Managing the Way

This week on the podcast we have Brett Putter. Brett chats with me about all things culture. He is the CEO of Culture Gene and has a large emphasis on making sure people fit in the culture their company creates. It was a great conversation about what this looks like, the best practices of culture, and what to look for when joining a company, or changing your culture from the leadership perspective. He also talks about his books that focus on making culture unique and valuable. Click here for the link.

Find Brett on his website Culture Gene or email him at [email protected]

Full transcription below (May contain typos...):
[00:00:00] Brett: [00:00:00] But you couldn't really take one. They can copy it because that would be copying somebody else's culture and that doesn't work like that. You can't copy another company's culture. Your culture is unique to you.  

Keerstyn: [00:00:11] Welcome to the podcast, Brett. I am really excited that you're here today. Can you just tell us a bit more about how you got involved in it work and then what you do now?

To really change the world that 

NA: [00:00:21] we live in today. 

Brett: [00:00:23] Yeah, sure. Thanks, Kristen. It's great to be involved. And thanks for having me. I prior to setting up culture, Jean, I ran an executive search firm for 16 years based out of London and I worked with high growth, early stage companies. And I was lucky enough about five years ago now to work with three companies almost in a row where the leaders had a very clear understanding of the culture of the company.

And so I was asked to find candidates that had specific skills, experiences, et cetera, et cetera. But also I was asked to find candidates [00:01:00] that matched the values of the company. And this was a much harder search to do, but the process and the interviews, and then the resulting impact that the hand the candidates had on the companies was like a wow moment for me.

There was just that much better, and that's where I started really digging deep into company culture. And a year later I started culture, Jean. I interviewed had to speak to 500 companies to interview just over 50 CEOs of high growth companies that had done a very good job of embedding their culture.

I've written two books on the subject now and yeah, we've got a software driven process that we run with companies to help them define embed and manage their culture. 

Keerstyn: [00:01:40] Yeah. So I guess one of my first questions would be where was like, what differentiates really good culture from like mediocre culture.

Obviously everyone can say that they have good culture and actually most companies do. But what does that almost defining line of? This is an amazing culture and companies are really thriving from it too. This is a [00:02:00] mediocre culture and they can obviously 

NA: [00:02:01] do better. 

Brett: [00:02:04] Okay. So there's only the only time.

A good or bad culture is a relevant question is in relation to me or you would, I enjoy working there or not, but within a company, there's no such thing as a good culture. There is only a functional or a dysfunctional culture, a strong or a weak culture. So a strong culture may not be the kind of company I would want to work in.

So for example, the mafia. Have a very strong culture and I wouldn't want to work in it. So it's not good for me, but it is still a very strong, functional culture. Scientology has a strong culture, but I wouldn't want to work in that environment either. So the way to look at culture is it strong and functional?

And what strong means is it's clearly defined it's everybody loves it. It's really embedded into the leadership team, the general [00:03:00] team, the functions and processes of the business and a functional culture means that the way we do things actually accelerates the business. Rather than decelerates the business.

So an example of a dysfunctional culture might be a company where there is a lot of politicking going on and the politics ends up slowing the company down because it's more about me, the individual versus the company. So you can have a strong, dysfunctional culture. Or a weak functional culture and a mix of those.

So my, from my experience that the stronger the culture, the more the leadership team and the CEO and work on it, focus on it. They embed it, they treat it like a business function and the weaker, dysfunctional cultures, the CEOs leave it to develop by default and don't rarely treat it respected in any way.

Keerstyn: [00:03:58] Yeah. That's [00:04:00] thank you for that differential or differentiation. I think that's really good to understand because oftentimes people say I want to be part of a great culture and that's obviously we can't just say you want to be part of a great culture. You need to look more in depth about it. So yeah, I guess what are some of those things that people should be looking for when they're looking for.

For jobs, like how did they see their own personal, like what they want in a culture and how do they define that? And how do they look for that in a company? Just like you have done with multiple 

NA: [00:04:31] companies in the past. 

Brett: [00:04:33] Yeah. So this actually isn't is is not an easy question to answer, really.

Especially if you're a candidate, because most candidates haven't actually gone through the process of really defining their values. They feel that this may be good or not. And frankly, most companies will have done some of the superficial stuff around the values and mission and vision, but they don't embed it.

But if I was interviewing for a position now I would be asking [00:05:00] these companies, tell me about. Your culture. And I would ask each individual, I interviewed with these questions in exactly the same way and look for consistency. So I'd say, describe your culture. Tell me why you work at this company. If you what's the one thing you could change, if you could change anything in this company and why.

Okay. All your values and mission and vision lived in the company. And the reality is the person you are, who's interviewing you. The person you're talking to will, will be honest in the most cases with you, because they don't want you to join the company. And then you realize they lied. So you can ask these questions.

Maybe not like pretty harmless questions, unless of course the company doesn't have a very strong culture and you can then dig a little bit deeper by asking each person  these questions. What I would do now particularly is I'd be asking, what are you [00:06:00] doing around transitioning to remote work or hybrid work?

What are your communication tools look like and how synchronous versus asynchronous is your communication? What does the documentation look like? What are your processes defined? I would be going into this sort of level of detail because if a company isn't transitioning to a hybrid or remote environment they will not have these in place.

Which means that it's much harder for me to do my job if I want to work remotely some of the time or all of the time. And so companies now that are building strong cultures for hybrid environments are the ones who are going to be able to attract the best talent. It used to be campuses and three food and et cetera, et cetera.

Now it's going to be your culture. Tell me how your is in getting enabled me to work. 

Keerstyn: [00:06:59] Ye...

On our podcast this week we have Dick Hannasch, IFC Professional Coach. Dick not only is known for his humor, but he is also known for getting down to the true problems that your company may face. Dick talks about his style of teaching by focusing on each individual and their needs but also gives good examples of what investing in each party, manager and employee, looks like and how to do it well. ADD LINK

Find Dick on his website!

Full transcription below (may contain typos...):
[00:00:00] Dick: [00:00:00] What got you here? Won't get you there. You need to recognize that every time that you're making a shift, a step up in level, that there are probably some things that you need to do a little bit differently. 

Keerstyn: [00:00:10] welcome to the podcast stick. I am so excited that you're here today with us. Do you want to give us a brief background of how you got involved in your work and then what you do now? 

Dick: [00:00:19] Sure. I've been with principal financial group in Des Moines, financial services for fortune 500 firm.

I've done training and development my entire career. And back in the late 1990s, I got asked to facilitate a coaching training class to teach coaching skills to other people. And then fast forward, about six or seven years, our company decided that we will offer internal coaching to people who are considered targeted talent.

And a few people got to start in on that coaching work and they decided the program was going so well that they said we should expand this and invite some more people to be coaches. And one of the people said we should invite Dick to do it because he's great at teaching these coaching skills.

And so a person came to me and [00:01:00] said, do you want to help with this? And I said, sure. And then after about two years of doing that, they decided they would send seven or eight of us to coaching training. And we've been doing coaching for individual leaders and also some individual contributors inside the company.

