Mastering Coachability: Unlocking the Potential of Leaders Through a Coaching Culture | with Kevin Wilde

Building a Coaching Culture - #77: Mastering Coachability: Unlocking the Potential of Leaders Through a Coaching Culture | with Kevin Wilde === Kevin Wilde: [00:00:00] how do I build enough confidence to be in my learning zone, but how do I keep the edge of curiosity and humility to knowing that there's more improvement? And I think that's the mindset of leaders regarding themselves, not as finished products, but as a works in progress. J.R. Flatter: Hey, welcome back everybody. JR Flatter here, and this is our podcast on building a coaching culture. I'm here with my newly groomed co-host Lucas Kevin. If you knew Lucas and you [00:01:00] saw his haircut today, you'd like, who is this guy? Kevin Wilde: Spectacular. J.R. Flatter: So our distinguished guest is Kevin Wilde. we're gonna open the floor up to you in a second, Kevin. I'll just remind everybody. We're talking to leaders of complex organizations. Global leaders, really, Lucas and I teach and coach a global cohort on how does one compete and succeed in this 21st century virtual gig economy, attracting or retaining the world's best talent. And we think it's with a coaching culture, one might define that, and that's part of what we talk about here. So Kevin, I'll pass the floor to you and please take some time and. Tell us your story and how you got where you are, and anything else comes to mind. Kevin Wilde: Yeah. Thanks Jra. Lucason. Happy to be part of the discussion here. I'm always asked a little bit about background, I go back to when I'm 16. And I was in high school. I went to a a leadership workshop. I had never heard of it before [00:02:00] and I was just enamored with the topic about group dynamics and how leaders can make a difference and bring the best out of people. And I, I remember one time looking up at the facilitator thinking, I wonder if they pay you for that job. And I've had a wonderful career finding both, satisfaction in helping others careers and then and getting enough to pay for things. But essentially I had a 34 year corporate career in primarily leadership development. Though I did have side gigs in marketing supply chain, and then actually, quality and. Six Sigma stuff for a while, but mainly developing talent. And I had the good fortune of being at, general Electric for 17 years in a couple divisions and then up, as a program manager at Crotonville. They're a big training center at the time, and I actually had the senior 12 leaders of the company come in and teach in my class. so I had the treat of getting to know Jack Welch and all the senior leaders when they were in their prime. So that was a great, experience and then followed that 17 years at General Mills, in the Midwest building the [00:03:00] coaching and talent development culture there. they globalized seriously towards the end of my tenure there, and that was wonderful to do that around the world. And then now for the last eight years, I've been on faculty as a fellow at the University of Minnesota, teaching and researching leadership. in the executive M B A program and supply chain. and then just down the side, I wrote a book last year, so, happy to get the word out on both coaching and what I now call coachability, so that's a snapshot. J.R. Flatter: Yeah, I'm looking at your book right now. Tell us a little bit more about that. I, you said a moment ago when we were getting to know each other, it's the flip side of coaching or something similar to that. So, Kevin Wilde: It is and I'm a big fan. I did a study this year with one of the groups I consult with on what really builds a coaching culture. I'd love to compare notes on that, but we, people work so hard at building the skills of managers and leaders to be coaches, and so hard at building that supportive learning culture around it. sometimes I think they miss the ingredient of the other side of the table, which is, [00:04:00] if you will the appetite. To be coached, and my research would show that actually over time our coachability fades away. One study I was part of, we looked at over 50,000 leaders, that had a 360, as others judge their coachability, frontline supervisors 71% positive on yes, you're coachable. By the time you got to a senior level, it was well under 50%. It just the big slide. And as a matter of fact, part of the research I did was because I was noticing my last company, some of my very talented executives derailed. And were asked to leave the company. And as I was doing a, diagnostic on, well, what, happened here? This talented, hardworking person, we believed in something wrong happened. And, in looking at their last 360 survey of record, one question almost predicted the derailment. does this leader seek and respond to feedback? Others rated the drill leaders 30% lower. 