Creating an Effective Coaching Culture | with Chrissy Cordingley

Building a Coaching Culture - #89: Creating an Effective Coaching Culture | with Chrissy Cordingley === Chrissy [00:00:00]: I think that's really what culture is. If if our culture has, like, a finite date on it, like, we are forever this, I I don't think that's a culture. Culture should always be dynamic and evolving. Your people should always be Speaker B [00:00:19]: labor market as an employer of choice, this podcast is for you. Each week, we share leadership development, coaching, and culture development insights from leading experts who are developing world class cultures in their own organizations. And now here's your host, JR Flatter. J.R. Flatter [00:00:42]: Hey. Welcome back, everybody. JR Flatter here today with my cohost, Lucas. Lucas Flatter [00:00:48]: Hello. How are J.R. Flatter [00:00:49]: you doing, Lucas? Lucas Flatter [00:00:50]: Pretty good. J.R. Flatter [00:00:51]: Our distinguished guest today is Chrissy Cordingley. And, we'll give you a chance to brag about yourself in a minute, so buckle in. We like to remind everybody who it is that we're talking to Leaders of complex organizations who are competing and succeeding in the 21st century labor market. We all know it's 24th year of 21st century. It's virtual. I I heard you a moment ago talking about this global organization that you work with. And so How do you create a culture? And for Lucas and I, we think it's coaching culture. And so that's why We spend a good bit of our professional lives helping people build coaching cultures. J.R. Flatter [00:01:31]: So if you don't mind, I'm gonna pass the mic to you for a few minutes and Take some time and tell us your story, brag about yourself a little bit, brag about whomever you might be working with and alongside. So over to you. Chrissy [00:01:44]: Thank you so much for having me. This is really great. I'm the managing director of Canada, Ignite Purpose Canada but I'm also part of a global organization based out of Australia which is just Ignite Purpose. We are a performance centered coaching and consulting companies. So we work with various organizations mostly at the executive level to do exactly that, to create a coaching environment where there's vulnerability, where a leader understands that accountability is for everybody, not just the people that they lead or just for themselves. You know, if there's a failure, everybody's somehow responsible for it. If there's success, it's a group effort. And also, one of the things we really really believe in as well in a coaching culture is leaders need to be more curious than they need to be judgmental. Chrissy [00:02:34]: So providing and creating spaces where they can hear, possibly criticism about their leadership or things that maybe aren't going well and being able to approach that with a curiosity. So we work across the world, so we're we started in Sydney, then we moved to Canada. We're now also in the UK, South Africa, and the Philippines, so it it's quite an enormous, undertaking. And we're still a fairly small group. We're still only about 30 employees or so so, and we're handling sort of really big projects, which is really exciting. J.R. Flatter [00:03:06]: Yeah. We have a lot of similarities in in with respect To our interest in leadership and development, our interest in a global audience. Talk to us about What is an engagement with you and your team look like? What's a day 1? What's day 7? What's day 100? What does that all look like? Chrissy [00:03:27]: Well, it's funny. It's interesting because often when organizations sign on with us, they think, oh, it'd be 6 months. And then 10 years later, they're still learning things, which is actually pretty exciting. I think the biggest thing that comes with one of our programs, so when when organizations decide they wanna work with us, They need to have a willingness, again, to be vulnerable and create a different environment. I mean, they they have a culture, they have an environment that they've already built whether that's by accident on purpose. They have to be willing to see that shift and change. So when we start working with a company, we actually work with individuals first and make them ready to undertake a changing environment. So it's not just about leaders wanting their people to perform better, it's about k. Chrissy [00:04:11]: When your people are performing better, are you the leader that can handle that? Are you the leader that can continue to help them grow? Or are they gonna outgrow you? So we start with Grow Me, which is where we start, so we start with the leaders, we bring them together in 1 place, we talk about their individual strengths and and how individual growth affects the organization. Then we move into lead others better which is again those those communication skills, those vulnerable moments where you can take criticism, where you can get, Bernie Brown calls it the ability to rumble. So to be able to have discourse, diversity, disagreement and actually use that to become better with your people and then better togethers. How do you bring that all together now and take all these changes and learnings and make them transformational so that It's a continuous process of improvement with each other. Every conflict actually becomes something useful to the organization. So generally, people sign on for about a 6 month program where we do these grow me, lead others, better together workshops. Those are usually within 30 to 60 days apart from each other and then there's individual coaching that goes in between that, plus we do, group and individual personality profiles, again, to just sorta help them understand themselves and understand their perception of not only their