June 10, 2025 • 41 mins
Al Dea is a speaker, entrepreneur, consultant, and podcast host. He advises leaders across industries to help them understand how the workplace is changing, and the implications for leading and growing people and organizations.
Drawing on his work advising the next generation of managers and leaders across diverse companies and industries ranging from Fortune 500 companies, non-profit organizations and emerging startups, Al speaks on topics around talent, culture, and leadership to inspire audiences to sense and respond to market changes and lead in more effective and people-first ways.
Al’s mission is to create a better world of work by working with leaders to create human-centric workplaces that unleash the potential and performance of their people.
Developing your people isn’t just a nice-to-have; it’s a crucial part of leadership that often gets sidelined. In this episode, we dive deep into the reality that while leaders might say their team members own their own development, the truth is, they often need support to truly thrive. Al joins me to chat about how many successful folks credit their achievements to the help they received along the way, and how leaders can create the right conditions for growth instead of just piling on more tasks. We also explore how the pressures of daily operations can make developing talent feel like an afterthought, even for well-meaning leaders. So grab your headphones and get ready for some insightful banter on how to prioritize people development without losing your mind in the process!
When we think about leadership, it’s easy to get bogged down in the day-to-day grind, right? Well, today’s dialogue with Al shines a light on the often-overlooked art of developing talent. Al starts by painting a stark picture: leaders are often given more responsibilities without the necessary support to prioritize people development. He brings to life the struggles of first-time leaders who might not even realize that fostering their team's growth is part of the gig. The discussion is rich with anecdotes and practical tips, from the importance of having regular career conversations to the necessity of creating an environment where team members feel safe to express their aspirations and challenges. Al stresses that while it might feel easier in the moment for leaders to handle tasks themselves, this short-term thinking can lead to long-term headaches. By investing time in developing others, leaders not only enhance their teams' capabilities but also free themselves up to tackle more strategic initiatives. This episode is a goldmine for anyone looking to elevate their leadership skills and create a thriving team culture.
Takeaways:
- Leaders need to own the development of their people, but they often forget this amidst their busy schedules.
- Success in organizations is rarely achieved solo; most successful individuals credit support from mentors and peers.
- Developing talent is not just a nice-to-have; it’s essential for long-term organizational success and sustainability.
- Leaders should regularly audit how they spend their time to prioritize people development amidst their many responsibilities.
- Investing time in developing others can lead to greater efficiency and effectiveness in the future, creating a win-win situation.
- Creating an environment where employees feel supported in their growth can significantly enhance overall team performance.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:04):
All of our people, they owntheir own development, right? It's
a very great aspirationalthing to say. It can be very empowering
for people to say that. Butthe reality of it is, is that if
you talk to most people whohave, quote, unquote, achieved a
level of success in anorganization and you try to pull
up themes between all of themabout what actually enabled the success,
(00:24):
my confidence was pretty highthat almost all of them would talk
about how to a varying degree,they wouldn't have gotten where they'd
gotten without the support orhelp of someone. Right.
Hi there and welcome to theStep Up Expert Voices for Leadership
Growth. I'm your host, KentKnievel. Every week I talk to experts
who focus on helping leadersstep up their leadership game. If
(00:45):
you're new to the show, thenon whatever platform you're using,
I encourage you to subscribeso you never miss an episode. One
last thing. As a leadershipdevelopment consultant and executive
coach, I have a particularinterest in support supporting recent
internally promoted leaders.If that's you, or if you support
a leader who has been recentlypromoted, I encourage you to visit
my website at Kent CoachPlaybook and download a free copy
(01:07):
of my 90 day blueprint filledwith practical advice for you or
the leader you support inhitting the ground running and truly
stepping up to their newleadership level. Without further
ado, on with the show.Welcome, everybody. Today we're here
to talk about one of the mostimportant tasks that leaders have,
which is developing theirpeople. And with me today for this
(01:29):
conversation is Al D, founderof the Edge of Work executive coach
and facilitator. Al, thanksfor coming today. Appreciate having
you here.
It's great to be here withyou. I'm excited to have this conversation.
Yeah. Well, as always, beforewe get into the topic du jour, would
love to hear about your careerstory and how you sort of got into
(01:50):
what you're doing today.
Sure. So I was a business andphilosophy major in undergrad and
I decided to start my careerlike every business and philosophy
major in terms of becoming amanagement consultant. That was a
joke and I was beingfacetious, but I really what I really
knew at the time, I didn'tnecessarily know what I wanted to
do, but I liked solvingproblems, I liked working on teams,
(02:13):
I liked working with otherpeople. And so I started my career
in management consulting,really working at the intersection
of technology and changemanagement. So working on a lot of
large cloud, global, complextechnology transformations and really
working on the changemanagement and people side of that.
And so thinking about changeManagement and org redesigns and
day one readiness andoperating models and things of that
(02:35):
nature. And I really enjoyedthat work, particularly kind of at
the intersection of how doestechnology really impact people?
And how can organizations usetechnology in new and novel ways?
And this kind of happenedaround the time when social media
started making its way intothe enterprise. At that point in
time, a lot of us were kind ofusing things personally for social
media, like having personalFacebook accounts or having a personal
(02:58):
Twitter. But it was a littleout of the left field to think about
how do we actually use thesewithin organizations and how do we
use them to better service ourcustomers or better help our employees
work better. And so it was anexciting time to kind of work at
this kind of shift and changeand went to business school, came
back to the firm, and when Icame back, I started doing more work
in this space. But one of thethings that kind of kept coming up,
(03:19):
quite frankly, was somethingthat I'm sure you probably know is
that no matter what technologyyou're implementing, or no matter
how cool it is, or howinteresting it is, or how innovative
it is, if you're trying todrive working in new ways, it has
so much less to do with thetechnology than it has to do with
the people and specificallykind of the leadership and the culture.
And so I just startedfollowing the curiosity first in
terms of the client work thatI did, but also internally at the
(03:40):
firm that I worked at, therewas kind of a whole track you could
go down in terms of learningkind of the tools of being a coach,
being a facilitator, and beinga trainer. And so I decided to do
that because I just wasgenuinely curious in IT and started
getting tapped to kind of leadleadership programs internally in
terms of being a facilitatoror coach at high potential programs,
at promotion programs, thingsin that nature, and just kind of
(04:03):
fell in love with that world.So much so that for fun, I started
writing about kind ofleadership development on the side
outside of work. And I starteda little side hustle, doing some
coaching, some training andsome speaking. And little by little
just kept doing a little bitmore and a little bit more of it.
Eventually left the consultingworld to go work in the technology
industry and just kind of keptdoing kind of that side hustle, so
(04:23):
to speak. And so every year Idid a little bit more and a little
bit more. And then during thepandemic, my side hustle, in terms
of doing a lot of speaking,coaching, leadership training, just
kind of elevated significantlybecause the demand for those services,
particularly in a virtualworld, as we were trying to adapt,
just kind of grew prettysignificantly. And so but the first
year of the pandemic, kind oftrying to kind of manage both my
(04:45):
full time day job and my fulltime side hustle. And then I just
kind of realized after aboutfive and a half years of doing a
side hustle, I just, I wantedto make that the main thing. And
so at the end of 2021, Idecided to kind of go off on my own
and to build my own leadershipand talent development consulting
practice. And so that's whatI've been doing for the last couple
years of partnering withorganizations to design, deliver
(05:05):
and facilitate leadershipprograms to make sure that leaders
are equipped to lead in kindof this world of work that we are
in today, with a specificemphasis on leaders who are kind
of earlier in the journey ofbeing a people leader and then also
advising some organizations ontheir overall kind of talent and
people strategies in terms ofhow they think about how they develop
people internally, how theyattract and retain talent, things
(05:25):
of that nature. And so that iskind of what has at least partially
gotten me to kind of being onthe call right here with you this,
this afternoon. So that's alittle bit about my journey and a
background.
Nice. That sounds quite theopposite of what I've heard a lot
from a lot of otherindependent consultants at the beginning
of the pandemic was, you know,a lot of them saw work pulling away
(05:49):
and it's an interestingopposite story I'm hearing from you
on that's when things sort oftook off for you. Right. And I think
were people who had thatcomfort had already been working
in webinar delivery and sortof virtual work who maybe had. It
(06:09):
sounds like you maybe had abit of an edge at that time for that
kind of delivery.
Yeah, no, it's one of thosethings where I mean, first off I
had the benefit of having kindof like a full time day job that
I mostly enjoyed. Right. Andall along in many ways it kind of
felt like playing like withhouse money because at the end of
the day, like I was stilldoing something that I genuinely
(06:30):
like, enjoyed in my day to daywork. And then I had this other thing
look like, you know, I didn'thave to do those things like those
things outside of work, but Idid because I was excited about it.
And I think anytime you'replaying a game where you have a lot
of intrinsic motivation toplay and you're not necessarily doing
it for other reasons, there'snothing wrong with that. It's just
a different set of calculusand a different set of constraints.
(06:52):
And, and so, yeah, I mean, Ithink that, you know, something,
you know, that has beensomething that would say if I actually
reflect a little bit moredeeply, just a common theme in my
life of just trying to be moreattentive and pay more attention
to where that intrinsicmotivation is emanating from and
trying to see how I can bringthat more front and center for whatever
(07:12):
it is. And when I've donethat, I, again, if I reflect back
on it, I often feel likethose, those were some of the more
transformational moments have,have come for me.
