[00:00:00] Dr Dani: Hey, Pete. 

[00:00:00] Peter: Hi, Dani. 

[00:00:01] Dr Dani: How are you? 

[00:00:02] Peter: I'm great. Thanks. How are you? 

[00:00:04] Dr Dani: Good. What are we talking about today? 

[00:00:06] Peter: Today, Dani, we are going to be talking about coaching . 

[00:00:09] Dr Dani: Nice. And we have a special guest with us today. 

[00:00:13] Peter: We do.

[00:00:14] Peter: It's even more exciting than usual. 

[00:00:16] Dr Dani: I know. John, do you want to introduce yourself? I'd 

[00:00:21] John: be happy to. It's great to be with both of you, and I'm John Bennett, and I had the opportunity of being a professor for Dani and just love that treat, and it's good to be connected. Based in Charlotte, North Carolina in the U.

[00:00:35] John: S. Among other things, I am a professor in the business school at Queen's University of Charlotte, named for Queen Charlotte of Mecklenburg in Germany. And I teach, among other things, I teach executive coaching, I teach leadership courses, I teach interpersonal group dynamics, and I'm excited about a class I've been teaching in the last few years called Understanding Social Identities.

[00:00:58] John: That's been a lot of [00:01:00] fun to pull together. And in addition to doing that, I do a lot of executive education work and a lot of Individual coaching and work with teams and groups. And so I've been doing this work for a long time, 27 years. I've been doing this work. But before that, I spent 18 years with the American Red Cross.

[00:01:20] John: I was a CEO for regional biomedical operations in a couple of locations. So I think of myself as a pracademic. This blend between an academic and a practitioner, and I love having my feet in both camps, both sides of that, because I think, as Kurt Lewin taught us, there's nothing more practical than a good theory.

[00:01:39] John: And so I try to live that out in so much of what I do. That's a bit about me. 

[00:01:44] Dr Dani: Thanks, John. Having been a student of yours, what I've really learned from you is how to be a practitioner and a scholar and balancing that and how do we bring the research into practice and how do we bring practice into research.

[00:01:57] Dr Dani: But also some of the most amazing classes [00:02:00] that I've taken as a master student. John doesn't do your typical teaching. He's a very interactive dynamic professor. So there's no falling asleep in the back of his classes.

[00:02:11] John: Yeah. I like to say there's no spectator sport in my classroom. This is all, we're all on the field, we're all playing and we need to all be engaged.

[00:02:18] John: And part of that is not only taking care of our own learning, but it's also supporting the learning of others. And I know that as adults, we learn a lot through our experiences. And I think as we talk about Really design thinking and transformation organizations. That's a lot about what we're talking about too.

[00:02:35] John: So yeah, 

[00:02:37] Dr Dani: absolutely. Awesome. Let's get into the topic today. So John, usually on the podcast, we start with defining the topic. So today we're talking about coaching. So maybe you can give us a definition about what coaching is. And also if you could explain what it's not, because sometimes it gets confused with other things.

[00:02:57] John: Yeah. Let me start with a couple of what it's [00:03:00] not. And one of those is, it's not therapy. And I, people say, oh, this feels like therapy and it's therapeutic. And yeah, , coaching is grounded in part in one dimension of what's, what grounds coaching is psychology. And therefore it does have that helping relationship feel.

[00:03:18] John: And we're trying to help people move along. So that's one thing. It's not therapy. Yeah. The another is that it's not about telling people what to do. So many of us have had coaches, particularly in an old school approach that was more about I'm barking orders to you or another version is I'm coercing you or I like to think of it as coaxing you as opposed to coaching you.

[00:03:43] John: And so it's not that, but instead what it is about helping an individual or team to define what's important to them and how they want to move from really where they are to where they want to go. So if I think about coming to visit you in Auckland, [00:04:00] I would need to get on a coach called an airplane or in a boat.

[00:04:04] John: One of those things, a ship. And those would take me from where I am to where I want to go. And if you've ever had that experience of getting on the wrong plane or something like that, you know what it's like when somebody's trying to take you where you don't want to go. And I think it's important for us as we think about coaching is to think about the process of helping someone to discover for themselves where they need to go in the context of an organization because we operate not in isolation, but we operate as individual players in a larger system.

[00:04:39] John: And those are some of the things I think about in coaching. It's really, again, a helping relationship. It's about the other person's agenda. And we can explore this a little bit more, but one of the things I think is important to keep in mind is coaching serves, one of three goals are Any combination of these.

[00:04:58] John: One is that we help people [00:05:00] to develop the capacity to do things, build those skills, build that mindset, build that capacity. A second is in coaching, we help people to improve their performance. So they have the knowledge, the skills, and the abilities, but they're just not applying that to their fullest, to their optimal performance.

[00:05:19] John: And then the third is transformation. And that's our focus here. And to me, transformation is something, we probably use that word a little too much because we talk about everything being transformative. The question I ask people when they say, Oh, that was transformative. I say let's check back in about six months and see if you've changed.

[00:05:39] John: Or if you've gone back to the old way of doing things. And so often that return back. So it's not really transformative. So I think of transformative as somebody who is perhaps moving into a new job, into a new organization. They're moving into a different life stage. They need that support or, they're dealing with [00:06:00] some shift, these kinds of key moments in our lives and our work, where we have to move from where we've been and make a significant change.

[00:06:09] John: And those are transformational in this context.

[00:06:12] Dr Dani: I love the analogy of the airplane in one of your previous books, you also talk about the coach, like the horse and carriage coach and how it guides the horse where it needs to go and it takes the carriage on its journey. 

[00:06:27] John: And the person riding is the one who signed up to ride in that carriage with that horse, right?

[00:06:33] John: It's not the horse. Hopefully it's not the horse deciding where we go. 

[00:06:39] Dr Dani: Hopefully not. Although that might make an interesting trip. 

[00:06:43] John: In, in the spirit of being somewhat humorous about that, I grew up my, my grandparents lived on a farm and my grandfather had a mule and he would get a mule that I could ride.

