1 in 3 Promotions Fail? Let's Fix That! - Adam Walz Guest Hosting with Kent as guest!

Today is a unique episode. Future guest, Adam Walz, is guest hosting today with me, Kent Kniebel, as the guest!

We've got a real gem for you today: we're diving into the nitty-gritty of why a shocking one in three promotions tank within the first 18 months, and trust me, it’s a topic that hits home for a lot of us. Our expert guest is here to lay down some solid insights on how organizations can step up their game and actually support leaders in making those tricky transitions from one level to the next. We chat about the staggering costs associated with failed promotions—think $200,000 to even $5 million—and how investing in coaching could be a game-changer. Seriously, it's like paying a small ticket price to avoid a massive concert disaster. Plus, we sprinkle in some personal stories and practical tips that can help anyone navigating the wild world of leadership. So, grab your headphones, kick back, and let’s unpack this crucial convo on leadership growth together!

Diving into the world of leadership transitions can feel like jumping into the deep end without a life jacket. The conversation really heats up around the challenges newly promoted leaders face when stepping up their game. Kent and Adam share their personal experiences, revealing that just because someone was a superstar in one role doesn’t mean they’ll shine in the next. The duo highlights the alarming statistic that about one in three promotions end in failure, often due to a lack of support. They advocate for a proactive approach to coaching, suggesting that organizations should invest in resources to help new leaders navigate their roles successfully. From hiring a coach to creating a support network, the guys emphasize the importance of not just winging it and instead, fostering an environment where asking for help is seen as a strength, not a weakness. It’s all about setting leaders up for success, and they stress the need for companies to acknowledge that transitioning to a new role requires different skills and approaches.

But that’s not all! The episode also touches on the financial implications of leadership failures—ranging from hundreds of thousands to even millions of dollars lost due to poor transitions. They frame this in terms of risk management, equating the investment in coaching as a safety net against potentially catastrophic losses. Kent shares his thoughts on the necessity of recognizing the value of coaching—not just for the individual but for the organization as a whole. They drive home the point that investing in leadership development is not just a cost; it’s a strategic decision that can save money and improve organizational health in the long run.

As they wrap up, Kent and Adam remind listeners of the importance of building a community of support for new leaders. They suggest that sharing experiences, asking for advice, and being transparent about the challenges can make a huge difference in navigating those tough waters of leadership. It’s a refreshing take on what it means to step up and really lead, and it’s packed with actionable insights for anyone looking to enhance their leadership journey. So, whether you’re a new leader or someone supporting one, this episode is a must-listen for valuable tips on making those transitions smoother and more successful!

Takeaways:

• Investing in a leadership coach can save you big bucks in the long run, trust me.
• Transitioning to a new leadership role is tough; don’t hesitate to ask for help or guidance.
• Companies often give more support to external hires than to internally promoted leaders, which is wild!
• Many organizations fail to provide proper coaching for new leaders, leading to costly failures.
• Internal promotions have a higher success rate when leaders receive more systematic support during their transition.
• Understanding the difference in responsibilities at each leadership level is key to...

Episode Transcript

(00:04):
I actually would be a hugeadvocate for it. You know, working
with some of the biggerhouses, you're going to end up paying
20 to 30 grand for six monthsof coaching. And I would say even
in the case of it, this beingon the lower end of a loss, right.
Let's say we think this lossis, you know, a $200,000 failure,

(00:26):
even 30 grand against that isonly 15%. And so from an insurance
perspective, even if you wereto hire a $30,000 coach, $30,000
to save yourself the pain of200, 600, or even a 5 million dollar
cost, it's a hedge, it's adrop in the bucket. Right? Hi there

(00:49):
and welcome to the Step ExpertVoices for Leadership Growth. I'm
your host, Kent Knievel. Everyweek I talk to experts who focus
on helping leaders step uptheir leadership game. If you're
new to the show, then onwhatever platform you're using, I
encourage you to subscribe soyou never miss an episode. One last
thing. As a leadershipdevelopment consultant and executive
coach, I have a particularinterest in supporting recent internally

(01:11):
promoted leaders. If that'syou, or if you support a leader who
has been recently promoted, Iencourage you to visit my website
at Kent Coach Playbook anddownload a free copy of my 90 day
blueprint filled withpractical advice for you or the leader
you support in hitting theground running and truly stepping
up to their new leadershiplevel. Without further ado, on with
the show.

(01:33):
Welcome everyone into anotherexciting episode of the Step up podcast.
I'm not Kent Knieble, but I'mexcited to be here with the man,
Ken Knieble. We go way back tothe PDI days. I guess this is a little
bit of like a late night show,talk show host takeover. Yeah. I
don't know if I'm StephenColbert or who I'm supposed to be

(01:53):
today, but anyways, buddy,it's good to see you. How you doing?
I'm great. I'm great. Thankyou. So I think for the audience,
right. Adam and I are formercoworkers, good friends, and Adam
agreed to come on today as theguest host for this episode.
I'm so used to being thesidekick, so making me the main character,

(02:14):
man, this is amazing. This iscorporate sidequest coming to real
life right here.
I like it. So, but before I gointo my intro and we'll have you
on in the future, but whydon't you tell the audience a little
bit about yourself firstbefore I fully turn everything over
to you?
Yeah. So for folks that arefollowing Kent, but Who have no clue
who this guy is. So I spentabout 20 years in the leadership

(02:35):
development space. So Istarted my career at Personnel Decisions
International pdi. For anyalum out there, I'm actually a Midwestern
guy, so born and raised inSouth Dakota. So if you've been out
to the Black Hills area, seeMount Rushmore and all that. And
then I migrated over toMinnesota. So I went to the University
of Minnesota, did myundergrad, my graduate. I think at

(02:56):
one time I talked Kent intojoining the, the Masters of Education
program there in the Humanresource partner. What's up? What's
up? So anyways, love, love mytime in the Midwest, but man, 12
frozen cold, blizzardy tundraslater, like I'm, I'm out. Peace.
So I thought I might move toNew York or Chicago or San Francisco.

(03:16):
Started falling in love withthe idea of San Francisco. But then
I got a call from Susie Brock,someone who was coaching us, a dear,
dear friend at the time. Andshe said, what do you think about
something further west of SanFrancisco? Like what? Like Hawaii?
What, what are we, what do we,what are we talking about, Susie?
And she mentioned that therewas an opportunity in Hong Kong.
So that actually took me on.You know, I thought it was going

(03:37):
to be a six month chapter, afive year chapter out in Asia Pacific
starting kind of servicinggreater China. So a lot of time based
out of Hong Kong and theneventually an APAC wide role where
I was cruising around todifferent cultures, different countries,
supporting leadershipassessment, leadership development,
succession, kind of the, thewhole kit and caboodle. At that time

(03:58):
Korn Ferry had also acquiredpdi. So I kind of have both experiences
kind of living at hq, alsogoing out to a, out to a field office
and then eventually made itback to the U.S. found my home in
San Francisco. I've been outhere for about a decade. We made
a pandemic move, let's call itabout five years ago to the suburbs.