own behavior, but also the behavior of others and how they filter that. So that that's really how we work, and then we've moved into some consulting and recruiting practices as well, but that's more of a consulting human resources approach. J.R. Flatter [00:05:44]: Wow. Yeah. You hit on some of our favorite topics and mentioned mentioned one of our favorite authors. I doubt if a week goes by that I don't quote Brene Brown. Lucas Flatter [00:05:53]: So we're often talking about the coaching culture, like how coaching relates to the workplace, and then also Having those, you know, discreet 1 on 1 coaching relationships. How do you see those kind of Synergizing are both necessary to kind of have this cultural transformation. Chrissy [00:06:15]: Yeah. It all interconnects and it's really important to do both and bring them together. So when our CEO, Christina, started the company, in Sydney in 2012, One of the reasons she did it was she was an executive learning and development in HR and so she would arrange for all this training and coaching to happen, But she wasn't seeing the results. People would be a little more motivated for a while, but then they go back to the same culture that created those sort of that behavior and they're like, How do I behave differently when everything else is still the same? So that's what we do, so when we work with them, we teach them what the culture will look like as they transform form and then the individual 1 on 1 is, tell me about your week. Who did you have messiness with? Who can we help you navigate with? Right? So It's not just about learning those moments in the classroom or even 1 on 1, it's now how do we apply those? That's what we give our clients opportunity to do with us is to What are the actual steps to putting this into practice? Because it's easy to talk about conflict when there isn't any at the moment. It's easy to talk about vulnerability when you're feeling very confident, but what about in those moments where that naturally doesn't always happen. Right? So how do you Work your way through that. So we call it the well, Bernie Brown call it the messy middle or the murky, mucky middle. Chrissy [00:07:35]: And that's that's where we like to really step in and help and take away the shame that comes with some of that, like, oh, I I I could handle that better or whatever, and help just normalize a lot of those responses and to show where they come from. Lucas Flatter [00:07:51]: Yeah. Definitely. You know, we talk about that a lot and having that Psychological safety where you can bring up those tough topics. Thank you. Chrissy [00:07:59]: I was just actually at a lunch with another consulting company today, and we were talking about psychological safety and that it's so nice to see it being brought up a lot. But I think a lot of it is still being taught on a reactionary level, not on a preventative level, which is what you guys are doing, which is what we're doing, which is J.R. Flatter [00:08:16]: great. Yeah. It is, a long game. It's not something that I mentioned a 100 days earlier, you're probably just starting your journey of a 1000 miles at a 100 days. So there's probably a 1000 different definitions of leadership Leadership development and culture. Tell us a story about culture. What did what is culture in the 21st century? Chrissy [00:08:38]: So one of the reasons I ended up with this organization specifically in this opportunity was Over the last decade, I had worked in an executive role with a tech company that although it was not always real clean or real perfect, We did have the ability to disagree and have discourse, so even though we didn't always agree which was often, there was still this safety around having some of these discourses and even though we weren't perfect, we were very clear that we weren't perfect. And I really, really enjoyed that environment even though it wasn't perfect. When I I got recruited to a different tech company that sort of wanted to implement some of the same structure there, and unfortunately, When we got into discussion or dialogue about, you know, maybe have you ever thought about looking at this from a different perspective? There was a lot of pushback. One time, I've even said to the owner, I said, you know, there are times when there's more than one answer to something. And they said literally, don't ever say that to me again. I didn't last there very like, I left on purpose. I was like, this is You say you want things but you don't want to put the effort into doing you want to be able to go check, we're this great employer that has this great culture and diversity, but you're just checking check boxes, you're not actually putting it into practice. So that would be the main difference of 2 cultures. Chrissy [00:10:01]: So when I met Christina, sort of just reading some of her work, coming across it, getting to know her, and then again, now being in a company that again, we we have to practice what we're preaching and we don't get it perfect either. But again, we have the safety and this vulnerability to show up with each other, to show up with our clients, to show up with whoever's involved with us and just show that that this is real life, this is how this looks in real life and we have multiple choices and we're always a work in progress. So I think that's really what culture is. If If our culture has, like, a finite date on it, like, we are forever this, I I don't think that's a culture. Like, culture should always be dynamic and evolving. Your people should always be evolving and growing. J.R. Flatter [00:10:43]: Yeah. I heard a lot of, reflection of Patrick Lencioni in your comments. Do you have the trust? Can you disagree with one another without expectation of retribution? Yeah. Good