Our Biggest Lessons Learned in 2023

Building a Coaching Culture - #95: Our Biggest Lessons Learned in 2023 === Lucas Flatter [00:00:45]: Hey. J.R. Flatter [00:00:49]: Welcome back, everybody. JR Flatter here, as always, with my friend, Lucas. Lucas Flatter [00:00:53]: Hello. J.R. Flatter [00:00:53]: Lucas and I started working out in the mornings together. Not that we weren't exercising, but Not together. And so what did we do today? We did legs, arms and legs. Yeah. So we're gonna be sore tomorrow. So another one of these, kind of unstructured conversations about here it is nearing the end of the calendar year. And It's that time of year where you start reflecting on what was that year all about, you and I as coaches and coaching facilitators and coaching educators, leadership developers. You know, what have we learned in the last year. And I'm looking as I'm looking at my screen, I've got the curriculum of our 2 biggest courses. We teach an 80 hour course. We just graduated 85 members of a global cohort today and how different the curriculum looks today based on a year ago. And it's all based on lessons learned. When we talk about coaching, Coaching education, we talk about it in 3 circles of a Venn diagram, theory, method, and experience. So what is the theory of coaching and the theory of adult learning and the theory of how the brain works? All of that's relevant. It influences our curriculum methods. How do you teach coaching? How do you teach leadership? It's really an impossible ideal, right? How do you teach somebody to lead? Yet, here we are. And then experiences based on our own experiences as leaders and bringing those lessons. We do a lot of case studies in our training, Our education. And as I look at the curriculum, there's a lot of new case studies in here that weren't here a year ago. In a nutshell, probably the Biggest thing I've learned in the last calendar year is I'm on a lifelong journey of learning and it's real. It's something we talk about all the time, but now here I am looking at evidence of it. I don't know. What are your thoughts as we start down this path? Lucas Flatter [00:03:01]: Yeah. Mine my number one really aligns with yours, and it's kinda taken it from a different angle. But that you learn about yourself and learn about your personality through this growth of either learning a skill or putting your Your efforts to some, you know, some cause. So, like, for me, like, I've learned a lot about myself through learning guitar and singing and stuff for the past year, because that was kind of the year that it ramped up, and I was able to kind of practice more. But that's just high level for now. J.R. Flatter [00:03:38]: No. I'd love to hear more because we definitely wanna talk about the intersection of personal and professional. This one thing that we teach, and it's certainly if we're gonna talk the talk, we better walk the walk. Yeah. I've had a ton of personal growth In the last year, thankfully not, you know, physical personal growth because I'm of an age where that's a bad thing. And I'm I'm not gonna get any taller. Yeah. But it's been a really powerful year with regard to personal growth as a facilitator, as a husband, as a father. It's funny. I just told someone a couple of days ago to be a powerful, influential grandparent. So that's one of the things I learned in this calendar year. We talk about this intergenerational cycle of It's not exact, and it's told in different ways. But hard times create hard people, like powerful people, strong people. And then those people have children and raise those children in affluence, which then makes them soft. And those soft people create hard times because they're not willing to work. I think in in a grand theory, That might be possible, but I certainly think through strong leadership, you and I just spent A good portion of time talking about servant leadership. Through personal and professional servant leadership, But intergenerational now, and I'm thinking intergenerational leadership, you could easily break that cycle. Just because someone Is born into affluence. Doesn't mean they're gonna be soft and doesn't mean they're going to create Bad times because they're lazy. Lucas Flatter [00:05:33]: Yeah. I mean, I think that almost gets to, like It's like, at a certain point, do you just stop being a parent? You know? Like, oh, the kid's old enough, or, you know, they're an adult, or Or does it keep going and going and going? And that's kind of what is required of a leader or, like, you know, it It's somebody that's not gonna abandon you, and, you know, it doesn't matter if society says that you're on your own when you're 18. Like, That's something that I don't think it's, like, that ingrained in our culture, but it is certainly in other cultures. You know? They live with their parents for their whole lives. J.R. Flatter [00:06:12]: Yeah. I think about probably about when I was your age, I was working a particular job, and a gentleman walked up to me from another continent. And he said that's a stark difference in our cultures. When your children grow up, they leave, And you don't parent them anymore. In his country, you were part of the family forever, and the culture was you parented forever. I think there's a healthy mix of both in our family, I hope. Yeah. Your 89 year old grandfather, we're gonna celebrate his birthday, his 90th birthday soon. I asked him, When people say, hey, daddy, does he still look? And he