Nice. That's awesome. Todaywe're talking about leaders developing
their people. I think in myown experience, it's an often aspirational,
(07:32):
easily neglected part of theleadership expectations, however
you want to put that. So Iknow you've been doing a lot of thinking
about this. Would love to knowwhere do you want to start that conversation?
No, your framing resonateswith me. And I think it resonates
with me because I think aboutnot just my own experience having
(07:53):
been a people leader, but inall the work that I do and all the
conversations I have justtalking with other leaders today,
I think it's a couple things.I think the first thing is that again,
we've gotten really good atadding things to the plates of leaders
and giving them more things todo. And we have not gotten as good
at taking things off theirplates or even for that matter, at
(08:14):
times telling them which meanmore or which mean less. Some of
this is a math game, right? Interms of, well, if you're always
adding and never ticking away,people are going to make judgment
calls in order for them to beable to survive, Right? And sometimes
the thing that often getsdropped is kind of that people leadership
and the people developmentpiece. And that's where your comment
(08:37):
about it being aspirationalreally resonates. Because even leaders
with the best of intentions,if they're under the gun sometimes
that's the thing that oftengoes by the wayside. The other aspect
of it is, particularly fornewer leaders, sometimes they just
don't know that it's part ofthe requisite elements of being a
leader is that you have to dothis thing. And sometimes you can't
(08:58):
blame them for not doing it ifthey've never been told, if they've
ever been trained, if they'venever been given a set of expectations
that, hey, this is actuallypart of your job. That can often
kind of be something where youcan't Necessarily fault them for
not being able to perhapsengage in it, if you will. And you
know, I think the last kind ofreality of this sometimes is that
(09:19):
sometimes these things can besometimes the act of investing in
developing your people ordeveloping talent, it can feel a
little more amorphous and alittle less concrete than some of
the other output drivenactivities that a leader may have.
And sometimes it's a littlebit easier to kind of glom onto things
(09:40):
that are a little bit morediscreet, a little bit more concrete.
Yeah, understandably so. Andso they kind of just like naturally
kind of fall to the, to thewayside, if you will. And so even
in the best of intent, withthe best of intentions for people
who arguably are trying to dothe right things, there are some
just barriers that often getin the way and again, I think really
align with that idea that youhad of like sometimes it feels a
(10:01):
little bit more aspirationalthan, than actually like a lived
reality.
Yeah, I. So I've been in anumber of sort of assessment centers
and coaching conversationslately where I just want to add to
some of that. Right. One isthere's the allure of, and I think
this is what you were sayingtoo. There's the allure of accomplishment,
(10:23):
the feeling of accomplishment.And so sometimes it is really easy
for leaders to get involved ina layer down, so to speak, and their
people's stuff and executionaltasks because you know, you can check
those off, it's boxes you cancheck and you feel like you did something
today because I find, youknow, a lot of leap struggle with
the, you know, strategicthings are longer term. Some of the
(10:47):
strategic projects they'reworking on are longer term. So the
day to day doesn't feel youdon't have that same sense of accomplishment
day in, day out that maybe youdid in the prior role. And then also,
you know, to your second pointof not being taught, I mean, I think
in my experience this isdeveloping talent, finding time for
(11:08):
strategic endeavors. Even thatis a challenge at every layer. Right.
It's not just, you know, firsttime leaders that need to figure
this out. It's like you haveto keep relearning how to let go
of what you were doing beforeat each level. And so sometimes you're
not being taught that becausethe layer above you is struggling
with that very same challenge.
(11:28):
Yeah, no, and I think you'reright. And I think to your point,
navigating kind of the what'simportant in the short term, that
which a lot of times we cansee versus some of the things not
in this case, not just the actof developing talent, but other types
of longer term endeavors likestrategy, like others that can be
hard to sometimes haveconfidence in that if you've got
(11:52):
to make trade offs, it's okayto invest that time. Because look,
for a lot of us, we're only asgood as our last quarter, right.
And there's a real livedreality to that that I don't, I don't
want to overlook for sometimesfor some leaders, right. But I do
think like with a lot ofthings in life and in business, it's
(12:15):
not always an either or,right. Like there's got to be room
for a both and there's got tobe room for navigating those polarities
of the short term versus thelong term. You know, assuming that
you work for an organizationthat would like to be in business
for a prolonged period oftime. Right. Because the reality
of it is, is that you only cando that if you have great people
(12:38):
in the wings who are ready tokind of continue to kind of keep
plugging away and doing thework that matters. And, and so if
you don't do anything for yourfuture, well, no matter how, I don't
care how good the last quarterwas, like if you're not going to
be around for a few more afterthat, you know, what are we doing
here?
So, yeah, yeah, I've heardsome, you know, again, it's, it's
this aspirational thing too,right. Where I've heard some leaders
(13:00):
say, really go on the recordof saying like my goal is to be an
exporter of talent. Right. Andthat. Exporter of talent.
Yeah.
Right. And we talk aboutsuccession planning and things like
that, but really when therubber hits the road, are you truly
preparing people to take overfor you to do some of the things
you're doing? Right. So thereis that. And as you're saying that
(13:22):
investment, right. The peoplefall into this trap of, as well,
of like, well, it's, it's justgoing to be easier and faster for
me to do this than to coachsomeone up on it. Right. Which you
know, from an investmentstrategy perspective, right. You're,
you know, you're just notthinking about the long term and
what the kind of payoff youmight get further down the road.
So you were, you know, thefirst thing we were, you were talking
(13:43):
about here is making the time, right.
Yeah.
Which I think is part of theequation. So what other challenges
do you see with leadersrelease, stepping up to step, you
know, stepping up to the plateor stepping up their game when it
comes to developing talent.
Yeah, sure, it's a goodquestion. Well, and even let's take
the time thing for a secondpart of the challenge there sometimes
(14:03):
perhaps is just kind ofthinking about that in a very closed
minded way, or maybe closedminded is not the right word, but
maybe in a more narrow way.Because I could also try to make
a rational argument thattaking time and investing in that
actually gives a leader backtime. Right? And so sometimes it
is one of those things whereit really just is a little bit more
(14:25):
of like a narrow view around.Oh, that's like the one the example
you gave is a really goodexample of I'm just going to do it
because it's going to save metime versus the amount of time that
it would take for me to workwith them or have them observe or
you know, walk them throughit, etc. That may be true in this
moment, but what happens thenext time that this comes up? Right?
(14:47):
Or the other upside of this isthat what happens when you do spend
the time right now and thenthe next time that this comes up
you don't hear about itbecause they are already taking care
of it. Right? Or what happenswhen because of the time that you
spent with them, they not onlycan do this thing, but they can do
a bunch of other adjacentthings because you gave them the
(15:07):
confidence and self beliefthat they have capacity and so they
can not only save you time,but then maybe do something additional
to that. And so all of asudden now we're, we're talking about
a whole different set ofcalculus and equation. But if we're
just looking about this asjust saving time in the moment, we
miss a little bit of thatexpansive and creative nature of
(15:29):
how investing time actuallycan save you time and even buy back
additional time in other kindof ways. So that's just like one
example. I think the otherexample is truly, truly understanding
what level of expectation andrequisite responsibility a leader
has, either because of what aleader has been told or what they
(15:54):
believe. And so an example ofthat might be something to the effect
of look like a lot of timesover the past couple decades organizations
have moved to this ideaaround, well, we want to empower
our people. So all of ourpeople, they own their own development.
It's a very great aspirationalthing to say. It can be very empowering
for people to say that. Butthe reality of it is that if you
(16:17):
talk to most, I would arguemost people who have quote unquote,
achieved a level of success inan organization and you try to pull
up themes between all of themabout what actually enabled the success.
My confidence is pretty highthat almost all of them would talk
about how to a varying degree,they wouldn't have gotten where they'd
gotten without the support orhelp of someone. Right. It could
(16:38):
have been a mentor, it couldhave been a sponsor, it could have
been a cross functional peer.Right. And so the whole idea that
someone owns their owndevelopment and is solely responsible
on their own for doing thesethings, I think is a little misleading
with how systems andorganizations actually work. Right.
And so even, you know, and sohaving that belief that, oh, well,
my people, they will just dothis on their own, I think can also
(17:01):
be like a limiting factor. Andthen the last piece of it is kind
of the flip side of that,which is feeling like that means
that they, as the leader, haveto do it for their employee. And
that's also not true too,because at the end of the day, the
employee is the employee andthey have to have some skin in the
game. And as someone who worksin this space, I'm sure you can appreciate
(17:21):
kind of the concept and ideaof creating conditions. Right. And
that's ultimately kind of, Ithink, where part of the goal is
it's not you necessarily doingit for them, but it's you enabling
you, empowering you, helpingkind of create spaces where this
can happen. Because ultimatelyeven it's kind of the, the, the phrase,
(17:41):
like you can lead a horse towater, but you can't, you know, make
them drink. Like at the end ofthe day, like the employee still
has to, has to be the one whocarries through with this. And so
just some of those kinds ofmindsets and beliefs sometimes get
in the way of actually seeingwhat's possible with this for a leader.
And I think perhaps maybelimit their visibility and which
(18:02):
thus maybe factors into whythey either have missteps with this
or, or why maybe they justdon't maybe take the time to actually
do it on a more regular orconsistent basis.
Yeah. One of the things that Ifound is so even if you can get through
the process of developing ormaking development plans, for example,
I have found that your regularone on one is also where the best
(18:27):
of intentions to havedevelopment conversations go to die.
Yeah, right. So I alwaysrecommend to people, you know, not
only, you know, well, I mean,first of all, you should probably
have a career conversation acouple times a year. Right. Because
you never know what's changingin someone's life. Right?