stuff. Chrissy [00:10:57]: That is why it takes time. Right? Because trust requires action over time. Right? So if you're vulnerable And it goes okay the 1st time, you gain a little bit of trust, but you have to keep doing that consistently. Otherwise, you're always going back to the bottom again. J.R. Flatter [00:11:13]: So what I think I just heard you said, I put my coaching hat on for a second, so forgive me. That if my culture is getting stronger, I'm heading in the right direction, but it's not linear. I like that. I like that a lot. Chrissy [00:11:27]: Yeah. It's a story. That's why I would say it. This is your story being written. Lucas Flatter [00:11:32]: You mentioned working in tech companies. So I know that, you know, working with developers And technical people, they might hear the words vulnerability, trust and safety, shame, those kinds of things and say, what What does that have to do with programming or, you know, what does that have to do with my job? What would you say to that kind of audience? Chrissy [00:11:56]: Well again, it was something like programming and developing which requires such intricate detail and focus and attention. If you're also worrying about your security, your safety, your ability to design, because even in programming, even though it's intricate, Programmers have their own styles too, right? So, if you don't have that culture of safety or freedom to feel like You can do what you believe is right, best for the company, and have discussions where your opinions are heard. You're not gonna Be able to give your best effort. Right? Because you're always gonna have 1 head looking over your shoulder, making sure no one's watching you just in case you make a mistake, that can increase stress. You know, it's funny with that other tech company that we had talked about doing a a team building exercise and the owners had said, I don't We're not gonna make it mandatory so don't expect everyone to come and definitely don't expect the programmers to join because that's just not gonna be their thing. Even the 1st ones that signed up and we did this, online escape room and they won because they're so smart. Right? And And I'm like, just because they sit behind the machine all day, doesn't mean they're a machine. They're still a human as well, and we should assume that they don't wanna be social or have relationships. Chrissy [00:13:13]: We should allow them to have those as well. J.R. Flatter [00:13:15]: So I've heard accountability. I've heard shame. I haven't directly heard the word coercion yet, but that's one of the Kinds of power that's available to us. Reward power is available to us. Your tech folks have expert power. I'm talking specifically you and your team. How do you help people create expectations and accountability Without coercion, without shame. Chrissy [00:13:40]: One of our favorite sayings we got from Gloria Steinem Called Ask the Turtle. I don't know if you've ever heard that story. So when she was in graduate school, she was studying to be a scientist or something like that or wildlife exercise, I kinda remember. But anyways, the point was, she saw this turtle crossing the road and she picked it up and put it back into the river and her prophet said, what are you doing? She goes, oh, I saw this thing trying to cross the road, so I just picked him up and put him back. And he said, well, no. They lay their legs they lay their eggs over there. So, really, now they're gonna take another 2 days to get that hard to get back. You actually, by not figuring out what they actually needed, you actually set them back. Chrissy [00:14:23]: 2 days. So it's really important, Did you ask the turtle? So we do that a lot with our coaching, is we make sure that if we're if we think we're getting into a prescribing place, or a careers in place. We have to ask the questions that are clear, like, if this was totally your decision, what would you wanna do? If I could just support you and just do what you want me to do, what would that look like? Just to make sure we're aligning on the same page and to make sure that if we are in a place where we have to direct more than coach because sometimes this just need to some people be a more direct approach. Making sure they're involved in that process and that they're being heard is is really really important and more than just going, hey, you got that? Is this okay with you? Are you okay? Because of course they're just gonna go, yeah, I'm good. But really asking specific questions. How does this help you? How do you feel about this? What is what is going to happen? What's the 1st step you would take? And how do you picturing that, what does that make you think of? So really helping them clarify what they're thinking, what their thought process is, and trying to get to the bottom of some of their hesitancy or making sure that myself as a leader, that I haven't gone off and not listened to them. Did that did they even want that help per se? Lucas Flatter [00:15:41]: I'm curious, And I'm stealing JR's question. He usually asks this. When you're engaging with a client and Pitching, you know, your culture can transform and everyone, you know, will be happier working here. What are some of the return on investments? What else Do we see increasing and getting better when the culture gets better? Chrissy [00:16:05]: There's a lot of cool things that get better. We had One company that started becoming more transparent around time spent at work which is which at first was taken as They're micromanaging and it's like, no, we're just making sure that we're putting resources in the right places and when it was treated as such, it wasn't like, oh, this person was late from lunch. When they didn't treat it that way and they