October 14, 2025 • 28 mins
Most managers don’t actually manage people. They manage tasks.
They tell.
They correct.
They rarely coach.
That’s the difference between a boss people tolerate and a leader people trust.
When you learn how to coach and mentor someone, everything changes.
You build loyalty and develop people who think for themselves.
This week’s lesson shares a simple four-step framework to help you manage people more effectively through better communication and growth.
If you lead a team, you’ll recognize yourself in this one.
If you’ve ever felt frustrated trying to motivate someone who just isn’t getting it, this will show you why.
It’s not about pushing harder.
It’s about coaching smarter.
At first, you’ll wonder why you haven’t been doing these steps all along.
Then, you can take action, or even manage upward, to start maximizing your team’s enjoyment and performance!
If you'd like to build a great career and lead a rewarding life, check out some of these other places where I share my teachings:
1. Check out the milewalk Academy, my coaching and training site, for freemiums and premiums.
2. I have hundreds of educational and inspirational videos on my YouTube Channel.
3. Grab any of my four books related to career development, interviewing, hiring, and goal setting. All can be found on my Amazon Author Page.
4. Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter (X), TikTok, Threads, and Facebook.
5. Stay in touch with me in your email inbox by joining my newsletter here!
--Andy
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Let's talk coaching and mentoring and I I think that the happiest and most successful people
in the world define success however you will basically people that live really good lives
really are in sync with the world they're in sync with their thoughts are people that can
(00:23):
communicate effectively and in order to be able to coach and Mentor someone and inspire
motivate them and educate them and get them to be the best them they can be you need to be able to
communicate effectively and a big part of coaching and mentoring is being able to analyze being able
(00:45):
to understand where they are being able to know how to communicate and teach and not everybody
learns the same way and a master coach or a master Mentor or a master manager is able to adapt to the
people that they are teaching inspiring motivating and so one of um the things that we're going to
(01:08):
we're going to cover it's got an undercurrent or undertone throughout the whole lesson is that the
aspect of communication is one of the most vital skills you need to be a good coach and Mentor it's
it's it's really true I don't think you can be a good one without good coach or Mentor without
being a good communicator so I want you to think about I want you to to think about that um as as
(01:33):
we get into this now first thing is in order to be a great coach a great teacher whether you're
going to be with somebody for one session or you're going to work with them every day on your
team or whatever it might be one of the things I see people skip completely is this this element
of the starting point so I'll and I'll be really clear um starting points and understanding with
(02:00):
whom you're coaching and mentoring and teaching if you do not have a great handle on where they
are at the moment it's almost impossible dare I say impossible to be able to actually coach them
effectively because the level of expectations we have of them if we think somebody's more advanced
(02:25):
than they are our level of expectations are higher that what we say to them to communicate the steps
they need to take or how they can think or opening up their perspective or whatever it is we're
engaging at with them on it it's it's it's not in sync and so you know I I have made the mistake
many times of when I'm working with somebody making an assumption about either their level
(02:51):
of knowledge their level of proficiency or what I think somebody at that stage in their career
or that many days on the job or working on whatever uh it is that you're helping them
with that many days under their belt I think they should be at this level or I think they
(03:11):
should be here or there and it's just it it becomes it becomes um just a just a bad place
to start if we are not synced up correctly who's guilty of this who's who's guilty of
this anybody manage a team hire somebody and then all of a sudden become impatient because that
(03:35):
person isn't as knowledgeable as you thought as up to speed as you thought you forgot how long it
took you to learn everything you learned right we make this assumption and one of the other things
is that much of the time uh we forget uh or we don't recalibrate where that person is in relation
(04:00):
to where we were and they're operating under a different set of environments circumstances
upbringings biases and so on so so when I was 22 and I walked out of college I had been uh I
had been taught through through high school and college and and just the environment I operated
(04:24):
in how to communicate and how to to uh be personal and some of these other things that somebody today
who's 22 who's never been without a cell phone who communicates via text is not starting at the
same level of an ability to communicate at 22 years old as I was or where the length of time
(04:47):
it might take me to research something and draw a conclusion in 1988 when Google wasn't available
until 1998 so they've always had immediate access to information that also makes it easy to access
information or more information that someone needs to sift through to figure out what works
(05:08):
and what isn't isn't isn't a reality do you follow what I'm saying cultural differences
other things so my point is in all of this if you don't have the right starting point and and
basically understand where are they now it's very difficult for you to help them move along quickly
(05:29):