[00:06:57] John: And so I would ride the mule and what I [00:07:00] discovered is that mules when they don't want you to ride them They find a tree and they walk under the tree to knock you off And so we got to be careful, you know as we think about coaching. It's really about that connection There has to be a synergy between the person that's coaching and the person who's being coached They have to have a connection and it's not just going in the same but there has to be a relationship there Trust is key to that.

[00:07:26] Peter: My mind is very attracted to metaphors and analogies, and it will go off on tangents. So you can bring me back anytime, we need to train our horse. I imagine that's part of our coaching. If we could train our horse to understand where we want to go and help us get where we want to go. Yeah, sorry, I'm coming back to the mules and the trees analogy. I guess first step is to understand whether you are have been put on a mule or your mule, or your, your four legged transport is a mule or a horse at the moment.

[00:07:55] Peter: How do we maybe transform that mule into a I'm from Scotland, so a useful [00:08:00] Clydesdale Shire horse is a

[00:08:02] John: Peter. You've just run, just gone wild with that image. Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:08:07] Dr Dani: Welcome to Peter's brain.

[00:08:08] Peter: There's a little contrast between the 2 of us.

[00:08:10] Dr Dani: So moving from the metaphor to, to less abstract. One of the things that, I noticed in my work that's happening in organizations. So right now, given the competitive landscape that most organizations and not just competitive landscape, but just. The economy, all of these things are happening where innovation and creativity and going about solving problems in different ways is needed, right?

[00:08:37] Dr Dani: So we hear a lot about, we need more creativity. We need more innovation. We need to be more nimble. We need to change. And all of those things require people to take risks and to be comfortable with failure and to be, I failed, but what am I learning? How am I moving forward? They're being asked to do that now. But organizations have a history of demanding. You [00:09:00] have to have the right answer. Don't fail, don't take risks. And there's this transition that needs to happen. Can coaching help in that situation and how? 

[00:09:10] John: Yeah. Wow.

[00:09:11] John: There's a lot in there. I'm gonna, I'm gonna attempt to unpack that a little bit. And if I get off track in my images go to, to off track here, please bring me back, but. As I think about what you're saying, first of all let's agree. I think we do agree that the speed, the complexity and the volume of change that are happening in organizations is only increasing.

[00:09:34] John: And with that in mind, I think it's important that, and I've said this since the beginning of the work that I do for 27 years, I've said. That it's important that when you go through a change process that you not just get through the task of that and you say mission accomplished, but that you build the capacity for change because building capacity is preparing you for the next change.

[00:09:59] John: [00:10:00] And the reality of today is that you probably are not going to finish one. Before you start the next one, or the next one, or the next one, you just keep layering. And so part of what we have to do is help individuals be prepared to deal with all of that change. We have to help people be prepared to lead change.

[00:10:18] John: And organizations are designed to do what they're doing. That's not original to me, but that is an important concept. And so anytime we're creating. Any change, it's fighting against what's already there or here. Let me use an image. All and so the image that comes to me is white blood cells. I said, I spent 18 years with the Red Cross.

[00:10:39] John: I was in biomedical. So I think, about this thing, white blood cells in our body are designed to fight off foreign invasions. That's what organizational cultures are. Most organizational cultures resist something that's new. Now to create an organizational culture that says we embrace [00:11:00] things that are new.

[00:11:01] John: would be phenomenal. But most of them don't do that. In fact, I can't name one that really does. But if we think about, that's what you're talking about with design thinking and creativity and innovation, is how do we create an environment where people can take risk, where they can experiment. I had a boss once who said that we can do anything as long as we call it a pilot.

[00:11:27] John: I love that. Because what she was saying was try things. Now the other part of that, and we, I talk about this in terms of a change curve that we go through, because again, coaching is about change, is that what we need to do is help people not only have the experience, but reflect and make sense of that experience, so that we can learn to do it better and differently.

[00:11:51] John: Adam Grant, you may be familiar with some of his work. Adam Grant has the concept that so often in organizations, we tell [00:12:00] people, don't come to me unless you have an answer. If you come to me with a problem, I want to hear your solution. And I get the point that, we want people to think. But on the other hand, does that send a message as he would say, does that send a message?

[00:12:15] John: Don't come to me unless you have the answer. If I already have the answer, why do I need to come to you? 

[00:12:20] Peter: Yeah, 

[00:12:21] John: so I think now to get to coaching what coaching is about is being curious It's about asking questions It's about going with the person not trying to assert ourselves on top of them or I think of it as Another image, T boning them, where we jump into the site, we just attack somehow, or we come head to head with them.

[00:12:46] John: But instead coaching is about going with, it's about companioning with them in a way to help that other person discover what's possible. And then as they try things let's [00:13:00] learn from that. So we don't necessarily go, okay, coaching conversation happened between a manager and employee and it's fixed.

[00:13:08] John: It's done. No, we've made progress. So come back and let's have another conversation. But what we don't want to do is create an environment where that person has to keep coming back every time they need an answer that only creates dependence. That's not going to foster creativity. So did I answer the question?

[00:13:24] John: That was a long response was great. Great question. And I may have missed parts of it. 

[00:13:28] Dr Dani: No, that was brilliant. I do have a follow up question. So there's a coach, like that's your profession. Then there's, you could be a manager or a leader and also play a coach. 

[00:13:41] John: Yep. Yep. I think of it as coaches, it can be a noun or a verb. All right. And you don't have to be a professional coach to be able to use coaching skills. And talk about manager as coach, because I actually think that while [00:14:00] there's thousands, tens of thousands of professional coaches in the world, and there's a proliferation of coaches in the world, which I think is terrific.

[00:14:10] John: On the other hand, what do we need to do to build the capacity in organizations so that leaders who are very busy can have a short conversation? I hope none of your listeners will steal my idea because someday I may come back to this. I thought about my latest book Manager's Guide to Coaching for Change.