30% lower. And that led my investigation of what is derailment? Why do we [00:05:00] stop learning? and then also the good news, I did find leaders at all levels, including CEOs that stayed coachable. And to me that's the other half of the equation on if you wanna build a coaching culture and have role model coaches and skilled coaches also build the appetite and, if you will, the athlete's, ethic of being coachable. Lucas Flatter: so just to extend the metaphor with appetite you were talking about people having an appetite for, soliciting feedback and responding to it. Do you think that maybe the. Senior leaders are, filling up themselves with some junk food. What is the alternative? What like, what are they actually consuming that's taking up their attention aside from this? Kevin Wilde: Yeah, great question. Literally you're busy, you have a lot going on, and I think what happens over time is that what I call faulty assumptions in leadership start creeping into what you believe and other people treat you. And I'll just list a couple of them that I found [00:06:00] is I was looking at why does that decline happen and why do some people avoid it. one is the false finish line, and that's, you've seen it like I've been promoted, I'm the boss. I don't need to ask for input anymore. Right. Yeah, and then there's what's fascinating. There's another one I found called, and I was just doing coaching on this call. I call it the superhuman stance, which is almost the real reverse of that. It's, I had remember one director I was coaching that she had taken over a very senior r and d role, wanted feedback, wanted to know how she was doing, but hesitated because she worried it would be misinterpreted as a lack of confidence. Or affirming some weakness that she didn't really want to get out there. and so it was almost tragic. It was like, I want feedback. I want that coaching to continue to grow and get better yet the environment, or I'm assuming now that I've got the big job, I can't ask anymore. So those assumptions, Lucas, I think get in the way. Another one I find is how you're treated once you're the boss. People like giving you good news when you're the boss. People do not like giving you bad news. And I [00:07:00] think for most of us, we know, hey, it's Balance equation, but sometimes it just kind of goes to your head that, Hey, I'm only hearing good news. No one's telling me bad news. I must be fine. So one thing I encourage is for leaders to have truth tellers, to have relationships, again, with coaches or mentors or peers that will sit you down when it's time to sit you down. So, a number of other things there, but I do think that the environment and how we start thinking can just slowly erode, our interest in self-improvement and coachability. J.R. Flatter: So let me spend a couple seconds just talking out loud about culture and a coaching culture, and you fill in the blanks because it's obvious to me already you have some strong ideas about coachability versus creating a coaching culture or hand in hand. So I'm, I bet I'm missing something, given your whirl view. So for us, well, I won't speak for Lucas, I'll just speak for myself. For me, a coaching culture is a culture of growth where I'm in a lifelong learning [00:08:00] and development. I often talk about and think about the situational leadership model where, any one of us, depending on the task, Is that a directing or a coaching or a supporting or a delegations place? Whether you use those exact words or not. I talk about the metaphor of getting up and over, and so as a leader and my responsibility is to develop leaders, we're talking about that, what is the learning and development we talk about, long-term vision, intermediate objectives to get to that long-term vision. Personally and professionally. So where do you wanna be in 30 years? Where do you wanna be in five years? But also where do we want our organization to be in 30 years, in five years, in one year? and then today, we talk a lot about culture and for me, largely a culture is the story. It's the story I tell about my organization. And then it's the story the world tells about my [00:09:00] organization, if they're thinking about coming to join us. We just had our annual picnic last night, our summer picnic. I shouldn't say summer because we teach globally, so it's winter Australia. So our July picnic, people talking about the culture and are you communicating it, but then are you also demonstrating it. so we talk a lot about building a house of leadership and what are your principles and what is your work family self balance, and what is your vision both personally and professionally. And so we're communicating that story and then hopefully we're demonstrating that story. Lucas Flatter: I think that communicates, what I believe with the coaching culture as well. J.R. Flatter: And when I'm, when I have a coaching style