Sure. Yeah.
You know, some, a major lifecircumstance could happen that might
(18:47):
change someone's career goalsor they've now been through enough
reps in their current role.Right. That might change their career
goals. Right. And then on topof that, I recommend that people
have at least a quarterlydevelopment conversation. And these
should be aside from whateveryour regular cadence of one on ones
are. And these should bededicated meetings to that topic.
Not we'll just fit it intoour, you know, our one on one cadence.
(19:11):
Because the, the samechallenge of even making time for
development will happen inyour one on ones, which is we're,
oh, we've got five minutesleft after talking business, we'll
just talk about developmentnext time, right?
Yeah, no, I think that'sright. And I think a couple things,
I mean, I think it ends upbeing one of those things where it's
(19:33):
small practices doneconsistently over time. And I think
that using that approach, whatI think people realize when they
start doing this is that theactual things in and of themselves
are a lot less in the moment,but when you do them over time, it
compounds and it adds up. Andpart of it is just getting into the
(19:54):
mindset and belief aboutmaking a more intentional effort
to do these things in a moredeliberate fashion. And I actually
think in a lot of waysremoving kind of the stigma sometimes
that comes from this largeepisodic thing that happens once
a year. Right. And breaking itdown into something smaller that
(20:17):
may happen more times a year,but is a little bit more, less meaty,
if you will. Actually helpsboth people in that regard because
it takes a little bit of thepressure away of, oh, we have to
solve this in the next 30minutes. Right. And that's not necessarily
the point. Like the goal is tohave the conversation to learn and
to co collaborate about, okay,well what could this lead to in the
(20:40):
immediate short term nextstep? Like what are one or two, you
know, actions that we can kindof go from, from here. And I think
sometimes when one, you know,in a lot of work that I do in terms
of having leaders, like thinkabout this, when you actually start
breaking it down to like thebehaviors and the micro actions,
it starts to become a lot morepalatable and a lot easier to see
to your point, how if we justmake a couple adjustments to how
(21:04):
we conduct our one on ones,how we can actually just bring this
up pretty casually in a one onone conversation that we have once
a week or once every two weeksor like whatever it is. And I actually
think that tends to work alittle bit better in the workflow
of what someone's already likedoing and engaging with versus, you
know, trying to do big thingswhich may have a place and may have
a point in time. And the otherthing I was just going to say to,
(21:28):
to just to kind of like add,add some more color onto to some
of the stuff that you said isthat I think that when you. There's
a framing of this too, of likepart of what you're trying to do
in these conversations or, orjust to any of these engagements
when you're actuallydeveloping people is that they actually,
(21:50):
they give you as a leader alot of insight. And that can be so
helpful for so many differentthings. You may realize that the
person who is doing that thingshould be doing a whole bunch of
other things because of theskill set. When you observe them,
you may realize that you mayhave them in the wrong role. You
may. They may, because theydon't know I'm just making this up.
(22:11):
But like, let's say you'retrying to help them learn something
that learn a process or aninitiative that they haven't done
before by them asking aquestion. You may learn that that
thing you're having them workon actually is not something that
you should be working on. Andso I think there's another framing
in this too, of that, yes, itis for development and for having
them learn and grow, but thisis actually helpful to the leader
(22:32):
themselves. Right. Of in and,and getting those connections and
those moments with your peoplethat is really, really insightful
to the leader in terms of howthey want to lead more holistically.
And so there is actually areally added benefit of that in doing
some of these things as well.
Yeah. I think having even abroader career conversation too,
(22:55):
that's not just what do youwant to be when you grow up, but
what are some of the thingsyou like doing? What are some of
the things you dread doing dayin and day out too? Right. Because
there's so many opportunitiesyou might have. You know, I always,
I, I always say, you know,these conversations give you so much
context to work fromthroughout the year too. Right. You're
(23:17):
coming across something,you're like, oh my gosh, that is
100 Al's jam. And somethingthat, you know, he's working to develop.
You know, let me see if I can,you know, bring him in on that or
give that, you know, delegatethat over to him. Right?
Yeah. To your point, like,there are so many little nuggets
of insight that a leader coulduse to help run their team more effectively.
(23:40):
If you are kind of havingthese Little kinds of check ins or
conversations and, or, andpaying honestly just paying more
attention. Right. And I thinkthat is actually, it's probably separate
podcast or topic, but I dothink that like actually a leader's
attention is kind of like oneof the most valuable resources that
they have. Right. And whatthey choose to kind of point that
(24:01):
towards. Right. And so thereis so much that's there. I'll tell
a quick, quick story thatillustrates this. So as you know,
I also host a podcast, it'scalled the Edge of Work. And about
two years ago I had ajournalist who also wrote a book.
And her book was a little bitabout kind of her journey with finding
(24:21):
ways to kind of grow anddevelop like in your own role. And
the story that she gave forwhy the Book event is a book is that
she was a reporter and workingfor one of the news outlets. And
at the time there was likethis big push to like write these
like articles that wereessentially like article slideshows.
I'm sure you've seen some ofthese before in the past where it's
like, you know, it's likeslideshow and like you kind of click
(24:41):
through the photos and thingslike that. And like she just absolutely
dreaded it and like it wasjust a slog and so much work and
it was becoming so much a goodpart of her job. Like it got to a
point where she was like, Idon't want to do this anymore. I
need to start looking for anew job. And so she goes down the
rabbit hole of looking for anew job. She starts interviewing.
She tells this story about howone day the leader of her team came
(25:03):
back from something and waslike sent him a note out to the Slack
channel of everyone just saidhey everyone. It's come to my attention
that I've not been as good inthe past about really making sure
that people are in the rightroles and working on the right things.
So what I want you to do is totake the next three days and to think
about the things you reallyenjoy doing and that light you up
(25:23):
and the things in the part ofyour job that you do not enjoy doing
at all. And safe harbor likeyou can be honest, I'm the only one
that sees this. It's not goingto anyone else, but I want you to
at least come up with two tothree things of the plus and two
to three things of the Midas.And that was her invitation to share
that she did not want to dothose things. So her boss looked
(25:44):
at all those and made someadjustments. And modifications, and
then the rest is history.Right. And it was like this, like,
aha moment for her, and Ithink her boss, even for that matter,
of just like, sometimes itliterally is just the little things
like that of like, taking,like, a couple things off of someone's
plate. Right. To be alsopaying attention to what people are
(26:05):
doing or, like, where theirenergy is. And in this case, like,
her boss was able to retain avery competent and capable, like,
worker who is literally like,like a foot out the door simply by
having a simple conversationaround. True. Tell me, like, what
are the things you like doingand the things that you don't like
doing? And, you know, thereare so many other versions of that.
(26:27):
But, like, I think that reallyillustrates sometimes, like, this
doesn't have to be a massivegrand, you know, investment of things,
but it does mean you do haveto be more intentional and deliberate
about it.
Yeah, I love that I have hadsimilar conversations with leaders
on this. On that exact pointtoo. And of, you know, getting to
know what people like, whatthey don't like. And some of the
(26:49):
pushback I've gotten in thepast, you know, about both kind of
having a career conversationand knowing what someone wants to
be when they grow up and whatdo they like and not like is like,
well, what if I don't see thatpath for them? Or what if I can't
remove the things, you know,that they don't like? And my usual
response to that is, well,don't make promises you can't keep.
Right. You can talk aboutlike, well, if that's something you
want to do and be here are thethings that, you know, we need to
(27:12):
be working on. And you couldeven throw that back. You know, how
do you think that matches upwith your skill set? And then on
the things you like, you don'tlike peace. I always just kind of
come back to, well, you mightnot be able to remove everything.
And sometimes there's aconversation that needs to be had
around, like, everybody has toshovel the horse stalls from time
to time. Right. Sure. Youcan't, you know, promise that you'll
(27:34):
remove everything somebodydoesn't like, but, but the gold and
what you can gain and when youcan do something meaningful from
what you've learned, like thebenefit that can come from that.
Right? No, I think that'sright. And I, I've gotten that conversation
or that question before. I, Iliterally was doing a workshop on
this a couple weeks ago, andthis topic came up, and I think it's
a couple things and, And IAgree. I agree in principle with
(27:57):
what you said. I think again,the first thing reminder again, you
don't have to solveeverything, right? And that's not
your job, right? So justremembering that. The second thing
is that how do you know thatyou can't do anything, right? The
only way you find out is ifyou actually have the conversation,
right? So there's anotheraspect of this of like, yes, it's
(28:18):
a very real and lived concernand if you're going to think about
the worst case scenario, well,you're also going to have to gameplay
this in your head of like,well, how realistic? Like how realistic
that there's like legitimatelylike nothing that you can change,
right? And if you were, youknow, like if I'm just making this
up but like if you had ahundred people that you had this
conversation with, you mighthave a handful. But like it's just
(28:40):
not like realistic that likeevery single person that reports
into you, you couldn't do aright like thing. So like, let's
like put that aside. But youknow, I think it's okay to have those
conversations and betransparent when that happens. And
I don't think that the issuesare that managers can't give you
the thing that you want. Ithink the bigger issue is when the
(29:03):
expectation doesn't meet like,or what's said does not meet, like
what's acted upon. Like, Iactually think people are pretty
reasonable and rational whenyou're transparent and honest with
them. And what I also think isthat there is a very real outcome
of this that can be positivewhere it says that thing you want.