so one of the things that I always like to do is whether somebody comes to work with me at M walk
or whether I'm coaching somebody or whether I'm helping somebody on their job search or whatever I
have to say where are you now what have you done what do you know have you watched my videos on
the job search challenge or the whatever I asked you all did you watch the coaching and mentoring
session right these are all starting points benchmarks so I in your booklet and in the
(05:56):
lesson taught you just you could use some form of this there's beginners intermediates experts
and the maestros and you could call them whatever you want and maybe you work for an organization
who has a career development model who gives them labels maybe they're function labels maybe they're
title labels maybe they're whatever but these names help you understand if I'm dealing with
(06:19):
somebody at this level here's how I need to interact with with them so somebody who is a
beginner let's say if they're in the beginning stages I would say this is a total novice best
thing for a total novice is what there's two things get them to put in the repetitions to
(06:39):
whatever it is that they need to do make sure that they have crutches tools techniques and anything
you can outline they can follow copy mimic and try so I want you to think L literally like
any of you that are on my job searching side in in the job search coaching program you have a boss
(07:04):
hunting Bible I don't expect I expect you to be beginners at boss hunting what do we do we give
you the script what else do we do we say when you're engaged here's what's going to happen so
for those of you that read the um the passage that I put on delegating uh I put out a uh a
passage and for those of you that have the zebra code book the opening story in the delegating
(07:29):
chapter is the one about Cara and when she came to work with me and less than 3 days into her job
I changed her function or we added or augmented her function and there's a I think is car is the
passage in the community is the p no okay so so we emailed this and if you don't have the book
(07:50):
you let us know we'll figure out how to get this passage to you because it's well it's about Karen
it's pretty epic about how she didn't know how to make phone calls so we literally built her script
that says okay you know open up and you say this and then they're going to say one of these three
things and then the next thing yeah you did I did I posted it okay it's in the community so and then
(08:10):
I said if they say this you say this if they say this you say this if they say this you say this
then if they say this you go over to this right and she literally created a flow diagram of of of
of her talking with or what the possible responses and what her rebuttal or next thing she should say
would be and then it was just about putting in the repetitions and following so beginner became
(08:34):
intermediate very quickly because she can put in the Reps and had enough swings at the plate
where she got to keep practicing if you give the beginner a try and then next week they try again
that's not good so that's one intermediates are usually somebody that can proficiently
do the singular task of or maybe multiple singular tasks but basically I can do this well
(09:01):
right except the expert understands and sees the whole framework all the steps knows how all of
them work together all the dependencies all the inputs all the outputs all the contingencies where
the stuff breaks what to do when it breaks and then the the master well they can see in
all different directions right they can see the trends and anticipate know how to mitigate right
(09:27):
can forecast best know all the chords all the variables and every s so so a lot of my online
training is built around what the most common steps you would take the most common situations
you would encounter except if you actually talk to me and I worked with you oneon-one anything that
(09:49):
you encounter I would have an answer for I would know what to do so that's what I mean by being a
master of something you all hopefully are a master at something but that's what you're working toward
so so you want to you want to know where they start so you can know how to coach them and how to
communicate with them speaking of which leads me to my next piece which is you've heard of the five
(10:19):
love languages Gary Chapman I've read the book The Five Love Languages I thought I was very clever by
saying I would adapt my his love language concept to feedback languages for you to communicate with
your people and then somebody was telling me uh let's stop with the whiteboarding here how did we
(10:39):
get that there um so somebody was telling me that he Elsa has like a five love languages at work I
haven't read that I don't know what that is I'm giving you uh the Andy version of what I think my
most recognizable languages are when I've managed and I've managed thousands and thousands of people
(11:00):
as a corporate practitioner the first half of my career was spent running fairly large teams
so there are a lot of people that I had managed and I noticed that when you are communicating
with somebody irrespective of what level they are at this tells you their level of proficiency but
everybody no matter what level of proficiency they are have different ways in which they
(11:25):
prefer to learn or language that registers more effective with them so I created what I thought
were analogous Love Languages nay physical touch for so many obvious reasons Andy right that's Andy
V not Andy L that we had to laugh about and so these are the four that I came up with so
(11:45):
people that you manage and they might use multiple ones of these and their language might change as
they evolve through the stages through the stages because actions number one means somebody needs to
see you in action I need to see you do it then I'll better understand so a a a beginner would
(12:09):