I think for, I think it's 14 years now, all in all. So it's just gotten farther along, more involved since that time. 

Keerstyn: [00:01:24] Awesome. So that's quite a different way of doing it. We've often had just business coaches that have been external and then they walk into a company, but you are internal, although you do some external as well.

Correct? That's correct. Yeah. Yeah. So that's really interesting. So what made the company just like start realizing that they did need coaching 

Dick: [00:01:42] within. What it really stemmed from was we knew that it's important to grow talent, talented leadership in the organization. And it had been proven for quite some time that men during help people quite a bit, but then also more recent research at that time.

It said, Hey, [00:02:00] coaching is getting to be more involved. It's a lot of people hiring executive coaches, leadership coaches. And so the company said, should we start on an investment in that way? And let's try it out and see how it goes. And so the first group of people that they invited to participate, I think it was only something like eight people all in all and people responded well to that.

And so they said we should probably offer this to more. So it's just become something that's been part of our leadership pipeline or there's I think at our peak, we had eight people doing internal coaching. Each of us taking between six and eight clients per year for an engagement of a three to six to nine months, depending on the individual and their need.

So that's kinda how it came to be. The company just realized this is a good investment. We can do it at a low cost, as long as we get the right people in here. And w if we can identify people who are willing to work with a coach. 

Keerstyn: [00:02:50] Absolutely. Absolutely. So what was that first? That it's really interesting when they first initially started that.

What was the first. Group of people where [00:03:00] they like the top leaders in the industry where they, the middle managers, 

Dick: [00:03:03] this was middle-management people really. So in a lot of companies that might be like assistant director or department director type role. So below a vice president or assistant vice president level, but everybody in a leadership position, we figured these are people who are still trying to emerge as leadership talent, trying to find their way along.

And so helping them get their feet under them a little bit more round out their leadership skills would be a helpful way to ensure that they're growing and being successful as they're doing it. And so gradually grow them into a larger leadership position. 

Keerstyn: [00:03:37] Yeah, absolutely. And what were some of those skills that you were teaching?

Obviously there's so many skills that coaches can teach you today. 

Dick: [00:03:44] That's an interesting part about our approach there too. There is some that all of us who were asked to come and do this training, where people who were had a training and development background in some ways. The performance and all of us had been in a leadership role in some way as well.

So starting with that training and [00:04:00] development background, I think we went into it with a mindset that we're going to try to problem solve and help fix a little bit, which is really the antithesis of coaching. We're going to be instructing But over time we figured out, it's really great to ask the questions and get them to discover their own answers.

And if we find out that they have a knowledge gap, a skill gap with our training and development background, we could offer ideas or we could offer to say, let's take off our coaching hat right now. Let's put our training hat or let's introduce a tool or a technique that you can try out with your people, with your team.

And so we wound up going that way. And the types of things that people would want help with might be how can I develop the talent that reports to me? How can I be a more strategic thinker? I got paid to be an executer. I got to my leadership role because I was good at completing projects and you're having an impact, but now I've got to lead people.

And how do I do that differently than what I've done? We've helped people with building their professional presence, helped them even figure out how do I deal with my. Boss or how do I prioritize my [00:05:00] work? So those are some of the problems, but all in all, what we really shifted to is how can we help you grow?

How can we help you become more effective as a leader in and build it based on your values, what you want to accomplish, fit with your personality type. So recognize where does your personality play as a strength for you and where does some aspect of your personality or your values possibly work against you?

So it's going to take you more. More mental energy more time, or you're going to have to be more deliberate about being disciplined and getting yourself to do it. For example, if I'm a, if I'm an executer, I love to execute. I want to get right down to the task right down to the project, but I've moved into a leadership role and now I've got to set and drive strategy for my team.

Then maybe I've got to figure out how do I make sure that I carve out that time? And do the necessary strategic planning. How do I carve out the time so that I tie people or get people connected to that connected to that strategy and then let them execute it s...

This week on our podcast we have Kevin Suboski. Kevin talks about how to create a true leadership team, and it is not what you might think a leadership team looks like. Kevin goes in depth on why a group of managers aren’t just a leadership team, and that there are more traits that we often overlook. Kevin shares how groups of managers often struggle to work together simply because they often have similar personalities. When we create leadership teams that look different through personalities, we find that these teams are more creative, communicate better, and bring more ideas to the table. Click here to hear more about what diverse leadership teams look like from Kevin.

Find Kevin on his website!

Full transcription below (may contain typos...):
Kevin: [00:00:00] [00:00:00] So I think it's more effective to think about. Rather than being one or the other, that you have roles where in those roles you have management moves and leadership moves. There's typically any role where you have authority where you're specific, you're taking accountability for some piece of the organization.

Keerstyn: [00:00:25] Okay. Welcome to the podcast, Kevin. We are so excited to have you here today. Do you want to give us a brief intro of how you got involved in your work and what you do now?

Kevin: [00:00:35] Brief intro. Sure. I'll try to keep it brief. So I started my career in it and I met in my twenties, a venture capitalist. And heard what he did, helping businesses strategically. And I just really fell in love with that idea, really being flying it 50,000 feet with business owners and helping them design their business.

And. [00:01:00] Strategy. And so I began my lifelong push to get to be so that I could do that kind of work. And took me through lots of twists and turns. I started a business in 1994 to, to do it. And so I really. I really took that on as an opportunity to learn, to be a CEO my best. And so I studied in California with an organization called about entrepreneurship innovation and leadership and had coaches for nine years and just really studied on how to be a great CEO and just found that I.

Was less excited about it than I was about business. And so about 14 years ago, I left that business and started focusing on helping entrepreneurs. And so that's the brief answer. I was a brief [00:02:00] enough, 

Keerstyn: [00:02:00] that's brief enough. That works. So I guess what were some of those things that led you to want to become a CEO and then where were some of those?

I guess. Expectations that weren't met when you were in that position, but what did that mean when I 

was 

Kevin: [00:02:16] in the position with my company? Yes. Yeah. So what are some of the things? I think people who are entrepreneurs, there's a certain kind of personality type and. I, creative, visionary a little add, I think get bored easily, all these sorts of characteristics.

I think if you meet an entrepreneur, there's a certain kind of person. And I just found that I loved that kind of person and love being around them. And I couldn't say the same thing about mid-level it managers, I just. And, why do people like one kind of person over another? I don't know.

I just found [00:03:00] that the work that they were doing, the authenticity of entrepreneurs, the raw passion, the dedication to, in my experience, generally, entrepreneurs are really trying to solve some problem in the world. And I love that and I love the integrity of that and authenticity. And so for me, it was much more about designing my life and my work to be more satisfying.

And and so I think the thing that I discovered along the way was just people I want to hang out with and be of service to 

Keerstyn: [00:03:36] yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. So now you're an EOS implementer. Do you want to explain EOS a bit and just give a brief background and understand what that. 