That's amazing. I may notnecessarily be the best person to
(29:26):
be able to provide you forthat, but could we have a conversation
so I could understand a littlebit better about what that thing
really means to you? So that Imight come up with a couple or we
might be able to come up witha couple ideas together or I might
be able to connect you with acouple people who can help you with
that thing. Like, I think thatreasonably speaking, like people,
if an employee heard that, Idon't think they would criticize
(29:46):
their manager. Like I thinkthey would actually respect that.
Like the manager had enoughself awareness and enough maturity
to know when they were outabove their skis or in, you know,
because again, like I don'tthink people are stupid. Like I think
they get it, you know. And soyeah, so I think there's definitely
ways to kind of navigatearound it.
Yeah, I've had similarexperience with appreciating and
(30:09):
Seeing the value of.
Right, yeah, yeah.
That treating your people like adults.
That was literally the thoughtthat came to my head. Yeah, that's
100%. Yeah.
Yeah. Awesome. Well, I'mtrying to think here. So before we
get into the advice section,what else on this topic did you want
(30:31):
to dip into today?
You know, I think that the. Iwant to go back to something that
you said earlier, I think,because I think it'll help make it
a little bit more real, butalso help people see kind of like,
you know, there's, you know,there's, there's nuance to this too.
(30:52):
Like the, you brought up theidea of like, you know, people aspirationally
want to be like talentexporters. Right. Like that's a great
vision. Right. And so forthose who aren't familiar with the
concept, the whole idea behindit is that, you know, as a leader,
like you potentially want tobe known as someone who not only
has great people that areworking for you, but those people
end up going on to eitherother roles or other parts of the
business or other places. Andyou know, part of why they're able
(31:15):
to do that is because of thefact that you've developed them,
you've given them room togrow, but also that like when the
time was right, you got out oftheir way and allowed them to go
and do the next thing.
Yeah.
And you know, the benefitpotentially of that is A, having
a good brand, but B, also whenyou do that, people tend to like
talk in a positive way andthat leads to other great people
wanting to come work for you.
(31:36):
Right.
Aspirationally, that soundsgreat. And there's really good examples
of this, particularly inprofessional sports, in particular,
either of coaches who havedeveloped a set of assistant coaches
who have then gone on tobecome head coaches at other places
or other teams, things of thatnature. I understand why sometimes
that is an aspiration thatdoesn't get into reality because
to a certain degree you aremaking a little bit of a bet here.
(31:58):
And I want to acknowledgethat. Right. Because yeah, like you're
going to be. If this issomething you ascribe to as something
that's important, it meansyou're going to investing time into
something. Right. Not allinvestments pay off. Not all investments
pay off all the time. And so Iwant to honor that because like,
I don't, you know, prescribethat this is a full, a fail proof
(32:20):
like solution by any meansmeans. I've seen plenty of benefits
personally and for otherpeople, but I'd be lying to you to
say that this is a foolproofstrategy. But what I would offer,
and I would say is this, thatI do think that of all the things
that a leader could do,developing their people, I think
really is a good investment oftheir time because of the fact that
(32:43):
at the end of the day, most ofus, if you're hiring, you're not
just hiring people for beingable to competently do the specific
job or tasks that you hiredthem to do. You probably hired them
because you thought they werecapable of doing more than that.
In case a new type of customerproblem came in, in case a new type
(33:03):
of product needed to be spunup, or in case there was something
that came into your kind ofremit under uncertainty that, like,
you maybe didn't have to solveon your own. Well, if you want to
be able to tackle any of thosethings, part of what you kind of
have to do is to find ways tocreate space for your people to actually
do that, and you need tosupport them in their ability to
do that. And the reality of itis, those examples, those use cases
(33:26):
I gave, they're probably morerealistically part of how a lot of
people experience work todayanyway. How many of us are actually
doing specifically the jobwreck that we were hired for. It's
just too. We don't live in astatic world. We live in a very dynamic
world. And so I think that,like, I recognize, fully acknowledge
(33:48):
that, like, this is not afoolproof strategy. Like, it's an
investment. Sometimesinvestments don't pay off. But given
just how work gets done today,I think taking the time to actually
develop your people is areally good investment because it
just maps very well to thekinds of work that, like, actually
happens. And for most of us,at least.
Today, yeah, it's worth the gambler.
(34:10):
Right.
If you have a sizable team, iseveryone going to develop and move
along? No. But also, noteverybody's aspirations will be to
do so either. Right. Like,some people want to do the job that
they're in and want to do itwell and build expertise, right?
Yes, yes.
Move along well. So let's.Let's dive into our advice section.
(34:33):
So love to focus on and, youknow, the first piece of advice for
leaders. So what advice do youhave directly for leaders out there?
Yeah, so I'm gonna sound likea broken record, but I'll try to
make it really tactical. Itreally is gonna be around developing
talent. Right. I think myfirst piece of advice for anyone
here out there is to kind oftake stock and, like, literally audit
(34:57):
how you spent your time over.We'll call it the past week or two
weeks. Right. And just to geta level set to understand, better
understand where you'respending your time and see if there
is anything on there where,upon reflection, you really didn't
need to be doing that thing.Well, I just gave you an opportunity
to free up some time where youcould start to maybe focus on activities,
tasks or opportunities ofliterally time where you could spend
(35:21):
on developing talent. And so,you know, the best place to start
is right where you are. Butyou need to have an actual understanding
of that. That might actuallyjust even be a helpful exercise just
to do on like a semi regularbasis just to make sure, not even
remove developing talent for asecond, just to make sure that you're
actually working on the thingsthat are actually driving the most
impact or are of the biggestpriority. But I think that would
(35:41):
be like the first place Iwould start is just to even just
map out and think about like,hey, like where am I actually spending
my time and is it actuallyaligned to the things that I know
are really important and howmight I be able to free up some time
that I could actually allocatetowards other things like developing
talent? So that would be kindof like the first piece of advice.
Nice. Yeah, I want towholeheartedly endorse that. Right.
(36:03):
I think sometimes peoplecringe at this idea of like writing
down an activity like this,but the value of once you've actually
put pen to paper and literallycan zoom out and see how have I been
spending my time and is thatin alignment with how I'd like to
be spending my time isextremely valuable.
Yeah.
(36:23):
So the other piece of advice Iasked you to prepare is, and I try
to say it broadly for thosewho support leaders. Right. So that
could be senior leaders.Right. Who are supporting the leaders
that report to them. Or moretraditionally, from my background,
people in talent management,leadership development, hr, business
partner type roles. So whatadvice do you have for those who
(36:45):
are supporting leaders?
So I would say you can usewhatever metaphor you want to use
for this, but walk the walls,do ride alongs, go meet people where
they are in the work thatthey're doing and experiencing and
find out what's going ondirectly observing it to the degree
(37:05):
that you kind of can for yourwork environment. I think that anytime
you're working in a role whereyou're enabling others or that you're
serving a stakeholder or auser group, it's very easy sometimes
to kind of talk to them in thelanguage that you want to use. It's
A little bit harder and alittle bit more of a mindset shift
to speak to them in theirlanguage, to communicate what you
(37:27):
want to say. And I thinkyou've got a much better shot of
doing that when you actuallyimmerse yourself in their day to
day lived experience, whateverthat is. And I know there are definitely
some companies out there. I'veseen some examples. In particular,
I find retail and hospitalitywhere if you work in corporate, you
got to spend time, you know,working on the shop floor or in the
(37:48):
drive thru or you know, in thecall center, like whatever it is.
But even if, even if you don'thave one of those, like, I think
there's a lot of value in thatin terms of, like, once you kind
of have a more concreteunderstanding of their lived experience
and what they're dealing with,your ability to tailor solutions,
services, products, whateveryou, whatever it is that you do,
(38:09):
I think will be far richer.And also the way in which you communicate
them will be a lot moreappealing because you're going to
be speaking with two. You saywhat you want to say, but in their
terms, but not necessarily yours.
Yeah, yeah, yes, yes. And theamount of influence you gain by being
seen doing this, right, byactually walking the halls or going
(38:32):
on ride alongs. Right,awesome. So the third piece of advice
I always say is just grab bagtime. So anything that you know,
anything else you want toleave the audience with could be
how to find and get more Aldiin their lives.
I would say this. I think thateveryone to a certain degree is navigating
(38:55):
their own challenges,personal, professional, etc. Right
now, to a certain degree,that's no different than ever. But
it does feel recently,particularly in certain parts of
the world. I'm in the UnitedStates. Kent is as well. It's hard
to find someone who is justkind of just like chilling right
now and just like everything'sgreat, right? And the piece of advice
that I would offer up is thatbased off of everything I've read
(39:17):
about history and just what Iknow just about my own personal life,
many of the biggest challengesthat we've ever faced have come when
we've turned outward versusturning inward. And so my invitation
or piece of advice to all ofyou is that if you are someone for
whatever it is you'restruggling with or you're challenged
by, to the degree that youcan, if you can turn outward to whatever
that is for you, whetherthat's, you know, if it's, you know,
(39:39):
needed like professional helpor just, you know, peers, colleagues,
friends, people in yournetwork, whatever big that anyone
is dealing with. Again, like,I think the solutions often come
when we go outward versusinward. And so that would be my invitation
to all of you is, you know,call a friend, call a colleague,
check in with them, try tomake it a regular practice if you
will, because it will probablymake you feel a little bit better
(40:01):
and it will help you fromsuffering alone. It will probably
make them feel a little bitbetter too, as well.
