020: Why Coaching Eliminates HR Issues

[00:01:01] Hey, what's going on everybody? David Noe with SpeakEasy HR presented by Payroll Partners. Happy New Year. It is January. We're getting tons of snow where I am and it's wintertime. I'm excited for the spring to be here so that I can go play more golf and get out of this bad weather. So if you are at home working like I am today, welcome and thanks for joining us. The chat is on. We are live on LinkedIn and YouTube.

[00:01:29] We have an exciting guest that I have been waiting to have on here for quite some time. So we'll get into all that. And like I said, the chat is open. If you have a question throughout the show, please chime in or just comment where you're watching. So if you have not watched SpeakEasy HR, welcome. If you have watched it before, welcome back. But really, this is a podcast that's live. Talk about easy, not so easy topics in the world of HR.

[00:01:59] So when it comes to coaching, developing people, I couldn't ask for a better guest. Tim, welcome to SpeakEasy HR. How are you, my friend? Tim Good. Thanks, David. Appreciate you having me. David Noe Yeah, absolutely. We'll get into your topic a little bit. I've got the envelope icebreaker question game that we'll get into and get that started. So again, I am the host, producer, editor of this podcast that I started.

[00:02:29] I started last summer. And my newest blog, which is going to be a year long weekly blog that I'll be putting out on my website, SpeakEasy HR dot com, went out today. And today's was all about growth. So if you want to subscribe, go out to SpeakEasy HR dot com under the blog section.

[00:02:51] And every Monday I will be putting out a new blog about a word. This week it was growth. And it's one that stood out to me among all the words that I looked at. So be sure to go out there. Subscribe. You can get it sent to your email every Monday morning at 10 a.m. Eastern.

[00:03:09] So wanted to bring that up. So, Tim, you have been the president of Progress Coaching for the last 18 years where you teach managers a very powerful and proven system to engage and develop their staff into high performing talent. They help grow, develop, retain, recruit talent, use technology and coaching solutions to increase the bottom line.

[00:03:36] For the past six years, Tim has also hosted a podcast called Coaching Conversations Podcast, an educational podcast that provides quick sound bites on today's common coaching conversation challenges that leaders face. Tim has also written 12 workplace coaching books, is a speaker and trainer in the world of leadership and training. So, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Tim Hagan. Tim, how's everything going today, bud?

[00:04:05] Good, good. I'm glad to be here. This is one of my favorite topics. Well, just like everybody else that comes on, I ask them what they're most passionate about right now in their world. And so this definitely was one that I'm excited to talk about because I want to learn from you just like everybody else that's going to listen to your background and just your insights with this topic. So before we get to it, let me just pull up this about our presenting sponsor, Payroll Partners.

[00:04:35] Did you know that one out of three employers make payroll errors each year? And that 37% of those mistakes are from manual data entry? This means billions of dollars are lost each year. At Payroll Partners, we eliminate those costly mistakes. With award-winning HCM technology that's easy to use, backed by a team of experts, we make payroll seamless and stress-free. We put people behind your payroll.

[00:05:07] All right. So, Tim, are you ready to do the Envelope Icebreaker Challenge? Sure. Challenge. This is just an icebreaker to get to know the guests. And let me pull this up real quick. If it will work. Come on. It's taking its time. It's taking its time. Oh, it tried. It tried. There we go.

[00:05:40] All right. So, 1 through 15, you get to pick the number. Pull out the question. 7. 7. Number 7. Got number 7 here. Let's see what the question is for Tim. Okay. When you were in grade school, what did you want to be when you grow up? Pro basketball player. Pro basketball player. All right.

[00:06:10] So, that didn't happen. No, it did not. I wanted to be a marine biologist, which I am far from a marine biologist and wanted to be a professional golfer. That didn't happen. So, how about one more? How about one more? What number do you want? 11. 11. All right. Number 11 right here. Let's see what's in number 11. All right.

[00:06:39] If money and time were no object, what would you be doing right now? Coaching boys volleyball. Coaching boys volleyball. Okay. So, this probably is going to relate to your topic, but why would you be coaching basketball? Coaching basketball or coaching volleyball? I'm sorry. Coaching volleyball. You want to be a basketball player. Well, I did in grade school and then I became a really good volleyball player.

[00:07:07] So, I played against guys way back when, many pounds ago with guys on the Olympic team. So, I had a D1 scholarship offer and then my mom got sick. So, I ended up having taken care of my little brother and my mom for years. So, scholarship wayside. Got it. Got into coaching and fell in love with volleyball. Played competitively until about 35, 36 when we started the family and then that was it. But I've coached boys volleyball on and off for about 30 years.

[00:07:33] So, a lot of the stuff I teach in the corporate world, I implement into my volleyball teams. Got it. And you're in Wisconsin area, right? Correct. Okay. All right. So, today, are you still involved in coaching volleyball? Like how? Yeah, we started the high school program 10 years ago. So, I quit about two years ago. Okay. I said I would give the high school about three years. So, I implemented a leadership program.

[00:08:02] Every kid had to go through emotional intelligence as captains. Every captain had to lead a timeout. The number one pain in the butt for youth sports coaches, as we all know, as parents, I did not have complaints. I think they were terrified of me as we talk about conflict today. So, we, you know, a lot of the kids that I coached, you know, we implemented leadership. So, within our first 10 years of existence, we won the conference title six of the 10 years against teams that have been around 60, 70 years.

[00:08:29] So, when I took over, started the program, high school never had it. I knew we were going to lose. Yeah. Most people don't take jobs you know you're going to lose and you're going to lose bad. Yeah. So, how do you keep the motivation going? And so, by about our third or fourth year, we ended up having a winning record. I think we were 29 and eight. I think my fifth year we won the conference title. We were 28 and six, which is really unheard of, not because I'm a great coach, but we implemented leadership at every single level.

