A Coaching Style of Leadership

Building a Coaching Culture - #72 | Coaching Style of Leadership === J.R. Flatter: The average corporation doesn't survive its founder for that very reason, "Hey, this is the way we've always done it around here." So, when we're talking about creating a coaching culture for the 21st century, for the expectations that your children are going to have of their organizations and their careers, can we get out of their way and allow that to happen That's really the courage that we're talking about in creating a coaching culture. all right. Welcome back everybody. Jr Flatter here with my co-host Lucas. Lucas Flatter: Hello. J.R. Flatter: today in this session we're gonna talk about a coaching style leadership. And what do we mean by that? you and I talk about this all the time, but it just occurred to us. We've never really drilled down onto it. And what exactly do we mean? Lucas Flatter: Yeah, I mean, honestly, it's one of those things that I'm, I always wanna ask the guests about like, what are you. Consider to be like bringing your coaching into other aspects, you know, managing people or just, you know, life, like personal leadership, that kind of thing. J.R. Flatter: Yeah. And I think it's one of those. Things that people who are hesitant about coaching or wondering about potential return on investment, or is it the latest fad of the day or the year? wondering about what exactly do we mean by that? So I'll do my best in the next several minutes to tell you what I think about and as usually you can ask me these magnificent, powerful questions. So I'll just start. if you think about and it's not entirely 20th century versus 21st century, that's too simplistic. it's obvious to everyone who listens and watches us that I'm the boomer and you're the millennial. We came from very different generations, very different backgrounds, very different expectations of. Our organizations, our careers. when I was your age, back in my day, I could look 30 years ahead and pretty much predict what the world was gonna look like. I didn't see the internet coming. I didn't see Zoom and teams and all that coming, but there was some predictability to life and the relationship that I would have with my employers and my career. But you know, you tell me as you are raising a son in the 21st century, you know what kind of predictability you have or for career, for skills, for, the knowledge that you get bachelor's and now you have your mba and you know how, what's the half-life of that information in the 21st century? Lucas Flatter: Yeah, I do think about that. Like, you know, planning for college and is this gonna look anything like it looks today just because. We had that ability when the internet, you know, was coming to maturity where it's like, oh, everybody could learn everything online. But now it's been, you know, 20 years, 25 years later. So these things are getting more and more mature. Like you could feasibly actually teach yourself to like a master level. J.R. Flatter: Yeah. So when I was coming up, I was in college in one form or another for 20 something years. an MBA was starting to be considered not irrelevant, but less relevant. The MBAs still have a grip and they're still very valuable. How do you teach innovation? How do you teach, to grow a unicorn company or, you know, any of those things that a classic business school wouldn't even touch. And a master of fine arts, you know, people started to talk about the skill sets, one gains. Studying fine arts instead of business in a, as a compliment, to business. And here now as artificial intelligence is beginning to get some legs and applicability to the average person, access to the average person. Game on Lucas Flatter: Yeah. And I think this is a nice segue because we're thinking about, okay, what's, how does coaching fit into this? And it's that kind of, the value. There's way more value in, in ambiguity and in that kind of more like, Intellectual level of debate on things just because all of our bases are covered information wise by like a thousand different sources, you know? So it's like what can we get and what can you do as a service that's not provided by like ubiquitously across all these different platforms. J.R. Flatter: Yeah. Not to be a intellectual geek, but you know when the library burned down in Alexandria, what, a couple thousand years ago? it was devastating. Because all that knowledge was lost. Well, that's never gonna happen again. Right? Even when I was in undergrad, in the late 80s if you wanted to learn something, or you wanted to study something, you went and sat in the library all day long and it was these gigantic buildings, full of thousands and thousands of books. and you had to have a card to get in the door, right? So here's your access to knowledge. those days are behind us. You've also just reminded me, or maybe even just taught me, coached me, of what the difference between mentoring and coaching is. When I mentor, I'm literally predicting that my knowledge from the past is relevant to your future, but you're standing there going. I have no idea what tomorrow's gonna look like, and yet you're telling me a story from 40 years ago. so we don't, we toss all that out the window