Nice. I like that. All right,so how can people find Al D if they
want a little more Al D intheir lives? Tell us a little bit
about where to find you, whatyou're up to.
Thank you so much. Like you,Kent, I spent a lot of time on LinkedIn,
so an easy place to find meand some of what I'm doing is certainly
(40:24):
you can follow me on LinkedIn.I'm sure, sure we'll put my link
in the show notes. But if youcould find me there. And then if
you want to find out moreabout how I work with organizations
to develop their leaders andthings like that, you can certainly
follow me on LinkedIn. Butalso you can check out my website.
It's just al-dea.com. yeah,that's where you can see a little
bit more about what I'm up toeach and every day.
Nice. Well, that brings us tothe end. Thanks, Al. Appreciate having
(40:47):
you here today.
It's great chatting with you.Really appreciate it, Ken.
Yeah, had a really good, goodtime and thanks to all of our listeners
and everybody. Take it easy.That brings us to the end of our
episode. Thanks for listening.I'd encourage you to head on over
to my website, Kent Coach, andstart a conversation with me there
or check out my promotionplaybook at Kent Coates Playbook.
(41:07):
Before you go on with yourday, I ask that you please take a
moment to leave a rating and areview wherever you listen to podcasts.
Five stars. That helps putthis podcast in front of more eyes
and ears. Until next time,take it easy.
All of our people, they owntheir own development, right? It's
a very great aspirationalthing to say. It can be very empowering
for people to say that. Butthe reality of it is, is that if
you talk to most people whohave, quote, unquote, achieved a
level of success in anorganization and you try to pull
up themes between all of themabout what actually enabled the success,
(00:24):
my confidence was pretty highthat almost all of them would talk
about how to a varying degree,they wouldn't have gotten where they'd
gotten without the support orhelp of someone. Right.
Hi there and welcome to theStep Up Expert Voices for Leadership
Growth. I'm your host, KentKnievel. Every week I talk to experts
who focus on helping leadersstep up their leadership game. If
(00:45):
you're new to the show, thenon whatever platform you're using,
I encourage you to subscribeso you never miss an episode. One
last thing. As a leadershipdevelopment consultant and executive
coach, I have a particularinterest in support supporting recent
internally promoted leaders.If that's you, or if you support
a leader who has been recentlypromoted, I encourage you to visit
my website at Kent CoachPlaybook and download a free copy
(01:07):
of my 90 day blueprint filledwith practical advice for you or
the leader you support inhitting the ground running and truly
stepping up to their newleadership level. Without further
ado, on with the show.Welcome, everybody. Today we're here
to talk about one of the mostimportant tasks that leaders have,
which is developing theirpeople. And with me today for this
(01:29):
conversation is Al D, founderof the Edge of Work executive coach
and facilitator. Al, thanksfor coming today. Appreciate having
you here.
It's great to be here withyou. I'm excited to have this conversation.
Yeah. Well, as always, beforewe get into the topic du jour, would
love to hear about your careerstory and how you sort of got into
(01:50):
what you're doing today.
Sure. So I was a business andphilosophy major in undergrad and
I decided to start my careerlike every business and philosophy
major in terms of becoming amanagement consultant. That was a
joke and I was beingfacetious, but I really what I really
knew at the time, I didn'tnecessarily know what I wanted to
do, but I liked solvingproblems, I liked working on teams,
(02:13):
I liked working with otherpeople. And so I started my career
in management consulting,really working at the intersection
of technology and changemanagement. So working on a lot of
large cloud, global, complextechnology transformations and really
working on the changemanagement and people side of that.
And so thinking about changeManagement and org redesigns and
day one readiness andoperating models and things of that
(02:35):
nature. And I really enjoyedthat work, particularly kind of at
the intersection of how doestechnology really impact people?
And how can organizations usetechnology in new and novel ways?
And this kind of happenedaround the time when social media
started making its way intothe enterprise. At that point in
time, a lot of us were kind ofusing things personally for social
media, like having personalFacebook accounts or having a personal
(02:58):
Twitter. But it was a littleout of the left field to think about
how do we actually use thesewithin organizations and how do we
use them to better service ourcustomers or better help our employees
work better. And so it was anexciting time to kind of work at
this kind of shift and changeand went to business school, came
back to the firm, and when Icame back, I started doing more work
in this space. But one of thethings that kind of kept coming up,
(03:19):
quite frankly, was somethingthat I'm sure you probably know is
that no matter what technologyyou're implementing, or no matter
how cool it is, or howinteresting it is, or how innovative
it is, if you're trying todrive working in new ways, it has
so much less to do with thetechnology than it has to do with
the people and specificallykind of the leadership and the culture.
And so I just startedfollowing the curiosity first in
terms of the client work thatI did, but also internally at the
(03:40):
firm that I worked at, therewas kind of a whole track you could
go down in terms of learningkind of the tools of being a coach,
being a facilitator, and beinga trainer. And so I decided to do
that because I just wasgenuinely curious in IT and started
getting tapped to kind of leadleadership programs internally in
terms of being a facilitatoror coach at high potential programs,
at promotion programs, thingsin that nature, and just kind of
(04:03):
fell in love with that world.So much so that for fun, I started
writing about kind ofleadership development on the side
outside of work. And I starteda little side hustle, doing some
coaching, some training andsome speaking. And little by little
just kept doing a little bitmore and a little bit more of it.
Eventually left the consultingworld to go work in the technology
industry and just kind of keptdoing kind of that side hustle, so
(04:23):
to speak. And so every year Idid a little bit more and a little
bit more. And then during thepandemic, my side hustle, in terms
of doing a lot of speaking,coaching, leadership training, just
kind of elevated significantlybecause the demand for those services,
particularly in a virtualworld, as we were trying to adapt,
just kind of grew prettysignificantly. And so but the first
year of the pandemic, kind oftrying to kind of manage both my
(04:45):
full time day job and my fulltime side hustle. And then I just
kind of realized after aboutfive and a half years of doing a
side hustle, I just, I wantedto make that the main thing. And
so at the end of 2021, Idecided to kind of go off on my own
and to build my own leadershipand talent development consulting
practice. And so that's whatI've been doing for the last couple
years of partnering withorganizations to design, deliver
(05:05):
and facilitate leadershipprograms to make sure that leaders
are equipped to lead in kindof this world of work that we are
in today, with a specificemphasis on leaders who are kind
of earlier in the journey ofbeing a people leader and then also
advising some organizations ontheir overall kind of talent and
people strategies in terms ofhow they think about how they develop
people internally, how theyattract and retain talent, things
(05:25):
of that nature. And so that iskind of what has at least partially
gotten me to kind of being onthe call right here with you this,
this afternoon. So that's alittle bit about my journey and a
background.
Nice. That sounds quite theopposite of what I've heard a lot
from a lot of otherindependent consultants at the beginning
of the pandemic was, you know,a lot of them saw work pulling away
(05:49):
and it's an interestingopposite story I'm hearing from you
on that's when things sort oftook off for you. Right. And I think
were people who had thatcomfort had already been working
in webinar delivery and sortof virtual work who maybe had. It
(06:09):
sounds like you maybe had abit of an edge at that time for that
kind of delivery.
Yeah, no, it's one of thosethings where I mean, first off I
had the benefit of having kindof like a full time day job that
I mostly enjoyed. Right. Andall along in many ways it kind of
felt like playing like withhouse money because at the end of
the day, like I was stilldoing something that I genuinely
(06:30):
like, enjoyed in my day to daywork. And then I had this other thing
look like, you know, I didn'thave to do those things like those
things outside of work, but Idid because I was excited about it.
And I think anytime you'replaying a game where you have a lot
of intrinsic motivation toplay and you're not necessarily doing
it for other reasons, there'snothing wrong with that. It's just
a different set of calculusand a different set of constraints.
(06:52):
And, and so, yeah, I mean, Ithink that, you know, something,
you know, that has beensomething that would say if I actually
reflect a little bit moredeeply, just a common theme in my
life of just trying to be moreattentive and pay more attention
to where that intrinsicmotivation is emanating from and
trying to see how I can bringthat more front and center for whatever
(07:12):
it is. And when I've donethat, I, again, if I reflect back
on it, I often feel likethose, those were some of the more
transformational moments have,have come for me.
Nice. That's awesome. Todaywe're talking about leaders developing
their people. I think in myown experience, it's an often aspirational,
(07:32):
easily neglected part of theleadership expectations, however
you want to put that. So Iknow you've been doing a lot of thinking
about this. Would love to knowwhere do you want to start that conversation?
No, your framing resonateswith me. And I think it resonates
with me because I think aboutnot just my own experience having
(07:53):
been a people leader, but inall the work that I do and all the
conversations I have justtalking with other leaders today,
I think it's a couple things.I think the first thing is that again,
we've gotten really good atadding things to the plates of leaders
and giving them more things todo. And we have not gotten as good
at taking things off theirplates or even for that matter, at
(08:14):
times telling them which meanmore or which mean less. Some of
this is a math game, right? Interms of, well, if you're always
adding and never ticking away,people are going to make judgment
calls in order for them to beable to survive, Right? And sometimes
the thing that often getsdropped is kind of that people leadership
and the people developmentpiece. And that's where your comment
(08:37):
about it being aspirationalreally resonates. Because even leaders
with the best of intentions,if they're under the gun sometimes
that's the thing that oftengoes by the wayside. The other aspect
of it is, particularly fornewer leaders, sometimes they just
don't know that it's part ofthe requisite elements of being a
leader is that you have to dothis thing. And sometimes you can't
(08:58):
blame them for not doing it ifthey've never been told, if they've
ever been trained, if they'venever been given a set of expectations
that, hey, this is actuallypart of your job. That can often
kind of be something where youcan't Necessarily fault them for
not being able to perhapsengage in it, if you will. And you
know, I think the last kind ofreality of this sometimes is that
(09:19):
sometimes these things can besometimes the act of investing in
developing your people ordeveloping talent, it can feel a
little more amorphous and alittle less concrete than some of
the other output drivenactivities that a leader may have.