[00:14:28] John: I thought at one point about writing, making it called the Nine Minute Manager Coach. And the reason for that, one minute manager. This is nine because my experience is you can have a meaningful conversation that's coaching oriented in about nine minutes. And most managers don't have more than about nine minutes to have a conversation.

[00:14:51] John: We need to help people to engage in conversation and it, and I come back to this curiosity piece. If a leader can't be [00:15:00] curious. They're not going to be able to coach and they're just not going to foster those kinds of creative ideas. 

[00:15:06] Dr Dani: I can't remember where I heard the saying, don't be furious, be curious, just constantly reminding yourself, I could get upset here, but rather than doing that, why don't I be curious?

[00:15:17] Dr Dani: So I'd say someone does make a mistake rather than jumping into, Oh my God, you've made a mistake, that way just to step back and go. What happened there? 

[00:15:27] John: Yeah. Yeah. One of my favorite lines along those lines is, tell me more. Yes. Tell me more. Let me understand this. The often quoted quote that's actually, Stephen Covey used it, but it's a quote from from St.

[00:15:44] John: Francis. And the line is seek to understand before you seek to be understood. And I think one of the challenges when you go back to your point earlier of you have to be right, you have to know the answers, you got to perform well. That doesn't foster [00:16:00] That idea of seeking to understand it's only is about seeking others to understand you and that asserting a position and I love the idea of mutual learning that, that Roger Schwartz uses, and I've put that in the book and mapped coaching to that because one of the key behaviors of effective interactions is our ability to gain with each other a common understanding, to be curious with each other, to ask questions, powerful questions, and that requires first that we listen, And I don't think we do a very good job.

[00:16:36] John: In fact, here's a good question. If either of you had a, you've had public speaking classes, I'm guessing some version. Yeah. Have you ever had a private listening class?

[00:16:47] John: Isn't it amazing? We teach people to speak publicly, but we don't teach them to listen privately. We'll teach them to listen at all. 

[00:16:55] Peter: And 

[00:16:55] John: we wonder why we have some of the conflicts in the world. Yeah, [00:17:00] 

[00:17:00] Dr Dani: even in communication, we forget that when we say communication, it's a two part thing.

[00:17:04] Dr Dani: There's the talking and then the listening, but we tend to associate communication with putting information out, but not taking information in. 

[00:17:13] Peter: And I'm just so enjoying this conversation, John, 

[00:17:17] Peter: yes amazing. I had a question going back a couple of steps around on my mental pictures is actually, less about mules and trees and more about real life situations. So we're in, let's imagine we're in an organization and we're, Recognizing the need to shift the culture and because we're seeing leaders who are Not currently able to coach and I do love the idea of the nine minute coaching conversation because I think universally in all organizations, there is the perceived or actual constraint of time.

[00:17:53] Peter: And more and more we don't have time for this. We don't have time for that. I think the three of us and some of our listeners would agree that actually if we make time [00:18:00] for. And conversations and creativity and innovation. Actually, a lot of our other problems that seem to stop us doing them will disappear.

[00:18:07] Peter: So I think of this as the flywheel or just, getting your foot in the door to crack it open a little bit and then it enables you to start, keep opening that door until eventually there's a whole lot of space to do work. That's a very long wave at start. Getting to the question for you, which is

[00:18:22] Peter: we currently have leaders who don't coach. We'd like to have leaders who are able to coach. What are some things that organizations can do? I almost envision, a coaching brain in the organization made up of a number of people within that organization that can start to coach in many different ways.

[00:18:39] Peter: What are good places for organizations to start on that journey? 

[00:18:44] John: Yeah I think, first of all, what we know is that coaching works best in environments where feedback is not something that's feared, but it's something that's valued and appreciated and done very well. A key role for leaders of [00:19:00] all levels and all levels of organization is to provide feedback up and down and across.

[00:19:07] John: And so you want to start something in an organization, focus on feedback and align the feedback to what's important to the organization, as well as what's important to the person. A question I often ask people is could you write down what drives every person on your team? What are their drivers?

[00:19:25] John: What are their motivators? What's of importance to them? And very rarely does somebody say, yeah, I can make that list right now. But if not, one of the things that, the people that are listening here could say is, go do that, go find out, sit down with every person that's on your team and ask the question.

[00:19:43] John: That's a start. learning how to give feedback that's aligned with what's important to them. That skill of listening to really understand, not listen so you know what to say next, or that listening is simply the [00:20:00] breath you take between speaking. That's not what listening is. And, We, and getting off the soapbox that says, I have to have the answers.

[00:20:10] John: I love this quote from a Nobel prize winner who said, you can tell a person is intelligent by their answers, but you can tell they're wise by their questions. And so I say to leaders, if you want to create this kind of environment, what you need to do is stop being intelligent and start being wise and use the wisdom that you have to help the people around you build the capacity.

[00:20:33] John: And, if we think about organizations, most organizations, 40 somewhere, I've seen even as high as 80 percent of the operating budget is people, and we have all kinds of preventive maintenance for equipment and machinery and that kind of stuff. The HVAC system gets a, a yearly check, if not more often, but yet do the employees get a similar kind of attention.

[00:20:58] John: And when we think about all [00:21:00] the people resources in an organization, we really need to be caring for them at this proportionate level.

[00:21:10] Peter: Thanks. I've got a lead on question from that. And it's coming back to the word you've mentioned a couple of times. I'm interested in getting into it further. This word capacity, because I think, like most people, my immediate kind of mental model of capacity is something around. Have I got time to do this?

[00:21:23] Peter: But I think you mean a lot more than that when you're using that word in this context. 

[00:21:29] John: Yeah, for me, that's about the ability and the willingness is the combination of capacity, which by the way. Some of the research on building trust is do I think you have the capability or the capacity to do something?

[00:21:42] John: That's a starting point for building trust in a relationship. Yes. So this idea of capacity is, I am often able to do things that I'm just not willing to do. Unfortunately, I need to learn to say no more often. Somebody gave me a little card. I [00:22:00] Because I have a tendency to say, yep. Too often.