[00:08:57] So, we started our own club, started our own summer sand camp. We've employed probably the last 10 years, probably well over 200 high school or college kids to learn how to coach other kids. Wow. Yeah. It's funny. And we've talked before today about coaching, sports, athletics, growing up, and just how a lot of that applies to the workplace and what you can learn by coaching.

[00:09:23] And I've coached some of my kids' teams before and grade school kids and golf and those kinds of things. But when you see that and the opportunity and to work with parents of players and how to work with them. And we've talked about some of the stories that we had talked about before today.

[00:09:49] And it just kind of opened my eyes a little bit more, too, because you were telling me about some of the parents that you've had to talk to and deal with. I think that really applies to what we're going to be talking about today when it comes to the conflicts and how to use coaching. So, I think a lot of people, unfortunately, in today's workforce were not coached and developed before they became a manager. Right. Or even an employee. Or even an employee.

[00:10:19] And that is becoming a huge challenge, which is why you've probably been very busy for the last 18 years in this kind of work. So, again, we are live on LinkedIn and YouTube with Tim Hagen. And we are talking about how coaching can eliminate issues in HR like discipline and conflict. So, if you have a question for Tim, the chat section is open. We would love to hear your questions.

[00:10:47] But let's dive into this, Tim, because I'm really fascinated to hear more about it. And take us back 20 years ago or whenever you first started thinking about having your own business when it comes to leadership training and coaching. And how did you start all that? Yeah, I kind of fell into it. I was an exercise physiology major, kinesiology. I was a junior.

[00:11:15] And I worked at a local YMCA in downtown Milwaukee. And someone from IBM said, well, you should come work at IBM. I'm like, I've never turned on a computer. And here I am building now AI coaching tools. But it was really interesting because to get into the grade point to really reveal myself, I'll probably go bankrupt by the end of this podcast because I had a 0.7 my first two and a half years. I interviewed at IBM with a 2.1 and you needed a 3.8 to get into the program.

[00:11:43] So, I had a lot of people who helped me, which is a really good lesson in itself. They took risk. They had nothing to gain. Right. So, I ended up getting a job at IBM and I had probably one of two of the greatest bosses I ever had. She now lives in Phoenix. Martha Sheffield, best boss I ever had. But every day I was called into her office. And my association, like it is till this day, is, uh-oh, you know, I got called into the office. I must be in trouble.

[00:12:09] And so, finally one day I was avoiding her and she was sitting on my desk knowing I was doing that and said, get in my office. And I'm like, oh, you've got to be kidding me. Give me one day. Attitude, negative, wasn't looking in the mirror, terrible self-awareness. She said, why do you think I bring you in here? I don't know. You're upset. You shouldn't have hired me. She goes, no. I've seen your grades. You needed the help. I didn't hire you for smarts. And that's what she said to me. But she said, do you know why I give you feedback? And I said, no.

[00:12:36] She said, I care enough about you to take my time to tell you what most people never take the time to tell you. And I sat there and it was kind of that, you know, I don't think everyone has it, but you have those aha moments. And all of a sudden her office, which was the plague to me, I avoided it, to all of a sudden I had this instant comfort. And I go, oh, what do you call that? She said, coaching. So this is 42 years ago. And I said, what do you mean coaching? Because I was coaching volleyball.

[00:13:05] So I'm sitting here, my mind is spinning because you would separate coaching from the workplace and sports. Now today we know that's not the case. Right. And I went from avoiding her office to walking into her office probably almost every single day to tell her what I was doing. I no longer waited for her to call me in. By the time I left, I was not the smartest guy. That's very clear by the grade points I revealed. But I was teaching 13 different courses, started my own marketing program, learned the printers.

[00:13:32] I became the statewide rep for printers because I had a boss who had my back. Yeah. And every single day I never felt inhibited to try things. And she had my back. Did I screw up? Oh, yeah. Was I in her office? Absolutely. But now my association with the office was she's helping me. Yeah. Not everyone has that moment, but that's what got me into coaching. That's awesome. Yeah. And unfortunately, not many people are going to have an experience like that with a manager.

[00:14:01] I've been through a handful of managers and some I really liked, some I really connected with. And I look to as a mentor, as a coach, as a manager, all of those things. And they helped me learn and develop my skill set and challenge me. And then there's some that I just didn't really respect, didn't really see as someone that's going to help me develop and grow. And so it really will just be different for everybody.

[00:14:28] And so I think a lot of people say that phrase, people don't leave companies, they leave bosses. Number one reason why people quit. And so it's like this challenge of people trying to promote their team and get them into a leadership position or manager position because of how well they're doing in their job. And they'll promote them. And people are like, oh, we're going to promote from within and blah, blah, blah. But you're not preparing them to be a manager and coaching them.

[00:14:58] So it is such an important thing. And no matter what technology changes and AI, you're still going to have to have that human element to manage other individuals. So what's been the biggest success story that stands out to you since you started doing this almost 20 years ago? Is there a company, a client, a situation that really kind of stands out? Yeah, I would say it was probably about two or three companies.

[00:15:28] The two that come to mind are the Milwaukee Bears baseball team. Yeah. The sales and administrative and customer service teams. One of the best leaders I've ever worked for, Jim Bay, the VP of sales and marketing. And the second one was here in Wisconsin as well. And we have clients all over the world, but they just stick out to me. And that was in pro. Their now CEO was the vice president of sales, Mark Holland. And he brought me in. And this is 23, 24 years ago. And finally, you know, things were turning.

[00:15:57] Engagement scores were going up. He came up with the idea, not me. And he said, you know, I want our salespeople to learn how to coach. I want them to coach each other so we have succession planning. So they'd go through a one to two year program. And ironically, during the process, I ended up identifying a guy, probably my closest friend in the business world, Dave Stevens, who's a sales rep. And I'm listening to him on a call. And I said, boy, this guy's fantastic with questions, which is what coaching's about. I go to Mark's office. I said, Mark, can I meet this guy? Meet him. And he goes, why?