And sometimes it's a littlebit easier to kind of glom onto things
(09:40):
that are a little bit morediscreet, a little bit more concrete.
Yeah, understandably so. Andso they kind of just like naturally
kind of fall to the, to thewayside, if you will. And so even
in the best of intent, withthe best of intentions for people
who arguably are trying to dothe right things, there are some
just barriers that often getin the way and again, I think really
align with that idea that youhad of like sometimes it feels a
(10:01):
little bit more aspirationalthan, than actually like a lived
reality.
Yeah, I. So I've been in anumber of sort of assessment centers
and coaching conversationslately where I just want to add to
some of that. Right. One isthere's the allure of, and I think
this is what you were sayingtoo. There's the allure of accomplishment,
(10:23):
the feeling of accomplishment.And so sometimes it is really easy
for leaders to get involved ina layer down, so to speak, and their
people's stuff and executionaltasks because you know, you can check
those off, it's boxes you cancheck and you feel like you did something
today because I find, youknow, a lot of leap struggle with
the, you know, strategicthings are longer term. Some of the
(10:47):
strategic projects they'reworking on are longer term. So the
day to day doesn't feel youdon't have that same sense of accomplishment
day in, day out that maybe youdid in the prior role. And then also,
you know, to your second pointof not being taught, I mean, I think
in my experience this isdeveloping talent, finding time for
(11:08):
strategic endeavors. Even thatis a challenge at every layer. Right.
It's not just, you know, firsttime leaders that need to figure
this out. It's like you haveto keep relearning how to let go
of what you were doing beforeat each level. And so sometimes you're
not being taught that becausethe layer above you is struggling
with that very same challenge.
(11:28):
Yeah, no, and I think you'reright. And I think to your point,
navigating kind of the what'simportant in the short term, that
which a lot of times we cansee versus some of the things not
in this case, not just the actof developing talent, but other types
of longer term endeavors likestrategy, like others that can be
hard to sometimes haveconfidence in that if you've got
(11:52):
to make trade offs, it's okayto invest that time. Because look,
for a lot of us, we're only asgood as our last quarter, right.
And there's a real livedreality to that that I don't, I don't
want to overlook for sometimesfor some leaders, right. But I do
think like with a lot ofthings in life and in business, it's
(12:15):
not always an either or,right. Like there's got to be room
for a both and there's got tobe room for navigating those polarities
of the short term versus thelong term. You know, assuming that
you work for an organizationthat would like to be in business
for a prolonged period oftime. Right. Because the reality
of it is, is that you only cando that if you have great people
(12:38):
in the wings who are ready tokind of continue to kind of keep
plugging away and doing thework that matters. And, and so if
you don't do anything for yourfuture, well, no matter how, I don't
care how good the last quarterwas, like if you're not going to
be around for a few more afterthat, you know, what are we doing
here?
So, yeah, yeah, I've heardsome, you know, again, it's, it's
this aspirational thing too,right. Where I've heard some leaders
(13:00):
say, really go on the recordof saying like my goal is to be an
exporter of talent. Right. Andthat. Exporter of talent.
Yeah.
Right. And we talk aboutsuccession planning and things like
that, but really when therubber hits the road, are you truly
preparing people to take overfor you to do some of the things
you're doing? Right. So thereis that. And as you're saying that
(13:22):
investment, right. The peoplefall into this trap of, as well,
of like, well, it's, it's justgoing to be easier and faster for
me to do this than to coachsomeone up on it. Right. Which you
know, from an investmentstrategy perspective, right. You're,
you know, you're just notthinking about the long term and
what the kind of payoff youmight get further down the road.
So you were, you know, thefirst thing we were, you were talking
(13:43):
about here is making the time, right.
Yeah.
Which I think is part of theequation. So what other challenges
do you see with leadersrelease, stepping up to step, you
know, stepping up to the plateor stepping up their game when it
comes to developing talent.
Yeah, sure, it's a goodquestion. Well, and even let's take
the time thing for a secondpart of the challenge there sometimes
(14:03):
perhaps is just kind ofthinking about that in a very closed
minded way, or maybe closedminded is not the right word, but
maybe in a more narrow way.Because I could also try to make
a rational argument thattaking time and investing in that
actually gives a leader backtime. Right? And so sometimes it
is one of those things whereit really just is a little bit more
(14:25):
of like a narrow view around.Oh, that's like the one the example
you gave is a really goodexample of I'm just going to do it
because it's going to save metime versus the amount of time that
it would take for me to workwith them or have them observe or
you know, walk them throughit, etc. That may be true in this
moment, but what happens thenext time that this comes up? Right?
(14:47):
Or the other upside of this isthat what happens when you do spend
the time right now and thenthe next time that this comes up
you don't hear about itbecause they are already taking care
of it. Right? Or what happenswhen because of the time that you
spent with them, they not onlycan do this thing, but they can do
a bunch of other adjacentthings because you gave them the
(15:07):
confidence and self beliefthat they have capacity and so they
can not only save you time,but then maybe do something additional
to that. And so all of asudden now we're, we're talking about
a whole different set ofcalculus and equation. But if we're
just looking about this asjust saving time in the moment, we
miss a little bit of thatexpansive and creative nature of
(15:29):
how investing time actuallycan save you time and even buy back
additional time in other kindof ways. So that's just like one
example. I think the otherexample is truly, truly understanding
what level of expectation andrequisite responsibility a leader
has, either because of what aleader has been told or what they
(15:54):
believe. And so an example ofthat might be something to the effect
of look like a lot of timesover the past couple decades organizations
have moved to this ideaaround, well, we want to empower
our people. So all of ourpeople, they own their own development.
It's a very great aspirationalthing to say. It can be very empowering
for people to say that. Butthe reality of it is that if you
(16:17):
talk to most, I would arguemost people who have quote unquote,
achieved a level of success inan organization and you try to pull
up themes between all of themabout what actually enabled the success.
My confidence is pretty highthat almost all of them would talk
about how to a varying degree,they wouldn't have gotten where they'd
gotten without the support orhelp of someone. Right. It could
(16:38):
have been a mentor, it couldhave been a sponsor, it could have
been a cross functional peer.Right. And so the whole idea that
someone owns their owndevelopment and is solely responsible
on their own for doing thesethings, I think is a little misleading
with how systems andorganizations actually work. Right.
And so even, you know, and sohaving that belief that, oh, well,
my people, they will just dothis on their own, I think can also
(17:01):
be like a limiting factor. Andthen the last piece of it is kind
of the flip side of that,which is feeling like that means
that they, as the leader, haveto do it for their employee. And
that's also not true too,because at the end of the day, the
employee is the employee andthey have to have some skin in the
game. And as someone who worksin this space, I'm sure you can appreciate
(17:21):
kind of the concept and ideaof creating conditions. Right. And
that's ultimately kind of, Ithink, where part of the goal is
it's not you necessarily doingit for them, but it's you enabling
you, empowering you, helpingkind of create spaces where this
can happen. Because ultimatelyeven it's kind of the, the, the phrase,
(17:41):
like you can lead a horse towater, but you can't, you know, make
them drink. Like at the end ofthe day, like the employee still
has to, has to be the one whocarries through with this. And so
just some of those kinds ofmindsets and beliefs sometimes get
in the way of actually seeingwhat's possible with this for a leader.
And I think perhaps maybelimit their visibility and which
(18:02):
thus maybe factors into whythey either have missteps with this
or, or why maybe they justdon't maybe take the time to actually
do it on a more regular orconsistent basis.
Yeah. One of the things that Ifound is so even if you can get through
the process of developing ormaking development plans, for example,
I have found that your regularone on one is also where the best
(18:27):
of intentions to havedevelopment conversations go to die.
Yeah, right. So I alwaysrecommend to people, you know, not
only, you know, well, I mean,first of all, you should probably
have a career conversation acouple times a year. Right. Because
you never know what's changingin someone's life. Right?
Sure. Yeah.
You know, some, a major lifecircumstance could happen that might
(18:47):
change someone's career goalsor they've now been through enough
reps in their current role.Right. That might change their career
goals. Right. And then on topof that, I recommend that people
have at least a quarterlydevelopment conversation. And these
should be aside from whateveryour regular cadence of one on ones
are. And these should bededicated meetings to that topic.
Not we'll just fit it intoour, you know, our one on one cadence.
(19:11):
Because the, the samechallenge of even making time for
development will happen inyour one on ones, which is we're,
oh, we've got five minutesleft after talking business, we'll
just talk about developmentnext time, right?