[00:22:03] John: So then I run into the problem of, I really don't have the, cause I, I have the willingness, but I don't always have the ability and time is one factor there. But part of it is also just the energy the focus, the desire in the skill, in the equipment, being equipped to do things. And I've done a lot of work in an organization that uses the phrase that, that what they're trying to do is equip, empower, and engage.

[00:22:31] John: I love that idea. And if we think about what leaders are doing, they should be trying to equip, empower, and engage team members to be their very best, to serve the organization's mission to the extent that's possible. Realizing that as much as we might like to see people do a lot more work, the reality is work is usually not the primary focus for people.

[00:22:57] Peter: And you'll start to pick up by now. I especially [00:23:00] love words and I like to delve into them and open them up and that, that word I love the equip, empower, engage, and equip, of course is more than just giving somebody, the right laptop that does, runs the right software.

[00:23:11] Peter: It's like internally equipping somebody with that. That's right. That capacity to do the things we're talking about. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. Love it. Yeah, love it. Yeah.

[00:23:20] Dr Dani: So a couple of questions that I have. John is we've talked about now what coaching is we've talked about how Managers can play the role of a coach 

[00:23:32] Dr Dani: do you want to talk about if you wanted to have those 9 minute conversations, what are some things? Yeah. 

[00:23:38] John: Yeah we've talked about some skills and, for me, there's a combination of skills and process, and when we think about helping leaders move out of that knowledge expert kind of role and more into the wise role, the wisdom role is that it's really about applying this combination of skills and process.

[00:23:59] John: So [00:24:00] I'll spend a moment on those. What what I've done over the last 25 years, 27 years is look at coaching processes and models. And to me, there are six coaching skills and three or four are really critical. The others are good to have. One of those, it starts with listening and really listening for understanding.

[00:24:24] John: for understanding. Not out of my curiosity or not to wait to say the next thing, but to really understand what you're saying and what you're not saying, or, and listening, you mentioned it's the both sides of that, but it's also communication both sides. It's also paying attention to what the person is not saying and not doing.

[00:24:44] John: That's part of listening as well. And then beyond that, it would be, giving feedback is critically important particularly as a manager coach because that's usually the place where coaching conversations start. That's the invitation to say, would you like [00:25:00] some help with that? Would you like me to work with you on that topic?

[00:25:04] John: And then a third skill is asking powerful questions. And in my view, coaching is about talking less and listening more. And so when we do talk, we have a little bit of time. The goal that I like to think of is 80 20. So that the person who is coaching is only speaking about 20 percent of the time.

[00:25:26] John: And for the expert, if you've got that mindset, that, that is really restrictive. And using those questions with few words and really high impact really makes the difference. And then a fourth skill that I think is critical here, is the skill of reframing. And this is, I think ties so nicely with design thinking and transformative thinking is how do I help people see things through a different lens, whether that's an extended period of time or from another person's perspective, really paying attention to what our own [00:26:00] mental models are, what our own values and beliefs are, how those both inform us and they restrict us.

[00:26:06] John: And so getting in touch with that and helping people discover that for themselves and begin to think through things from a different perspective. And then another skill I think is useful to have, and that is the skill of providing insight. And again, if we're using this 80 20 rule of communication, it's not about telling the person what to do.

[00:26:28] John: But from time to time offering those kind of wisdom nuggets that can be provided. And then the fourth one is developing support because what we need to do in a coaching relationship is to realize that we're not trying to create a dependent relationship, but we're trying to help somebody create interdependence.

[00:26:50] John: So they find the support outside of the coach. They don't have to keep coming back to the coach. So those are skills. And the other part of that is the the [00:27:00] process. And what I like to teach and like to use in all of my coaching work is a six step process. That's a dynamic process that starts with what's the context or the situation that the person is in.

[00:27:14] John: So this is where we get. How are you doing? What's going on today? What's happened since the last time we talked, whatever it might be. And then from there is settling on what are the goals for this coaching session? What are, why are we in this conversation at this point? And as from consulting work, rarely is the presenting issue, the real issue.

[00:27:37] John: And so the skill here for the manager, who's coaching the leader, who's coaching is to help that person really uncover. What's the true goal? And then that serves to inform what kind of information needs to be gathered in service of that agenda. What have you tried, what has not worked, what's working, what's important for [00:28:00] you to consider, etc.

[00:28:01] John: Then move the person, and the coach is really guiding them. Remember, they're taking them on a journey, and this is a journey. And the next step in that journey is what is possible. This is where the brainstorming, the creative thinking, the out of the box thinking, what would happen if, what would, could you do what would enable you all of these kinds of things to think about what might be done.

[00:28:25] John: Then we move into what will you do and coaching to be effective needs to have action to it. And as we think about coaching here, it's okay, what will you do? And I think of it by when. For what outcome and with what support come back to the support piece. So you're not doing it alone. And then the last step is to get the person that we're coaching to summarize what insights they've gotten.

[00:28:50] John: Because this is the deeper understanding of what's happened here. What have I. Shifted for myself. What's the transformation I've experienced even in a nine minute [00:29:00] conversation and then also to review what their commitments for action are. Because again, we're coming back to coaching is not a conversation for conversation sake.

[00:29:10] John: It's a conversation for action based on the possibilities in service of that goal. That's what I would offer as the, two minute version here of a lot in the skills to do that, take time and practice and work and feedback as well on how you're doing. 

[00:29:28] Dr Dani: I love that summary and having done my master's work in coaching, I know that it's not something you can learn and be proficient in a, listening to one podcast, one of the things I learned from you is we looked at the theory, but then you quickly moved us on to, if you want to be a good coach, you've got to go coach.

[00:29:44] Peter: Yeah, that's right. 

[00:29:46] John: And 

[00:29:46] Dr Dani: it, and the learning comes from the practice. 