[00:16:27] I go, you should listen to his calls. I said, he is just whacked. He's wild. He goes, what do you mean? I go, he fends off every price objection before it occurs using questions. He's a genius. And he is a genius. So he said, well, why are you so fascinated? I go, that's your director of coaching. So we don't have a director of coaching. Next day, I wrote the job description, which was terribly written, but they still used it and touched it up. And he finally said, why are you so excited? I said, an outside coach only has so much traction.

[00:16:55] Coaching for employees has to come from within. And that's our whole mantra. And so they ended up, I think their turnover is less than 2% every year. During the great recession, they brought me into the office and I'm confident they're going to say, we're done. They said, nope, we're going to continue as is, business as usual. They kept me on. I started going extra days because they stayed with me during a time when a lot of us were getting laid off as consultants. And they were still up.

[00:17:23] Their nearest competitor was down 37 points with the major layoff. They've never done a layoff since. Now, that is not because of Tim Hagen in progress coaching. It's because they adopted the coaching. They've certainly made it their own. And those two organizations, and I think about the Brewers being seventh in ticket sales, they all coach each other. The day you start that job, you have to learn how to give feedback to your counterparts. So we built a peer-to-peer coaching community and infrastructure. So one year, the president of the Brewers sat and was in the session.

[00:17:52] He finally looked at Billy Freeze, the director of sales. He said, who's leading this session? He said, well, he is. And he points to me, he goes, he hasn't moved in like two hours. How much are we paying him? And he didn't know that this was years of culmination. So when you build a coaching culture, it's morphed in strength. It's morphed in practicing conversations. It's morphed in feedback. It's morphed in asking for feedback and just smiling even when you disagree. Building a coaching culture is hard. Yeah.

[00:18:19] And often we get categorized into, well, let's see if this program works. No, coaching works. Will you work the program is the question you should be asking. And that's been probably the two biggest clients till this day. Great friends. The Brewers still, I work with them. They should have fired me 10 years ago. It's more of a friendship now. But they all do their own coaching internally, not me. Huh. That's great. Well, thanks for sharing that. That's so fascinating.

[00:18:46] So what role does coaching play in addressing the common HR challenges like discipline and workplace conflict, you think? Yeah. I think, you know, I have a luxury that HR doesn't have. Yeah. So a lot of times when you come in as an outside, there's a value and sometimes there isn't a value. A lot of times we become the company psychologist because we're another set of ears that somebody can vent to. Right. So we were talking about youth sports before, I think conflict and an inability to handle

[00:19:15] conflict or to work well as a teammate is a learned behavior. So if, you know, you coached your kids, I've coached mine, you know, my kid got cut from baseball. The head of the baseball program is the father of that guy I just mentioned from the Brewers and people say, oh, you know, his son, give, give the coach a call. I said, get my kid put on the team and be ostracized by his friends and have the other parents stay quiet. It'll never happen. Yeah. And we learn the behavior.

[00:19:41] So when a kid has a parent go to the coach or teacher and say, my playing time's unfair, the kid has learned, well, it's not me. I've been wronged. They don't like me. Someone went into teaching or coaching in the hope of meeting me someday. It makes no sense. So we're very emotional creatures. And I think what HR people inherit is the mom or dad syndrome. Dad, can I stay up till 10? No, we don't go to bed. We go look for mom. Now that's an unfair way to characterize HR. But they have so many things going through their office.

[00:20:11] And I've sat in so many meetings where a leader will say, yeah, and you know, then the employee did X, Y, Z. And I'll jump in and say, that's not what happened. That's your interpretation. That's not what he said. Let's take a deep breath. Let's be accurate. He said, well, that's how I felt. I go, that's not what you said. You just quoted an employee. So I think what HR gets handed a lot of times really unfairly to them is emotional interpretation. See, I think it's the great storm before emotional intelligence.

[00:20:41] If you say, Tim, that green shirt looks terrible on you. My first reaction isn't one. Oh, thanks, David. It's usually, oh, how dare you? And we go from zero to 60. Yeah. By the time it gets to HR, facts have eroded. Interpretations have grown. We teach something called RIR, R-I-A-R. We react. We interpret. We articulate. We reflect. We never get to reflection. So we teach people how to reverse the R's. Start with reflection. When someone gives you feedback, take a deep breath.

[00:21:11] Don't respond. Because I might say, well, so why do you think I look bad in a green shirt? You might say, just doesn't look good with the lighting, Tim. Great shirt, though. But then it teaches us, I probably took it out of context. So by the time it gets to HR, there are so many interpretations, facts have left the building. And they've got to decipher reality. And that can be very tough. And that's what leads to conflict. Yeah.

[00:21:36] So how does fostering a coaching culture improve the employee relationship and team dynamics? Sure. I think the number one thing is we have to define what coaching is. And most companies don't. Yeah. We encourage attributes such as strength-based, scheduled, positive, no use of the word but. We try not to use the word feedback initially. We use things like perspective, opportunities to raise your game.

[00:22:06] Language matters. And when you call people into the office for the good stuff, you open the doors where people know where they need to improve. Someone with a negative attitude isn't clueless. Yeah. They know how they come off. They've just given themselves permission. Right. So I think if leaders could foster these conversations, I always encourage leaders, make a rule. Go to the source. If you're upset with me, come to me. I may have made a mistake.

[00:22:34] And anytime starts a leadership with a new team, I always say, start with two things. What's the best way to give you feedback that you'll accept it? And here's what I expect from you. And you level the playing field. Anything outside of context, our relationship will be ruined. What do you mean? If you go to three employees, now you've gotten into the gossiping game. I may have made a mistake. Go to the source. I'm your source. If I'm upset with you, I won't go to HR. And leaders have to practice having that conversation.