(04:19):
And I'm a suburban dad withyou know, salt and pepper beard and
doing the things, man. Soanyways, and then I should say the
last six years of my 20 yearcareer was at Autodesk. So I dreamed
kind of the technology sector,a phenomenal company, really do a
lot of things right when itcomes to culture DEI leadership development,

(04:40):
just supporting and building agreat place to work. So I led the
manager enablement or managerdevelopment, so built programs to
help people that went fromindividual contributors to first
time managers and alsopartnered with several people to
do some kind of bespoke offsites you know, speak with senior
leaders, talk talent, all thethings, man. So it's a great ride.

(05:02):
And then maybe I'll end here.Last year, I was part of the tech
layoffs, right? The statisticsthat everyone has seen in the. In
the newspaper articles and allthe TikTok reels, that was me. So
my wife and I, inside of sixdays, both lost our jobs. Two different
tech companies, two differentsituations, but went from two w,
two incomes to nothing. Andanyway, we. We kind of looked at

(05:26):
each other. We were a littlepanicked in the moment. We went to
Asia to go see her family. Wetook some time off to think about
it, and then she doubled down.She's finishing, actually. She's
on her last chapter, but she'swriting a personal memoir in a book
about her life coming fromVietnam and coming over to the States.
She actually is an alumni ofthe University of Minnesota, which
is kind of crazy. We nevermet. I don't know if you know that

(05:48):
or not, but we met at a comedyclub in Hong Kong. We were both doing
comedy at the time. And, and,and anyways, I decided to double
down in real estate. So I amactually, as you're talking to me
right now, we're recordingthis kind of mid late October. I'm
under contract on my firstboutique hotel. So. Talk about strapping
on, you know, your learningshoes. And, you know, I think the

(06:11):
best coaches, the bestconsultants, like, they've done it
before. So anyways, I'll. I'llstop there, but hopefully that's
a little bit of a taste of whothis guy is. I'm usually the sidekick,
but thank you so much, Kent,for having me on today to again guest
host and hear a little bitabout you, by the way, because I
think you do such a nice jobon the Step up podcast of featuring
other people and sharing theirstories. But quite frankly, I think

(06:33):
it's. It's time that somebodyshot that camera right back at you,
brother.
So, yeah, I appreciate. And Iwas. I was going to say it's giving
me an appreciation for beingon the other side. I've only guessed
it on one other podcastbefore, and you would think this
would be a lot easier, buteven in our pre conversation, I'm
like, how exactly is thisgoing to go so well? We'll see. We'll

(06:54):
see. I feel like. I feel likeI'm in good hands. I feel like I'm
in good hands.
Absolutely. Absolutely. Well,look, you know, we don't need to
start all the way back in thecrib or anything like that, but you
know, you, you heard my lifestory in three minutes. So give us
your story, man. Like, wheredoes it all start for you? What were
some of the big majorchapters? And. And why are you doing
what you're doing today?

(07:16):
Yeah, yeah, thank you. I'lltry to keep it simple enough, but
I will shout out and say, hey,if you're interested in real estate
and purchasing a boutiquehotel, Adam puts out some really
cool posts on LinkedIn, kindof along the journey of getting this
hotel. So would it encouragepeople to go check that out? So,
but about me again, I willrelinquish control again. So I am

(07:39):
affectionately, in what I callchapter three of my career, chapter
one. Similarly to you, Adam,being almost 10 years with PDI and
Korn Ferry. So nobody startstheir career at, at least at PDI
at the time. So I would say a,I was among the youngest consultants
there back in 06 when I joinedand really learned the assessment

(08:05):
side of the business. So Ispent a big chunk of time doing simulation
based assessments forselection development. I think you
and I really met pretty earlyon, but particularly when I started
dipping my toes intoleadership development workshops,
facilitation, got involved insome succession, high potential consulting
while I was there and to keepthe story shorter, managed a team

(08:29):
for some time while I wasthere. And I like to say a, my very
first team that I evermanaged, my very first management
experience was with a virtualteam. And this was pre, pre ubiquitous
webinar technology like teamsor Zoom. So this was, you know, primarily
phone calls managing people.

(08:50):
We're still, we're still doingthe, yeah, that little alien telecom
thing in the middle of aconference hall going, yeah, okay,
yeah. Are you, are you there?John? Are you there? Are you on the
phone?
Exactly. Oftentimes directdialing sometimes. And I still remember
putting the phone number,comma, access code on people's calendars.

(09:14):
So if they were lucky, if theywere lucky enough to be using a smartphone,
you could click the button andit would dial and pause and put your
code in and remember that real quick.
Just because this is fun forme to kind of go down memory. Was
it Harry Brule that did like,had a secretary that didn't do emails
or. I remember coming in andLuke was, I mean, an amazing, legendary

(09:35):
figure. Got a ton ofmentoring, coaching from him. But
like, he was, he showed me hislike, calendar and it was still pen
and paper. Like I felt like wewere, like, we were literally coming
in. Like I was born in 81, soI'm 44. Like we're this interesting
generation where we're comingin where everyone was used to fax
machines, pager, like the oldanalog world. And then we showed

(09:59):
up as kind of young bucksgoing, hey, put me in coach. And
by the way, everyone's got nohair or gray hair and are talking
about their hips and theirgrandchildren and I are 20 year olds
going unmarried.
No children when we first gotthere. Yeah.
And by the way, like all ofour peer group, I don't know if this
is true for you, but like, youknow, they took jobs at Best Buy,

(10:19):
at General Mills, at Target.They're 20 year olds hanging out
with 20 year olds. Meanwhile,you and I are like, you know, getting,
getting a caesar salad with 65year olds. Now, now, again, not to
disparage, but just to pointout it was a very 100 interesting
world to grow up in. And whatI think, you know, again, like talk
about just a learning cauldronwhere like, you know, we went from

(10:41):
zero to a thousand very, veryquickly. Yeah. And I do remember
you when you got a teambecause we talked about as you're
transitioning. I wasremembering Ken. You used to, you
saw his rock. A tie, if I'mnot mistaken. Like you, you were,
you dressed so impressively.
Yeah. Yes. Shirt and tie atall times. And a lot more, a little
less gray hair and a lot moregel or pomade. Mad Men was very popular

(11:05):
at the time. I think I wentthere with that, with that haircut.
No, really good point thoughbecause I don't think I play that
up enough. I don't think Italk about that enough. So yes, I
mean to talk about Harry aswell. I think he was dictating his
reports into. Exactly stilland having someone else type them.
But, but to your point, right,My peer consultants, your peer consultants