Kevin: [00:03:48] Yeah.

So I want to explain that in the context of how I got involved with EOS, because I have always been much more interested in fundamental distinctions ways of [00:04:00] thinking about, I was always curious, when you look at one leader compared to another, and one of them is more successful, it's  how did they think?

What did they what's going on in their mind? And I was always interested in the mental models. Great leaders had. And so how they think. And so that's why I went down the path that I did in terms of studying biology, especially in neurology philosophy and Linda linguistics, studying the fundamentals of human behavior and innovation, entrepreneurship, and leadership.

And so in studying that, it became really potent for me and my business. And that's the kind of, that's the stuff that to this day makes the difference in. And the stuff that I love and what I found was a lot of people. When I would go and talk to them about the things that I'd learned, they'd say that's great, Kevin, those are great ideas, but right.

My hair's on fire. I got stuff to do. Tell me what to do tomorrow. And so what I found was people really struggling with the fundamental blocking and tackling of [00:05:00] business. And  that, that's what they really needed help with today. And then as soon as they put the fires out, then we can talk about being great.

But for now we've got to get things going. So EOS entrepreneurial operating system is a set of tools and practices to help people. Who are maybe great at the work that they do, but aren't great at business. Don't have the background, the training, the expertise to run a business, and EOS does a set of principles, tools, and tactics.

It says, just do these things and you'll run your business. Okay. 

Keerstyn: [00:05:31] Yeah. So I heard you say that you use science and philosophy and you studied all of those things, but clients were coming to you saying we need to fight these fires now.

Not necessarily. Yeah. In the future. How do you now fight those fires in the moment, but then also apply these higher level things of EOS in the 

Kevin: [00:05:51] process. Gotcha. Okay. I know that to be successful as a leader you have to know where you're going. And so I know that [00:06:00] from a sort of fundamental being human kind of perspective, where we are meaning machines we think about the future, what we want to accomplish, and we do that through language. And so the way this shows up in businesses, you have to have a vision for where you're going.

And the problem is people don't necessarily know what that means or how to do it. So with EOS, there's a very specific tool called the vision traction organizer that says just let's break this down for. So forget about these, talking about narrative and linguistics, all that. Thanks, Kevin.

That's really cool. And all, what is my core values? What am I? What's my core focus. What's my ten-year target. Break it down into very understandable set of questions that if you answer those questions, then you will have a vision and you will create an image of the future that will at a very fundamental level mobilize you and to create a future.

And so when I work with people, a lot of what I'm looking at [00:07:00] is if they're if they're trying to succeed in business, I'm going to pay attention to. W why it isn't working for them. And so they're going to look at it and say, it might be I'm I don't have finance, I can't hire a person, whatever.

And I'm going to look at what are they thinking are missing? And so if somebody does, isn't passio...

This week we have Tim Lansford, a business coach dedicated to helping people finding their bottom line expectations and then going from there. In business, we often have different expectations circling around the office. For example, take a look at people's expectations about going back to the office post-covid, they are all over the place. Tim explains how he works his clients through getting on the same page with their expectations and moving from there. It can be hard, but also rewarding when your team starts to collaborate through better communication. 

Find Tim on:
Linkedin
His website

Full transcription below (may contain typos...):
[00:00:00] Tim: [00:00:00] They don't know where to start, and that's where we come in and help them establish a baseline and then work Program through them where they can increase whatever the different problem or, morale to, to, bad attitudes to whatever's going on in their thing.

 Keerstyn: [00:00:13] Welcome to the podcast, Tim. We are so excited to have you here today. Do you want to give us a brief intro and what you do, how you got involved in your work and help, who you helped serve 

Tim: [00:00:24] now?

Not a problem. I would love to thanks for having me on today. A little bit about me. I've got a pretty diverse background. Currently I have three companies. I have a webinar and training company where it was a seminar company. It's I call it more webinar company nowadays for the pandemic on, on, but it is an online training. It is a full service training and development company. A lot of my coaching clients and stuff come out of that full service training company through the seminars and webinars that I do. That's where I get a lot of my clients. And through, through trainings and through dealing with my computer consultant company.

So all of that sort of [00:01:00] wrapped into one company. And then I have actually another couple of companies that don't fit anywhere close to that. I have a real estate company, small little boutique real estate company. And then I'm also having a construction company as well. Very diverse people don't think that the construction company and the online training company really good Robin, they always scratch their head when they hear that.

But that's just my three companies got a very diverse background. You name an industry I've pretty much been in it. And over the last 30 years from, I had a small corporate career, I've worked for myself for about 25 years now. And other than that I'd like to have fun and enjoy and walks on the beach and all that good stuff.

So anywhere I'm nowhere close to the beach. 

Keerstyn: [00:01:40] Absolutely. So I guess, could you tell us a bit more about that training and development company? What are some of the key things that you discussed during different webinars or seminars for that matter? What does the training, what kind of development are you specifically focusing on those types of things?

Tim: [00:01:57] Yeah, I do quite a bit. I do about 30 different [00:02:00] subjects actually. So it's all wrapped around. One of my companies is called blast seminars, it's business leadership and sales training. So it covers the full gamut of business from all the way into a management training management consulting marketing.

I go down through sales training. Go through all the leadership aspects we would get into personalities, the difficult people, all the, the seminars are out there in the world. We pretty much do all of them. Problem solving you name it. We we put a spin on it in our own way and take care of it.

Keerstyn: [00:02:32] Yeah, that's interesting. So during this weird COVID-19 time pandemic, how has your training shifted through that opposite? I've heard a lot of people are either having a really good experience or not necessarily great one. But what have you guys been doing to help. Move that forward and get people to the right 

Tim: [00:02:51] spots.

Technically we I've had a great time with it. I've enjoyed it. To the point where I've got small kids, I've got five-year-old twins and a boy and [00:03:00] girl. So I love it for him. Cause you know I try to schedule my thing where I'd be out on the road two, three days a week on the beginning of the week and maybe two, three days on the end of next week.

So I could spend a lot of time with them and then concentrate on some of my other companies as well. But you know that at this point, where I can just do my. My online trainings and here in my home studio and then walk back out and, lightsaber battle with my kid during a 10 minute break and eat lunch with them.

That's a, that's an awesome thing for me from that standpoint. And I'm just getting a lot done. I, I. I, it's a weird time and that we are we're at with all the pandemic, but for me, it's been awesome. I've been when going through the process of rebranding getting a lot of the stuff done that I did not have the time to do it.

Regrouping, getting organized. Getting a lot of the house projects done, of course, right through my wife or, and all this stuff that she wants me to do, but it's been a great time for business, and I loved it. I was in the process of ramping up more on the online stuff, when the pandemic came about.

So I had a lot of the equipment, a lot of the. My studio set up. [00:04:00] So it was just a natural transition to me to really throw me into it. There's still a lot of learning curves, a lot of stuff I learned in research every day, but I find it I'm finding it awesome right now. So yeah, I'm all about it. So  I'm doing, anywhere from three to four webinars online, full day webinars every week.