says, yeah, I do because I know I do. You're a grown man with your own child and your own family, and you have a son that calls daddy every day. But when I'm in the room and he does it, I look too. It's, I think in some sense, the parenting does continue in when you are in a strong family. So that was one of my, probably one of my biggest learnings is you think about the acts of life, right? Shakespeare says we have 7 acts, And, I'm in my 5th. And my parenting act, if you will, is finished, But it's not because I have 11 grandchildren that need grandparenting. So it's kind of exciting and refreshing to see if you think about as I head into this new year. What does it mean to be an appropriate, strong grandparent? Because certainly your brother said this to me one time, because I we he and I had this similar conversation 20 years ago. He said, I get first right of refusal because he is the bearer. And I'm like, yeah, you're right. So there is an appropriateness to definitions and parameters of right and wrong. But I think there is a strong role there, intergenerationally. Lucas Flatter [00:08:23]: Yeah. I mean, even thinking about, you know, nephew, uncle, it's like thinking about what does a child need from me if, you know, even if they're not my child. Like, what do they need to hear? What do they what do I need attitude to help them. Like, it it's very interesting. J.R. Flatter [00:08:40]: You know, I'm gonna go at a 180 degrees, go straight back to to coaching For me in my own coaching, but also in my coaching education, has been this idea of the arc. And I don't know if you realize, but a year ago, we weren't even talking about the arc of a session, the arc of a relationship. But now, it's become central to our coaching in our education of other coaches And so I'll just talk about it for a second, each of them And as I'm looking at my slide deck here, right now, I have 5 of them, 5 different arcs. And this so this idea continues to grow of beginning, middle, and end, the arc of a session, the arc of a coaching relationship. So the beginning, the middle, and the end, the arc of life, as I have conversations with your grandfather and I have conversations with myself and conversations with you, We're at very different places in the arc of life. And so the coaching questions I would ask someone at a different phase, Different part of the arc of life. And so even though coaching isn't linear And the competencies that we learn how to ask powerful questions and all, they're not linear. There is a chronology of a coaching session, and there's a chronology of a coaching relationship, whether it's 5 minutes or 50 minutes, whether it's 5 minutes and or 48 months. The only relationship I'm in for life is with my family, And there are ebbs and flows even to those conversations. And so there are arcs of different phases of those. So those go into the arc of life discussion. But I think it's really powerful for a coach because the clock's not our friend. And we don't coach to the clock, but as we set aside time on our calendars, we almost certainly blocked The beginning and an end, so we have to be mindful of that. And you wanna set a good baseline For a session, we wanna support the leader we're working with, adapt to what we're hearing, respond to what we're hearing, and Create new awareness. That's that heart and soul of the arc of a session. Then finally, we don't wanna leave them hanging and say, well, it's, You know, 59 minutes after the hour, and I've got another thing in a minute. So we'll see you next week. And so that's where the arc of a session idea came from and it's matured over the last year. I think it's a really, really powerful tool, really powerful framework. Lucas Flatter [00:11:28]: Yeah. And thinking about we keep going back to like storytelling and and all that, but it's like that's the way that we relate to each other is through stories. And in, like, how do you make a narrative out of our experience that we just had and a narrative out of the experience that we had over time together? So I think if you're able to tell that story, you're able to, you know, give that person more value and give them something to carry on. And it's not just bullet points or data. It's something, like, resonant. But, I mean, that also that's kind of what I was hinting at is that, like, through like, I think about developing yourself or learning a skill a lot these days in relation to, like, the hero's journey. Like, what is the you know, this archetypal story where somebody has a goal, and then they have enemies that are trying to stop them. They have mentors, they have, you know, an ultimate conflict, and then they come back to the real world with some, you know, knowledge or some magical item or something. And just the way that we learn things. And You can think about what are your motivations, what helps you learn, what helps you grow, and what are the, you know, the enemies that are stopping you from growing and stopping you from doing what you need to do. And also just the context of that needing to take a lot of time. You know, it could take years to, like, get to the point where you're reflecting on it. So just that patience that you need, and all these things you're learning about yourself. So next time you're trying to learn something else, You can say, oh, I know that this is gonna happen. I know this is gonna help. I know this is gonna hurt. It's been really helpful just learning something new because