(11:25):
were probably 30 years olderon average. Right. I think there
was a few of us that wereunder the age of 40 right. At the
time. But most, the vastmajority were, yeah. Like 30 years
our senior. Right. But to thatpoint, now on the one hand, I think
you probably just like me. I'mlike teaching people how to use their

(11:47):
computers. While however, goodtrade off while they're teaching
me so much of the business. Right.
Learn so much from pdi. Soagain, Nina Backer, Mark Sickle,
Donna Demena. Come on, man.Chris Fisher, like this place was
just loaded. It's like the 85bears or something. This was like
a world class, you know, likechampionship squad. So I'm so grateful

(12:11):
for, for starting there.
I had the unique position. Sowhen I First started, I was in more
of an assessment sharedservices group or shared assessments.
It was SaaS, Shared AssessmentServices. And I, while I was in the
Minneapolis office, I wastechnically supporting the global
company. So you're throwingout all these Minneapolis names and
I'm not going to name droplike you ha. But fine. But you know,

(12:37):
like I was working with peoplein Texas, out east, over overseas,
the San Francisco office, Ithink, you know, I had such a connection
globally to folks too, and sojust learned so much about leadership,
leadership behavior,leadership development. And then

(12:58):
just for the sake of the, youknow, story, you know, I'm literally
teaching people how to usetheir Windows computers. But again,
it was tech support. Very goodtrade off. And realistically, when
Korn Ferry acquired us, themedian age at the organization dropped
by about, you know, 20, 25years, which was interesting. And

(13:18):
when Korn Ferry acquired us, Iactually made this move into the
Korn Ferry Institute for atime and I was a part of this sort
of scrappy team that wasprimarily rationalizing competing
ip. So I had this interestingopportunity to learn more sort of
broad boardroom facilitation,so to speak, and design thinking
facilitation, as we were say.Like, you know, because at that time

(13:43):
Korn Ferry had Lominger andthey had acquired PDI and Global
Novations. And anybody that'slistening, that was at the third
place. They acquired likethree companies at one time. And
at that time PDI was thebiggest acquisition before the HAY
Group acquisition, which wasthen just a massively large, larger
acquisition.

(14:04):
Ninth House. Ninth House aswell, right?
Yep, yep, yep. We had acquired9th house. Yep. But for example,
you know, Lomminger had acompetency model. Yeah, I had a competency
model. So the team that Iworked on, we kind of fanned out
to different intellectualproperty corners to say, hey, we
can't have two competencymodels. Right.
Like, yep, Leadershiparchitect was it. Got it down to

(14:27):
38, I think, which was crazybecause Humminger had 67. PDI had
all this. So again.
Or we had rationalized twodifferential assessments too. Right.
We had, we had our ownassessment of leadership potential.
Korn, I can't remember whatPDI was called actually, but you
know, and Korn Ferry had ViaEdge. And how do we bring them together?

(14:50):
In some cases it was choosingone thing over another. In some cases
it was putting them togetherbecause we weren't, you know, PDI
wasn't measuring this otheraspect of, of high potential that
Korn Ferry was measuring.Right. And they weren't measuring
what we were Measuring. So weactually, you know, combine those
to a best of both worlds. So.But to your point, right, so here
I met my wife while I wasthere as well. By the way, shout

(15:12):
out, hey.
That's a good thing.
Yeah. Yeah. And okay, sochapter two of my career. I went
into HR because here I wasprobably on the doorstep of my 30s,
if not getting into my 30s,and, you know, people are living
longer, working longer. And soI was sort of sitting here looking
at another maybe 30 years ormore of work. And while I do miss

(15:37):
PDI and Korn Ferry for sure, Iwas sort of like, I don't know that
I want to be here for 40years. And so really started looking
at wanting to get inside, getinto the organization, into an HR
role, to see kind of how whatwe do comes to life truly on the
inside. And I think I hadthis. This feeling as well, of like.
I was like, I wonder if Iwould like being a part of things

(15:58):
from end to end versus feelinglike I'm kind of paratrooping in
to do one thing and thengetting the heck out of there. So
I'm going to speed this alonga little bit, but I went into leadership
development at Buffalo WildWings, where I was there for two
years. They were sold. Peoplewere sort of getting their invite
to move themselves to Atlantaor invited to go Knife. Quickly found

(16:20):
a nice landing spot atCargill, which I had wanted to work
there for a number of years.Buffalo Wild Wings, super fun place
to work. I love. I love therestaurants Inspire Brands now is
the kind of the. The umbrellaorganization. But love all my people
from Buffalo Wild Wings stillto this day. Still, you know, huge
fan. Loved being able to doleadership development with regional

(16:42):
leaders, with restaurantoperators who just grew up in the
business and never, never oncewere taught kind of some of the nuance
of leadership development.They were certainly taught how to
hire, how to fire, how to jumpin on the line and keep things moving
if a line cook called in sick.Anywho, jumped into Cargill, where

(17:02):
I'd wanted to be for a long time.
And by the way, I got to tellone B Dub story, because right on
campus, I think I was maybecoming back from Hong Kong or something
like that. I distinctlyremember being over at a friend's
house and the hot ones cameout, and it was. I can't remember
the guy's name, but it startedon YouTube. I think it got picked
up. It's on like, yeah, majornetworks now. That guy's incredible.

(17:25):
As this interviewer.
Amazing.
10 questions with increasinglyHigh Scovilles.
Yeah, I'd probably be watchingmore of that because he is. Interestingly,
people point to him as beingan amazing interviewer, actually.
Yeah.
Oh, incredible. Because he.Because he does these deep cuts and
again, like reveals somethingin a pretty compressed amount of

(17:45):
time. But it's educational,it's funny, it's entertaining, you
know, watching Shaq or whoeverjust sweat it out, you know, as they
get to the. The big one. Soanyways, I just remember distinctly
us watching like four or fiveof those and we go, we should go
do this.
Oh, man, I. I tried, dude.
And we went to B Dubs oncampus at the University of Minnesota

(18:07):
and I tried the hottest onethey had. It was some ghost pepper
or something. I have no idea.I'm not. I am a mild or teriyaki
sauce kind of guy. Yeah,that's what kind of gal I am. Like,
what? You got sweet and sour going.
I did the blazing challengewith a buddy of mine while I was
working there. I was, listen,my wing game is strong. How I eat,

(18:29):
it is. I'm scientific abouthow I eat chicken wings. And so I
went in very confident andfailed miserably to finish the blazing
challenge. Okay, anyway, I'mgonna move us anyways.
Yeah, yeah, let's move on. ButI had to talk about, come on. Like
we, you know, you can't justwork at the place and learn leadership
stuff. Like, I think it'sworth telling the people that your

(18:49):
wing game also doubled, youknow, from your time at B Dubs. So.
Okay, let's move on. Shout outSpicy garlic. It's basically their.
Their medium sauce with extragarlic in it. So went to Cargill,
did talent management there.Right. So traditional, ish talent
management that you see a lotlarger organizations so leading talent
review meetings from pre workthrough the meeting itself and identifying