[00:23:04] So then when you do that and you lead with strengths and help people feel good about getting better, you know, I might say, well, David, you know, here are the three things you do really well. And I think about time management becoming one of your strengths. What most leaders will do is say, well, I don't have time to coach. Then I build up my frustration. David's time management is driving me nuts. Now I'm emotional. And I say, well, David, you're doing a good job. But, and then I unload on you. Then you go tell three coworkers.

[00:23:33] They've told four coworkers. Now there's 12 perceptions of Tim Hagen as the leader. And then HR gets brought in. And it's totally unfair to HR. So when you practice conversations of just positivity, then you can get to the things like conflict. Like, David, what's the best way to give you feedback that you'll accept it openly, thoughtfully, transparently? And employees will go, well, I don't know. All right, well, give it some thought. But the gesture of asking erodes a lot of conflict.

[00:24:03] It doesn't solve it. But it levels that playing field between the boss and the employee. Most bosses or new leaders jump in and say, you know, good, I finally got my team. I finally reached the plateau of leadership. All of a sudden they find out two people at the water cooler are talking about them. So when you look at Gallup, what, 71% are neutral or actively disengaged? Leaders have a tough today. So when they throw their hands up, every time I give this guy feedback or I give her feedback, she's resistant. I'm just going to write her up. I'm just going to let HR handle it.

[00:24:33] That's what I hear from leaders that HR typically won't hear. I threw up the wet flag. I don't even want to bother. I'm going to transfer that ownership down the hall. And that can be unfair to HR people. Yeah. So what key skills or approaches do effective workplace coaches need to succeed in minimizing those issues, you think? Conversational navigation. Okay. We have your kids play sports. I mean, go into a youth sports coach today and say, my kids don't practice. They just show up for games.

[00:25:03] Is that cool with you? You'd laugh. I'd laugh. The coach would laugh. Yeah. We don't give our workplace jobs that attentiveness that we should. Right. When I practice, I will often, you mentioned companies, in pro, Phil Ziegler, the former CEO, would say, well, Dave and Tim, why don't you role play it so he can hear it? It was like Pavlov's dog. And I'm like, why don't, so we would just do it. Because we were so comfortable in the craft of practicing, we would dissect the conversation, not each other. What we say matters.

[00:25:33] Yeah. How often is it taken out of context and it blows up into something that's not even reality that ends up at the doorstep of HR? So I think number one is conversational navigation. Number two being strength-based. Schedule time 15 minutes every single day in the morning and the afternoon and go look for the good stuff your people are doing, including virtual. Number three, always morph it and using a baseball analogy. Mask or not mask it. And embody it into the early part of the game. Don't wait for the eighth or ninth inning.

[00:26:03] Yeah. Start in the first inning and say, David, I might be taking this out of context. One of the things I observed was X, Y, Z. Yeah. Walk me through that so I don't make assumptions because that would be unfair to you. And that's called something called the sword. You know, permission plus the sword. Would you mind if I shared with you? The last thing I want to do is make assumptions that would be unfair to you. Then you give people clarity. Oh, I didn't know I was doing that. Well, thanks for pointing it out versus my emotion landing in the seventh or eighth inning. Then all of a sudden there's combustion. Emotion doesn't usually calm people down.

[00:26:32] It usually gets other emotions going. And that's what HR ends up, you know, inheriting. So I think conversational navigation, the ability to practice. When we practice with our clients, a lot of times people will be very uncomfortable. And they always say this. Oh, I'm so much better in front of my own people. And I just did this to a CEO. He said, do you want some straight feedback? Did you want me to email or text that? He said, give it to me straight. I said, you're so full of it.

[00:27:01] And he looked at me, he goes, you're right, I am. I said, this is a weird environment, right? Because we're not used to practicing. But nobody's watching us when we have private conversations. So don't assume you do it thoughtfully. And I can't make the same assumption. And having that dialogue around the craft of navigation and practicing and really becoming good at looking for good things and having conversations of strength base.

[00:27:23] And then where there's opportunities and perspectives to raise our game, all of a sudden conflict dramatically erodes. Right. So the number one objection we get as vendors is we don't have time to coach. I said, oh, okay. So who does the hiring for you? What do you mean? I said, well, when someone quits, who interviews? Why do? I said, oh, you do have time. You're just choosing the wrong category. One guy goes, well, you're really good at this. And I said, you're really good at avoiding the question. We laughed. And the reason people don't coach is they don't know what to do and say. Right.

[00:27:53] So you would never get up and give a keynote at an HR conference without an outline. Right. You'd have an outline. That's what a coaching framework does for you. But that's where learning how to coach gives you a roadmap to have those conversations. So go back to the second point that you had mentioned. 15 minutes in the morning and 15 minutes in the afternoon to find something good to praise somebody on your team. How many people do you think do that? Very few until they meet us.

[00:28:22] Because I'll tell you where you asked about companies. The guy at InPro was the youngest manager, Sean McCormick. He's the manager of an inside team. He said, just walk around the cubicles. Don't interrupt him. Just listen. You can only listen for the good things. So for 30, I think it was 45 days, he wasn't allowed to give any constructive feedback. It's not going to ruin your sales. Would you be willing to try it? Yeah. Activity went up, I think it was 9%. Results went up 11% in a team of like 10 or 12 people. That's what everybody in the group wanted. Coaching.

[00:28:52] How do you do that, Sean? He goes, I just went and looked for the good stuff. Now, that doesn't mean we ignore the tough stuff. Yeah. But all of a sudden, people started to come in because we leveraged and acknowledged their strengths. They said, you know, I was struggling with this objection or whatever the case might be. Positivity pulls in negativity. Just let them drive where they need to improve. If it's us always unloading, that's why companies need to first define coaching before we use coaching as a cliche term. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:29:21] It's something that I try to remind people that I know in manager roles within our team, in just constant conversations with people about just recognizing the good that people do. Whether it's a simple thank you.