when we coach. Lucas Flatter: yeah, let's put those unknowns at the forefront. And I guess what you kind of were saying and hinted at was that like the mentorship Yeah. You're delivering that information, just like that access to the library kind of thing. Whereas, okay. What else? What else do people need besides just that straight, solid information? J.R. Flatter: Yeah, I'm going to open the door to my library to you and mentor you. It just sounds silly coming outta my mouth. So culture, you know, you and I have talked about culture before in, in these sessions. I think it's a pretty good analogy to talk about culture as a story. it's the story I tell myself about my life and about my family and about my business. And I could tell whatever story I want to, it's my perception of that reality. But you also tell a story about our business. You tell a story about our family, and you tell your own story about being a father and a husband. So how, what can we do to influence that story? Because the world tells a story about us that we have no direct control over. And so when I think about. Creating a coaching culture and using a coaching style of leadership. I'm asking myself two things. Am I communicating that I want this kind of culture, that I find value in this kind of culture? And then am I demonstrating it? Am I actually listening to you and then hearing what you're saying and then responding to what you've said. Not to what I believe or preconceived. so the beginning of this coaching style of leadership is literally creating that culture, that environment, communicating and demonstrating that story. Lucas Flatter: Yeah, I guess what you just said kind of made me think, like yeah, like creating that environment where like this story is more than likely going to pop up. So it's not that, oh, I've told this story verbatim and. Now I'm passing it from this person to this person. But if I build this particular environment and then another manager builds it in their team, then the story that comes out should be similar or at least have like those similar threads. J.R. Flatter: Yeah, absolutely. so we do another one of the things you and I do every fourth Friday, we have a coach's coffee and conversation. So that was eight o'clock this morning here. Good number of people there from all over the country. A couple people in the uk staying up late in the afternoon, so we start with mindfulness just like any other session, and they tell success stories or challenges they've had. And as a culture builder and someone who wants to build a coaching culture and exhibit a coaching style leadership, it's comforting to hear them telling. Success stories based on the methods that you've taught and, supported. and I think that's the thread that you were pulling on a minute ago. Those across different leaders in different areas, they're telling, you're seeing that same story and that same story is being told, in its simplest form of culture. Is somebody telling somebody else, this is just how we do it here. Lucas Flatter: so say somebody comes to you with a problem, you know, as a coaching, Style of leader, how do you approach that? And like, I think some people think that, you know, you're never going to tell somebody like a straight answer and it's always riddles or something, but that's not necessarily how it needs to go in real life. J.R. Flatter: You know, that's why they executed Socrates in 3 99 bc. He just wouldn't give you a straight answer ever. They finally got tired of it. And so, yeah, you could take it too far. we tell the story about if somebody comes up and asks you where the stapler is, you don't say, what is it about the stapler that interests you? Lucas Flatter: What value does the stapler J.R. Flatter: Yeah. There it is. It's right there. So, yeah. This isn't the panacea. and I don't wanna say that you train people. I would prefer maybe educate people on your team that you are not the answer person. You might be the facilitator of discovering the answer. You may have been down this road before and experience similar, circumstances and produce similar outcomes. You want them to grow as a leader, and they are going to learn to come to you with that expectation. But when you first start this, let's say you've gone through coach training and you're building a coaching style of leadership and creating a coaching culture, the first time Lucas comes to be the answer person and says, Hey, I have a challenge. And 99 times before you've told me what to do, and now you're gonna say, Let me put my coaching hat on and help you figure this out cause I want you to grow as a leader. There are gonna be some pushback, whether it's verbal, facial, body language or whatever, and your organization's gonna have to learn, Hey, the boss is different. Lucas is different, and this is a common theme we hear. A lot of the mindfulness sessions that we hold, the beginning of every session, we hear a lot of stories about feedback from people. There's something different about you. What's changed? You're listening to me, you're asking me questions. You're helping me, solve my own challenges rather than just giving me the answer. so you're gonna, you're gonna start to see that over time, it's not gonna