And it's, I'm staying really busy. 

Keerstyn: [00:04:19] Yeah. So those webinars, do you take people through a different topics in them? What are some of 

Tim: [00:04:25] those topics? Yeah, it just depends on the client that I'm doing. They go through a catalog or something for what they want to do. And we do from, mom and pop companies.

I do a lot of government training, a lot of military training, a lot of government entities all the way through, fortune 500 companies. You name it. It's not one distinct market. That we really concentrate on it from the training aspect. The consulting and stuff is a little bit, I can have a lot of ties into the construction industry and the national association of home builders and stuff.

So I get a lot of consulting in the construction industry, which ties into a lot of my coaching clients, a lot [00:05:00] of my marketing clients and but you'd be surprised a lot of the coaching clients come from a lot of my training seminars, which has government and Just regular, business, through HR managers and stuff like that, they have a need where they have a problem, problem employee that they want to do some correction on or put them through a course.

And that's where we do it. 

Keerstyn: [00:05:17] Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So to talk a bit more about the coaching aspect of that business, what are some of those problems and pains that the coaching people are coming to you with and then how do you get them to that? That better spot? What are, what does that look like?

Tim: [00:05:32] Yeah. If it's through one of my HR managers or something, usually it's a problem child it's a bad attitude or something they're having problems with our team. Maybe that team member or...

This week we have Monte Wyatt on the podcast to talk about choosing a culture to create and refine during work from home. Monte goes into details about how to do this well. From making consistent efforts to having one on ones to engaging your team through virtual team building. Monte recently also wrote a book titled Pulling Profits out of a Hat. He talks a bit more about the book and what inspired him to write it.

Find Monte on his website!

Full transcription below: (may contain typos)

[00:00:00] Monte: [00:00:00] That, that's a fabulous question because. Leaders of business needs to need to coach their team on how to work through mentally this aspect of it.

And when I say mentally it's getting people to share what's concerning them and too many times managers, business leaders, whatever they. They don't have time for that. We have to make time for what are your concerns right now? And how can I help you through that? That's a big piece of leadership. 

Keerstyn: [00:00:29] hi Monte. Welcome to the podcast.

We are so excited to have you here today to learn a bit more. Bit more about what you do and how you got involved in the work. Do you want us, or do you want to give us a little bit of a brief bio intro of how you got involved in your work and what you do 

Monte: [00:00:45] now? Sure. I'm a farm boy from Iowa, my dad and my brothers still farm corn soybeans and hogs.

And I actually went to Iowa state and studied agricultural business. And I spent 14 years in agricultural [00:01:00] industry in different positions from sales, training, sales management, marketing management lived in five, six places around the country. The downside of all that is I traveled most of my time.

So in 2004, I said that was enough. And because of my career path that I had in that organization, and some of my ambitions, I chose to be a, an executive leadership coach back in 2004. And so the last 16 years have been focused on helping CEOs and executives, teams bring clarity to how they lead and manage their organizations.

And  focus on helping them to think differently, act differently and create greater discipline in their organizations. So how about that as a start? That 

Keerstyn: [00:01:46] sounds great. So the first question I have for you are when your clients come to you, obviously they have a few problems. What are those problems that they're experiencing?

There may be more than one. Do you want to just explain a few of those [00:02:00] and those pain points that they're struggling with? 

Monte: [00:02:02] Sure. I've, I'll give a couple of examples of clients. I had one that I'll give a couple here. One is they approached me and said, do you help with customer service?

And I said, absolutely, of course. And so I sat down with the CEO and the executive team and dug a little bit deeper into what they were thinking around customer service. And it was actually. It's really much deeper than customer service. And  became about their culture. It became about do they have goal setting?

It came about that they've been stagnant in their growth. And so it was a number of things, but they saw it as a surface issue of customer service. And we found a number of ways that we're going to improve that another client They were getting ready to transition the company.

One gentlemen was going to retire as he was leading the company. And another gentleman was moving into that chair. And so they wanted a clear strategy. And so a lot of what I do is I help people create their strategy and [00:03:00] help them implement it. But the strategy encompasses their people side. It encompasses who we are, where we're going and how we will succeed.

Keerstyn: [00:03:10] Yeah, absolutely. So during this COVID-19 thing, what has, is Ben, some of those issues, I guess we could call them that they have experienced to transition to this new, normal, so to speak. And how have you successfully done that? 

Monte: [00:03:27] Think every business on the planet is in this place right now where they have to reevaluate their strategy.

And what I mean by that is, what are the products and services that we're offering? And who is the core customer, especially as we're coming out of this and opening up the world. We really have to be more specific on who do we want to be talking to? Who do we want to be interacting with?

And so that we are focused and who is the right audience that want our products or need our products at this point in time. So I'm [00:04:00] focusing every one of my clients and even prospects to, to really rethink what is our strategy of how we're going to win. Because that includes our services or products or core customer and how will we fulfill it?

Because we have to think differently on how we're fulfilling  our products and services. It may be more remotely. It may be more carefully. However, we need to look at that. So it's a really rethinking everything in this new world. 

Keerstyn: [00:04:27] Yeah, absolutely. And then in terms of that employee engagement side too, is what have you been doing in that realm to really engage those employees?

Get them on a new level of engagement too, because I'm sure that many of them are not used to working from home or being so technologically 

Monte: [00:04:45] involved. Yeah, that is an interesting thing. And every business is so different when it comes to the team. But what I'm focusing on again is what is the culture that we're choosing to create through this?

And when I say culture, we choose it [00:05:00] and then we have to change our behaviors to try to really implement it. Right now, communication is probably the biggest thing that every business needs to focus on. Not just communication of how should we be wearing the mask and how do we interact with other people, but communication on what we're doing as a company to ensure that we are sustainable longterm.

And that is communication is so powerful right now in some organizations that's the big challenge for them. And it really doesn't take that much. It just takes some thinking and some some consistency that, that needs to be done regarding communication. So I think that's a big one, but I also believe that.

A company needs to help the employees understand that we care about them during this time. And if a company isn't showing that we care about them and their safety and their health, we're making decisions based on that. That's good. And I impact engagement and let them share their [00:06:00] frustrations.

That doesn't mean their frustrations are wrong. And that doesn't mean they're right, but people need and want to be heard and then we can take their inputs and see how does that help us continue to grow in how we interact and communicate. So I think that's a big part of his listening, communication, communicating, and showing that we care, especially right now.

Yeah, 

Keerstyn: [00:06:24] absolutely. So that almost goes into coaching to coaching your team. Not necessarily you, you are coaching because you are a business coach, but also then helping your, the teams understand how to coach, what have you been doing in that realm? 

Monte: [00:06:39] That, that's a fabulous question because. Leaders of business needs to need to coach their team on how to work through mentally this aspect of it.

And when I say mentally it's getting people to share what's concerning them and too many ...