(19:12):
high potential talent, doingsuccession planning. I fell into
a DNI role, which is aconversation for another time, but
I was doing, you know, a sideproject and was invited to apply
to a job in DNI andparticularly spent some time launching
Allyship and doing sponsor,you know, running their sponsorship
program, among other things.And then I made a jump to General

(19:36):
Mills where I spent a coupleyears back in the talent management
there. But there was a big DNIcomponent to it. They wanted someone
who had a DNI background. Soagain, doing full sort of talent
cycle work with them. Soleading the same very similar talent
review conversations,identifying top talent, high potential
talent successors for keyroles, building out development plans

(19:59):
for those folks supporting themid year check in Process, individual
talent, individual developmentplanning process, as well as got
a little bit more experience.I did a little bit of this at Cargill,
Yes. But did a lot more of itat General Mills. Did a lot of direct
annual performance reviewconsulting. Right. So I was the one
kind of both, you know,attached at the hip with my comp

(20:20):
consultant being kind of thebad guy around. Are you really planning
to go into that meeting overbudget on your merit and bonus allocations,
but really trying to also helpconsult around pay for performance?
And then last July, July 2024,jumped out on my own. And yeah, I've
been. I've been sort of anindependent consultant, splitting

(20:40):
my time between executivecoaching, leadership development,
both design and facilitationof programs, and some, you know,
assessment work. And so someof my own clients, some subcontracting
work, you know, and I've beenfocused a lot on some of my observations
coming out of hr. You know,one of my biggest observations coming
out of hr, which is sort ofwhat I wanted to talk about today,

(21:02):
you know, so I was sort ofjust saying, you know, across a couple
different companies, and I wasdabbling in this at Buffalo Wild
Wings as well. They justdidn't, they didn't have as many,
you know, specific departmentsrunning all these things, but really
sitting down and identifyingtop talent, high potential talent.
And I would say the one thingthat I've seen across organizations
that shout out to gendermills, you know, how much time and

(21:25):
effort they were putting intothis, but it was the first place
I landed where at the directorlevel, not across the entire organization,
but certainly in thecommercial space where I was supporting.
It was the first place whereas soon as someone was promoted to
the director level, they wereimmediately enrolled in a primarily
internal program to supportthem in making the transition from

(21:48):
manager to director. And, andI having spent at that point probably
16, 17 years in sort of, youknow, leadership development and
HR, it was the first time in,you know, 17, 18 years where I saw

(22:11):
an organization supportingpeople in making this transition
from one level to the next.And knowing all the things we've
talked about throughout theyears, we, the royal we in the leadership
development space around howhard it is to make a transition from
one level to the next. It hadjust sort of shocked me. Oh, this
is the first place that I'veactually seen support people in making

(22:31):
that transition in asystematic way. And I just became
really passionate about that.And I've focused, especially since
I've left corporate America,so to speak, you know, really trying
to speak to and Kind of holdthe flame or what have you advocate
for supporting leaders at thatpoint of promotion.
What was it that you would saywas different at General Mills, that

(22:55):
maybe was untrue at some otherplace? So you kind of point to systemic
support. So I'm curious, whatdid that actually look like?
So it might have been inparticular there, the volume of,
or pace of talent movement atthe company, like just how many people
they promote. And I'm not sureI've now had the chance to really

(23:18):
dive into the research for it.I don't know if the research is what
kind of was the impetus forthem or just their. Their observations
themselves. But part of whatthey do is, is in a lot of organizations
do new manager assimilations.Really sitting down with the new
team to talk about theirincoming manager and get any feedback
and, and, you know, walkthrough sort of a systematic approach

(23:39):
to helping that person hit theground running with the team. But
what they were doing was alsohelping that person hit the ground
running with understandingwhat are my new goals and objectives
and what is. What are mydevelopment areas and how do I prioritize
that development in order tohit the goals and objectives that
I now need to hit as a leaderand elevate from one level to the

(24:01):
next. Because you know, whatI've seen firsthand in HR, we talked
about it for 10 years at PDIaround like leaders operating down
a level, right? The directorreally operating like a manager.
But then you go into anorganization, you see it happening,
right? You see leaders havinga hard time taking their hands off
the wheel, a hard timedelegating, wanting to be involved

(24:22):
in everything. And there'sdifferent ways in which these changes
show up at each level. So, youknow, shout out to Sharon Draughter
and Knowles tome of a book,the Leadership Pipeline, right? They
very clearly talked about, youknow, at each level. It's not. It's
really easy to think aboutgoing from being an individual contributor

(24:42):
to a manager. It's probablyone of the most obvious. It's also
one of the most difficult, oneof the most obvious leadership transitions
that someone needs to make.Going from just caring about yourself
and what you're getting doneto having to, you know, care for
an entire team and whatthey're getting done, right? And
classic example there is, youknow, going from being an individual

(25:03):
contributor to a manager, butreally trying to operate like a super
individual contributor, right?You're just staying. Instead of helping
five, six, ten other people begreat at their jobs, you're in there
pushing the work alongyourself, being great at their job.
Like I'm now being great attheir job instead of helping them
be great at their job. And.But that shows up at each level.

(25:24):
Right. You can then see adirector operating like a super manager.
Right. I General Buffalo WildWings. I literally heard regional
managers say, I mean I was agreat store manager, now I'm managing
five restaurants. And it'slike there's a nuance to what you
just said that which is you'remanaging five restaurants across

(25:45):
I don't know what kind ofgeography. So honestly sir, that's
impossible. You are managingfive general managers that have to
manage their stores.
Yes.
As. As simple as that soundsit how that actually shows up then
in the behavior that nuanceddifference in understanding.
This person's probablyparachuting in and they're acting
as if they were the gm, overlycoaching or critiquing. Yep. Just

(26:10):
as if, well, you're not doingit the way I would be doing it.
Yep, yep. And when you wouldtalk to leaders who have successfully
made these transitions, theyare actually operating as a regional
manager, actually operating asa divisional, you know, divisional
leader and not operating downa level, they'll even call it out,
Right. They'll even be able tosay, yeah, yeah, that person, he's

(26:32):
not operating that way. Butwhat ends up happening? You know,
so what I. What I've seenhappen at most organizations and
so surprised that Denver Millswas doing something about this. So
again, shout out to them. Youknow, most organizations, we spend
all this time in talentreviews like I was leading, right?
And you think about it, you'vegot five, you know, five to 10 leaders,

(26:54):
maybe director level, maybe VPlevel, you know, start to put an
hourly rate behind that.Right. You know, you're asking these
people to do all this pre workto kind of evaluate their talent,
then come together foranywhere from a two hour to a two
day conversation identifyinghigh potential talent, talking about
what their development areasare, identifying successors, what

(27:16):
are their development areas.And then in most organizations and
all the people that I'vetalked to outside of the companies
that I've worked with, I'vegotten zero disagreement about this
sentiment, which is that mostorganizations we promote someone
that we send out their, youknow, their organizational email,
congratulations to Adam, who'snow the director of blah, blah, blah,

(27:40):
you know, welcome. You know,it's an internal promotion, Right.
So welcome Adam. Or you know,shout out to Adam, you know, send
him your congratulations. Andthen behind the scenes, Adam gets
a handshake or a high five anda go get him, tiger. And that's about
the most support that mostorganizations provide and.