the things I I've been learning are easier now. J.R. Flatter [00:13:27]: Yeah. You you just indirectly described the arc of a coaching relationship Almost perfectly, there's a beginning where we decide what we think we're going to accomplish together. To some extent, that has to remain a bit undefined. Occasionally, you'll go into a coaching relationship where there's an absolute, I must do this within the next 12 months, but we'll discover that together, what really we're going to accomplish together during our time together. You know, how long are we gonna be together? How often will we meet? Promising, though, if it's on the calendar, I'll show up. I'll be there for you. And then there's that heart of the relationship where you're actually accomplishing those things, discovering the necessities, discovering the challenges They have to overcome and the value that's being created. And then the end of the relationship, I rarely end a coaching relationship. We might come to the end of the formality of the of the arc of the relationship, but the door remains open, And the relationships almost always continue in one form or another. But there is a closing, there is a here's the journey we've been through together, the discoveries we've made, the growth that's been created, and, you know, some celebration. So So that was a huge, huge learning for me during this last calendar, and it and it goes straight back to the arc of life. Right now, I'm in it's kinda hard to say it out loud, but the golden years, as I look at my graphic here, and I'm you know, it's a live and it's in a live graphic that's under construction. So it's youth, adulting, and golden years right now. And so you're in the adulting years. I'm in the golden years. And certainly in my own life, but in my own coaching. I coach a lot of people in transition and very different relationships, very different questions than If I were coaching and have coached very young people who are just starting out, and if if I were to coach you, the questions I would ask you and The topics that we would bring into the coaching room would be very different depending on where I was at in the arc of my life, in the arc of your life. Lucas Flatter [00:15:55]: I had another one that came up yesterday, like but it's it's been kind of bubbling for the whole year where just like letting things go that that are just not important. And yesterday was this Wi Fi that I was setting up in the house. And and by the end of the night, I was, like, regretting spending so much time on it. And I like but while I was doing it, I was thinking, like, no. This is gonna take, you know, 20 more minutes, and I'm just gonna I'm gonna figure this out. And so I kept telling my son, my 4 year old son, like, oh, just give me give me a few minutes. Like, I'm trying to focus on this. But I told him 5 times, probably. So by the end of the night, I'm he's asleep, and I'm, like, oh, man. That was that was being, like, kind of a jerk, and I didn't even realize it. You know? Just singularly focused. But, Like, in a general sense, I've been thinking about, like, just other hobbies and things. And I was joking with my friend where it's like, some hobbies require so much of you in your, you know, blood, sweat, and tears, and it's very rewarding in the end. And other hobbies just constitute to literally just buying something, spending money. And you feel, oh, I feel pretty good about this. I spent money on this, and it's for my hobby. But it's not even comparable, you know, to, like, an actual rewarding experience. So thinking about, like, letting things go that you you think are going to fulfill certain feeling or desire. And then and then you get the real thing from either family or, like, something a rewarding experience. And then you look at the, you know, the fake version of it. And and now I'm now I'm old enough to see, like, no. That's that fake version's not even worth your time. You know, it's like just a huge time sink and a money sink. J.R. Flatter [00:17:53]: Yeah. You're almost flirting, The idea of where artificial intelligence and virtual reality might take us. This has been been the year that artificial intelligence has become part of the global genre or the global vocabulary. And This is the year that the average person has access to artificial intelligence tools. And Gaming's been getting more and more powerful throughout your lifetime, more and more real. What is that risk? I forget exactly how you phrased it a moment ago, but the real versus the fake or Lucas Flatter [00:18:35]: Yeah. It's like It kind of fulfills what you're looking for, but not to the same degree, or you know? And so you could do it forever. You could just keep going and going and going, but if you don't know what the alternative could be, you know, how good the alternative use of your time could be, you know? But that's not to say that I quit playing video games. It's just it's just not a focus as much. J.R. Flatter [00:19:07]: Yeah. That was not my intent at all to figure out out either. So take another step back into hardcore education. I'm looking at the, curriculum of our 80 hour course and how much it's changed over the past year based on what we've learned. So I guess in the last 12 calendar months, we've probably done 3 iterations of this curriculum, Again, just finishing 1 this morning and tons of lessons learned. So if you think about theory and method and experience, I've got another year of experience as