Rob Taylor joined the podcast to talk about the how to fit and fill the right seats in your organization. Not only does this mean that an individual in a role has the skills to do so but it also means the individuals core values are similar to the company’s. This is important for your company, but also for you as a manager. Rob discusses what this looks like and gives applicable answers on how to make sure your people are aligning!

Find Rob on his website!

Full transcription below: (May contain typo's)

[00:00:00] Rob: [00:00:00] So we started looking at, okay, what's the, what are they really good at? What are their strengths? What are their, where else do we have and are structured where we have an opening where we could use their skills set better, their unique abilities 

Keerstyn: [00:00:15] welcome to the podcast, Rob Taylor, we are so excited to have you here today. Can you please give us just a brief  explanation of what you do, how you got involved in your work, that type of 

Rob: [00:00:24] thing.

Sure , I'm Rob Taylor of Taylor management systems. I'm their president, and we're an organization that as an EOS implementer, we help business owners and leaders of companies get what they want from their business. ,whether their dreams, their passions, or their lifelong life term goals, whatever that is passion is, we enable them to.

How the company a lot be aligned , and to achieve those goals, , we complete proven system with simple practical tools that give them their leadership team. Initially what we call vision, [00:01:00] traction and healthy vision, and that their harps on the same page with where they're all going and their plan to get there.

So they're aligned and we get them traction and that they're accountable and disciplined in achieving that vision together. And that they're healthy and therapy cohesive, functional team that actually likes to work together because a lot of times with strong leaders, they struggle to get along. , we worked with that leadership team and we push it down to the system.

So they see the vision being achieved with accountability and discipline with teams that are having fun working together. , that's the high level. , we do other things as well, management systems and coaching and development of leaders and managers. But we do most of that now through us.

That's the system that we see that helps. It's a proven process. It provides focus and alignment. It really helps them execute and achieve that vision better than anything I've ever seen. 

Keerstyn: [00:01:56] Yeah. So for our listeners, do you want to explain EOS? , [00:02:00] some people might not know exactly what that is 

 or all the parts of that are involved in 

Rob: [00:02:05] it. Yeah. As an EOS implementer, EOS is an entrepreneurial operating system. Check it out at eosworldwide.com. It's a, and again, it's an operating system that helps companies run their company. It's a proven process. It's simple practical tools. It works. It simply works.

It does provide that focus on alignment.  and so to answer your question, Keerstyn, it's a system operating system, which is a great way of, we know about operating systems that are software, if you're the founder of a business, you have this , you're a startup and you're starting to become, that next stage business and you're growing.

You find out that one person, two people, five. 10, the complexity increases dramatically. And the, that dream starts that you start to I'm the energy gets sucked out of that dream, just for dealing with people, issues [00:03:00] and problems and process issues and accountability. And it's a system that helps owners not only run the business, but get what they 

Keerstyn: [00:03:09] want.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So then why is your role in that U S implementation? 

Rob: [00:03:16] Sure, sure. The target markets are entrepreneurial businesses, teams that are open-minded their growth oriented. Maybe they're frustrated things aren't working, they want help.

So we're providing the answers to those issues, where. My role as an implementer, I used to be called a consultant. I've done a lot of consulting over the years to see,  what I felt was good advice. To  be listened to. I appreciate it, but not for me. We executed on not implemented quite right.

This is a system that I helped them implement that they use to run the [00:04:00] company, to help them grow and develop as leaders so that they're self sufficient. We're teaching them to fish to use that analogy. 

Keerstyn: [00:04:10] Interesting. Okay. So how long is this EOS process laid out us? I'm actually with 

Rob: [00:04:15] you? Yeah. my goal, depending on the company is two, two and a half years to have them be, if not sooner, to be self sufficient, I have clients that still want me to keep on with them and help them keep growing.

that they get to a certain point. They hit that ceiling. They want to keep growing. This EOS is designed to help them keep going and growing. But on average companies, two, two and a half years of, quarterly visits. Yeah. Getting them up and going. At some point they can kick off the training wheels if they are so inclined, which hopefully they are at some point and they can do it themselves.

Yeah, 

Keerstyn: [00:04:54] absolutely. Absolutely. So you've touched on this already, but what are some of those pain points that they're [00:05:00] experiencing and then how do you get them? Or what are some of those things that they feel after they work with 

you? 

Rob: [00:05:06] we're dealing with people, mostly we're dealing with, people who are growth oriented and leading and, they have ideas and so we're helping them get aligned or helping them.

Have a clear focus for what is that? Maybe 10 years down the road, somewhere between five in 20 years. What's the longterm goal that big, hairy, audacious goal to use a Jim Collins concept from good to great. And to be focused on that and to. address that plan, get it clear, make sure they are focused on it and make sure they're, by being focused on that, aligned on it, that filters out things that maybe they shouldn't be doing.

So the frustrations that we see up front, the, the people issues, accountability issues, communication issues, [00:06:00] we're driving them to be focused, which helps and time. Address those issues. And we talk about the six key components of a business, which is part of the answer to your question is by being strong, having a strong or I should say a great vision.

If you want to be a great company, to have a great vision, you have to also have great people. You have to have data to help, where you're at and be achieving your goals. You have to be great at solving problem solving. You have to be great at your processes being consistently followed by all.

And you have to have some kind of way of executing on your plans that helps address those issues. Yeah, 

Keerstyn: [00:06:41] absolutely. Do you want to go through those six key components? 

Rob: [00:06:45] yeah. So they're the first, which I mentioned vision is that. In that the aligned agreement, the focus on the longterm vision of the company, that's going to be, we're looking at the core values of [00:07:00] the company.

What are the principles by whi...

This week on the podcast we are talking to Rachel Johnson. I really enjoyed talking to her specifically about driving vision in organizations. We all have heard the story about the big company planning day that results in a 100 page document of company goals, visions, and plans for the future, but oftentimes this book is not implemented. Rachel gives some advice on how to not only slim that never ending document down, but how to also make it genuinely achievable for you, your company and your employees. 

Where to find Rachel:

• Her website

Full transcription below (May contain typos):

[00:00:00] Rachel: [00:00:00] The last probably two or three weeks. I've noticed a lot of individuals reaching out to say, okay, This pandemic kicked me on my butt and I realized I didn't have as much of a handle on my business as I thought I did. So now they're looking for ways to make sure that what, whatever external factors, would help.  

Keerstyn: [00:00:27] Welcome to the podcast day, Rachel.

I'm really excited that you're here with us. Do you want to just give me a brief background of how you got involved in your work and then what you do now? 

Rachel: [00:00:36] Sure. So I have a non-traditional pathway to business coaching. I was an executive of a nonprofit for a good chunk of my career. And I was also a clinical therapist and we needed to turn that organization around and I hired an EOS implementer.

[00:01:00] So once we started working with the EOS implementer, what I noticed was I had a lot of skillset that really helped us in that leadership team. So it was just one of those things that it untapped. Some potential in me and I started to see myself outside of the box. I had put myself in and so long story short, a few years later, I decided to pursue EOS after I had implemented it.