(28:01):
Or you're relying entirely onthe manager to coach that person
up and elevate. Maybe thatperson might not know how to coach
at the next level.
They might not be operatingeven at their level. They might not
have the time. Right. Theymight not have the time. They might.
They. And that could bebecause they're not operating at

(28:22):
the right level. They're outin the field doing stuff. Right.
They don't necessarily havethe time for me to teach you how
to be a director. I just needyou to hit the ground running, which
is why we go internaloftentimes versus external. Right.
And so some, some of theresearch, let me just point out some
of the research that I havereally taken the dive into since,
you know, since I stepped outon my own. So first and foremost,

(28:45):
just the success rates ofinternal versus external hires. Right.
So, you know, looking at kindof 18 months out or so. And some
of this research comes fromDDI McKinsey. I've got some of it
up on my screen here, so I'llshout out the researchers because
I'm not making stuff up here.But it's about 52% of external hires,
right. At. At particularlysenior leader levels. But I've seen

(29:08):
it, you know, I think ittranslates down at least to the director
level depending on yourcompany. Director might be a senior
level, but about 50 is about a52% success rate. Now are our internal.
Yes, exactly. It's a coinflip. Now our internal promotions
more successful. Moresuccessful. Yes, about 65% are successful.

(29:31):
Looking at some of theresearch, but when you look at some
of the research on promotionsthat fail, right. It's about 35%
of senior leader promotions,internal promotions that flame out
by about a month 18. Right.So, you know, and to put it in the
simplest terms, and to. I'mgoing to round down and make it super
simple. It's about one inthree. You know, out of every three

(29:53):
promotions you make, you canalmost count on one being on a pip
by about month 18 and us sortof managing them out of the organization.
And if you think about theamount of effort that it might actually
take to support someone inthat transition, the amount of time
and effort it would take tosupport that person. And you know,

(30:15):
you can think about it in anumber of ways, but like changing
their mindset, skill set, toolset from one level to what's needed
at the next kind of going backto. And I can't remember who the
researchers are, but thetransformation trilogy Right. At
every transition, at everytransformation, there are skills.
There are skills that you needto either keep using because they're

(30:36):
going to be really helpful atthis level.
Yep.
Important to also figure outis what things. So you were the whiz
bang salesperson, but nowyou're managing 10 salespeople. You
might need to let go of someof your sales skills. Right. Not
necessarily the skills, buthow much time maybe you're allocating
to sales.

(30:56):
Right.
As you, these 10 people needto be focused on that. Right. So
what are some of those skillsyou need to let go of and what are
some of the things you need tolearn that you didn't know? Right.
You're now maybe presenting atthe board or presenting to the C
suite. I've never done thatbefore. I might need to add some
skills, you know, there.Right. So at every, every level.
So I know I picked on firstlevel leaders, but it's even going
director to VP or VP to CSuite. You know, there are those

(31:18):
things you need to add on, letgo or preserve. And most people figure
it out on their own.
And this reminds me ofLawrence Peter, who was, I think
he was a professor at usc, buthe coined the term and it was meant
as like a joke at first. Butpeople are promoted to their level
of incompetence and because hejust kept seeing it over and over

(31:42):
again that, oh, you're an ICand you're our best sales guy, let's
put you in as the salesmanager. Oh, you crushed at that.
Then clearly you can be asales director, right? Oh, let's
move you up. You, you know,you could be a vp, could you be a
Chief Revenue officer? And ofcourse, looking backwards, if you
take a look at all the C suitepeople and trace back their trajectories,
you see nothing but success.But how many other people attempted

(32:05):
that same trajectory anddidn't make it? And anyways, I think
that's, I haven't read thatbook, but I think his students and
other faculty encouraged himto build it out. But it reminds me
of some of the stats thatyou're throwing out where again,
is definitely not a lock thatsomeone's going to be successful.
But how do we use behavioralscience and how do we use just all

(32:27):
the lessons in supportingmanagers, in coaching, executive
coaching, et cetera, toincrease the probability that somebody
is successful. And I thinkagain, whether the manager themselves
can do that, if HR can dothat, if it's a third party external
consultant. I think one otherproxy for me, because again, that

(32:48):
I see the Manager is such aclassic one reminds me of like being
a parent. So I have a six yearold at home, but it is this a B.
Either you are a parent oryou're not. And it's kind of the
same thing in the workingworld. Either you're an IC or a manager.
And men, once you've blownthrough that door and you've seen
the other side, like you,there's so many positive things that

(33:08):
come from it, but it changesfundamentally your orientation.
So anyways, yeah, I'll go onestep further with that analogy too,
to say, let's go, I've gotthree kids. Kids, right. And there
are, I don't know how.
You do it, brother.
There are one. One of them isout of the house. So that, that helps
for sure. But the lessons fromone are only so applicable to the

(33:31):
next one because the next is acompletely different human. Right.
And then.
Yes.
So that similarly, even withparenting, there are the skills you
need to preserve. There arethe skills you need to like, well,
that what worked with childone is just not working with child
two. I'm gonna have to stoptrying that and learn something new
that's going to work with thischild on whatever, you know, esoterically

(33:52):
or hypothetically.
Well, and go all the way outto, you know, one of our friends.
Again, sorry, not a lot ofname dropping, but I'm thinking of
like John pike, prolificfather, wonderful coach. And I bet
you anything from going tothree to four to five to six, like
you're, you're learning tons.Or somebody who has twins versus
one, like, so all uniquesituations. Just like somebody who'[e-mail]

(34:16):
and they go from a manager toa director.
Yeah.
Now again, no one has everbeen in that situation before, so
how do we increase theprobability that, that that person's
successful? And it sounds likeagain, things that you learned at
PDI and Korn Ferry, thingsthat you learn at a multitude of
Fortune 500 companies. And nowthat you're on your own regularly
coaching, putting out content,you know, talking with different

(34:39):
Fortune 500 companies, like,it's clear, like, yeah, better support
leads to better outcomes. Yeah.
And you know, on the one hand,you can. You see that when you, even
when you're internal, you seethe support that external hires are
getting. Now, usually Iusually say, well, we give internal
promotions three to five timesless support than we give to external

(35:00):
hires. Now when I say that, Iget both head nods and eye rolls
in the same person becausethey're like, yes, they do get 3
to 5% of the very little we'reeven giving to external hires. Right.
Most HR people would admitthere's way more we could do to help
onboard mid career, you know,professionals from mid to senior