of leadership, I'm interested in your growth. And I often use the analogy of teaching your children how to drive. you have to sit in the passenger seat and let that young person drive, let that leader that you're trying to develop, drive, and so, Do I have the [00:10:00] courage to sit in the passenger seat and ask who, what and how questions to help this leader grow? Kevin Wilde: it sounds like a great picnic. I and culture, you're building culture is huge. And the kinds of questions you're asking are the things that I just encourage leaders step back and have those conversations from time to time and the reality about, what do I really want here? What's my perspective? What's my contribution? As you said, sometimes I'm not in the driver's seat. I need to a shift over. I love all of that. I do think one thing that accelerates that kind of culture, Is not just supply. In other words, I'm training leaders to have that mindset. I'm giving them the tools of asking questions, but also demand. and for example, if you were asking me to come into an organization and say, Kevin, teach my managers how to be coaches, here's my first lesson. Welcome to our first coaching training session. Figure out something you wanna get better at, come back in two weeks. And so rather so that empathy about what it's like to be. Being coached, the skillset, et [00:11:00] cetera. One of the studies I looked at showed that managers that are rated higher on their coachability were rated higher as coaches. I think that's the accelerant, both as a role model as well as empathy as well as, that culture of learning is that stop at some level. Say, I'm here to coach you, but I've learned everything I need to learn. So that's one of the reasons I'm so passionate about this topic is I think it, it applies at all levels. I think it's a booster to, coaching culture efforts. again, it avoids blind spots, derailment but I've seen studies that, the more coachable you are as a leader, the higher engagement you have from your team. the higher ratings you have on performance potential. and I'll give you one study and this back to the case to think about this, a firm was looked at and they had put together a pharmaceutical firm. They had looked at 300 pairs of managers and their employees and the outputs they were looking at as to what degree the employees were, performing Agilent learning potential to grow and transfer of learning. All the things you were talking about for [00:12:00] culture, and what they did then is they studied the coaching behavior of the manager. And by the way, they had done training and all of that, and they valued it. And then they studied the coachability by an assessment of the employee. And the question is what has more impact on output of performance, potential learning, agility, and transfer of knowledge? Is it the skill of the manager as a coach or the desire and habits of the employee and employee could be at any level, by the way of them being coachable. What do. Lucas Flatter: I guess like the coachable, the higher the coachability Kevin Wilde: Well, you think about being a great coach, Lucas, if the other side isn't taking it right. Well, but yeah, it was, and I'm leading the witness here. But yeah, it was a coachability. Now I believe in coaching cultures and we need to train people the mindset and all the things that JR was talking about. But if we could also increase the desirability and the habits of being coached, I. It makes the coach so much better. I'll give you another little example. I was one night in getting ready to write this book on coachability. I was doing [00:13:00] a Google app called Google Trends. It's really a fun little app where you can put in different search terms and see the popularity. So I just put in how do I give feedback as one search term? And the other search term was how do I receive feedback at the time? What do you think the ratio was of people looking to get better at giving it versus getting it? Lucas Flatter: Maybe twice as many wanted to give it than. Kevin Wilde: Twice as many. Lucas Jr. You wanna put a vote in on this one? J.R. Flatter: Yeah. I'm sure that it's way out of whack, 90 to. Kevin Wilde: Yeah, well, yeah. Obvious. Obviously the man it is Lucas was optimistic. It's 10 to one, 10 to one, and now I get it. I mean it, back to being a coach, it is tough to give feedback. You wanna get the message right, you don't wanna damage your relationship, so getting good at that is so important. On the other hand, if I knew the other side was working on getting the imperfect message and making it work, it would make my job easier. So back to again, building the coaching cultures, if you at the same time build a [00:14:00] coachability culture, I think it really supports, building that future that you were talking about, JR. J.R. Flatter: I love that. Because I'm thinking in our own work as