definitely could definitely benefit from more actions and examples that you provide so that's
one language some people are always going to need to see that it'll never register with me until I
can see an example other people are very rewards based how many people do you know maybe you're
one of them that said says show me the money I need the carrot and so if you do this you'll get
(12:36):
the corner office if you do this you'll get a big bonus that may motivate people that may get them
to move it could be a combination of these others might want your attention Andy is it okay Andy am
I doing this right a lot of you script out your interview stories and you say to me is this right
will you check this for me right that's that's an attention right I or I want your attention I
(13:00):
want I want to work through it with you I want to sound it I want you to I want you to be the
sounding board I need to talk this out with you they they just need to spend more time with you
and that's okay right there's some people that way other people are you just need to say yeah
yeah yeah you're on the right track so for some of you when you ask me questions in the system and
I say yeah you're on the right track go go go so these are generally the types of of of what I call
(13:29):
feedback languages that people will respond to now somebody who's a beginner might need have
this language actions they might need to see it or as you go up and up and up they might say okay I
got it I got it down I know what I'm doing where is my money show me the money now I'm really good
at this that could change too so you need to understand what are you dealing with because if
(13:53):
you're like I if I I mean and you know this is the love language example if I just keep coming home
home and every night after work and I give my wife a gift but she doesn't really care about that and
all she wants to do is hang out and have dinner together and talk right you're you're you're going
like this and it's not registering you're still not in sync so you need to you need to figure
(14:14):
out what's going to register with them now when you have a team I mean I I remember and I wrote
about this in the zebra code and I talked about I was managing a team of seven or eight I had seven
or eight direct reports they all had people they that reported to them I mean these people were
(14:35):
they were all from different backgrounds they were all different colors they were all different
religions they were all different upbringing environments and they all communicated differently
and some needed to go off in a corner and think by themselves other needed to you know wanted
to follow me all day I mean just so you're when you're trying to manage a team of people you have
(14:56):
to recognize that you are not managing a uh Team you are managing a whole bunch of individuals that
you need to figure out how to how to get them to perform at their maximum proficiency and enjoyment
and work together so you're communicating how they all fit so that the sum of the parts is
greater than right the whole is greater than the individual pieces so that's that's something that
(15:22):
that the Love Languages SL feedback languages as far as you're concerned in managing people are
going to help you all right so that's that's another thing and then let's see what do you
got uh let's see these are some good questions but let me let
(15:43):
me I okay these are good questions let me let me keep let me keep rolling let me keep
rolling all right here's another one I was working with actually wait before I go into
this I do want to say I'm I'm going to skip over a couple of other things that I think
you really need empathy uh and and the reason that I obviously that's important is what I
(16:09):
opened up with when I said you really need to understand what operating environment they're
coming from right so I need to be more patient with a 22-year-old who wants to text me when I
when I need you to pick up the phone and call me right because that's their their preferred
mode of communication or email or whatever and so there's an empathy athetic part and there's
(16:30):
a trust building part now the the empathy if you're in the if you're in the book club you
actually have access to the building empathy um skill the lesson that coincides with that
and then the trust building that's in the leadership library but it all goes hand inand
but what I wanted to talk with you about today is moving forward to the technique to to to try
(16:50):
to to to try to move the team along and motivate them is I am a huge fan of the Socratic method
and the Socratic method if you don't understand what that is is it's teaching by asking questions
not giving the answers and so I also feel the greatest thing about the Socratic method is
(17:11):
it engages people to think at a higher level hopefully you're asking the right questions as
the boss or the mentor or the coach but the other thing that it does is it gives them ownership
into whatever the solution is the process you're going to go through or whatever that might be so I
was working with somebody and I can't remember if this was before or after I had created the session
(17:33):
and she and I were working together on some high performance stuff and she was managing a team of
people and she was in real estate and she was in Property Management of commercial buildings and
she was having a um let's just say an interesting time trying to manage different people that were
(17:57):
on her team that she wasn't she wasn't skilled at what they do so as an example a big part of
what she was responsible for was the property management in the promotion of the commercial
building to attract new tenants but also serve the existing tenants so imagine you have multiple
different businesses in a building and there's a Lobby well the lobby is designed from an interior
(18:22):
decorating standpoint that's a skill somebody knows how to do that um there's the art that