[00:29:50] John: Yeah. I, when I was in high school and college, I taught swimming and one of the things I quickly learned was you cannot teach a kid to swim standing on the pool deck. [00:30:00] Then at some point they got to get wet. 

[00:30:02] John: And I would say, to, to your audience here, try this, try pieces of this, just see what difference it makes if you listen to people. we all need to be listened to. . Listen, figure out, see the impact of you asking that one really powerful question. 

[00:30:20] John: . 

[00:30:20] John: And get known for the impact of your questions.

[00:30:24] John: On your way to being a coach using coaching skills.

[00:30:26] Dr Dani: There's so many link ins there to design thinking, right? Because part of the design thinking process, when there is a problem, we start out by going and talking to the people that are experiencing that problem.

[00:30:38] Dr Dani: And it's really about how do you frame the question? Because you don't want to ask leading questions. You don't want to ask it. So it's, there's a lot about how do you design that question. And then it's, asking the question and then just shutting up and listening and being very observant which is very similar to coaching.

[00:30:57] Dr Dani: And the part about exploring [00:31:00] ideas of what you could do where I see this going wrong though, particularly in that manager team member relationship, Is the team member starts going? Oh, what about this? Oh, that won't work. What about this? Oh, we tried that x many years ago, and there's this shutting down and then you know after a while the team's why bother?

[00:31:21] John: Absolutely. Absolutely. And I want to come back to the listening piece and I'll pick up on what you're saying there in the shutdown. Part of that is a practice that we can use is I call it the 7 second rule and that is when you ask a question. Wait at least seven seconds for the response.

[00:31:42] John: And for those of us that are extroverted and thinkers that think out loud, that seven seconds seems like an eternity. But for the person who's responding to a highly impactful question, that's not very long. And in fact, [00:32:00] I look at it when I have somebody who needs at least five, seven seconds to respond.

[00:32:04] John: I, I look at it as a reward for my having asked a really good question. Not the uncomfortable part of, oh no, I've asked something and they can't respond. Instead, I look at it as, wow. I think I'm having some impact when they roll their eyes in the back of their head and they start thinking and they go, 

[00:32:23] Peter: Yeah.

[00:32:23] John: Then I go, ah, I think we're making some impact there. Now that the part that you're saying about the shutting down, in, in a coaching mode we're not in the place of judging what the person does. That's a management function. And I think in a coaching conversation, what you can do as a leader is to say, Hey, Let's talk about what the potential impacts of that option are.

[00:32:47] John: Let's think about how that aligns with your criteria that we've established for evaluating these options. Because it's not about just taking every idea that comes, but [00:33:00] really running that through the filter of is it going to serve the purpose that you have. And then helping the person discern that in a way that says, okay, now here's what I'm going to go try.

[00:33:11] John: And then I say, again, it's running that experiment, go try something and then come back and tell me how it worked. And if it didn't work, what'd you learn from it? If it did work, what'd you learn from it? Yeah. 

[00:33:22] Peter: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I like that. Being in the position of a leader, stroke manager, and when somebody comes to me often I have a little bit more context than they do.

[00:33:32] Peter: So you, and that context is often more visibility of an organizational constraint or at least a perceived constraint. When I'm. the worst thing I can do is introduce that constraint as a immovable barrier. I think my perspective is the worst thing I can do is shut down somebody's I guess creativity by introducing that constraint as an immovable barrier.

[00:33:54] Peter: So what, are some ways that I could help? I'm sitting down [00:34:00] with somebody, they have an idea in the back of my mind, I think, yeah, that, that might not work because. We don't have time, or we don't have budget.

[00:34:07] Peter: One of these, simple New Jerk responses. What would be a, good way for me to respond as a coaching manager, rather than as a bureaucratic manager? 

[00:34:17] John: Peter, I've got 2 responses going through my head. 1 is to give you the answer to that. Okay. Yeah.

[00:34:24] John: And the other one is if you're willing, I'm putting you on the spot here. Oh yeah. Let's do a little bit of a coaching conversation and see if I can help you think through that a little bit. Okay. Let's 

[00:34:37] Dr Dani: do it. It would be rude not 

[00:34:38] John: to. It's easy for Dani to say let's do it because she's not the one in the hot seat.

[00:34:43] Dr Dani: Hang on though, after two years in a master's program where I was John's student, I've been through this enough times now. 

[00:34:50] John: Yeah. Are you surprised I'm doing this? I'm offering this. 

[00:34:53] Dr Dani: Peter, 

[00:34:55] John: are you okay with that? Let's hear about that first. Absolutely. 

[00:34:59] Peter: I [00:35:00] would love 

[00:35:00] John: it. Yeah. And for the audience, this was absolutely not rehearsed.

[00:35:05] Peter: Go here, and maybe further framing. This is a definitely a hypothetical situation, and it's not related to any current Work that I might be doing in any organization. Here 

[00:35:16] John: we go. 

[00:35:16] Peter: Yeah, there 

[00:35:17] John: we go So why don't we start with just tell me a little bit more about the situation that you're describing? Yeah, okay to get me in the context and Maybe we can, I know time is probably going to be a constraint here.

[00:35:29] John: So let's see if we can do this in a brief period of time. Yeah. Okay. More to illustrate process. 

[00:35:36] Peter: Yeah. 

[00:35:36] John: And skill perhaps. Yeah. And then obviously to try to answer that question that you're having. 

[00:35:41] Peter: Sure. Let's see a situation is I have a team member come to me and They have seen an opportunity in the organization to run a, let's call it a workshop to, solve a problem.

[00:35:55] Peter: The problem they're coming up against is being told that we don't have time to do the [00:36:00] workshop. Keep it as simple as that to begin with. 

[00:36:03] John: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm, I think I'm understanding context here and your role in that.

[00:36:08] John: So what would be most helpful in this conversation? If we hit, the baseball analogy, you like analogy, the baseball analogy. If we hit a home run here in the few minutes we have what would you get to get out of this? 

[00:36:21] Peter: So as a leader, what I'd like to walk away from this conversation with is at least a continuation of that team members.