And then was the integrator in my organization for a little over five years. 

Keerstyn: [00:01:36] Cool. That's really interesting. So what were some of those like pain points initially that you were feeling when you did implement it into your nonprofit organization? 

Rachel: [00:01:46] So the pain points was really getting the buy-in from my entire leadership team.

So having, you're implementing anything new, especially with the organization, that's been through a significant amount of change already. We had a lot of [00:02:00] turnover in leadership bringing on anything out, there was a lot of skeptic skepticism, and I had to work extra hard to get the buy-in from my leadership team.

And then you also had us talking a lot about raising the bar and that was a scary thought for individuals that, we weren't, we didn't really know what that meant. So all of a sudden there was like a job security along with that. So we had to really define what that meant. And in most cases, Raising the bar increasing our accountability.

And in most of the time, that's what everyone was looking for. The frustration and the lack of morale around the team came from. Inconsistent accountability. So it just took a lot of time. It took a lot of consistency on my part to make sure that I was sticking with it. [00:03:00] And that was tough because like I said, I had a lot of leaders around me that I respect and and they were not on board to begin with.

So I had to be really strong in my conviction with that. Yeah, absolutely. 

Keerstyn: [00:03:13] So how does that translate now with the teams that you're working with within organizations? What are some of those things that you can take away and then apply them to the organizations that you work with after? 

Rachel: [00:03:24] I think my biggest strength in working with them is I can almost feel exactly that apprehension.

So from that very beginning step when I'm just initially. Meeting with clients and the leadership team. I can feel the skepticism. I can feel the apprehension, the anxiety. And I really come from just that relatable source. Like I've been there, I've been in your seats. And so sometimes when you're really calling that out and acknowledging that, your changing the way that you're going to run your business, that is.

[00:04:00] That's not something you take lightly. I understand there's a lot of anxiety in the room and there's probably a lot of people that think I'm full of crap right now. So yeah, some of it out because I had those Frank conversations before, and I think that helps some of my clients, because.

When I'm giving examples, I'm not just giving examples about this perfect entrepreneur that I worked with. I'm giving examples from myself in the mistakes that I made when I was implementing EOS or I'm. Making sure that they understand. I was a leader of an organization that was not doing well.

We're not perfect. We all need a little bit of help. So I think that makes it a little bit more relatable. 

Keerstyn: [00:04:50] Yeah, absolutely. I could totally see that being more relatable and then people build your, their trust in you and realize that you've been there before and have walked through the mud, [00:05:00] so to speak.

Absolutely. So what are some of those things that obviously we've talked about the pains, what are some of those things that really get people like? This is actually working. We're excited about this now, and we really want to continue to pursue 

Rachel: [00:05:12] EOS. I think right off the bat, the way that people structure their meetings, for example.

So we use something called level 10 meetings, and it's a very specific agenda. It helps drive the accountability. It helps keep that vision at the forefront. And the reason why I think that's the best thing. Cause  it really helps you get traction right off the ground. And a lot of organizations and companies, they go through a really long strategic planning process.

And then you have a four or five, six page strategic plan that's sitting on somebody's desk, but how do you actually implement that? What is your day to day look like? So that everyone is driving that vision and there's accountable. So [00:06:00] that level 10 Meeting agenda. And another frustration for teams that I hear in one of my lines is, do you ever feel like you're meeting for the sake of meeting and then you're having another meeting for the sake of meeting and then and that happened.

Or just any,  you, and then you ended up talking about the same issue. There's lack of resolution. Nobody's taking that plan of attack. And there's such a frustration with employees because they feel like they spend most of their working time jumping from meeting to meeting and rarely are they solving.

And getting any traction, moving through the weeks. So that level 10 meeting and really showing how all of these moving pieces come together and how you can productively and efficiently spend the time with your team so that you're not constantly putting out fires throughout the week. And it saves a lot, through the week.

Yeah, 

Keerstyn: [00:06:59] absolutely. I've [00:07:00] heard one thing of people entrepreneurs said I'd rather not necessarily work on my business, like work in my business, but work on my business. And I think that you're stating that pretty well of working on the business and having it grow versus fighting every fire out every day.

I'm trying to just stay afloat for 

Rachel: [00:07:20] sure. And it's hard to pull people out because once you're in the weeds, And you're i...

Rebecca joins us today to discuss the challenges HR managers face in the corporate world, how important culture really is and the reality of what HR work looks like.  She shares what she loved most about HR and what finally caused her to step away and start a new coaching/consulting career.

Where to find Rebecca:

• Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/rebeccaschabot
• Her website: https://www.blythetalent.com/
• Her other website: https://www.makeworkmorehuman.com/

Transcription below (May contain typos...):

[00:00:00] Rachel: [00:00:00] I've always viewed that our role in HR is really to try to balance that, that. We are there to take care of our employees and to understand their needs and to hear things from their perspective and to really advocate for them at times. And there are times where, you uncover in a situation that it's appropriate to advocate for the leader or for the organization.

And I think our job is to really enter those situations as best as possible. With a balanced view and to get, facts and information, and really hear from both parties and then understand in any given moment who really needs the advocacy and the support and who needs coaching and redirection.

And sometimes it's the employee, but sometimes it's the leader.  [00:01:00]

Matt: [00:01:19] Good morning, Rebecca. I'm so glad to have you on the show today and really looking forward to talking to you about your life experience and what you've come from and where you've been. And just for those of you who don't know Rebecca is an agent has been in HR for over 20 years here.

In the area, advising business leaders and coaches and developing people and helping senior leadership really create more positive environments and helping shape that kind of organizational culture and inclusion. And all of the things that we know are key kind of topics these days. And Rebecca's kind of come into a new path.

She's taken a new route in her life right now and has come on as a as a coach [00:02:00] in her life. And I just want to know a lot more about that. Rebecca, first of all, tell me a little bit about herself and your background. Where are you? Where are you from? And 

what's 

Rachel: [00:02:08] your deal. Yeah. Thanks Matt.

I appreciate you having me on today. So I am a Michigander born and raised and have lived all over the state of Michigan. So I love grand Rapids. It's been my home for almost 20 years. However, it's not where I was born. So I was an import into the region 20 years ago. Back when a time when there wasn't a lot of imports in the region, that's obviously changed over the last number of years.

And I grew up all over the state mid in Northern Michigan, small towns, primarily, and then went to college in Detroit and kicked off my career there and then moved to West Michigan, really to get closer to family. And I love the outdoors. So just a more green space over here, but from a professional standpoint as you said, I've spent a little over 20 years in HR [00:03:00] and really in the generalist side.

So for those of you don't know what any church on those days there. A role where people do all areas of HR, everything from, employee relations comp and benefits leadership development, training, really everything in HR. And that was my career. Just over time, it grew from a position of an individual contributor to certainly leading, a couple of individuals working for me and then gradually to leading a team and more of an organization.