[00:29:39] It's a simple message to the team, whether it's in a team meeting, whether it's one-on-one, you know, any opportunity you have to give that kind of feedback really could impact the person's day, week, in a way that you don't even understand because they may not have had somebody as a manager do that before.

[00:29:58] And when someone's having a hard time with retention and, you know, finding good people, if you are giving them the right recognition and praise while also coaching them and bringing up, you know, ways to improve, it's leveling that out and not just pointing out the bad. And that's unfortunately where a lot of organizations are. They just have managers that point out the bad and rarely the good. Well, there's a great study done at Harvard.

[00:30:27] It's a book called The Progress Principle. Ironically, it's been out about five years by a woman by the name of Teresa Amable. And she did a diarist study. So it wasn't a survey. People had to write down every single day. And what they had to write down is the things where they felt like they were getting better. Motivation went up. 76% of the people in their study showed they were at their most motivated state when they were progressing. So when we call people into the office, be specific. Where are they specifically improving? So they know what to maintain.

[00:30:56] Sometimes people don't even know they're doing good things until we pointed out. Right. And so ironically, we're called progress coaching, which was kind of funny. And even when I would coach volleyball, I once had a dad so upset at a tournament because our first two matches we played terrible. He said, how can you not yell at them? I said, well, first of all, they're not my kids. Second of all, I think they know they're not playing well. Right. Me reinforcing that will put them into a defensive state. You're not going to think about hitting the ball. He goes, well, that one kid hit the back wall. He swung so hard.

[00:31:26] I said, oh, that was awesome. He goes, what do you mean? I go, the fact that you asked that shows that let me coach. You want a kid to let his shoulder out, let him swing as hard as he can because he's going to have to when he gets to the next level. And he will. Practice will get us there. We will be a winning team by the end of the year. And he said, how can you say that? I said, because I've done it for 30 years. It's the same method. By the end of the year, we won the Wisconsin Region Championship. Comes up to me and goes, I'm not saying another word to my kid at matches. You were in charge.

[00:31:56] And he goes, letting someone coach your kid is hard. I said, it is. So what did you learn? He said, he's going to have a boss someday. I said, yep. Great parent. Phenomenal parent. But we want to fix what we see is wrong. We have a trigger. We all see it. Someone has a bad call. We've got to call them in the office right away. We've got to fix it. You don't fix people. You develop people so they can fix things that are on their own. And a lot of times, coaching can be really misunderstood. I'll give you a real quick case in point.

[00:32:26] Everybody knows the Blanchard companies and Ken Blanchard and the one-minute manager. I've met Ken and his son, Scott. They are the real deal. They are great. They're competitors of ours. We're at a really big publicly traded company. And they were talking about situational leadership, one of their programs, and how coaching was morphed in punitive. I'm like, no, it's not. I was in front of 200 leaders. And they said, yeah. I said, no, it's not. The D1 to D4 and the S1 to S4 have nothing to do about punitive.

[00:32:55] That's your interpretation. The Blanchards would never interpret. So I ended up calling the company and saying, I think you need to call this company. We share the client, which is weird because we're competitors. And it was such a great moment because they do such a thoughtful job. But the client viewed coaching as something I now have to do because so-and-so is not performing. Yeah. We get the question all the time, where do we start our coaching program? I said, top talent. No recruiters asking you for bottom talent. They're calling for your top talent. And you better insulate yourself.

[00:33:24] And don't always think a promotion into leadership is the next path for everybody. That's why you have to have the conversation. Gosh. It's wild. So what are some common misconceptions about coaching as a tool for managing HR concerns? Yeah. I think, you know, I think a lot of times what leaders do that HR people will say, and it happens a lot with like sales teams. There's a parallel.

[00:33:54] Well, what they want us to do. Now HR is in even a part of the same company. They're this company down the hall. Yeah. You know, I get it in sales all the time with regional sales managers. Well, what they told us to do. Well, who's they? Well, that's corporate. Aren't you corporate? No. Oh, did they fire you? I mean, it's like they're separating themselves. But what they're really doing is they're absolving themselves of the conversation. Yeah. So this is the policy, everybody. I'm just reading what was given to me. I hear that every single day. HR doesn't.

[00:34:23] And so a lot of times when we have those conversations, I think we're people praising, having tough conversations. Being fluid in it. Conflict is nothing more. We always define confronting. It's nothing more of building awareness of an uncomfortable topic where somebody has an opportunity to improve. And if we reframe it and we practice it, HR in theory should never have to be involved with a disciplinary unless we're getting close to a termination. Right.

[00:34:53] But there's some people who have been terminated that had incredible skill sets, but maybe some behavioral blockage that needed to coach. So when people say to me, oh, I hate coaching people with negative attitudes, I always say, I love it. They go, why? I go, because I know what the issue is. Right. I just got to get them to see it. And they'll say, well, how do you do that? And I said, I look at someone with a negative attitude and say, so what do you love about your work? What do you mean? It's not a hard question. What do you love about it? Well, nothing.

[00:35:24] I said, but you choose to stay. Well, what do you mean? I said, so you don't love anything about your job, but you choose to stay. Do you like your job? He said, parts of it. I said, the parts you dislike? Well, yeah, a lot. And I said, how long have you been in this job? About five years. I said, and you choose to stay. I don't understand where you're coming from. I said, sure you do.