[00:36:29] Peter: Desire to solve problems within the organization using at least the skill set they've got at the moment. I want to that, like the worst thing I can I can be looking for is extinguishing of that flame of, inspiration and initiative. So I really want to help them continue that.

[00:36:48] Peter: And I guess, ideally, I'd like to have helped them. Solve that problem this kind of tension between the needs to work with the organization and being told that there isn't time to do it [00:37:00] 

[00:37:02] John: So not shutting them down i'm hearing that yeah somehow to Help them solve their own issue. 

[00:37:09] Peter: Yes. Yeah. Okay.

[00:37:11] John: Yeah. Okay, and as you think about that for you, that's a lot for them. Is there any anything specific for you in there? Beyond what you've said, 

[00:37:24] Peter: I'd like the, I don't know if this is for me for them. No, I'd like that person to continue come to me. With these situations and I'd also like that person to, valuable impactful, work in the organization 

[00:37:37] John: those are great. And you've begun to share with me also some context or some criteria that you want this person to come back to you as well.

[00:37:45] John: So we want to do this way that fosters that relationship. Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:37:48] Peter: Yeah. 

[00:37:50] John: Is there anything else that as you think about a strategy, a solution here for you, that would be important for us to [00:38:00] include in that. 

[00:38:01] John: Need us to consider. Yeah, 

[00:38:03] Peter: I guess if I think about the relationships involved in this conversation, I have 1 with my team member and have another 1 with my manager or the leaders.

[00:38:12] Peter: I have relationships with who are the ones who, we are, I suppose you could say creating this perception of a constraint of time in my case, less directly. So I guess what I'm saying is there are other managers, leaders in the organization who are, who have, different goals to achieve different things in the organization.

[00:38:31] Peter: Ideally, they're lined up and we're in unison. But these are great questions. Sorry, sideline. My, my kind of side brain is going, this is actually really good. Is it? You were getting me to 

[00:38:41] John: think. Okay, 

[00:38:43] Peter: back in the room. 

[00:38:44] John: Yeah, let's let's continue with it then. So if you think about what's possible here, no constraints, and you were able to achieve this for yourself, what would that take?[00:39:00] 

[00:39:00] John: What would you need to do? Yeah 

[00:39:04] Peter: I think, I could be wrong, but I think what I might need to do is give My team member is coming to me for coaching. Give them a little bit more context. Give them the context, the additional context that I might have for my leadership peers around what's going on in the organization.

[00:39:24] Peter: Or you might have these these constraints and maybe also have conversations with my peers to understand more about their goals and their perspective on the constraints. Yeah, I guess making connections and sharing or making more information more shareable. 

[00:39:44] John: So sharing more information to give them context and gathering some information from your peers to understand the bigger organizational.

[00:39:54] John: Yeah. 

[00:39:54] Peter: Yeah. 

[00:39:55] John: Yeah. And that would enable you then to have the conversation [00:40:00] with this team member. 

[00:40:01] Peter: Yes. Yeah. 

[00:40:02] John: Yeah. Is there anything else that would enable you to have the conversation you want to have?

[00:40:14] Peter: My mind is telling me to have an idea of what the answer to this is, but actually I don't think that's the, I don't think that's helpful or as helpful as my initial thinking suggests. Yes. Maybe I need to reframe that for myself around, it would be nice to have an answer, but actually it's better to figure it out with my team member together.

[00:40:40] John: So what's the what? So having a conversation with your team member about how to what, 

[00:40:48] Peter: how to maybe how to reframe this constraint that they're bumping up against about we don't have time to do this. You having a conversation with them together to Yeah to, [00:41:00] I think maybe a creative conversation around ways that we can.

[00:41:07] Peter: Both. I think that there's something in this about both us seeing the time constraints from the point of view of our peers. But then there's also a second part, which is helping our peers see their or almost reframe their time constraint and see it differently themselves. So that I guess, coming back to collectively, we start to see each other's perspective on on the The time constraint.

[00:41:32] John: So you're actually then identifying what some of the barriers, some of those blocks to making this happen. Yeah. Yeah. And I know we're limited on time. So I want to manage our time a little bit and perhaps ask you if you think about these ideas that you've named. Understanding context with your peers, doing, having a better understanding of the goals in the context for the individual that you're talking about, but then also how you might engage [00:42:00] with them, this team member, and having a conversation in a way that helps you understand together what is needed is what I was 

[00:42:09] Peter: hearing.

[00:42:09] Peter: Yeah, I'm hearing you correctly. Yeah, you 

[00:42:11] John: are. So of those three things. What would you be willing to commit to try next? 

[00:42:18] Peter: I think it is having the conversation together to to understand it better. Yeah. Okay. All right. When could you do that? I think I could schedule some time Monday morning to have that conversation.

[00:42:31] Peter: Okay, 

[00:42:32] John: so Monday morning, and is there anything you would need to do to prepare yourself for that or prepare them for that? 

[00:42:39] Peter: Prepare myself

[00:42:40] Peter: You threw me with your 2nd question as preparing them for it is probably more important. Actually, it's to start the sharing conversation straight away with here's some time for us to talk about this challenge. You came to me with this problem. Here's a. Here's the structure of the conversation I'd like us to have so that we can [00:43:00] bring some of these things to the surface.

[00:43:03] John: So that's some prep you could do with them. Yeah. And you can get all that done before Monday. I think so. Yeah. All right. Is there anything that might get in the way of your doing all of this? 

[00:43:17] Peter: Only if I get more ad hoc visits from other people. So I think I'll need to block some time in my calendar, John, to make sure that I protect the time.

[00:43:26] Peter: So I had to prepare for this this coaching conversation. 

[00:43:29] John: All 

[00:43:29] Peter: right. 

[00:43:29] John: So blocking some time to enable you to do that. That's great. Yeah. As we, as you is that good enough for that action is that most. 

[00:43:37] Peter: Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Yeah. All right. It's perfect. Thank you. 