(35:21):
level leadership roles much,much more busy.
We have no money and we're busy.
And yet this talent. Again,I'm going to go back to, you know,
we've, we've spent hours withmultiple people at multiple levels
of leadership identifyingtalent, putting together development
plans, identifying successors,putting together their development
plans. We're set, we're, we'resometimes enrolling people in programs,

(35:43):
right. So sometimes we'reenrolling someone in a leadership
program in the hopes thatthat's helping to prepare them, teaching
them some of the skills thatthey need to learn. What I see most
organizations do is they mighthave a marquee program that they
earmark for newly promotedpeople, but they end up building
that program with a reallyhigh cost consultancy. And well,

(36:04):
we're, we have to wait untilwe have 12 or 20 promotions before
we can enroll people andlaunch that program. Well then what
happens? What happens is thenyou've got, let's say there's 20
people, five of them have nowbeen enrolled for 18 months. Right.
They're already approachingthat, that, that unfortunate failure
point for the, you know, for.
The one in three educatingthem after the fact.

(36:26):
Five are new and you know, 10are somewhere in the ballpark of,
of you know, three to 12months, you know, six to 12 months
or so. Right. So you're stillnot hitting them at that point of
greatest need, greatestvulnerability. And so if you just
think of it as just aninsurance, you know. Okay, so let

(36:48):
me go to the other. What'sfunny, what's really fun to look
at is you know, the numbersthat get thrown out for the cost
of failure, right. So I'veseen anything from $200,000 to $600,000
to $5 million. The researchfrom McKinsey shows a pretty broad
range. 425 like going down tothe level of, for a $200,000 a year

(37:11):
executive, you know, the costof a failure is about 420, you know,
it's like double, right. Allthe way, you know, so 2.2.5x the
salary or whatever. But, butyou also have to look at, so it's
somewhere in the range of200,000 to $2 million that you're
putting at risk when someonefails. And what are, what, why is
that it's not just the leaderleaving maybe an empty seat for a

(37:37):
little While, but also thenwhat does that do to the team? Right.
This, this team that had aleader is now having a leader. Turnover
that it tends to lead to moreturnover on that team, lack of engagement
on that team. So droppingproductivity. If it just so happens
that that leader was involvedin a critical strategic project.

(37:58):
Now we're looking at what'shappening with this strategic project
that's getting all thisinvestment from the organization
with this leadership gap,right? So you're putting, you know,
you're putting key projects atrisk. If this is a revenue generating
role, you're putting customer,you know, customers at risk and revenue
at risk, right. So you'rerisking. And I start to think about

(38:19):
smaller companies too, right.I feel like even smaller companies
have so much more to losehere, right. When, you know, so many
fewer people, we're talkingsmaller dollars compared to some
of the giant organizationsthat I've worked in. Right. One leader,
you know, customer impactcould have a huge impact on your

(38:39):
whole business. Right. Justone leader failing or a team having
turnover, extra turnoverbecause of a leader failing. Right.
Let alone the cost of anypossible severance you've got to
pay out for exiting thatperson. Maybe a search cost for finding
the next person, maybe a signon bonus because you're trying to
get this person in quickly.There's. It just costs organizations

(39:02):
a lot, right. And I'm just.Yeah, I'm looking. I mean that, you
know, go ahead.
Yeah. I was going to say thisfeels a lot like an iceberg, right.
I mean, so again, there is thetangible visible. Hey, what did,
what did Susan make right? To.Oh yeah, $195,000 a year. And if
you just take that over.That's a simplistic right answer.

(39:25):
So what you're pointing toloss, productivity, opportunity costs,
you passed up somebody to putSusan into that role. So again, their
motivation's already down andthere's I told you so energy on the
team. But there's all of theseripple impacts that start to push
overall organizational teamperformance down. It's just unnecessary

(39:45):
headwinds. Like. And I feltthis at Autodesk, you know, again,
I don't know if I, you know,got a medal for most bosses in my
tenure, but. Oh yeah, nineboss, nine bosses in six years. So
it was a lot. And a combo ofinternal and external. Again, I learned
a ton. I learned somethingfrom every single one. But it was
unfortunate to see thatoftentimes it was, it didn't feel

(40:09):
like that person had thesupport they needed to be successful.
They were continuously beingthrown Kind of in between a rock
and a hard place, asked to doan impossible task, build the plane
while it's flying with zerocontext, and within 6 to 12 months
some other largerorganizational change outside of
their remit would impact them.So I suspect that there are lots

(40:33):
of people listening to thisthat either went through that themselves
or have seen somebody gothrough something like that where
there's just unnecessarychange, transition churn, et cetera.
Sometimes even with greatsupport, you know, again, it's not
going to work out. But toooften I think again, when it could
have worked and we just didn'tquite have that person's back. Yes,

(40:56):
man, I can think of a coupleleaders that I wish they had a, just
a 10% more lift could havemade the difference of that person.
You know, you're not gonna,you're not gonna get to 100% success.
Right. But can you go from a,you know, the research, again, the
research is a 35% and it's. SoI could, I could say three to four

(41:17):
out of every 10 promotions aregoing to fail. It's just easier to
say, round it down a littleand say, you know, one out of one
out of three. So 35% is whatthe research says will fail. You're
not going to get to zeropercent. Right.
But could we knock that,what's it worth to knock it down
to 93?
Can you get to 90 success?Yeah, exactly. How close now? Because

(41:40):
generally speaking, I don'tbelieve it to be a success selection
problem. Like could successionprocesses, could high potential identification
processes be improved andtightened up? Are we always truly
identifying high potentialleaders and truly differentiating
from high performing people?No, we're not always doing that.

(42:03):
Great. Could that improve?Sure, sure. But is just tightening
up your selection criteriagoing to bring you from 35% failure
to 10 or 5% failure?
That's not the low hangingfruit, that's not the major deficiency
here.
Yeah, I would, I wouldactually say most organizations are
probably getting the decisionmaking side of it. Right. Where things

(42:25):
are falling apart is are wehelping this person truly leave the
old role behind and step intothe new role and what's required
there? Right. So, so what canyou do about it?
Yeah, yeah. And maybe, maybethis is a good transition point to
like advice. Right. So on theshow, always talk about kind of career
stories, we talk aboutdifferent topics. I feel like we,

(42:47):
you know, heard your story,heard some of your thoughts, seen
some of the research. So thelast chapter, if I'm not mistaken,
as a, as a step up fan here,get into the advice. So yeah, what,
what, what is it that someone,you know, new leader themselves,
supporting new leaders, oragain, other consultants out there,
coaching, what advice do you have?
Well, let me, let me step backfor just a second and say, you know,

(43:10):
what can organizations doabout this first and foremost? Well,
you could hire a coach. Youcan and maybe should. I actually
would be a huge advocate forit. You know, working with some of
the bigger houses, you'regoing to end up paying 20 to 30 grand
for six months of coaching.And I would say even in the case
of it this being on the lowerend of a loss, right? Let's say we