goes up on the wall there's actually artists that are on our team that are employed by the company
how about that right instead of just buying the art there were so there's different kinds of and
then maybe project coordinator and just different kinds of things now she's not an artist and she's
(18:42):
not an interior decorator she's a property manager those aren't even her skills and she
says Andy I'm having a Dickens of a time trying to get these people to work together so that we
can create basically a harmonious solution that accomplishes our goal of creating an
environment whether it's in the foyer area or the lobby or the front desk or the hallways or
(19:04):
whatever it was where we're creating the kind of environment that we want for that building
to attract the kind of tenants that we want to attract so you can see this is hug I mean these
are like different people going in different directions and she's responsible for getting
them all the work in sync to pull this off so she wasn't sure how to do this and I said okay you
(19:25):
you got to get together so that the artist isn't creating something crazy modern when you're trying
to be vintage or vice versa or colorful when you're trying to be thematically black and white
or whatever it is the paint colors the the the the furniture itself what whatever it is so instead of
you trying to dictate to them what you want and then seeing what they come up with or even worse
(19:51):
letting them go and create something that isn't really in sync with the overall strategy of what
you're trying to build or the vision I should say sit them down and start asking them you know what
are we trying to create here what are the kind of customers we're we're trying to attract right we
as an organization are trying to attract these kind of tenants okay well what kind of art do
(20:14):
you think would attract that kind of tenant and you literally got to walk them through question
by question and get them to give you the answers and then when they get out of line meaning all
the way out in the left field you sort of well first off let them do do that because you never
know they might come up with a brilliant idea and you wouldn't have known that if you'd have
put the guard rails on them and just said I want this this this and this but as you as you guide
(20:38):
them through this if something is way out in left field you challenge it tell me more about that
why is that what do you think that will do do you think that will accomplish this that and the other
thing what would what could go wrong like all the questions that you might ask to engage them
to think to ultimately focus on the goal not not the techniques of what they're going to deliver
(21:01):
this is a a totally different lesson but as an aside I want you to think about this one of the
reasons that a lot of people don't produce what it is that they want to produce is because they focus
so heavily on doing the activity and not focusing on the output that they want don't get me wrong I
don't want you to misconstrue what I'm saying when you're doing something I want you to be present
(21:25):
and focused and concentrating on what you're doing I want to enjoy the process and enjoy the journey
a big part about enjoying the journey is cranking out outputs that are awesome that are fun that you
could work with that you can iterate and so on a lot of the productivity stuff we're going to be
talking about in a couple of weeks but my point is if if if if if you're an artist they think about
(21:48):
the the Swirls and the art they're not thinking about the customer so you have to redirect their
focus to the output that you ultimately want because when you understand the output you want
you will almost naturally adjust the activity to accommodate the output who gets what I'm saying
do you understand like that's got to register like I know I know what has to happen by the end of the
(22:16):
week I adjust everything I do in order to make that happen I don't lose track of what I'm doing
I don't get lost in some C minus activity when I should be focusing on an A+ activity
okay got you got what I'm saying right the end goal I I hate the expression think with the end
of mind but it's kind of like think with the end in mind what do we want to happen how do we make
(22:39):
that how many times have you heard me say that what do you want to happen how do we make that
happen that's what I'm talking about here okay you could use this to guide them they will love this
not to mention it's fun and you usually come up with better ideas doing this knowing what
questions to ask okay then I think the next thing I want to kind of cap it off with this because I
(23:01):
know you've got a lot of of detail in the packet all right well you got to have some way to track
it everything any of you ever do with me you have some kind of spreadsheet table list or things you
got to add up right so what do you need at a minimum okay what are the skills inventory
(23:24):
I'm going to coach you what do we got to get you better at what is what are those skills
where are you beginner intermediate expert Maestro all right what yeah you know hang on I can't
stand these typos Next Level Next Level I rocket interrupted me he threw up on my shirt when I when
(23:45):
I wrote that so I'm blaming I'm blaming my little boy dog all right Next Level and the date so where
are we trying to get to by the way the next level does not mean I've got to go from beginner to to
inter immediate it could be beginner with these levels of proficiency you're a beginner plus one
or you're a beginner plus two or what is it that you're trying to get to because to go
(24:08):
from beginner to intermediate might take you a few years to go from expert to to to master is going
to take you a long time so we we're always looking for where's the flag in the ground your entire
life works this way if you cancel on somebody tell them I can't make it but let's book it to Boom put