And so that's what I've done and working in a variety of industries, so started in technology and started there for a number of years and then moved into manufacturing. And then more recently in the construction industry. So three hat industry 

Matt: [00:03:49] kinda ran the gamut of of industries here for this area, especially I find it interesting that we've talked to before.

HR and some of those things and the correlations between [00:04:00] really the HR side of people development and kind of the coaching type role of people development, because what I've seen and just knowing from what I know, which is very little, and I'd love to hear more about your opinion on it. There's the structure, HR has to have a lot of structure and you've got to make sure that these things are done and that the T's are crossed and the I's are dotted.

And. For the business coverage side and also for the employee. Tell me a little bit about the struggle just faced in the industry, in HR with keeping both of those. I want to keep, the person are really close, but I know I have to protect the organization. 

Rachel: [00:04:36] Yeah. Yeah. It's a classic tension in the function.

And I think that my I've always viewed that our role in HR is really to try to balance that, that. We are there to take care of our employees and to understand their needs and to hear things from their perspective and to really advocate for them at times. And there are times where, [00:05:00] you uncover in a situation that it's appropriate to advocate for the leader or for the organization.

And I think our job is to really enter those situations as best as possible. With a balanced view and to get, facts and information, and really hear from both parties and then understand in any given moment who really needs the advocacy and the support and who needs coaching and redirection.

And sometimes it's the employee, but sometimes it's the leader. 

Matt: [00:05:28] That's a tough balance. I I can't imagine it. And it just, since that it would be difficult for some people to really do that well. And so I'm just always impressed with with HR directors who have done that successfully.

As long as they have, yeah. Almost have to have that personality piece, but you have to have that structure and some of that critical thinking and some of those things, so kudos to you on that. So question for you, this is the most fun question I ever have. So obviously you're passionate about people.

What took you from this 20 plus [00:06:00] years of HR experience to walk out one day and be like, you know what, I'm gonna do my own thing. I'm going to, I'm going to go into coaching and tell me about that moment. Yeah. 

Rachel: [00:06:09] So great question.  Would say that, I've worked in large and small organizations.

And as I said earlier, all different kinds of industries, but the thing that I've found pretty universal about my experience and I feel really blessed and thankful to have experienced this in my career. I can honestly say that all the organizations I've worked for really believed that their people were their differentiator.

And as a result, believe that culture really mattered. And that, that was critical to attracting and retaining and developing the best talent. And so I, had the chance to operate within that in a corporate environment. But the reality is in traditional HR, what you often spend a lot of time doing is, firefighting, crisis management.

Policy, [00:07:00] a lot of the stuff that, as you said earlier, has to get done and is necessary and as part of structure and process, but ultimately is not the most enjoyable aspect of your job. And so when I thought about the days where I was excited to go to work, or the days where I would come home, really energized to talk with my husband about my day, It was really always a day where I had come a...

Tim joins us today to talk about how better conversations lead to better relationships, which in turn lead to more engaged employees.  Companies and managers who understand and embrace this philosophy will experience better relationship and better culture and ultimately a positive impact to the company bottom line. 

Where to find Tim:

• [email protected]
• www.realretention.com
• Conversational Management Certification coming in February

Transcription below (May contain typos...):

[00:00:00] Tim: [00:00:00] But if you really want your organization to flourish, you have to have better relationships. And if you are going to have better relationships, you have to have better conversations. And that's really what coaching focuses on. 

Matt: [00:00:14] Good morning. This is Matt Cunningham and I am with Tim Cosby today on our podcast. And I'm excited to have Tim here with us. Tim is the owner and founder of real retention and as a fantastic coach and author and a speaker and educator. So I've known Tim for quite some time now, and we've just become great friends, as well as just having the opportunity to do some work together.

And I'm excited this morning to have Tim join us. So Tim, welcome and thanks for yeah. 

Tim: [00:00:43] Hey, thanks Matt. Thanks for having me on appreciate it. Yeah, 

Matt: [00:00:47] absolutely. So one of the things I wanted to start out this morning with is I've known you for a little while now, and I know a little bit about where you came from in your past and career and things like that, but.

Tell the other people what got you into [00:01:00] coaching, what your career path was and how you got where you are today? 

Tim: [00:01:04] Yeah. Good question. I've always wanted to help people grow and so throughout my career, I've done some work for some nonprofits. I've been in higher education. I've worked with, teenagers work with college age students and.

All along the way, my focus has been really to help people flourish. So 10 years ago I started a coaching practice because I thought that coaching was really. Probably the most effective way to help people move from where they are to where they want to be. That was in 2010. And what happened through all of that is through that, just the experience of learning, how to coach and coaching people.

I've met people along the way and realize that this coaching approach that. I learned was [00:02:00] something that could easily be transferred to leaders in organizations and having worked for a number of organizations throughout my career. I realized that most of the leaders that I worked with really didn't know how to do this.

And so they, they were more focused on telling and kind of command and control and I'm the expert. And I'll just tell you what to do and that kind of a thing. And I never really felt that was very effective. So along the way, my co-founder and I, Mike McGreevy realized that this approach that we had learned in coaching of helping people to change without telling them what to do was really effective.

With managers, with parents, with teachers, with whoever, it doesn't really matter what you do. This approach was really helpful because it helps you to build better relationships with people. And [00:03:00] that way the people that are in your circle, the influence are more likely to stay around a lot longer. So in 2016, we started I started another company called real retention.

We first started out training people to coach. So we were training professional coaches along the way, which we still do. But we decided let's just focus specifically on organizations and specifically on helping managers. To develop a new way of relating and building relationships with employees so that they could keep their employees longer.

So we just said let's call it real retention. And we're just going to help companies retain their best people. So that was in 2016. And we're still doing that. It's 

Matt: [00:03:49] incredible. Thanks for sharing this story. First of all it's incredible to see that something as simplistic as having better relationships might actually help you keep your people.

[00:04:00] I think oftentimes people don't realize how important the value of a relationship is. So as you discovered that as you've gone through the last four years of this this process, what are some of the big aha moments you've had? 

Tim: [00:04:12] Yeah, good question. I think one of the biggest things that we realized along the way was that if you want your company to flourish and and grow, and he does if you don't, then I guess there's other things that we could talk about.

But if you really want your organization to flourish, you have to have better relationships. And if you are going to have better relationships, you have to have better conversations. And that's really what coaching focuses on. And so we developed a product called conversational management because we felt that at the end of the day, everything comes back to conversations.

And if we could help leaders, managers, whoever have better conversations with [00:05:00] people to build better relationships and build, trust that at the end of the day everybody was going to win. So that was a huge aha. In fact, what we realized is that what we're doing is really like an operating system.

For engagement in organizations. It's not another program and there's plenty of programs out there for management development and engagement and all those kinds of things. But I think what we're bringing to the table is something deeper than that. It's this operating system upon which every program operates out of.

And that was a really important aha moment. For us, because we realized that what we're doing is really core. Gotcha. 

Matt: [00:05:46] Incredible. So this operating system is really the foundation to moving forward and in that relationship structure, in that conversational structure. 