(43:33):
think this loss is, you know,a $200, 200,000 failure, even 30
grand against, that is, it'sonly 15%. And so from an insurance
perspective, even if you wereto hire a $30,000 coach, $30,000
to save yourself the pain of200, 600 or even a 5 million dollar

(43:55):
cost of hedge, it's, it's adrop in the bucket, right? So from
an insurance perspective, letalone if you work with an independent
like myself, like yours, likeyourself, where, you know, you're
probably landing around$15,000 or 15, 10 to 15, somewhere
in that range for six, youknow, six months of coaching, let
alone maybe a more purposebuilt coaching that might even be

(44:17):
more affordable. What I liketo do is get in and do something
more scalable where we canactually set up more of a flywheel,
where, you know, at a largeenough organization that's having
enough promotions, if you canprovide both the individual support
through some kind of a minicoaching with some kind of a curriculum

(44:38):
focused on what are thosegoals, what are your development
needs, how do we help aim yourdevelopment there and help you through
some of the cycles of what aresome of the things that typically
fall apart for people, right?Like are you understanding your,
your new network of peers andhow to get to know them, where they
impact your work, where youimpact their work, where, how do

(45:00):
you build a base of influence?You know, there's, there's a lot
to it there, right? Socoaching, mini coaching, get something
more systemic where maybe youcan even bring people together in
a cohort who are somewhere inthis journey of their first to their
18th month where they can evenshare what they're learning from
one another. So those arethings that I both advocate for and

(45:21):
do. But the advice, you know,so what's my best advice for individual
leaders out there? If you'vebeen promoted and you're about to
step into a new role, youKnow, my best advice is don't be
shy and don't feel, you know,because what one thing I was. I was
just writing yesterday, I wantto say is, what ends up happening
is people feel like I need toprove myself. I shouldn't ask for

(45:45):
help. I shouldn't say I don'tknow what I'm doing. So when things
start to get rough, I whiteknuckle it. I don't ask for help,
and I end up making thingsworse. Right. And so what I would
say is, have transparentconversations with your leader, seek
an advisor, seek a mentor, andask specific questions about making
the transition from yourprevious level to the new level.

(46:07):
Like, how should I be doingthings differently at this level
and how I would have donethem? You know, if I'm a manager,
if I was. If I'm a manager,just being promoted to director,
ask a director, maybe someoneeven in their first couple of years
as a director and someone moretenured as a director to say, listen,
I knew how to do this as amanager. How do I need to do things
differently as a director?What things do I need to be doing

(46:29):
differently as a director?Acknowledge that it's different and
seek advice. Right. That's thefirst thing I would say, let alone,
you know, finding out what youknow is that. Is that mentoring?
Is that seeking out anadvisor? Is that asking for a coach?
Right. What. Know that you'renot alone, but also know that, like,
white knuckling it, not askingfor help is probably the recipe for

(46:51):
disaster.
The worst. Yeah, yeah, that's.That's interesting because I. I think
about my own, where I'm atright now in my career, and again,
you know, released fromcorporate America. Okay, what. What's
Adam going to do next? My wifeand I built up a little bit Airbnb
portfolio. Some that we own,some that we manage for other people.
But this idea of, you know,okay, if we get a ninth Airbnb, is

(47:13):
that going to change our life?Probably not. So I knew that place.
That was me staying at themanager level.
Yeah.
Like, what's the biggerversion of that? What's the scale?
Like, how can I go up andgrow? And it was to go into hotels,
which are fundamentallydifferent asset classes. It's still
hospitality. I can learn alot. I've. I've got some skills.
But look, the very first thingI do to. To your point was it got

(47:36):
around people that are doingthis, other students that want to
make the same jump, andmentors that have already done it
so that I could learn. So I I,I knew, look, if I'm going to spend
a year betting on myself andnot getting paid to be at Autodesk
or some other tech company,you know, I owe it to myself and
my family to put my best footforward and make it more likely that

(47:58):
I'm successful.
Yeah.
So anyways, like, whetherwe're talking about hotels or we're
talking about your world,like, I, I think that's great.
You said something reallyimportant there that I want to, I
want to just put a finer pointon too, which is if you don't acknowledge
that it's different, mostpeople by default will just try to
do more of the same, like moreaggressively and harder versus to

(48:21):
your point, really thinkingabout what is the elevation, what
is the thing that's not new.So, so my advice to those who support
leaders, so HR talent, seniorleaders, the hiring manager of a
new newly promoted leader. Sofirst of all, like HR talent, have
that conversation with thetalent manager to say, hey, this
is a fundamentally differentlevel. How are you planning to support

(48:43):
them in stepping. This is kindof the, the whole title of my podcast
here. And stepping up theirgame from one level to the next.
Also have that conversationwith that newly promoted leader.
Like, hey, I don't know, is itJim Collins, the title of that book?
It fits all the time. It's,it's, you know, what got you here
isn't going to get you there. Right.
Marshall Goldsmith.
It's Goldsmith. Thank you. Youknow. Oh, yeah, good to great is

(49:04):
the other one. But yeah,Marshall Goldsmith, what got you
here is not going to get youthere. Right. So everything that,
that was the table stakes toget you here and only a small percentage
of that is needed. Like youneed to tune into what's needed.
So have that conversation withhiring managers, have that conversation
with the newly promoted leaderto sort of let some of that steam
out of the balloon andnormalize that this is going to be
different. Let alone if you'rein talent or hr, you need to be talking

(49:28):
to the senior leader that's,that's the hiring manager of this,
this, this new lead promotedleader to say, how are you going
to support them in making thistransition, let alone advocating
for things, you know, advocatefor some of the spend for coaching.
Yeah.
Some kind, for some kind ofprogram that supports leaders. Right.
So that's, I would say, like,let's not shy away from the conversation
and those who are supportingthe newly promoted leaders, you know,

(49:51):
should be the vanguard ofacknowledging it. And you know, it's
like you can't Change a normby not talking about it. Right. You
have to bring it into thelight of day. Right. So if you don't.
I love it.
Yeah.
And, and, and, and look, just,I was thinking when, when you were
talking about, you know, maybenormalizing the default as different

(50:13):
because I think most people.Again, okay, Rodney, you've been
here for 10 years. You've beena great senior manager. We're going
to put you in a direct role.Like the assumption, like you say,
is just, okay, you get to parkslightly closer to the building.
You know, here are your threeperks maybe and good luck. You're
same person showing up at thesame office with the same people.
And so it's really, reallyeasy for the default to be. This

(50:35):
is just an extension of what Idid before. It's way more visible,
by the way, when you changegeographic locations or change functions
or change businesses. I'mactually coaching somebody. I won't
mention the person or thename, but a tech company, not Autodesk,
we're engaging a six monthcoaching thing and again, knew all
the people in business a nowall of a sudden is moving to an entirely