a facilitator, another year of study of coaching and the brain and another year of experience of methods of what works and what doesn't work. And so this next cohort that we start, I think we have a we actually have a couple months break, so that's gonna be nice. As much as we love what we do, It's nice to take a break. But coaching, learning to coach, if you're a coach or you wanna be a coach, Nothing comes close to experiential activity. So in an 80 hour curriculum, I would say a third of it easily, if not half, is experiential time where the student coach is coaching. And that's grown over time. So if you looked at this curriculum 3 iterations ago versus The one we'll use starting early next calendar year, a lot more coaching, but a lot of refinement to what is done during that coaching. So you hear the term practice makes perfect, which is not true at all. Malcolm Gladwell says 10,000 reps makes you a master of something. Well, I agree with him. Reps make you better, but they gotta be good reps. It's if I hit a golf ball 10,000 times and I hook it 10000 Lucas Flatter [00:21:16]: times. I J.R. Flatter [00:21:16]: I haven't become a good golfer. Lucas Flatter [00:21:19]: They say, practice makes permanent now because because of what you're saying. Like, you'll be able to you know, it makes it natural. So, like, if it's wrong, it's natural, and if it's perfect. It's natural. You know? So, like, you kinda solidify the technique over time, and it could be bad technique. J.R. Flatter [00:21:40]: Because you and I were in the gym this morning, and I haven't worked out in the gym for a while. And it felt So natural. The muscle memory was still there. And so you're right. It practice made permanent. Unfortunately, all those years ago, I was practicing good form and it's still there. So I guess the same is true of our coaching, right? Practice makes permanent. I have to write that one down. So if you think about what we do, let's just break it down into our 30 hour curriculum, because that's 4 days and 4 themes. The ADR curriculum is across 16 weeks. And so it's 4 blocks of 4 weeks, same kind of themes. The fundamentals, the 1st day, you're looking at a 30 hour curriculum, lessons on tools case studies in the 2nd day. The 3rd day, all about coaching, get on the coach platform, coach, coach, coach. And then the 4th day, sewing it all together. How do we thread all of these things together? I'm always amazed, even though I've done this, We've done this so many times. How much someone can learn in 30 hours across 4 days, You would think the capacity to absorb, but it's a transformational journey even across 4 days. Across 16 weeks is especially transitional, 16 weeks and 80 hours is especially transitional, transformational. But going back to this idea of experience and getting reps and being more purposeful, one of the things that I learned as a facilitator When we're learning the fundamentals is to do exemplar coaching sessions. And again, here we go back to this idea of being an exemplar coach when none of us are perfect human beings, It's still certainly more experienced than the people just entering the class. So that 1st section, that 1st day is all exemplar coaching, A an accredited coach coaching in session and then having a conversation about What just happened? The 2nd day, we're coaching in session, but it's the students coaching the students. And then the 3rd day, it's largely we break them out into triads, short term and long term triads, where it's groups of 3, Where they coach each other and whether it's in session and exemplar Instructor to student, or the 2nd day where it's student to student, or the 3rd day when they're in triads, One of the things that we emphasize is that you're in 1 of 3 roles. You're a coach, you're a leader being coached, Or you're the coach of the coach. Because we've learned you can learn as much coaching another coach as you can actually coaching. So that 3rd section is in the triad. So the short term triad, so you're coaching strangers, In the long term triad, so you can coach across the arc of a relationship. We found that to be very powerful, That you're coaching the same people again and again and again about the same topics, digging deeper and deeper and discovering more and more Really powerful feedback on how strong that that learning is. And then the last thing, At least once in either the 30 hour boot camp or the 80 hour facilitator course, They coach the arc of a session, a 50 minute session. Is anyone who's ever coached Across the arc of an entire session knows there are ebbs and flows of energy, ebbs and flows of ideas, Big uncomfortable pauses scratching. You're looking at your toolkit and scratching for A tool to pull out to help discovery occur. So that was another learning of this last 12 calendar month is ensuring that every student gets an opportunity to coach across the arc of an entire session. So when they first start coaching, it's maybe 5 minutes, 10 minutes, then 20 minutes, then 30 minutes, and then finally, ensure that everybody gets that 50 minute. So from a methods perspective, I think that's been my greatest growth in the last 12 months. Lucas Flatter [00:26:34]: Yeah. I I have a similar feeling about, like, that experience being essential. Like, in a sense, like, the lessons and, like, the material itself when you're learning something. It's like that experience being, like, intellectualized or, like, abstracted or, you know, translated