the flag down and you job searching right hey you just had an interview great when will I hear from
(24:31):
you bye boom when's the next response Boom the flag goes in the ground you love that you you
you have you have a better understanding of either what you're waiting for what you're working toward
or how to operate yourself so what is the next level I'm shooting for and what's the date and
then okay what do I need to do to get there don't tell somebody well you're you know your
(24:52):
next review we're going to you know you need to be at this level of proficiency without showing
them okay here if you put the Reps in here's the level of proficiency you should be here's how I
would do that make sure that when you make that cold call you're you're notating every cold call
while you're trying to make a sale what your re your real goal here today in your first day on the
(25:13):
job is to make the number of calls that's first second thing is to capture every rebuttal you
hear because you're inventorying a uh a number of rebuttal so that when tomorrow you show up you're
going to know how to respond to those rebuttal because you collected them that's right these are
all the different steps we need to take in order to get you proficient at pitching this to a higher
(25:38):
level group or whatever so you want to be as specific as possible what are the actions and then
when are we going to have checkpoints so your next level and the date by which we are shooting for is
not when we have checkpoints we have checkpoints along the way right so if if if you're goal is
we need you over the course of the year to reach this level we're going to have checkpoints every
(26:04):
week once a month once a quarter or so what are those checkpoints and what do those checkpoints
entail each week you're going to let me know 10 minutes just let me know what you did what you're
struggling with any of the issues anything that's unanswered we'll knock those out every week once
a month I want a little more of a detail write up of how many calls did you make how many of these
(26:26):
we get invited to or whatever whatever date it is you're tracking and so we'll have these kind
of checkpoints to know when the checkpoints are and what you need to produce as a someone who's
being coached makes it a lot easier for you to grow is a coach or a mentor or a manager or a
leader or a team leader or whatever it's going to make it much easier for you to actually make sure
(26:49):
they're on the right path so just very quickly you have some more steps in the workbook and in
the full lesson but make sure you know where they're starting and starting means where are
you and what are we going to call you and do we agree this is your level of proficiency what's
helpful for you ask them you can observe but ask them right there's no substitute just ask use the
(27:16):
Socratic method to build to build ownership and then make sure you've got some kind of grid some
kind of table some kind of PL some of you probably have very SE very sexy career development model
models or succession planning tools or all kinds of good stuff that your companies might pay for
but you got to have some kind of table or metrics or whatever to know where you're going all this
(27:38):
is in the is in the booklet uh and then all the other lessons for those of you that are in the
leadership program you have lessons on fullon lessons not only on the empathy but on building
trust you have lessons on delegating you have lessons on motivating others the motivational
aspects and other things Rel reled to that but for coaching and mentoring this is a this is a good
(28:01):
little summary for you uh if you haven't seen the full lesson I would definitely take it in and um
and I think I think if you just if you can just especially if you do some of those early stage
steps you you'll get off on the right foot and you'll start working better with the people that
you're trying you're trying to teach all right I hope I hope you enjoyed that portion of this
Let's talk coaching and mentoring and I I think that the happiest and most successful people
in the world define success however you will basically people that live really good lives
really are in sync with the world they're in sync with their thoughts are people that can
(00:23):
communicate effectively and in order to be able to coach and Mentor someone and inspire
motivate them and educate them and get them to be the best them they can be you need to be able to
communicate effectively and a big part of coaching and mentoring is being able to analyze being able
(00:45):
to understand where they are being able to know how to communicate and teach and not everybody
learns the same way and a master coach or a master Mentor or a master manager is able to adapt to the
people that they are teaching inspiring motivating and so one of um the things that we're going to
(01:08):
we're going to cover it's got an undercurrent or undertone throughout the whole lesson is that the
aspect of communication is one of the most vital skills you need to be a good coach and Mentor it's
it's it's really true I don't think you can be a good one without good coach or Mentor without
being a good communicator so I want you to think about I want you to to think about that um as as
(01:33):
we get into this now first thing is in order to be a great coach a great teacher whether you're
going to be with somebody for one session or you're going to work with them every day on your
team or whatever it might be one of the things I see people skip completely is this this element
of the starting point so I'll and I'll be really clear um starting points and understanding with
(02:00):
whom you're coaching and mentoring and teaching if you do not have a great handle on where they
are at the moment it's almost impossible dare I say impossible to be able to actually coach them
effectively because the level of expectations we have of them if we think somebody's more advanced