Yeah, no, I think that'sright. And I think a couple things,
I mean, I think it ends upbeing one of those things where it's
(19:33):
small practices doneconsistently over time. And I think
that using that approach, whatI think people realize when they
start doing this is that theactual things in and of themselves
are a lot less in the moment,but when you do them over time, it
compounds and it adds up. Andpart of it is just getting into the
(19:54):
mindset and belief aboutmaking a more intentional effort
to do these things in a moredeliberate fashion. And I actually
think in a lot of waysremoving kind of the stigma sometimes
that comes from this largeepisodic thing that happens once
a year. Right. And breaking itdown into something smaller that
(20:17):
may happen more times a year,but is a little bit more, less meaty,
if you will. Actually helpsboth people in that regard because
it takes a little bit of thepressure away of, oh, we have to
solve this in the next 30minutes. Right. And that's not necessarily
the point. Like the goal is tohave the conversation to learn and
to co collaborate about, okay,well what could this lead to in the
(20:40):
immediate short term nextstep? Like what are one or two, you
know, actions that we can kindof go from, from here. And I think
sometimes when one, you know,in a lot of work that I do in terms
of having leaders, like thinkabout this, when you actually start
breaking it down to like thebehaviors and the micro actions,
it starts to become a lot morepalatable and a lot easier to see
to your point, how if we justmake a couple adjustments to how
(21:04):
we conduct our one on ones,how we can actually just bring this
up pretty casually in a one onone conversation that we have once
a week or once every two weeksor like whatever it is. And I actually
think that tends to work alittle bit better in the workflow
of what someone's already likedoing and engaging with versus, you
know, trying to do big thingswhich may have a place and may have
a point in time. And the otherthing I was just going to say to,
(21:28):
to just to kind of like add,add some more color onto to some
of the stuff that you said isthat I think that when you. There's
a framing of this too, of likepart of what you're trying to do
in these conversations or, orjust to any of these engagements
when you're actuallydeveloping people is that they actually,
(21:50):
they give you as a leader alot of insight. And that can be so
helpful for so many differentthings. You may realize that the
person who is doing that thingshould be doing a whole bunch of
other things because of theskill set. When you observe them,
you may realize that you mayhave them in the wrong role. You
may. They may, because theydon't know I'm just making this up.
(22:11):
But like, let's say you'retrying to help them learn something
that learn a process or aninitiative that they haven't done
before by them asking aquestion. You may learn that that
thing you're having them workon actually is not something that
you should be working on. Andso I think there's another framing
in this too, of that, yes, itis for development and for having
them learn and grow, but thisis actually helpful to the leader
(22:32):
themselves. Right. Of in and,and getting those connections and
those moments with your peoplethat is really, really insightful
to the leader in terms of howthey want to lead more holistically.
And so there is actually areally added benefit of that in doing
some of these things as well.
Yeah. I think having even abroader career conversation too,
(22:55):
that's not just what do youwant to be when you grow up, but
what are some of the thingsyou like doing? What are some of
the things you dread doing dayin and day out too? Right. Because
there's so many opportunitiesyou might have. You know, I always,
I, I always say, you know,these conversations give you so much
context to work fromthroughout the year too. Right. You're
(23:17):
coming across something,you're like, oh my gosh, that is
100 Al's jam. And somethingthat, you know, he's working to develop.
You know, let me see if I can,you know, bring him in on that or
give that, you know, delegatethat over to him. Right?
Yeah. To your point, like,there are so many little nuggets
of insight that a leader coulduse to help run their team more effectively.
(23:40):
If you are kind of havingthese Little kinds of check ins or
conversations and, or, andpaying honestly just paying more
attention. Right. And I thinkthat is actually, it's probably separate
podcast or topic, but I dothink that like actually a leader's
attention is kind of like oneof the most valuable resources that
they have. Right. And whatthey choose to kind of point that
(24:01):
towards. Right. And so thereis so much that's there. I'll tell
a quick, quick story thatillustrates this. So as you know,
I also host a podcast, it'scalled the Edge of Work. And about
two years ago I had ajournalist who also wrote a book.
And her book was a little bitabout kind of her journey with finding
(24:21):
ways to kind of grow anddevelop like in your own role. And
the story that she gave forwhy the Book event is a book is that
she was a reporter and workingfor one of the news outlets. And
at the time there was likethis big push to like write these
like articles that wereessentially like article slideshows.
I'm sure you've seen some ofthese before in the past where it's
like, you know, it's likeslideshow and like you kind of click
(24:41):
through the photos and thingslike that. And like she just absolutely
dreaded it and like it wasjust a slog and so much work and
it was becoming so much a goodpart of her job. Like it got to a
point where she was like, Idon't want to do this anymore. I
need to start looking for anew job. And so she goes down the
rabbit hole of looking for anew job. She starts interviewing.
She tells this story about howone day the leader of her team came
(25:03):
back from something and waslike sent him a note out to the Slack
channel of everyone just saidhey everyone. It's come to my attention
that I've not been as good inthe past about really making sure
that people are in the rightroles and working on the right things.
So what I want you to do is totake the next three days and to think
about the things you reallyenjoy doing and that light you up
(25:23):
and the things in the part ofyour job that you do not enjoy doing
at all. And safe harbor likeyou can be honest, I'm the only one
that sees this. It's not goingto anyone else, but I want you to
at least come up with two tothree things of the plus and two
to three things of the Midas.And that was her invitation to share
that she did not want to dothose things. So her boss looked
(25:44):
at all those and made someadjustments. And modifications, and
then the rest is history.Right. And it was like this, like,
aha moment for her, and Ithink her boss, even for that matter,
of just like, sometimes itliterally is just the little things
like that of like, taking,like, a couple things off of someone's
plate. Right. To be alsopaying attention to what people are
(26:05):
doing or, like, where theirenergy is. And in this case, like,
her boss was able to retain avery competent and capable, like,
worker who is literally like,like a foot out the door simply by
having a simple conversationaround. True. Tell me, like, what
are the things you like doingand the things that you don't like
doing? And, you know, thereare so many other versions of that.
(26:27):
But, like, I think that reallyillustrates sometimes, like, this
doesn't have to be a massivegrand, you know, investment of things,
but it does mean you do haveto be more intentional and deliberate
about it.
Yeah, I love that I have hadsimilar conversations with leaders
on this. On that exact pointtoo. And of, you know, getting to
know what people like, whatthey don't like. And some of the
(26:49):
pushback I've gotten in thepast, you know, about both kind of
having a career conversationand knowing what someone wants to
be when they grow up and whatdo they like and not like is like,
well, what if I don't see thatpath for them? Or what if I can't
remove the things, you know,that they don't like? And my usual
response to that is, well,don't make promises you can't keep.
Right. You can talk aboutlike, well, if that's something you
want to do and be here are thethings that, you know, we need to
(27:12):
be working on. And you couldeven throw that back. You know, how
do you think that matches upwith your skill set? And then on
the things you like, you don'tlike peace. I always just kind of
come back to, well, you mightnot be able to remove everything.
And sometimes there's aconversation that needs to be had
around, like, everybody has toshovel the horse stalls from time
to time. Right. Sure. Youcan't, you know, promise that you'll
(27:34):
remove everything somebodydoesn't like, but, but the gold and
what you can gain and when youcan do something meaningful from
what you've learned, like thebenefit that can come from that.
Right? No, I think that'sright. And I, I've gotten that conversation
or that question before. I, Iliterally was doing a workshop on
this a couple weeks ago, andthis topic came up, and I think it's
a couple things and, And IAgree. I agree in principle with
(27:57):
what you said. I think again,the first thing reminder again, you
don't have to solveeverything, right? And that's not
your job, right? So justremembering that. The second thing
is that how do you know thatyou can't do anything, right? The
only way you find out is ifyou actually have the conversation,
right? So there's anotheraspect of this of like, yes, it's
(28:18):
a very real and lived concernand if you're going to think about
the worst case scenario, well,you're also going to have to gameplay
this in your head of like,well, how realistic? Like how realistic
that there's like legitimatelylike nothing that you can change,
right? And if you were, youknow, like if I'm just making this
up but like if you had ahundred people that you had this
conversation with, you mighthave a handful. But like it's just
(28:40):
not like realistic that likeevery single person that reports
into you, you couldn't do aright like thing. So like, let's
like put that aside. But youknow, I think it's okay to have those
conversations and betransparent when that happens. And
I don't think that the issuesare that managers can't give you
the thing that you want. Ithink the bigger issue is when the
(29:03):
expectation doesn't meet like,or what's said does not meet, like
what's acted upon. Like, Iactually think people are pretty
reasonable and rational whenyou're transparent and honest with
them. And what I also think isthat there is a very real outcome
of this that can be positivewhere it says that thing you want.
That's amazing. I may notnecessarily be the best person to
(29:26):
be able to provide you forthat, but could we have a conversation
so I could understand a littlebit better about what that thing
really means to you? So that Imight come up with a couple or we
might be able to come up witha couple ideas together or I might
be able to connect you with acouple people who can help you with
that thing. Like, I think thatreasonably speaking, like people,
if an employee heard that, Idon't think they would criticize
(29:46):
their manager. Like I thinkthey would actually respect that.
Like the manager had enoughself awareness and enough maturity
to know when they were outabove their skis or in, you know,
because again, like I don'tthink people are stupid. Like I think
they get it, you know. And soyeah, so I think there's definitely
ways to kind of navigatearound it.
Yeah, I've had similarexperience with appreciating and
(30:09):
Seeing the value of.
Right, yeah, yeah.
That treating your people like adults.
That was literally the thoughtthat came to my head. Yeah, that's
100%. Yeah.
Yeah. Awesome. Well, I'mtrying to think here. So before we
get into the advice section,what else on this topic did you want
(30:31):
to dip into today?
You know, I think that the. Iwant to go back to something that
you said earlier, I think,because I think it'll help make it
a little bit more real, butalso help people see kind of like,
you know, there's, you know,there's, there's nuance to this too.