[00:35:48] I said, how would someone, if they were to use an adjective, what's the first adjective you think they would use to describe you? Well, I can be, I said, I didn't ask for a narrative. I want a word. He said, edgy. I said, so you're edgy in a job that you don't like, you don't love, but you choose to stay. Isn't that kind of your issue? Well, yeah. And I said, what would you love to be doing? Well, to be honest with you, and all of a sudden he starts unloading. I go, so how have you told your boss that? Well, I don't think you'll listen. I said, so you haven't told him.

[00:36:18] So once you get behind the curtain and people build up their walls, they absolve themselves of any action. They create their own conflict. And all of a sudden you realize they're creating a narrative that HR will be brought into. Well, my boss never gives me a chance. Well, Bob, you know, Joanne really wants to be promoted. It's like, wait a minute. The employee also has a responsibility here. And that's where leaders would be well served to create that rule of engagement, level the playing field right when they take over a team or hire an employee.

[00:36:48] Yeah. So what are some of the suggestions when an organization has a focus on really helping people within the organization in their career and path of becoming a leader, but they aren't currently a leader. And identifying the people within the organization that potentially are the next leaders without putting them in necessarily a manager role. Yeah.

[00:37:19] You know, are there are there some steps that companies can take to really help avoid putting someone in that role as a manager before it's the right time, you know, with the right people, especially if they were managing or if they were working with a team and now they're managing those people. Yeah. You know, I mean that now your former peers. Yeah. So there's two things. One, make sure they really want to do it. Yeah.

[00:37:45] I think we tend to, there's a great book out there by Julie Winkle Giuliani talking about promotions or so yesterday. Our go-to internally is, well, David, if you do X, Y, Z, you can be promoted, you know. And what if you look at leadership and you're like, I look what you're going through. I don't want to do that. I want to get into more marketing data analytics. So we talk about it in our coaching framework. The M, the motivator is where do they want to go? Not where you want them to go. Yeah.

[00:38:11] And do you know, typically when we start with companies, over 90% of the leaders have no idea what their employees motivator are. When they have the conversation, we don't even get below 70% because most of them will say, well, I don't know, which means someone hasn't asked in a while. And so we go back to three questions. What do you love about what you're currently doing? What do you like? What do you dislike? Like, if you had your way and you had a destination void of the job existing, what would you love to be doing? Oh, I'd love to do more presentations. Oh, walk me through that. All of a sudden they're an accountant. Yeah.

[00:38:41] Why presentations? You're an accountant. That's awesome. And I praise them. I want them to be so honest. I like to do financial strategy presentations. Oh, why aren't you doing that? I haven't been given an opportunity. I said, well, what if you were? And sometimes as an outsider, I'll even orchestrate those things. So I think a lot of times with career paths, one, make sure they want to go into leadership. Number two, practice conversations of conflict. Yep.

[00:39:08] Practice giving feedback to peers from a positive standpoint, but ultimately have structured what we call peer-to-peer coaching networks. Yeah. We go into companies, people who say, I want to be a future leader. We're going to give you that glimpse. And so what is it? 62% of our leaders in the next five years are going to be first-time managers. So then it begs the question, I'll give you a great story at Monsanto, now Bear Science. I had a young lady, 27. She gets a promotion.

[00:39:40] The guy who goes for the promotion is 54. He's on her team. She calls me, she goes, I got to get this guy to buy in. I said, there's not a chance in hell this guy's buying into anything you say. And she goes, how has he been to you? She goes, he's distant. I want to buy in. You know, he could be a partner. I said, he's going to shut down on you. I said, change the conversation. She goes, what do you mean? I said, I'm going to teach us something called the spotlight. And this is one of the techniques we teach for coaching former peers.

[00:40:10] She sits him down. She goes, Bob, boy, that spotlight's going to be bright on you and I, isn't it? He's going to be like, what are you talking about? Well, you know, just, I got the job and I know you went for it, Bob. Whether I should have gotten the job or not, I don't know. But boy, people are going to be watching us. Yeah, I'm not following what you're saying. I'm not following you again. So instead of trying to win her over, which he would have pushed back, hey, you're the boss. He said, I'm not following you.

[00:40:37] He said, somebody is going to ask me inevitably, what's it been like to work with you? And there isn't a person in this world who thinks we're going to work well together. Yet I'm wondering out loud if we did what that might do for you when the next promotion opportunity comes up. Huh? And so instead of charging, she's planting seeds, no pun intended. The guy goes, I haven't thought of that. And I said, yeah, you should give that some thought.

[00:41:06] They had the greatest working relationship for 18 months. He ended up retiring. But he said, I have never enjoyed working because he then started to protect her. Now, does it always work like that? No. The other part is when you have peers is to sit down. If you were my peer and I got the job, I might say, David, this is an awkward thing. We're in a precarious situation. What can I do to make this transition comfortable for you? And what would you like from me to make it or what I could do to make it comfortable?

[00:41:35] And I'd love to share with you some of my thoughts. So we're viewed as a united front going forward. Right. Most of the time, they'll avoid it. Then that person doesn't get the job, acts up. Now they got to coach them or they got to discipline them. They're uncomfortable. Our friendship. Well, I don't want our relationship to change. Your relationship is going to change. You're the boss. Yep. Take whether right or wrong, but don't apologize for the promotion. Right. Your friend doesn't want you to apologize. They're just struggling emotionally with that they didn't get it.

[00:42:04] So they're now transferring it to the reasons. I don't know if Tim should have gotten the promotion. I should have. And that's where you have to practice those conversations. So we teach about four or five types of conversations like that. But we tell people two to three years before they become leaders. And I'm not talking your emerging leader program. I'm talking practice conversation conflict. Practice a conversation with a peer with a negative attitude. Practice going up to the water cooler where people are criticizing the president's new decision.