be immediate. It's gonna take a lot of work. It takes a lot of courage. You and I help people build houses of leadership, and the very first discussion is this house stands on a foundation of courage because you're the boss or you're the expert, you have the relationship, whatever kind of power you have, because this person came to you for something, that came to you for, to help them solve a challenge. And for you to purposefully say, I'm not sure that's very foreign to us, especially those who have wandered into the 21st century from the 20th century. we came up at a time where it wasn't okay. It was expected that you better have the answer. If you were asked the question, you better have the answer. Lucas Flatter: I guess on top of that, I think guests and maybe even ourselves were always bringing up Ted Lasso. But you think about like how did he create that locker room where like somebody can come to him for advice, then they leave the locker room, like his office, and they might see like a motivational poster, or they might bump into another person that you've already coached where they can get more of a perspective. It's all this. Other stuff that you've built around, just come to me and we can talk. But there's other things that a coach coaching style of leader probably have done to provide resources beyond that, I think. J.R. Flatter: And as I was listening to you, I'm thinking of Lencioni's, the Five Dysfunctions of a Team, and there's a lot of similarities between those dysfunctions. I think in some ways Lencioni titled his book backwards because he really wanted us to overcome those dysfunctions by showing us the dysfunctions. But at the base of that pyramid that he draws is trust. And so if you feel confident coming in my locker room, presenting a challenge to me, and I'm not gonna bite your head off and call you an idiot for not knowing. that perpetuates and you take that away with you and you share it with your coworkers and you begin to exhibit that same level. Hey, you can trust me. I'm not going to bite your head off. trying and falling short is acceptable. You bat 3 33 in the major leagues, you get into the Hall of Fame, which means you struck out almost seven times. that's life. Are you creating? And you know, you're getting back to the idea culture. What you described from Ted Lasso is a culture of trust, which I think, you know, as you and I wander around this topic, trust is certainly embedded in a coaching culture and a coaching style of leadership. Lucas Flatter: I've also heard that one of the reasons people wanna adopt this style is kind of getting more innovative or. Different solutions to problems. Do you believe that plays out and, I guess, yeah, just that question. J.R. Flatter: Yeah. It's funny you asked that because I was just talking to a member of our team. We're working with some very senior leaders in a particular organization and they're trying to innovate. And if you've read anything on innovation, innovator's Dilemma is a good resource. If you haven't, you have to create an environment that's free of the bureaucracy, that's free of the history. And there are some classic examples from my generation. Of very successful companies that couldn't get out of their own way. Kodak may not have ever even heard of them. they couldn't or wouldn't transform to the digital age from, the film age. blockbuster couldn't or wouldn't get out of their own way from the recorded tapes to the streaming that we're having now. Which I'm sure will be both of those overtaken by other technologies. And will, you know, we were talking about AI a moment ago. Can Google survive ai? Can they pivot, and become AI and keep their market share remains to be seen? history would say probably not. I think. Not to tell too much about where we are in time and space, but Microsoft's been really good at that. They've survived multiple, generations of technology and have been able to pivot and stay in the market lead. The average, corporation doesn't survive its founder for that very reason. Hey, this is the way we've always done it around here. so when we're talking about creating a coaching culture for the 21st century, for the expectations that your children are going to have of their organizations and their careers, can we get out of their way, and allow that to happen in an efficient and effective manner? That's really the courage that we're talking about in creating a coaching culture. So this particular leader, Has created a cell, that we're helping, to create this capability to meet this 21st century challenge. In the 20th century, bureaucracy, remains to be seen if in fact that'll succeed. Lucas Flatter: kind of evokes like a little tiny sapling or something and it's like you're trying to, you wanna like protect it and make sure it gets the water it needs. And so forth and anything could kill it at the beginning, like that kinda culture. J.R. Flatter: Oh, I don't know what the statistics are, but, sea turtles, right. Millions of them hatch and thousands of them survive. trees the same way thousands of seeds fall, hit the ground. You know, a couple of them will mature into growing tree. but they have to take risk, to achieve any of that growth. Yeah. It remains to