we're coaching and developing coaches within organizations, all towards the idea of having a coaching culture and building a coaching style of leadership, there is huge demand for people wanting to be coaches. But I don't think we've ever really looked at what's the demand of people who want to be coached. We're largely in a B two B model, and so we engage large organizations and coach their senior leaders and build internal coaches who then serve as ambassadors of coaching and coach internally. How do I, as the leader of this complex organization, increase the demand. Kevin Wilde: Well, it's I'll start with one other. Again, a research piece that just gave us some insight on this. we looked at 300 [00:15:00] managers and we had scores of how coachable other people see them. And then we had a personality tool on how to what degree these leaders had confidence. And so the question is, what do you think the relationship is that if you go from low confidence to high confidence, what happens to your coachability? Thinking about that one. Yeah, Lucas Flatter: I guess I could go either way, because you've mentioned that like the senior people, they have this attitude that, oh, I know. I know what I need to know. So maybe the higher confidence, the lower that you would solicit that feedback in coaching. J.R. Flatter: I think you've really struck on something and that is. And so I studied the senior executive service in the federal government for my doctoral dissertation. And one of the things I discovered is something that you're talking about and that is, I've arrived. Well, no, really, you've begun the first step of a thousand mile journey, as Laos, you would say, So [00:16:00] do I genuinely, and I'm, as I'm stating this rhetorically, but do I genuinely have a culture where I have an expectation of lifelong learning and development across the entirety of the organization, not the C-suite, not the new incomers. And sometimes we call it the frozen, middle, middle level of managers and leaders, but across the entirety of the organization. we talk about a continuum of learning that starts at, I don't know anything and ends in mastery. Malcolm Gladwell would tell you, it takes us 10,000 reps to be a master. but we're on a lifelong journey to any one of those proficiency or mastery, perhaps, of one thing in our entire life, if we're lucky. Kevin Wilde: Yeah and having that sense of where am I on the journey is great. What we found, by the way, was back into the confidence versus coachability, is it wasn't a linear relationship, it was a curve. So you think about three spots. Confidence. [00:17:00] Low coachability, and you've seen that's the I can't zone or the JR. Early in a career, I need to build the skills and confidence. It's hard to get feedback if you feel threatened, and vulnerable, and that's the, I can't zone, right? I'm there at certain things on the way. Other side is way too much confidence and that's the I don't care zone. and again, it can happen at any level, but typically we're busy. We've got things going on. as a senior leader, we're really not in that middle spot, which I call the learning zone. Just enough confidence to be vulnerable, to be open, to listen, to be, but also, humble enough to be curious. And one thing I did at the university, now that I'm doing a on the side is I've got an assessment of coachability. So not coaching skills, coachability and it's valid. It's got the reliability metrics in it. But one thing interesting is of the questions we found five indicated, were very predictive of whether someone was seen as coachable, in other words, being in that learning zone. And they were essentially, they [00:18:00] broke down into two themes. You think about leaders being coachable or not. One theme was, and these are the questions. I see feedback as critical to achieve my goals and objectives. So that notion about I'm learning on mission. I'm not just learning 'cause I'm learning, but for me to get my job done, I need this feedback. Highly coachable people at all levels. That's what they thought, as opposed to, I can do this job without feedback. Right. and then the other set of questions that predicted, surprisingly so if the first set was about the why do I wanna be coachable? Why do I wanna be learning? The other one was who? And there were a couple questions about your regard of the people around you and the higher you had respect for those around you. The more you were building positive relationships, the more you were seen as a coachable leader. And I think the two go together, right? So I'm trying to achieve something. I can't do it without feedback and coaching and support from others, and I respect the others. So I think at the junior level, it's easy 'cause everyone around you is happy to give you feedback, you're [00:19:00] happy to get it. The job of leadership gets lonely as as you