exact same format. They paid thousands of dollars for people, hundreds of thousands of dollars, to teach all of us FBI supervisors ways of doing business. It's all the same, but different. And the important part about that is to find the method that resonates with you. Find the language that resonates with you. And a good coach isn't gonna let him limit himself to his own vocabulary. A good coach has got to listen to you, like even my mentor does. And it's like, you know, I heard a lesson from Brian Tracy in our stack. Let me grab that. I heard a lesson from, you Brian Horschinger over at Trust Institute. There's a different way of thinking about it. I heard a lesson from and bring it in. It's we don't have to be the no all answer person. We just have to know how to relate it and find of something that connects with how you're thinking through the process. So that that's the the key thing for me. ⁓ taking it all the way back to being eleven years old. it's that's why I coach. ⁓ just quick example. in in the desert, my last job in the army, I had the privilege of working at the National Training Center out in California in Fort Erwin. We bring up we bring five thousand troops in and we send out to the desert and play war. And in those in the in the in the two weeks that they're out there in the desert, it's a fair Unless you're going to war, it's a fail, past fail environment. You get promoted or not for a lot of people out there in the desert. And some folks come in and they've been in command for a month and they're taking over, they were a light guy, so they they understood rifles and and running through you know, with through the woods. Now all of a sudden they've got Bradley fighting vehicles and they're having to think about twenty miles to contact instead of a mile. It's a total different thing. I did that for twenty months and I watched And I watch people struggle, but the important part for me was during their struggles, if I saw them getting overloaded, I was able to walk up to them quietly without their supervisors around because they're miles away. And just say, Is that gonna work? What do you think works better? What does the book say? Okay, throw out the book. What's another answer? What are your NCOs teaching you? What are you learning? How are you communicating this? Are you on a timeline? By prodding them into questions and being there and receptive and say, what questions do you have? I've seen this work. You might want to try it. and coaching them through that two weeks and making sure that they got a pass rating from their bosses. and that they were ⁓ even important than that, prepared to take their soldiers to combat at the end of two weeks because it was in their mind and they were ready and they were ready to handle failure and ready to succeed. That was the world. That's why a coach It's the same thing in business. And so that's that's how I translate everything I've ever done in the same way. I walk into a business and I hear somebody to your question, they just are a bit frazzled. Small business owner, young kid, two under two. I've been there, I got six kids. I've been there a couple times trying to put it together, trying to find out how to make payroll, how to expand their business so that they can feed that kid and the mom and keep the house and move out of an apartment, etc. etc. All the stresses on them. Take it back. Well, there might be a solution for that. Have you thought of this? Well. Let's breathe for a second. Okay. I'm here. Let's do it. is ⁓ I love to do because then I see dreams come true. Jamie: Amazing. I love it. That's fantastic. Well, Eric, listen, this has been great. I really appreciate it. We will get ⁓ we will get all the your information in for everybody in the description. People will find you. They will find you on your new, hopefully on your new website shortly. as part of that, that would be great. ⁓ and ⁓ thank you and thank you everyone who's watching, listening. until next time, have a good one. Eric Wojtkun: Thank you.