be seen whether or not this complex 20th century organization can in fact pivot to meet the requirements, existential requirements of the 21st century. You know, and part of the challenge of a coaching culture, and one of the things you and I teach is unconscious bias and how to recognize it and to our best of our human ability, make it conscious and, then not be maliciously biased as we go forward with our decisions. and one of the parts of unconscious bias is rank. So you and I look at each other. You say Boomer, and I say millennial and we assign a rank to that, whether or not our conscious mind ever grabs onto it and brings it into our, conscious actions. And so when you're in an organization, it's very difficult to tamp down rank. And if I'm the CEO and I've been in the organization 30 years and you're some upstart millennial who just came in and you're telling me you're gonna change or die, I'm gonna think, who do you think you are, as a coach and with a coaching style of leadership? That's exactly the wrong thing to think. The right thing to think is, yeah, there are areas where this person is full of. Willingness, but not a lot of ability. but they're also full of innovation and I would be wise to listen to them. I don't have to take advice, from everything they say, but tamping down that rank and giving innovators the opportunity, to introduce their ideas is what it's going to take to thrive and survive in the 21st century. And then, you know, eventually, Declan's gonna come to you 12 years. Well, he's already doing it. Whatever dad, Lucas Flatter: Yeah. J.R. Flatter: you know, you're strapping in early. but he is gonna come to you when he is 14, 50 years old, just like every 14 and 15 year old. And he is gonna think, wow, man, he's the stupidest guy in the world. How did he survive this long, famous thing from Mark Twain, when he was 17, his father was hugging her and he couldn't stand to be around him. By the time he was 21, he was amazed how much he'd learned in four years. That's what's going on in organizations. You know, 17 year olds are coming in saying, you got it all wrong. Well, no, we don't have it all wrong, but we might have a lot of it wrong, especially for this new world that we're living in. Lucas Flatter: and like I think that kind of positional rank thing, it's funny too because like you give a new problem to, you know, a veteran and a new person. Yeah. And it might be like a 50%, it's like 50 50 on which one of them is gonna come up with a solution. Because if it's a new problem, you know, you could use your old techniques and you know, things that are tried and true, but it's not necessarily going to, you know, satisfy this something unexpected. So Knowing that you have strengths in these areas and weaknesses and others, just like you know, the brand new person on the team. I think that self-awareness is hopefully brought on by coaching and being coached. J.R. Flatter: Yeah, I forget who said it, but, part of the human experience that we get wrong is that we're so convinced that we know things that we don't. And so for most of us in our lives, we're a population of one. I know a guy or I saw this happen, and that influences our experiences, influences our perceptions. And then some young upstart comes and says, well, no, my experience has been entirely different, and my prediction of the future is entirely different than yours. You know, we're both living off of the experiences of one data point. even Einstein, as he wrote his theory of relativity, in the early 19 hundreds, knew it was a theory and wasn't a hundred percent provable, but eventually they were gonna figure out what caused it. And his e equals mc square might be thrown out the window. So even as smart as he was and is convinced that he knew, he hadn't figured that out for now anyway. He also knew he might someday be replaced. we still don't know why the speed of light constantly. We still don't know how electrons and protons swirl around the atom. kind of know where gravity comes from, but not entirely. We know how fast it is, how fast it accelerates. But there's a lot we don't know, and are we willing and able do we have the courage to discover the new things? And long way around the horn on this answer, but the courage, the willingness and ability to listen and accept that new, while not throwing out the baby with the bath water. it's what a coaching culture is all about. What a coaching style of leadership's all about. Lucas Flatter: Yeah, and I guess to close my thoughts on it too it's almost like a change of reference thing, like you and I relative to each other are not, you know, we're going zero miles an hour. But relative to the sun. And so you say like, we're two data points and this is what the problem is. But if I'm a business, I'm competing on this global market, so I need to, you know, keep expanding or contracting it. J.R. Flatter: Oh yeah. It really blows my mind when I see. Pictures of the galaxies, you know, and the earth. There's some tiny blue.in there. And you know, here I am sitting at this desk thinking I'm a big deal and infl having all this influence in the world. And then you look at that picture and go, oh wow. All right my brother, Thanks for being here.