[00:42:32] Practice having those conversations and you'll be a lot more equipped. Or we'll have some people say, this is taxing. I don't want to do it. Yeah. My daughter is at Cornell University right now and she has an intern. She ends up telling me, I said, oh, all those years you didn't want to listen to me now, huh? She goes, oh my gosh, dad. I couldn't believe what was being said. I said, oh, it gets worse. Yeah. People are tough. Yeah, absolutely. No, it's like people going to job interviews.

[00:43:01] They practice, do mock interviews with getting prepared for interviews. And then it's like you become a manager. And the way that a company approaches promoting people, just I think a lot of them hit, they don't hit the mark right. Right. And like you said, taking the time to have those conflict conversations and interacting. And that's where HR can play a role, right?

[00:43:27] HR can be that advocate for that employee to try to train them and develop them outside of their manager. But it's really an opportunity for HR to help develop the people within the organization. Well, and I would also say that HR does something, and it's probably through their training. So we do a lot of projects with HR departments coaching leaders to coach. So it's almost an application progression. Yeah. But they stay calm.

[00:43:58] So typically, it's women. It's all stereotype. It's women. They tend to be a little bit more calmer and rational. And the HR departments tend to do a very good job of thinking about people. Leaders are often thinking about business imperatives, numbers, milestones, metrics. Oh, and I've got people there, too. I once had a VP of a sales said, it's all about the numbers. And I just am cringing in my chair, and I'm smiling. And the CEO goes, Tim, I take it you disagree with that. I go, oh, I don't even come close to agreement.

[00:44:28] The VP said, well, why don't you agree with me? I said, do you really believe it's all about the numbers? Be careful with your response. And he said, yeah, it's all about the numbers. I go, so you're hitting your numbers. And he looked at me, he goes, well, no. I said, it's a close-ended question. I know you're in sales. You said it's all about the numbers. So you must be hitting your numbers. Or it's all about the people who produce the numbers. There's a big difference. Yeah.

[00:44:54] I think where HR serves so many organizations well is the voice of reason, the calmness of practicing, but they have so much on their plate, right? You know this better than I do. And so sometimes being that coaching partner is another in addition to the job. But HR does such a nice job of calmness. So we did a project with the national retail chain for grocery. And I was amazed at the HR staff. And finally someone said, you really like this, don't you?

[00:45:22] And I said, it's really nice to be around 15 people that just get the people part from a foundational. Now, what we taught them are coaching techniques. They didn't need the people or the emotional intelligence as much as other organizations. And all of a sudden we had to re-engineer, uh-oh, HR is in the store. Everybody buckle up. They changed that within about 16 months. Nothing to do with us because the foundation was already built. Did we add some value to the coaching stuff? Sure.

[00:45:52] But that's where HR being a coaching partner can really serve organizations well. Yeah. And that was my next question. You know, how HR professionals can balance their roles as a mediator and coaches to build that trust and accountability within the workplace in their culture.

[00:46:10] And, um, so it, it really can give HR the opportunity to, to help build that trust among the workplace and help with retention because obviously coaching really impacts the retention of, of a team.

[00:46:26] And if you have people that are not motivated, that are not giving it their, uh, their a hundred percent, which is hard to give a company a hundred percent focus and a hundred percent dedication because a lot of people are disengaged, especially if they're being asked to go back into the workplace and to not the work from home environment anymore. So that's still an ongoing thing. And I'm sure you see that in, in your work.

[00:46:54] So is it challenging, I guess, post pandemic and how you've addressed coaching, you know, before the pandemic, has it shifted how you kind of advise companies, especially if they have people working hybrid from home, that kind of situation? I go back to one thing. I go back to the pandemic as bad as it was for people personally. Yeah. It was a great thing for coaching.

[00:47:24] Coaching skyrocketed because of the pandemic. So it drew attention to the value of coaching inside companies, probably better than the 20, 25 years before that I was in business. Yeah. I think then it goes to the value of willingness versus want and what people want changed instantly. So I have a company that's a national federal financial services firm.

[00:47:51] I think it was 96% of the people hated the first three months of the pandemic. It was disruption. It was three, four years later, 92% want this hybrid model. So the conversation has to go back to what people want to do with their career. So we call it the M. So we teach something called Qualm, which is our coaching framework. The M is the motivator. So if I find out someone wants to go into marketing, data analytics, I don't want to leave my job. I love my job, but I want to add this to it.

[00:48:20] You probably have hundreds of iterations of what motivates people as it relates to jobs and motivation. Inside the job, intrinsic, outside the job, extrinsic. When a leader finds that out and I'm coaching someone, I say, well, Tom, it's interesting. You know, I noticed that you're on the path to getting what you want. It looks like you're doing some mentoring with the marketing department, with analytics. What disruption do you think the whole hybrid versus in office might play or potentially even come at the expense of what you want?

[00:48:50] The minute you know where somebody wants to go, not to manipulate, but it can become a leverage point in the conversation. Not to leverage the person, but to gently remind them, by the way, we're moving in the right direction. Who cares with where you do it? Now, if somebody says, I've got a kid who's got some learning disabilities or I've got a wife who's been injured or a husband who's been injured, whatever it might be, then you have some circumstances.

[00:49:18] The challenge also has been having those conversations required navigation. So Jamie and Diamond from the bank. Everybody back in the office, June 1st, largest exit in the history of the company because he didn't ask anybody. He's the top guy. He can do whatever he wants. Largest. Guess what he did? He rescinded his policy and changed it. Yeah. And so we also have to give people latitude. People are going to make mistakes, but boy, you make a mistake like he did. People were judging him in the press.

[00:49:47] He goes, look, I made a mistake. Let's just move on. And I totally agree with that. A lot of employees will gripe and complain about leaders never talking to the leaders, but boy, they'll unload at that exit interview, never having talked to the leader. And so the conversations that need to happen inside the company sometimes are just foundationally just getting to know each other, finding out what we have in common. Yep. Because I always tell people that if the only thing between us is work, our relationship will feel like work.