move up. So reaching out and establishing those kind of trusting relationships of truth tellers, trusted advisors, mentors, peers. Inside and out is so critical, yet we lose that. and because we're not, we're so busy, we got so much going on. I also think in the virtual world, we don't build the same kinds of relationships. When we saw each other every day, most of my feedback at work came in the hallway. So I was walking from one meeting to another. It's hard to do that. So I think you've gotta be more intentional nowadays. So again, what do you do as a senior leader? I think you role model. Giving coaching, but also being coachable yourself. Figuring out where getting input, feedback from others would help you do better in your goal, in your values, whatever. and then finding those people that you can check in with. Lucas Flatter: so I have this personal belief that, you kind of develop that, personal, lifelong learning, attitude. And you can also express it outside of work. So if you're, [00:20:00] doing martial arts or exercise or any of your hobbies that you're trying to get better at, you're kind of exercising the same skills that I'm gonna go in the office and I'm gonna know I need feedback because, I need feedback when I do this at home, so I must need it at the office. So am I over emphasizing that or is that. Like part of the whole Kevin Wilde: Yeah. I, one, one of the back to my faulty assumptions, I've got my final one I call the empty gym. And the empty gym is a picture of January 2nd. January 1st. Everybody's in the gym. We're lifting weights like we never have before. We wake up January 2nd man, I'm sore. I'm never doing that again. I think we lose the muscle of asking and receiving feedback. And Lucas, I think you're onto something. 'cause I noticed some of the more senior people that were coachable that demonstrated that interest. They also had hobbies. I had one very senior leader that he turned his basement into a woodwork shop. So, it was clearly, it was a relief. It was, with his hands. It was [00:21:00] a kind of great thing. But I always find that highly coachable. People have a mindset, not a professional mindset. But the mindset of a hobbyist Because you think about, you mentioned, yeah, I'm trying to learn something. It's my hobby hobbyists are in the learning zone constantly. I wanna learn from other people. How am I doing? How could I get better? Gimme some feedback that's a hobbyist mindset. And I think it doesn't have all the baggage. Sometimes we have at work, as we are now the formal leader and we have to know things and we have to, Point the hill that we're gonna take. so I, I do I agree with that and sometimes you get the transfer of here's how that mindset and here's the techniques as a hobbyist. I'll give you a little example. So just the little town I live in, I'm a mile away from our county fairgrounds and I'm always charmed to go when the fair comes to town and they've got, contest for who's got the best cow and all of that. But they also have a photography section. So a year ago I said, you know what, I'm just gonna enter one of my photographs in the county fair and see what happens. and you get some feedback whether you get a ribbon or not, [00:22:00] but I remember picking up the, my one entry that, that day the fair was over. And I was asking the administrator okay, so what do you know about who judge these? And what were they looking for? And I learned a lot. and that's the hobbyist, right? And by the way, I'm putting a few more in for next week. Hopefully I heard the advice, right? but you know, again, Lucas, if you're a hobbyist. you have an appetite Lucas Flatter: Yeah, I think general, I guess there are some things where it's I'm comfortable and I'm just doing this to let off steam, but then there's that attitude that, oh, I'm competing against people, or I want to be better than other, yeah. Well, but even to get back to that, that blowing off steam, I mean, you are getting into the work itself. You're not worried about, the baggage of, how am I doing versus others on this, or how, how is it going to be judged or whatnot. It's the joy of doing it, but it's also the joy of seeing the results of your work. Kevin Wilde: And then, I would bit over time, am I a little better than last time I did the, made some pottery or did a painting or whatnot. J.R. Flatter: So I'm seeing a lot of threads between [00:23:00] what you're saying and some of the other. Topics that Lucas and I talk about pretty regularly, and one of the things we talk about is if you are in fact going to be a lifelong learner, you're a lifelong novice. And I find it really interesting that idea of being a novice woodworker or a novice photographer and the linkage between that and making you more coachable. and having a high demand for feedback. I'm gonna, I'm gonna do some exploring on that one 'cause I think