Tim: [00:05:54] Yeah. And I think, the whole thing of operating system, maybe 10 years ago didn't make as [00:06:00] much sense as it does now, I've got an iPhone sitting right here in front of me and every once in a while you get these notices that you have to update.

Date your operating system. And what I've realized is that I've got a lot of apps on my phone and on my laptop, I've got a lot of programs, but if I want all of those programs to work well together, I need a really good operating system. And apple and HP and all these other companies are doing there.

They're just creating better operating systems. So everything works better together. That's what we bring to the table. 

Matt: [00:06:36] Okay. Wow. Wow. And what kind of success have you seen? When you go into these companies and you're like, Hey, I got an operating system and you need to figure this out. And this is a pretty good thing.

Or, you tell me a little bit more about how that looks and what kind of success you've been. 

Tim: [00:06:50] Yeah back in 2016, of course, as things have changed quite a bit since 2016, I feel like it's a completely different [00:07:00] world. Isn't it? 

Matt: [00:07:01] Things changed quite a bit since since yesterday. So 2016 was a long time ago.

Tim: [00:07:07] Yeah. Wow. Maybe we can talk about that in a few minutes, but in 2016, what was happening was there were a...

Leslie joins us to talk about the frustrations around poor communication, ineffective conflict management, and how to position oneself to work from strengths and passion.  Each of us has our own "superpower" to bring to our workplace.  Often these "superpowers" go unnoticed and unrecognized.  Leslie shares her mission to help female leaders uncover their brilliance, identify their strengths, and create a roadmap for change in their professional and personal lives.

Where to find Leslie:

• Her Website: www.coachwithleslie.com
• Her Event: https://www.eventbrite.com/x/uncover-your-brilliance-your-road-map-to-your-best-year-ever-in-2021-tickets-132094077943
• Her online course: https://ecademy.nspiredignite.com/courses/the-3-ps-to-mastering-difficult-conversations  
  • Now through the end of the year use the coupon code HappyHolidays10 to save 10% off

Transcription below (May contain typos...):

[00:00:00] Leslie: [00:00:00] And I really want to help people maximize their productivity and their focus and work in their area of strength, which I like to call their superpower because when we're working in our super power, it's amazing. And I know from personal experience, when I try to step out of that and do something that is not really a good fit for me, I get myself in trouble. 

Matt: [00:00:24] This week on the podcast, we're joined by Leslie . Leslie owns a coaching practice called coach with Leslie. She's, a dynamic speaker and trainer with over 30 years of experience, helping employers solve their trickiest people problems to delivers a message that focuses on helping groups, build trust, reduce conflict, and enhance workplace relationships.

I'm thrilled that today, that we're talking about her new program called uncover your brilliance, which is all about you and stepping into a place where you can find your super power. We're so glad to have you, Leslie.

Leslie, welcome it is good [00:01:00] to see you today. And I'm really excited to spend some time with you and talk through a little bit about who you are. And, so this is the managing the way podcast we are, you're with way point in, we are here today with.

 Leslie theater, Enzo. I always try to say that very clearly. Leslie was a, has been a friend of mine for quite some time now. And, I guess going on three or four years, I think, through the chamber of commerce and, support in Jackson, Michigan, and her parents moved her here when she was about four years old.

And now she lives in Wyoming, Michigan with her husband, known as Butch and, their adult daughter lives three miles away, which is really cool. They get to walk every day, which 

Leslie: [00:01:41] I think is awesome. Three 

Matt: [00:01:44] Oh three to okay. Three miles away. That's right. Three, three miles away. Three tenths of a mile away.

Oh, like right down the road. 

Leslie: [00:01:50] Yeah. Yeah. That's fantastic. 

Matt: [00:01:53] and I know that you started your career, as a payroll clerk, this is fun, a fun fact. it looks like [00:02:00] your original job was located where the Amway grand Plaza is now, correct? 

Leslie: [00:02:04] Yes. Obviously they tore down the building to build the towers.

Matt: [00:02:09] Yeah, super cool. And then that kind of led you into HR and some different things and, moves just in that direction. So that's super cool. And I can't believe that. you've lived here a long time and it's really a, it's a great city. So tell me a little bit, I like to know just a little bit share with, with us a little bit about you and what got you where you are today and your career went into HR after that.

It looks like. And yeah. Share with me a little bit about your career path and how you got where you are now. 

Leslie: [00:02:39] Sure. So this will date me, but when I first, my first real job was as a payroll clerk for, F Randabel company, 10 texts corporation, and I typed. The payroll checks on a manual typewriter and to use the books, to look up the tax codes for payroll deductions.

And it was [00:03:00] well before computer and automated payroll. So it took me, most of the week to get probably a hundred checks prepared and tightened out for distribution. yeah. it's a whole different world working nowadays, especially like this was stuff of the future and the Jetsons, 

Matt: [00:03:18] That's what the Jetsons. Absolutely. 

Leslie: [00:03:20] Absolutely. Yeah. 

Matt: [00:03:23] Very cool. And so how long have you been doing what you're doing? 

Leslie: [00:03:25] I launched my own coaching practice in March. two weeks before the shutdown order came up box you're 

Matt: [00:03:34] like, that was the best decision of my life. 

Leslie: [00:03:36] It was the best decision of my life because it was a decision that had been planned.

to move forward and that they came and I just pulled the trigger. but I'd done a lot of work, for a long time, very similar work. it's just me right now. Okay. And working with leaders, Help them really be their best. So the name of my particular coaching program [00:04:00] is called uncover your brilliant.

And I really want to help people maximize their productivity and their focus and work in their area of strength, which I like to call their superpower because when we're working in our super power, it's amazing. And I know from personal experience, when I try to step out of that and do something that is not really a good fit for me, I get myself in trouble.

And I can tell you a couple of stories if you want, but I think most people can relate to that. If they've done any kind of professional development, any kind of assessment, I've worked with a number of different assessment tools over the years, U S use a couple in my practice to help people if they don't know what those are to hone in on them.

sure. Really maximize that because to me, that's what it's all about. If I can spend most of my day, 80% of my day. Working in my area of genius, I can serve so many other [00:05:00] people. This is true of anybody. And really move the ball forward as opposed to getting stuck, being anxious, being uncertain, telling myself all kinds of stories that are not true.

Yeah. 

Matt: [00:05:14] I think a lot of people can get caught up in that. so I'm curious about two things, really. one. I know your background as HR and you were there a long time. How do you go from this HR people development, people help side to your coaching practice or, you know what you're doing now?

First question. So I'll let you answer that one. And then I have a secondary question. 

Leslie: [00:05:37] it's really what I've always done, Matt. I've just done it for my employers in working with people. because if anybody listening to this podcast is in HR, that the call comes or the knock on the door comes and here's my issue.

Here's my problem. Help me solve it. And sometimes people just want to complain. Sometimes they don't want a solution. but more [00:06:00] often than not, people just are not sure what ...