[00:43:40] John: I always like to end the coaching a conversation by asking you to say.

[00:43:45] John: Something about what your insights are, what have you gotten from our brief conversation here and then restate for us what you're. What your goal, what your action is, what is it you're going to commit to do? So insights and summary back. [00:44:00] 

[00:44:00] Peter: So insights, I think to describe what was happening inside my mind as we're having that conversation, John, one of the kind of insights or aha moments was, even though I'm having a coaching conversation with one person in the moment, actually the part of the bigger picture is speaking to more people.

[00:44:18] Peter: There's, more than one really relationship involved. And and tackling this problem or opportunity and then my commitment is to well, 1st of all, to put some time in my diary to prepare. Or, and then book the conversation with my team member for Monday. To have the conversation, 

[00:44:38] John: and I think there was something about prepping them for what the conversation was.

[00:44:42] John: Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:44:42] Peter: Sorry. The middle steps of step 1, but sometime prep. Secondly, Provide them with the preparation steps and then thirdly have that conversation. Yeah. Okay. Thanks. All right. Good. Yeah. Awesome. Thank you very much, John. All right. Great. 

[00:44:57] Dr Dani: I'll come back to you. That was just [00:45:00] shy of six minutes. 

[00:45:01] Peter: Oh, wow.

[00:45:02] Peter: Really? Wow. 

[00:45:04] Dr Dani: So I want to point out two things, right? So that was actually, John, you can rename the book to six minute coaching 

[00:45:12] Peter: conversation. 

[00:45:12] Dr Dani: I think that's important, because I hear leaders say a lot I don't have time to have conversations with my people.

[00:45:17] Dr Dani: I don't have time. I don't have time. But six minutes can be really effective. 

[00:45:23] Peter: Yeah. 

[00:45:24] Dr Dani: The other thing I want to point out is I also hear a lot about, oh, these types of conversations, we can't really do them in a virtual environment. Peter's in Auckland, you're in Charlotte, North Carolina in the U.

[00:45:35] Dr Dani: S. That's as virtual as you, you can get.

[00:45:37] John: Yeah. Peter, I would, I'd be curious as you step back out of that, and you did a little bit here in that pause for a moment, but, and I know we were role playing, but as you think about that from the perspective of process and skill. Cause that's what we were talking about earlier.

[00:45:54] John: And that's what led us to this. And also you were asking a very specific question about, how to help [00:46:00] somebody overcome these barriers what are your observations? What are your reflections? 

[00:46:04] Peter: First reflection is I can't believe that was only six minutes because it felt like we I would describe it as a really deep thought provoking conversation in that period of time.

[00:46:14] Peter: What I And I appreciate we're almost in inception world here. There's layers of coaching and talking about coaching stuff, but being coached by you on the conversation. I'm going to have to coach one of my team members. I observed or I noticed the questions you were asking. You weren't rushing.

[00:46:32] Peter: You were, you were taking a little bit of time to pause and then your question seemed really well considered and also during the conversation you played back to me at various points what you'd heard just to check in to see whether you'd understood what I was saying as, and by doing that, what you actually helped me do is reflect myself.

[00:46:55] Peter: Is that what I was saying? Yeah, that's what I was saying. At no point did you tell me what to [00:47:00] do. And yeah the questions you're asking really did help me expand my kind of thinking from being quite narrow and imagining, picturing the specific conversation happening to expanding my thinking beyond that time and space to More more time, more space more people and more conversations.

[00:47:18] Peter: Else did I observe? I think that's everything that my brain captured at the same time as having the conversation. Having the conversation. 

[00:47:24] John: Yeah. Yeah. And I want to be clear what we were doing there was a bit truncated. We, there's a lot of other things that we could do, but you were answering the questions and they were hopefully intended and focused on your goals, not mine.

[00:47:42] John: I didn't try. I tried my best not to insert my view. This is about your view. This is about your discovery. This is about your actions. And one of the things that I didn't do that I wish we, if we had more time and we had a deeper relationship, because you and I just met, right?

[00:47:57] John: Literally. Is [00:48:00] that I would want to ask you, you use a lot of terms around thinking, here's what I'm thinking. And you, I think one point pointed to your head. I would just be curious if I were in a coaching relationship with you at some point to say, I hear all the thinking, I'm wondering what you're feeling.

[00:48:18] Peter: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:48:20] John: Because as we think about how do we help people go where they wouldn't go by themselves, your natural tendency might be to think and you're missing, we're not missing it, but it's there. I'd love to extract from you some of those things that you're feeling about what's going on, because that brings into the conversation, into your processing, another set of data.

[00:48:42] John: And I think as we talk about this idea of transformation and the kind of work that you two do on a regular basis. It's about expanding and it's also sometimes expanding is just tapping into what we already have at our disposal. 

[00:48:59] Dr Dani: [00:49:00] This is taking me back to, so John would always write on my papers.

[00:49:06] Dr Dani: Feelings. 

[00:49:07] Peter: What 

[00:49:09] John: did I write? A, right?

[00:49:12] Dr Dani: But I think that's a good I think that's a good point to bring up because I too, I think I've gotten better with the okay, this is what I'm thinking, like I've gotten to the place that I could self regulate that now, but I've always been, in the thinking space and, I remember John going, this is great, but what are you feeling?

[00:49:32] Dr Dani: What's the feeling, right? 

[00:49:34] John: Yeah. What's the feeling? That's right. Yeah. 

[00:49:35] Dr Dani: And I think it could work the other way as well. Sometimes, some people are in the feelings 

[00:49:40] John: and you've gotta 

[00:49:41] Dr Dani: take them the other way and go, what are you thinking? 

[00:49:44] John: Yeah. Or the other piece of that is, and what are you doing?

[00:49:47] John: Yes. Because I go back, aristo the think feeling. 

[00:49:49] Dr Dani: Do, 

[00:49:50] John: yeah. Think, feel, do. And we need to tap into all of those and we're 'cause helping us be our whole person. 