[00:50:17] But if I know that you coached your kids and you coached them in golf, my son played golf. We already have some commonality. You vacationed in Traverse City. I've been to Traverse City. All of a sudden you find those things out. All of a sudden conflict doesn't seem as big. Right. We tend to be very work driven. So all of a sudden now this thing called hybrid or in office becomes so much more escalated than what it needs to be. Yeah. Yeah. And it's going to become or it's going to be an ongoing issue. I feel like it's not going to just go away.

[00:50:46] And I think what you do as an organization for businesses and helping develop leaders and managers, I think is going to continue to be a hot topic. And getting the right people in the right seats is always a challenge. So, yeah, if there is anybody that wants to connect with Tim, he does have a promo for Speakeasy HR, which I'll put up on the screen.

[00:51:15] If you scan the QR code, you are going to get 60% off his regular price for his coaching training. Yep. And scan that QR code and take you directly out there. If you are watching on demand and you are not listening to this live and cannot see the QR code, since I will be having this go on to Spotify and all kinds of other podcast platforms.

[00:51:38] You can just email Tim at Tim at ProgressCoachingLeader.com. Yep. Tim at ProgressCoachingLeader.com. And he can send you that link to take advantage of that benefit that he wanted to offer everybody today. So, I'll put that back up on the screen if anybody watching live wants to scan that. But again, that's a 60% off coaching training for Tim.

[00:52:05] So, any last comments, Tim, before we jump off and shift into this new year of craziness? Well, as I think you brought up the whole hybrid, I think the other thing that's going to come out is AI tools. Yeah. And they're going to come fast and furious. And I just saw one the other day where they're promoting it will do the end of the year review. And I just about cringed. So, I did a call with them.

[00:52:34] And the CEO is going into all the technology. And I said, so let me ask you something. I said, does the AI tool observe the employees? Well, no, but wait. I said, so the answer is no. He said, no. I said, okay. Do you think when people aren't being observed that there's also good things that we're missing? He said, well, yeah. I said, so the employees would, and we're building our own AI tools. I'm not against AI. Yeah.

[00:52:57] But all of a sudden, if an AI tool gives a report to a leader who does not spend time with his or her employees, and I say, well, David, we just had you right down the middle average all throughout the year. I got it from the AI tool. Well, that employee is going to get 100 people to run to the door. Yeah. And I think we have to be very careful that AI does not dehumanize the people part. And the evidence was the pandemic. Because, hey, we can do the same thing in Zoom. We can work virtually.

[00:53:26] What did we all want when the pandemic subsided? I can't wait to get back together. And so technology has a funny way of pushing the people part. Yeah. Some of the AI technology out there is phenomenal. Yeah. But it should never, ever, ever replace the conversation between employees or boss and subordinate. Yeah. I 100% agree with that. And it's going to continue to change.

[00:53:49] AI is an interesting thing that we did not grow up having in college in my early years of my career in HR. I mean, it was not around. Neither was a lot that we have now in technology. So it's fascinating. And my kids, you know, my oldest is in high school. So when he's out of the work or out of education and getting into the workplace, who knows what it'll be like in the next eight years or whatever.

[00:54:18] It's just going to be fascinating. Well, and we do something that's very foundational. And it's very simple. We call them rotating peer-to-peer conversations. Yeah. And I have a publicly traded company where the president out of France said, enough with the speed deity. Three years later, their number one thing three and a half years ago was their number one problem was communication. Yeah. They're implementing an ERP system.

[00:54:41] The number one attribute that they say they exhibited positively during the implementation, which you and I, you know, both know doesn't always go well, was communication. And he said, how did you know? I said, I didn't know. But when you get context of other people, everything becomes easier. But when you have silos, the reason you have silos is people protect their departments. They're not bad people. But boy, the emails get personal when you start lobbing them over the wall. And that's where we believe in getting people just talking.

[00:55:11] It absolves so much stress. And all of a sudden, I got to work with you. Oh, David. Yeah, we met a couple months ago. Oh, you coach your kids. Oh, you went to Traverse City. All of a sudden, we've got a disagreement between our departments. You and I will be more willing to work through that than two people who don't know each other except our email addresses. Exactly. That's why sometimes the remote workplace, I believe the virtual place, allows us to have those conversations more quickly. Yeah. Because you can rotate them into breakout sessions really easily.

[00:55:38] So there's a lot of advantages to what's happened as long as companies take advantage of them. Yep. Just want to remind everybody, my Word of the Week blog is out on speakeasyhr.com. It was week one of this year-long journey. So you can subscribe, go out to the website, go into the blog. The first Word of the Week word was growth. So you can read that. There's a five-minute challenge at the end.

[00:56:04] And let's face it, everyone can grow somewhere in their personal lives, professional lives. Somewhere in their lives, there's a room for improvement. No one's perfect. And just as Tim has seen in his work, no company's perfect. And a lot of people rely on individuals like Tim and his team to help their individuals grow in their organization. So, Tim, this has been great. I've learned a lot from you and I feel like we could talk much longer.

[00:56:33] But it was a pleasure to have you on to start this year on Speakeasy HR. And, again, hopefully we'll try to connect again soon. And I wish you all the best this year up in Wisconsin. And if you're ever in the Cincinnati area, just connect with me and we'll hopefully meet sometime. Would love it. Thanks, David. Appreciate it. All right. Everybody, have a great rest of your Monday. If you're working at home because of the snowstorm, I hope you are safe.

[00:57:01] And we'll hopefully talk to everyone real soon. I've got another one coming up in two weeks. So, look out for that. Great local Cincinnati HR influencer Steve Brown will be on from La Rosa's. So, definitely another great guest to have on to start this year off. So, Tim, wish you all the best and we'll talk to you soon. All right. Thanks, David. See ya. See ya.