(50:59):
different business function.So just they have none of the same
peer set. And so I think it'seasier in those moments because just
everything is new, you know,for people to get it that this might
not work. And I really have tothink about this as different and
new. I think the real watchout. Talking to you, consuming some
of your content, hearing someof the stats here is this pernicious

(51:22):
little idea that, you know,tomorrow is going to look a hell
of a lot like today in thesetransitions. Right. And if we believe
that again, we just doubledown, we white knuckle it using your
language, we, you know, pushthe accelerator down to the floor,
we try and go faster andharder through it.
Yeah.
And that's the exact wrongapproach. So anyways, kind of a new

(51:43):
insight based on this conversation.
Yeah, yeah. Well, and so whatI would say is, you know, obviously
part of all this is why Istarted the podcast was right to,
you know, give some morenuggets out there about what good
leadership looks like. Youknow, I write a couple of newsletters.
You know, one newsletter iskind of specific to this topic. I
do a lot of my writing aroundthis topic on LinkedIn. I'm starting

(52:05):
a monthly webinar. So I thinkby the time this comes out, the second
one will be done. Prettydedicated to this process. So I continue
to.
Yeah, tell us, tell us moreabout the webinar. What's what's
going on with the webinar.
Well, again this, I think thiswill come out after number number
the second one here. So atitle subject to change each month.
October's is going to becalled you know why one in three

(52:26):
promotions fail and what itcosts you. So a trying to share more
information about my ownobservations, what the research says,
what can be done about it, youknow, certainly trying to. I've got
a roadmap on my website whichI think my prerecorded intro and
outro both mentioned this.It's called the Promoted Leader Playbook.
I've pulled my ownobservations together both from hr,

(52:46):
my time at PDI and Korn Ferryin terms of, you know, what should
you be focused on in month 1,2, 3 once you've been promoted? So
I would say go out to mywebsite Kent Coach, if it's your
first time there, you'll get apop up for the playbook in the first
10, 15 seconds you're there orKent Coach slash playbook to go straight
to where to download it andthen. Yeah. And so trying to also

(53:07):
just give as much away too.Like you know, when I'm bringing
people these webinars, am Ijust trying to get them, you know,
am I trying to get them tohire me? That's not my only goal.
I also want to give. I'drather people do something new and
different. And so I'm tryingto give away as much as of the secrets
as I can so people can putsome intentional focus here. And

(53:28):
if that means you want to havea deeper conversation with me around
other ways that you can sortof try to solve this issue or even
ways that I could support.Right. It's certainly trying to open
that conversation but it's notthe only goal. I would rather change
the world by giving some ofthis away as much as I can too.
I love that thinking aboutit's about generosity adding value

(53:50):
first trying to literally giveaway the thing sauce like if I could
write a little PDF that youknow, some people would pay tens
of thousands of dollars for,what would that say? And again, I've
downloaded the Playbook. Ithink it's awesome. It blends together
just as you said, kind of bestof professional service.
Yeah. Smart enough person. Imean that's, I mean an average person

(54:12):
should be able to take thatplaybook and if they never wanted
to hire a consultant, shouldbe able to take that and put something
together more systematic thanand what they're doing today.
Yep. And, and, and you'rereminding me of you Know, conversation
I was listening to the othernight where an EVP had been promoted,
I think, to maybe a differentportfolio. I think they're a private

(54:32):
equity shop. You know, theykind of turned around this business,
did what they needed to do,and then they were going to move
on. And this evp, if peopleare interested, I could try and pull
the clip. But he was sharing astory about. He sat down on his last
day, right? So he's leavingthe business. And he's been remarkably
successful. High credibility.You know, this is for all intensive

(54:54):
purposes, a promotion to the.To the next thing, the next frontier.
I think actually he got hisfirst C suite job. So anyways, he
sits down with his vp and heasked him a very interesting question.
He said, you know, I'm goingoff to do this thing, like, based
on your experience of me,what's something that I could do
differently, you know, in thisnew role? The guy paused for a second

(55:18):
and he said, you know, look,you're going to go on to be a great
leader. The only thing that Iwish it could have been differently
is if you would have investedmore in me. And that just, like,
stopped him in his tracksbecause like so many people, we get
so busy, we're so focused thatwe're the hero in our own story.

(55:42):
And we forget the incredibleimpact that we can have for others
when we put our focus onservice and impact and being open
and curious and thinking abouthow is everyone's experience around
me right now. And I think whenI think of, again, good to great
Jim Collins, you know, levelfive leaders, they look at themselves

(56:03):
when there are mistakes orfailures, and they look. They look
out the window, right? And setthe mirror in the window. They look
out the window when there'ssuccess in triumph. So anyways, it
was just kind of a beautifulstory that I think kind of hopefully
ties into this conversationabout lots of people are successful
and move on. But even in thatguy's case, he. He missed something,
right? There was anopportunity that he had passed up.

(56:24):
And now the time. The time isover. So he's dedicated the next
couple years of his life ingiving back as much value to other
people as he can. And I hope,whether you're a new leader supporting
new leaders, you're a coachthinking about this space that. That
again, you know, we're notjust thinking about our own impact.
We're thinking about people'sexperiences and how we can enrich

(56:45):
and grow that. So, yeah, loveit. Anyways, with that, any closing
words, Ken? I know we've Beengoing for a while. Hopefully this
has been valuable, but that'sall I got.
I said it again. I'm justgoing to say what the pre recorded
outro is going to say anyway.But thank you, Adam, for coming on
and being the guest host forthe day.
Yeah, it's a pleasure, man.Any lessons being on the other side

(57:06):
of the fence? I mean, sittingon the other seat in the other seats.
Any quick reflections?
No, I think, I thinkcontinuing to make sure I probably
gave myself less prep timecoming up with this idea the night
before. So I think, you know,continuing to make sure that I give
people a Runway to prepare. Ithink that's the biggest.
Yeah, I love it, man. Well,dude, you were. You were great off

(57:27):
the cuff. So again, thank youfor sharing with the people.
Awesome.
Your story, what you'repassionate about, again, if people
want to. I mean, you'relistening to this, so obviously you
found my guy. Kent Knievel,the legend in this field. He's done
all the things, but. Butanyways, thanks again for sharing
the mic with me today. Reallyenjoyed the conversation.
Thanks. I look forward tohaving you on and getting my chair

(57:50):
back.
Yeah, let's do it, man.
All right, take care. Thatbrings us to the end of our episode.
Thanks for listening. I'dencourage you to head on over to
my website, Kent.com coach andstart a conversation with me there.
Or check out my promotionplaybook at Kent Coach Playbook.
Before you go on with yourday, I ask you please take a moment
to leave a rating and a reviewwherever you listen to podcasts.

(58:10):
Five stars. That helps putthis podcast in front of more eyes
and ears. Until next time,take it easy.