there's really something Kevin Wilde: Yeah, just something I noticed here. I think also that, and check me on this. I think as a hobbyist, you forgive yourself more. I messed up the painting. okay, hey, I'm learning. Right? And I think while we can proudly say, Hey, in this company we, we honor failure. Yeah, but not too big, not too often. So yeah, we still gotta get the job done. So, I'm a little [00:24:00] suspicious when people are over on that. But that notion about, hey, let's give it our best. Let's learn what we can. but we're all human. but do we have that self-improvement ethic. and to me that's the heart of a hobbyist and the heart, of a great, coaching culture. Learning culture is, are we striving for improvement? And I think humility and confidence go together and that's that learning zone. And I think if you can build a, company and an ethic and a series of practices that both affirm people, psychological safety, confidence. I always when I teach the leadership courses, I always talk about, we just saw your 360. Yeah, I got weaknesses Some low scores, some of you need to work on it, but what are you good at that you could be great at, that you could strive for? The mastery that j you talking about and that notion about building on strengths and still learning. So I don't think it's just always the weaknesses, the flat side of our leadership game plan. It's also the, Hey, this is important for the organization. I'm good at it. I could even [00:25:00] get better. And I think you, can build confidence, but also humility, in doing those things as well. J.R. Flatter: Yeah, there's so much richness in what you're talking about. I'm having difficulty deciding on my next questions. Which happens to me all the time in coaching. So, Kevin Wilde: Absolutely. J.R. Flatter: you just struck on something that I thought that I think is so important and we practice this. Lucas and I, when we teach and we call it one-on-one, it's one thing you love and one thing we thought you could have done better on. And so when I hear you talk about feedback, and maybe it's just my assumption, but there's just natural inclination to give feedback on things you thought could have been done better. How does one build a culture of one-on-one? Like walking into my Chico's office the other day and telling her, I think you did a great job in that meeting, probably meant more to her than if I had told her the one or two things that she could have done a little better on. But how do we get one-on-one feedback in our culture? Kevin Wilde: One of the things I noticed, and I'll give you the backstory. I was [00:26:00] at a conference a few months ago, and the famous, Wharton professor and author Adam Grant was speaking, right? a lot of great, but he's got five bestsellers, et cetera, so he did 20 minutes greatest hit. But then he sat down on stage with a moderator. And what a did little q and a, and one thing that came out is he is known on the speaking circuit that a day or two after he speaks, he'll go back to the conference organizer with feedback questions always. And he's, and essentially what he's doing is the one-on-one questions and he's got one question. He says, that case scale of one to 10, how did I do? And then question two was, what can I do to get closer to a 10? Now, I don't think it's the number, it's the conversation and it's the humility to say, I'm working on getting better. Can you gimme some things? I call those pocket questions and whether it's a one, the one-on-one or something else. I think if you wanna be a coachable leader, to have some prepared questions, back to my study of leaders that value coachability because they want to get better at something important. Feedback helps, is to start with, okay, [00:27:00] what's something I. What's something that, is it, how am I doing on a podcast? How am I inspiring my troops? How am I making clear where we're headed? Am I following up well, with my obligations? But pick the thing you're interested in getting better at, getting some feedback on. Then pick the people that you think could offer help And, then, have those pocket questions. You can pull out. J.R. Flatter: Yeah. Good stuff. Lucas Flatter: so going back to what JR said about, the 10,000 reps leading to mastery, I also think about, A skill being kind of abstract and then you have like mastery of these kind of more granular skills. And personally I've been reading out loud a lot more with my son and I've noticed like a huge improvement in the way that I speak, in general. So do you think there's kind of those more granular skills that are valuable in this domain, whether it's coaching or just being a good leader in general? Kevin Wilde: I think my [00:28:00] message today, To all of you and listeners is, work on your coachability to build a coaching culture and where you're, but I, it takes practice One of the things