[00:49:58] Peter: Yes. 

[00:49:58] John: Is key here. So 

[00:49:59] Peter: [00:50:00] yeah. 

[00:50:00] John: Yeah. Peter, thank you for letting me do that. That, that took a lot of courage on your part and great improvisation as well.

[00:50:07] Peter: Thank you, John. I very much appreciate it. Thank you so much. It was a great experience 

[00:50:11] Dr Dani: and I love this is what our podcast is, we go where the conversation goes. Yeah. So that I love the impromptu ness of that as well. 

[00:50:18] Peter: Yeah. 

[00:50:18] Dr Dani: Very designed thinker early of you all.

[00:50:20] Peter: Yeah. ,

[00:50:21] John: is that a word thinker? 

[00:50:25] Dr Dani: Actually, it's because it came up in my lit review about sorry. It was designerly. Designer lady,

[00:50:33] John: we'll give you credit for that one, 

[00:50:36] Dr Dani: but I'm a doctor. I can make words up now. Somebody 

[00:50:39] Peter: has to make them up at some point. They were only that's what the doctor gives you.

[00:50:43] Peter: That's great. You go for it. 

[00:50:45] Dr Dani: It gave me that and a fancy hat. 

[00:50:49] Peter: Yeah.

[00:50:50] Dr Dani: So I know we're getting to the end of our time together today. This has been such a great conversation, I do want to talk about before we go, you've got a new [00:51:00] book out, John. 

[00:51:00] John: Yeah. Came out. Yes. Just come out and it's called the manager's guide to coaching for change. I just happened to have a copy to show right here.

[00:51:09] John: It's a relatively new out it's published by DeGruyter and excited about it because It takes the work that I've been doing in teaching coaching and teaching coaching, not just to graduate students, but teaching coaching to business leaders. And I don't know the count, but I'm guessing it would be into the thousands of people that I've taught coaching.

[00:51:31] John: over the years and certainly coached hundreds of people. And what I've tried to do is bring theory and practice together, those kind of practical things. But do it from the lens of the manager who has the opportunity to lead others. To be supportive of their to growth and their development and their high performance and to apply coaching in a way that's really approachable in the real world in the workplace.

[00:51:58] John: This book is not [00:52:00] designed for professional coaches. It's designed for people who. Are in the workplace and don't have a lot of time to read. I've included some great examples. I've included some wonderful conversations with people who are coaches and manager coach roles who know how to do this and do it well.

[00:52:17] John: And I've seen the benefit of that. So I'm excited about it and I hope it will be a resource for a lot of people.

[00:52:24] Peter: Fantastic. Where could we buy it? John, 

[00:52:25] John: Everybody should buy it and give it to your manager.

[00:52:28] John: Yeah. , . And anybody who manages the reports to you or works with you around you it's a great holiday gift. Amazon certainly has it and it's available on Amazon. It's also available on the publisher's website, degrueter. com it's available in Kindle version as well as a print version to paperback. And I think they priced it at an affordable rate. Fantastic. 

[00:52:49] Dr Dani: Nice. Nice. So that is your boss's Christmas present sorted. 

[00:52:55] Peter: Another gift, John. Thank you so much. 

[00:52:58] Dr Dani: So we always like to [00:53:00] end on sharing one thing that we've learned in this conversation, John.

[00:53:05] Dr Dani: So as our guest You can go first. What's one thing you're taking away from that conversation? 

[00:53:10] John: Wow I hadn't planned on that question. Let's see, what am I taking away from this? First of all, I'm taking away two people who are really energetic about what you're doing. And it's wonderful to see that energy, that creativity in your own work and that enthusiasm.

[00:53:27] John: But based in all of that is this rich set of knowledge and experience that, that I'm seeing in the two of you and what you're bringing forward. I'm just delighted to be a part of what you're doing here. 

[00:53:38] Dr Dani: Thanks, John. And we're so excited that you had the time to come on and talk to us today.

[00:53:42] Dr Dani: Yeah, 

[00:53:43] Peter: definitely. 

[00:53:44] Dr Dani: Peter, what are you taking away? 

[00:53:45] Peter: Oh my goodness. How can I? One thing. One out of about a hundred. Maybe she'll give you two. I don't know. 

[00:53:52] Dr Dani: I'll give you two.

[00:53:53] Peter: Sheena, I'm good at bending the rules, John. I'll go right back to the beginning, actually. And I've learned a new word. It might [00:54:00] be a made up one.

[00:54:00] Peter: Pracademic. That mixture of practitioner and academic, it did make me think about my role that I play in organizations, which is partly teacher and partly practitioner and maybe they're a similar thing. And I wonder if there's a business equivalent of academic as a term.

[00:54:21] Peter: So yeah, thank you for that new word and everything else. But that got me thinking 

[00:54:25] Peter: Okay. Maybe I'll be cheeky and summarize that the other things were the skills and the process for for coaching.

[00:54:32] Peter: And experiencing that firsthand was a great way to start learning it. Yeah, good. 

[00:54:38] Dr Dani: I'm gonna sneak in two takeaways. One is the reminder of I can't believe I've forgotten this, John the think, feel, do and always making sure that we're balancing that. And the other one is listening.

[00:54:51] Dr Dani: I want to go learn more about listening. I think it's something that we ignore a lot. And so bringing that to the surface. 

[00:54:59] John: [00:55:00] Yeah. So that's my book about listening. Oh,

[00:55:05] Dr Dani: awesome. We're 

[00:55:05] John: about each of the skills actually. 

[00:55:07] Dr Dani: Cool. I will be buying that for Christmas presents for a few people. So lovely to see you, John. Thank you so much for all the wisdom and and comedy and analogies and thanks listeners for for joining us today.

[00:55:23] John: Thank you both for letting me be here. Thank you. 

[00:55:26] Peter: Thanks, John. Hopefully see you again. Yes.

[00:55:29] Dr Dani: All right. Bye everyone. Bye 

[00:55:31] Peter: everyone.