really treat it for the purpose intended, they ended up, this company had about 60 employees and they saved about 35,000 on their payroll within 6 months, just from making sure that they were being efficient. But again, it wasn't with the point of we're gonna track your time, so you better be doing exactly what you should be doing with your time. It was more like, we wanna make sure we're spending resources, that we're spending your time wisely. So So really working at this communication piece where it didn't feel like studying your people or micromanaging were more felt like a a collaborative effort. Like, we need your information to make sure we're making the right decisions. And then when that happened and that collaborated, they ended up saving quite a bit of money. Chrissy [00:17:11]: So there's savings and time, of course. Succession, which has been really, really on point now because we do have 1 branch in Australia that does recruiting. And recruiting can be so tight that you could offer you could Do an interview, offer someone in 2 days a position and they might have already taken another one. So to make sure that we're keeping the talent that we have, especially as the workforce is changing now. Right? We're going into a different age and era. So making sure that we're Taking care of the people that we have is also showing a lot of great big benefits as far as retention, turnover, employee value proposition. We see this a lot too with How do people talk about you in the company now with Glassdoor and all these other places? Your reputation is out there. It's out there. Chrissy [00:18:01]: That's the other part of it too, is that social responsibility that you're you're doing good by employing people in a good way. J.R. Flatter [00:18:06]: Yeah. That's one of the things we talk a lot about is how do we become an employer of choice. And you use the same word that we use culture and that's story. What's the story the world's telling about you? What's the story you're telling yourself and or Are they aligned? You could tell yourself one thing and we we break that down into communication versus demonstration. You could tell whatever story you want, but are you communicating that to the world? So it's obviously if if you look at my birthday or you can see my face that I'm a baby boomer. And, you know, we're we're entering gen double a. We we got through gen z, and now we're getting gen double a. They're not yet in the workforce, But they're growing quickly. J.R. Flatter [00:18:48]: Millennials are CEOs. How do you convince a 20th century thinker like me The Gen z or a millennial might have the actual right answer and probably does. Chrissy [00:19:01]: Yeah. Again, it depends on the willingness of that person to want to hear different opinions. If it is an a resistance, then often we challenge the resistance itself. What is keeping you? What scares you about potentially being incorrect about this? Or that there's potentially another correct answer to this issue. What is it exactly? Does it and sometimes you're fine. Oh, I'm worried about becoming obsolete. The things that I love are all changing and then you can start sort of addressing some of these saboteurs that are coming up in their mind and treat them more as opportunities. Piece. Chrissy [00:19:41]: Right? Like, you're in such a great place where now you can mentor, and that now you can take what you have learned and share it with them who can share what they want to learn or what they're starting to learn or what they've experienced in their generation. Maybe you can bring those together and find those common pieces and find out what we both can learn from each other. That's really amazing. I've I was so lucky when I started my career in coaching and consulting, and, well, health and safety is where I started my career. And I was very young. I was in my early twenties. I was a female in the trucking industry. I was so lucky that they would actually ask, well, what are your thoughts? Like, well, I don't know if I'm qualified to have any yet. Chrissy [00:20:25]: They're like, oh, that's crazy because you're still a full adult that works here and you deserve to work here so of course your opinion matters. So I was very lucky to have those types of examples of leadership. Some of those people are still in my life today almost as like adopted family members. Very very lucky. With people that are, like, maybe what I see a lot of in sort of the getting close to retirement age is the hoarding of knowledge. Like, the worry that if somebody else knows what they know, they're gonna become obsolete or not needed and they're just gonna get kicked out the door. So I always try to remind them that like, no, this is your chance now to mentor and coach and share what you know with other people because there's still foundations that are never gonna change. Right? Like, if it's a core value, it's gonna stay a core value. Chrissy [00:21:15]: Some of the actions around it might look a little different as time evolves. The other thing I would also say to them too is, like, well, I you obviously care very much about position and the role that you do. So what happens tomorrow if you win the lottery? Who's gonna do this very important job exactly the way you do if nobody knows what you do. I used to say hit bypass and someone said that wasn't positive. So now I'd say, if you won the lottery and you left tomorrow, Who would pick up your briefcase and carry on? And if you really do care about this role and this work that you do, then you're gonna wanna make sure that it succeeds long after you have decided to depart from here. And that sometimes can help comfort and just show them their value and that they still very much matter and are relevant even in today's age. J.R. Flatter [00:22:02]: As often has happened in these sessions, I get coached. Hopefully, you don't send me an invoice. But, you you said something that indirectly told me changes isn't necessarily a threat, Which most human beings think that it is. It's just our instinct, but change is actually an opportunity for me. That's becoming more and more believable and more and more observable. 