you've gotta practice is how to receive feedback. It's one thing to ask, it's another thing to hear the tough message or the unexpected message. And, I think that's, back to the, if the empty gym hey, if you're asking feedback only once in a while, it's gonna hurt, it's gonna be sore. if it's a small little, I'm trying to get better at reading out loud or, being clear in presentations. And can you watch me in the next couple meetings and gimme a few tips? What I'm doing? Well, what could be better? You're just back in that practice. So yes, I do think you can break it down to small individual things and then can I get into a learning loop? and I think that ultimately Lucas and gr that's the skill of a pro is how do I manage my own learning? How do I learn? I know I've got my, anytime I'm throwing something new, like I just have my preferred method about, these are the five things Kevin does in order to, get me up to speed on learning something new and what I'm hearing. Some tough feedback. [00:29:00] Alright, peers. Step away. Here are the two things to process. Lucas Flatter: Yeah, I mean that, it reminds me of it's if you can expect like a 12 year old to go and learn algebra, it's like you as an adult. You can learn anything you wanna learn, absolutely. But again, that to me is that dimension about how do I build enough confidence to be in my learning zone, but how do I keep the edge of curiosity and humility to knowing that there's more improvement? And I think that's the mindset of leaders regarding themselves, not as finished products, but as a works in progress. I'm sure as you're doing the coaching that's kinda the mindset you're trying to build in the culture. Hey, we're all trying to learn where works in progress. What do we learn that's going well? We wanna double down. What's something we need to work a bit and talk about? J.R. Flatter: Yeah, the, I think the key word in what you said, Lucas, was anything you want to. The willingness and ability. We talk about willingness and ability all the time. and having come from a [00:30:00] military environment, apologize for the analogy, but second, lieutenants and ENSs are very willing, but don't have tons of ability. There are people with tons of ability to say, I'm done. I've learned enough. and I love your phrase about being humble enough to be curious. cause that's a huge part of coaching is, being curious just a little bit longer than you're comfortable being curious. So, One of my struggles as a scholar of leadership and as a developer of leaders and as a coach is, where do I fall on this strength versus weakness scale. a lot of people say, strength finders focus on your strengths, and others will tell you, fill in your gaps. and I think there's merit in both. and we grow and we're uncomfortable. And we're comfortable in those things that we're good at. I think so. Maybe I'm biased towards the discomfort. I don't know. I'd love to hear what your thoughts are.[00:31:00] Kevin Wilde: Yeah. And one thing I do in all my classes is people get a very comprehensive 360 rating of how. Others, see them on the leadership and I do a series of two classes. And the first class I call the dark side. Like, all right, you're gonna look at your bad scores, you're gonna obsess over, your little down in the rating, whatnot. Lemme give you the research. general research would show one out four liter, one out of four should at any moment be working on their low score on their weak side, right? One outta four. Three times out of four if you're always working your little low score. I remember I went to the c e o of my company, general Mills, when we first started the Build on Strengths training. I said, I'm gonna train the top 500 leaders on this really cool new thing called Build on Strengths. And of course, the c e O said, no, I. No, I want people to know what they're not good at. And I said, absolutely. We're gonna give 'em feedback. But if this is average and all we're doing is having people work on their low scores constantly, every time we're doing development, by the way, it'll be a bummer every time. Tell you what you're not good at. What are [00:32:00] we gonna get as a leadership population Average. one out of four. You got a derailment coming, you're not getting feedback. Better work it Three times out of four, you're good. But Jerry I'd say good's not good enough anymore. Good doesn't make the cut and we can rest on your laurels with good. You gotta figure out where you could be great. Where the world needs those skills at the mastery level. and oftentimes when I was trying to inspire more tenured people to work on their own development plan every year, it wasn't about what do you need to work on so that you can get promoted? It was, what do you need to work on so that you could get to mastery? Not that you're the best in your department anymore. On whatever the, are you