after the fact. But it's like that experience is where the lesson that's in material can give you context surround that and guide you and tell you, you know, what to look at next, but that experience is what's driving. And I also I found this I had this quote on my board earlier this year, and it's from David Bowie. He says, if you feel safe in the area you're working in, you're not working in the right area. Always go a little further into the water than you feel you're capable of. And he says, when your feet are not quite touching the bottom, you're just about in the right place to do something exciting. That feeling of, like, you keep describing jumping off the 10 meter tower. Like, That's where the growth is. So if if you've been doing something a long time and you feel like you're at a plateau and you're stagnating, it's like you know you need to go challenge yourself. You know? J.R. Flatter [00:27:50]: Yeah. I'm gonna have to get you to coach me on the next 12 months because you've learned to play the guitar In the last 12 months, and I've I finally need to learn how to speak Spanish. Yeah. We can do that. Secret It's not like Lucas Flatter [00:28:09]: The secret is it's taken more than 1 year. You know, it's just like it's just like revealing itself stuff now, but it yeah. It takes longer than a year. Well, I've J.R. Flatter [00:28:18]: only been married married to a native Spanish speaker for 40 years. So, Lucas Flatter [00:28:24]: yeah. We'll figure it out, though. J.R. Flatter [00:28:26]: Yeah. We gotta figure out how to break that plateau. I I couldn't agree with Bowie more. We talk about courage, And leadership and coaching require courage. Growth, we talk a lot about growth. Growth requires discomfort. We talked about it in the gym this morning, right? When you're lifting weights, you're tearing the muscular cells, And that's the way they grow. You create that discomfort, and you don't tear them to the point of devastating injury, but you tear them enough Where when they rebuild themselves, they're larger and more powerful. And that's what a coaching journey is, whether it's being coached, learning to coach, educating coaches. What was this? What was the phrase? Having your toes just above the Lucas Flatter [00:29:20]: When you feel that your feet are not quite or not quite touching the bottom, you're just about in the right place to do something exciting. And, yeah, that that that excitement too of realizing, oh, man, I just had a breakthrough, you know? J.R. Flatter [00:29:36]: Yeah. The 4th slide in every class we teach, whether it's the 80 hour course, 30 hours course, mentor coaching, asynchronous fundamentals. The 4 slides always, this journey will change your life, personally and professionally. I think as this calendar year comes to a close, I feel stronger than ever about that. Anyone listening, anyone watching, Anyone who knows anyone who's thinking about getting a coach, becoming a coach, Educating coaches, the journey will change your life personally and professionally. I'm more and more convinced about that than ever. I think it was probably about 12 months ago where I started putting that slide into the decks. And when I first started doing it, I was so uncomfortable, but I was confident that it was true. But now I'm just Absolutely convinced. I'll tell you a quick story. I just graduated, I guess I think Said twice already, but we graduated class this morning of 85 students. And one of the most, how do I describe this person Positively, because it is a positive relationship, questioning people. What about this and what about that? And what about this and what about that? And when you're facilitating a course over 16 weeks and the same person keeps saying, what about this and what about that? And you're like, Is this person going to transform themselves? Is this gonna be the one time we go through and we read the roster of graduates? His wife is standing next to him in the video jumping up and down and cheering. Like, yes. Yes. I was so excited for him and for her and for the class and for this ideal that we teach to Yes. This journey will change your life. So all the things I've learned in the last 12 months personally and professionally, that ranks right up there near the top. So I'll let you take Lucas Flatter [00:31:53]: us home. Yeah. I mean, I think I think that this all relates to it. Like, back to coaching, like, that introspection and like, we can't have those conversations about, like, how have I changed over the last year, like, without regularly having these introspective moments and, you know, journaling, taking notes. Thing. So I do believe that, like, like, coaching alongside these, you know, other things in your life and your profession, it kinda it's like this positive feedback loop. You know, the more that you grow in one area, the more that it supports you in another. So I think it's it's all very rewarding. J.R. Flatter [00:32:38]: You just threaded a needle for me that, we were talking about an hour and a half ago, This relationship between service, leadership, and love, and the fulfillment that comes with that. Yeah. So you just threaded all that together. Alright, my friend. Lucas Flatter [00:32:53]: Cool. Thank you. J.R. Flatter [00:32:55]: Great session. 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 review and share this podcast with someone who might find it helpful as well. Thanks again, and we'll see you next Lucas Flatter [00:33:20]: time.