(30:52):
Like the, you brought up theidea of like, you know, people aspirationally
want to be like talentexporters. Right. Like that's a great
vision. Right. And so forthose who aren't familiar with the
concept, the whole idea behindit is that, you know, as a leader,
like you potentially want tobe known as someone who not only
has great people that areworking for you, but those people
end up going on to eitherother roles or other parts of the
business or other places. Andyou know, part of why they're able
(31:15):
to do that is because of thefact that you've developed them,
you've given them room togrow, but also that like when the
time was right, you got out oftheir way and allowed them to go
and do the next thing.
Yeah.
And you know, the benefitpotentially of that is A, having
a good brand, but B, also whenyou do that, people tend to like
talk in a positive way andthat leads to other great people
wanting to come work for you.
(31:36):
Right.
Aspirationally, that soundsgreat. And there's really good examples
of this, particularly inprofessional sports, in particular,
either of coaches who havedeveloped a set of assistant coaches
who have then gone on tobecome head coaches at other places
or other teams, things of thatnature. I understand why sometimes
that is an aspiration thatdoesn't get into reality because
to a certain degree you aremaking a little bit of a bet here.
(31:58):
And I want to acknowledgethat. Right. Because yeah, like you're
going to be. If this issomething you ascribe to as something
that's important, it meansyou're going to investing time into
something. Right. Not allinvestments pay off. Not all investments
pay off all the time. And so Iwant to honor that because like,
I don't, you know, prescribethat this is a full, a fail proof
(32:20):
like solution by any meansmeans. I've seen plenty of benefits
personally and for otherpeople, but I'd be lying to you to
say that this is a foolproofstrategy. But what I would offer,
and I would say is this, thatI do think that of all the things
that a leader could do,developing their people, I think
really is a good investment oftheir time because of the fact that
(32:43):
at the end of the day, most ofus, if you're hiring, you're not
just hiring people for beingable to competently do the specific
job or tasks that you hiredthem to do. You probably hired them
because you thought they werecapable of doing more than that.
In case a new type of customerproblem came in, in case a new type
(33:03):
of product needed to be spunup, or in case there was something
that came into your kind ofremit under uncertainty that, like,
you maybe didn't have to solveon your own. Well, if you want to
be able to tackle any of thosethings, part of what you kind of
have to do is to find ways tocreate space for your people to actually
do that, and you need tosupport them in their ability to
do that. And the reality of itis, those examples, those use cases
(33:26):
I gave, they're probably morerealistically part of how a lot of
people experience work todayanyway. How many of us are actually
doing specifically the jobwreck that we were hired for. It's
just too. We don't live in astatic world. We live in a very dynamic
world. And so I think that,like, I recognize, fully acknowledge
(33:48):
that, like, this is not afoolproof strategy. Like, it's an
investment. Sometimesinvestments don't pay off. But given
just how work gets done today,I think taking the time to actually
develop your people is areally good investment because it
just maps very well to thekinds of work that, like, actually
happens. And for most of us,at least.
Today, yeah, it's worth the gambler.
(34:10):
Right.
If you have a sizable team, iseveryone going to develop and move
along? No. But also, noteverybody's aspirations will be to
do so either. Right. Like,some people want to do the job that
they're in and want to do itwell and build expertise, right?
Yes, yes.
Move along well. So let's.Let's dive into our advice section.
(34:33):
So love to focus on and, youknow, the first piece of advice for
leaders. So what advice do youhave directly for leaders out there?
Yeah, so I'm gonna sound likea broken record, but I'll try to
make it really tactical. Itreally is gonna be around developing
talent. Right. I think myfirst piece of advice for anyone
here out there is to kind oftake stock and, like, literally audit
(34:57):
how you spent your time over.We'll call it the past week or two
weeks. Right. And just to geta level set to understand, better
understand where you'respending your time and see if there
is anything on there where,upon reflection, you really didn't
need to be doing that thing.Well, I just gave you an opportunity
to free up some time where youcould start to maybe focus on activities,
tasks or opportunities ofliterally time where you could spend
(35:21):
on developing talent. And so,you know, the best place to start
is right where you are. Butyou need to have an actual understanding
of that. That might actuallyjust even be a helpful exercise just
to do on like a semi regularbasis just to make sure, not even
remove developing talent for asecond, just to make sure that you're
actually working on the thingsthat are actually driving the most
impact or are of the biggestpriority. But I think that would
(35:41):
be like the first place Iwould start is just to even just
map out and think about like,hey, like where am I actually spending
my time and is it actuallyaligned to the things that I know
are really important and howmight I be able to free up some time
that I could actually allocatetowards other things like developing
talent? So that would be kindof like the first piece of advice.
Nice. Yeah, I want towholeheartedly endorse that. Right.
(36:03):
I think sometimes peoplecringe at this idea of like writing
down an activity like this,but the value of once you've actually
put pen to paper and literallycan zoom out and see how have I been
spending my time and is thatin alignment with how I'd like to
be spending my time isextremely valuable.
Yeah.
(36:23):
So the other piece of advice Iasked you to prepare is, and I try
to say it broadly for thosewho support leaders. Right. So that
could be senior leaders.Right. Who are supporting the leaders
that report to them. Or moretraditionally, from my background,
people in talent management,leadership development, hr, business
partner type roles. So whatadvice do you have for those who
(36:45):
are supporting leaders?
So I would say you can usewhatever metaphor you want to use
for this, but walk the walls,do ride alongs, go meet people where
they are in the work thatthey're doing and experiencing and
find out what's going ondirectly observing it to the degree
(37:05):
that you kind of can for yourwork environment. I think that anytime
you're working in a role whereyou're enabling others or that you're
serving a stakeholder or auser group, it's very easy sometimes
to kind of talk to them in thelanguage that you want to use. It's
A little bit harder and alittle bit more of a mindset shift
to speak to them in theirlanguage, to communicate what you
(37:27):
want to say. And I thinkyou've got a much better shot of
doing that when you actuallyimmerse yourself in their day to
day lived experience, whateverthat is. And I know there are definitely
some companies out there. I'veseen some examples. In particular,
I find retail and hospitalitywhere if you work in corporate, you
got to spend time, you know,working on the shop floor or in the
(37:48):
drive thru or you know, in thecall center, like whatever it is.
But even if, even if you don'thave one of those, like, I think
there's a lot of value in thatin terms of, like, once you kind
of have a more concreteunderstanding of their lived experience
and what they're dealing with,your ability to tailor solutions,
services, products, whateveryou, whatever it is that you do,
(38:09):
I think will be far richer.And also the way in which you communicate
them will be a lot moreappealing because you're going to
be speaking with two. You saywhat you want to say, but in their
terms, but not necessarily yours.
Yeah, yeah, yes, yes. And theamount of influence you gain by being
seen doing this, right, byactually walking the halls or going
(38:32):
on ride alongs. Right,awesome. So the third piece of advice
I always say is just grab bagtime. So anything that you know,
anything else you want toleave the audience with could be
how to find and get more Aldiin their lives.
I would say this. I think thateveryone to a certain degree is navigating
(38:55):
their own challenges,personal, professional, etc. Right
now, to a certain degree,that's no different than ever. But
it does feel recently,particularly in certain parts of
the world. I'm in the UnitedStates. Kent is as well. It's hard
to find someone who is justkind of just like chilling right
now and just like everything'sgreat, right? And the piece of advice
that I would offer up is thatbased off of everything I've read
(39:17):
about history and just what Iknow just about my own personal life,
many of the biggest challengesthat we've ever faced have come when
we've turned outward versusturning inward. And so my invitation
or piece of advice to all ofyou is that if you are someone for
whatever it is you'restruggling with or you're challenged
by, to the degree that youcan, if you can turn outward to whatever
that is for you, whetherthat's, you know, if it's, you know,
(39:39):
needed like professional helpor just, you know, peers, colleagues,
friends, people in yournetwork, whatever big that anyone
is dealing with. Again, like,I think the solutions often come
when we go outward versusinward. And so that would be my invitation
to all of you is, you know,call a friend, call a colleague,
check in with them, try tomake it a regular practice if you
will, because it will probablymake you feel a little bit better
(40:01):
and it will help you fromsuffering alone. It will probably
make them feel a little bitbetter too, as well.
Nice. I like that. All right,so how can people find Al D if they
want a little more Al D intheir lives? Tell us a little bit
about where to find you, whatyou're up to.
Thank you so much. Like you,Kent, I spent a lot of time on LinkedIn,
so an easy place to find meand some of what I'm doing is certainly
(40:24):
you can follow me on LinkedIn.I'm sure, sure we'll put my link
in the show notes. But if youcould find me there. And then if
you want to find out moreabout how I work with organizations
to develop their leaders andthings like that, you can certainly
follow me on LinkedIn. Butalso you can check out my website.
It's just al-dea.com. yeah,that's where you can see a little
bit more about what I'm up toeach and every day.
Nice. Well, that brings us tothe end. Thanks, Al. Appreciate having
(40:47):
you here today.
It's great chatting with you.Really appreciate it, Ken.
Yeah, had a really good, goodtime and thanks to all of our listeners
and everybody. Take it easy.That brings us to the end of our
episode. Thanks for listening.I'd encourage you to head on over
to my website, Kent Coach, andstart a conversation with me there
or check out my promotionplaybook at Kent Coates Playbook.
(41:07):
Before you go on with yourday, I ask that you please take a
moment to leave a rating and areview wherever you listen to podcasts.
Five stars. That helps putthis podcast in front of more eyes
and ears. Until next time,take it easy.
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