the best in the company? And if you're the best in the company on that thing, are you the best in the industry or have you created, and so it was either mastery or legacy, the kind of, so I do believe the, again, it's gotta be three things. It's gotta be, you're good at it, you could be great. you have passion for doing it. Sometimes you're good at something, you don't wanna do it anymore. But if you've got passion and you have a skillset [00:33:00] and the company, the organization needs that. That's the sweet spot to, to build to great. and so my answer is three things. Step one, look at those scores. Look at that feedback. If it's a weakness, if you think it really matters right now, work it right. But if you're constantly working on your weaknesses, you're working to be average. So at some point you gotta step back too. So if it's not a derailment factor, you might need to mitigate it. But like, where am I? Good? I could be great. So step two is pick a great thing. So on that 0.1, I disagree with strength finders. I think you gotta start with what could get you in trouble. But honestly for most of us, we're not in trouble. It's we're not as great as we could be. And then, by the way, once you've got something, that's great, my third step is versatility. That if all your skill sets is very narrow, at some point the world's gonna change and you're gonna have to have new skills. So check for weakness. If it's a adrenalin factor, work at Fatal Flaw most of the time. Where you good could be great. And then finally, go for versatility. J.R. Flatter: Oh, I love that. I'm a huge fan of [00:34:00] the Renaissance education and. From everyone you meet to borrow from Emerson. Lucas Flatter: Yeah, after I've been hyped up, now I'm like, now I'm like, should I ask this question? So I'm thinking about, and sorry I apologize. Everything for me is space lately. So I'm thinking about this, the pale blue tot the NASA photo of Earth and how that kind of changed a lot of people's perspective. And some people say it even kicked off like a big craze of environmentalism. In terms of I'm a leader, I think I'm good, and I'm okay with being good. Is there a way to kind of splash water on your face, like that kind of image? Oh, this is all the things, these are the things that you're sacrificing with that attitude. Is there some, something you could ask yourself or tell somebody that will make them have that [00:35:00] perspective? Kevin Wilde: well, traveling the moon would be one thing, but I know exactly what you're talking about. Yeah. I think the most dangerous leaders are those that lose perspective. And as a mentor once told me, the time you need your perspective most is probably when you don't have it. And whether it's looking back at the years or looking back at your own leadership, I think we've gotta get it out of our own skin from time to time. And there's a variety of ways of doing it. Wake up call, something doesn't work, there's a shock in your life. but also, an inspiration. Am I where I really wanna be? Am I really having the impact? Am I proud of the legacy I'm leaving here? And finding some way to that. We get so busy with every, very transactional. And one thing I love about a coaching culture and the kind of work you do is it causes people to get that perspective to, I think it was Napoleon that said leaders remind people what's important. I think we lose sight of that. And so to me, that perspective of earth from Moon, my leadership is seen from others or [00:36:00] my leadership seen five years from now, or my leadership against my values or what people tell me at a 360. I think finding a different perspective. I know personally for me, by the way, I'm gonna get it another month. I'm I've got a little rock at the bottom of the Grand Canyon and I love hiking to the bottom of the Grand Canyon. It's a crazy thing, right? So I'm training for it now. and that rock is just my happy place and I'll just sit there for 10 minutes, right? There's no facts, there's no zoom meetings. You're just you and the rocks. and that is one of the places I go to get perspective. So I think the final bit of advice, I'll say, people can give you perspective and Vince can give you perspective. but I think you need a refuge. It could be the hobby, it could be you need a refuge, you just, you gotta get out of what's going on and then you can look back at it. Lucas Flatter: Yeah. I like what you said about having that refuge, like that's something that I don't think about a lot. So thanks. Kevin Wilde: I can recommend to the bottom of the Grand Canyon, by the way, easy to get into. A lot harder to get out of. So, Lucas Flatter: Do [00:37:00] need a donkey. Is a donkey involved? Kevin Wilde: You Well, no, that doesn't count. Come on. No. You're a young guy. Yeah. And Jr's as stubborn. Stubborn as I am. And we're gonna do it like we're the young guys.