20 years ago when Moore's Law was in effect, Maybe not so much. I could learn to do one thing when I was 20 and expect to do it until I was 50. Those days are gone. J.R. Flatter [00:22:38]: I mean, Lucas has no expectation of that. His son, Declan, has no expectation of that. Lucas Flatter [00:22:44]: Just to think about, like, the whole person coming to the workplace, you're you wanna get to know them and what makes them tick and things like that. So On that note, is there anything, you know, hobbies wise or extracurricular wise that you're kind of a a geek about that You'd like to share and let just give us some insight. Chrissy [00:23:05]: So me as a person, as a human, well, I'm a mom. I'm a mom of teenagers, which Nobody tells you how awesome that is. Everyone says, oh, it's gonna be horrible, and then you have these 2 really funny cool humans in your house, and that's been amazing. I am a nature person, so I'm not usually behind the computer if I'm not working. So where I live, I'm about an hour away from beautiful forest in Lake District. And I spend a lot of time out there, winter, summer, spring, doesn't matter, snowshoes or hiking boots. And I spend a lot of I'm outside, in the trees, beside lakes, picking up cool rocks and cool leaves just like I was 5 years old again. That was my favorite thing to come home with little pockets full of rocks and that that just makes me happy. Chrissy [00:23:49]: So that's my thing. That's where I spend a lot of time and I do also eat plant based, so I do a lot of cooking and finding out interesting new recipes and it was really cool day because I was out for that lunch with another company here, And the other person was also at Facebook was really and we were like, Lucas Flatter [00:24:10]: Oh, you gotta go to this grocery store. Yes. Chrissy [00:24:14]: Yes. Yes. I've tried that vegan thing over there. Yes. Yes. Lucas Flatter [00:24:17]: The teenager thing jumps out as well. Any, any coaching that's carried over to your parenting in that respect? Chrissy [00:24:26]: Well, yeah. My kids are 17 and 14. And I just try to remember, I always remember that even though it may not seem important to me, the things that are important to them, they are really important to them and they are their own person. So just Rather than seeing it as who can I mold this little being into, I've seen it as discovering who this little human being is as they grow up and, you know, as they try things and see things and see what sticks, see what doesn't, and just really encourage them to know their own mind, which has been amazing for my kids and their confidence? That's really what I would encourage people to do. That can be tough if you're If you need control or you're you're worried about things getting out of hand, but it really does work. Really does work to just see them as humans themselves. It was funny, I'm struggling with them when they were a bit younger, and, I'll try not to swear. Sometimes I swear when I say this story but I'm having such a hard time because I had just gone through a divorce so things were really a mess and And I remember crying and thinking, why can't I not leave these kids? And I'm like, wait. Chrissy [00:25:38]: You're a leadership expert, supposedly. You just need to leadership these children. And that's what I did. We started having weekly family meetings where they got to bring up topics and, you know, and we didn't keep up with that routine, but it got me speaking to them a little more for me and encouraging them that they were safe to share what they thought even if it was negative feelings about, you know, our separation and all that good stuff. So it That was really turning almost like leadership isn't just this thing you do. It's it's really who you are that matters. J.R. Flatter [00:26:13]: I think, Lucas Flatter [00:26:13]: you you've been to a couple Two Roads leadership classes. Yeah. Maybe. Chrissy [00:26:19]: Been around. Yeah. A little bit. J.R. Flatter [00:26:21]: Yeah, there is a lot of similarities in your language and methodologies and not to discount you or us. But at some point and, you know, having a doctorate in leadership and leadership development, we're humans and we're Helping humans become better. Brene Brown should send us, invoice or we should send Brene Brown an invoice because we've been quoting her so much. But And Lucas Sex, he said, give give ourselves grace. I mean, I always say when I'm teaching leadership, I have the easiest job in the world and I have the hardest job in the world. The hardest job because none of us are perfect. The easiest job it's impossible to get people like us together. Talk about leadership. J.R. Flatter [00:27:04]: Talk about culture. Focus on getting better and not get better. So Very fulfilling, very joyful path and sounds like you're doing amazing work. I don't know if you're connected to our folks in Sydney. We of, some folks in Sydney as well, so we we better connect the the 2 of you. Chrissy [00:27:25]: Yes. That would be great. J.R. Flatter [00:27:27]: Well, that concludes this episode of building a coaching culture. I truly hope that this episode was helpful to you. If it was, Be sure to follow us wherever you listen to podcasts. Maybe stop and give us a rating or a review and share this podcast with someone who might find it helpful as well. Thanks again,