(02:25):
than they are our level of expectations are higher that what we say to them to communicate the steps
they need to take or how they can think or opening up their perspective or whatever it is we're
engaging at with them on it it's it's it's not in sync and so you know I I have made the mistake
many times of when I'm working with somebody making an assumption about either their level
(02:51):
of knowledge their level of proficiency or what I think somebody at that stage in their career
or that many days on the job or working on whatever uh it is that you're helping them
with that many days under their belt I think they should be at this level or I think they
(03:11):
should be here or there and it's just it it becomes it becomes um just a just a bad place
to start if we are not synced up correctly who's guilty of this who's who's guilty of
this anybody manage a team hire somebody and then all of a sudden become impatient because that
(03:35):
person isn't as knowledgeable as you thought as up to speed as you thought you forgot how long it
took you to learn everything you learned right we make this assumption and one of the other things
is that much of the time uh we forget uh or we don't recalibrate where that person is in relation
(04:00):
to where we were and they're operating under a different set of environments circumstances
upbringings biases and so on so so when I was 22 and I walked out of college I had been uh I
had been taught through through high school and college and and just the environment I operated
(04:24):
in how to communicate and how to to uh be personal and some of these other things that somebody today
who's 22 who's never been without a cell phone who communicates via text is not starting at the
same level of an ability to communicate at 22 years old as I was or where the length of time
(04:47):
it might take me to research something and draw a conclusion in 1988 when Google wasn't available
until 1998 so they've always had immediate access to information that also makes it easy to access
information or more information that someone needs to sift through to figure out what works
(05:08):
and what isn't isn't isn't a reality do you follow what I'm saying cultural differences
other things so my point is in all of this if you don't have the right starting point and and
basically understand where are they now it's very difficult for you to help them move along quickly
(05:29):
so one of the things that I always like to do is whether somebody comes to work with me at M walk
or whether I'm coaching somebody or whether I'm helping somebody on their job search or whatever I
have to say where are you now what have you done what do you know have you watched my videos on
the job search challenge or the whatever I asked you all did you watch the coaching and mentoring
session right these are all starting points benchmarks so I in your booklet and in the
(05:56):
lesson taught you just you could use some form of this there's beginners intermediates experts
and the maestros and you could call them whatever you want and maybe you work for an organization
who has a career development model who gives them labels maybe they're function labels maybe they're
title labels maybe they're whatever but these names help you understand if I'm dealing with
(06:19):
somebody at this level here's how I need to interact with with them so somebody who is a
beginner let's say if they're in the beginning stages I would say this is a total novice best
thing for a total novice is what there's two things get them to put in the repetitions to
(06:39):
whatever it is that they need to do make sure that they have crutches tools techniques and anything
you can outline they can follow copy mimic and try so I want you to think L literally like
any of you that are on my job searching side in in the job search coaching program you have a boss
(07:04):
hunting Bible I don't expect I expect you to be beginners at boss hunting what do we do we give
you the script what else do we do we say when you're engaged here's what's going to happen so
for those of you that read the um the passage that I put on delegating uh I put out a uh a
passage and for those of you that have the zebra code book the opening story in the delegating
(07:29):
chapter is the one about Cara and when she came to work with me and less than 3 days into her job
I changed her function or we added or augmented her function and there's a I think is car is the
passage in the community is the p no okay so so we emailed this and if you don't have the book
(07:50):
you let us know we'll figure out how to get this passage to you because it's well it's about Karen
it's pretty epic about how she didn't know how to make phone calls so we literally built her script
that says okay you know open up and you say this and then they're going to say one of these three
things and then the next thing yeah you did I did I posted it okay it's in the community so and then
(08:10):
I said if they say this you say this if they say this you say this if they say this you say this
then if they say this you go over to this right and she literally created a flow diagram of of of
of her talking with or what the possible responses and what her rebuttal or next thing she should say
would be and then it was just about putting in the repetitions and following so beginner became
(08:34):
intermediate very quickly because she can put in the Reps and had enough swings at the plate
where she got to keep practicing if you give the beginner a try and then next week they try again
that's not good so that's one intermediates are usually somebody that can proficiently
do the singular task of or maybe multiple singular tasks but basically I can do this well
(09:01):
right except the expert understands and sees the whole framework all the steps knows how all of
them work together all the dependencies all the inputs all the outputs all the contingencies where
the stuff breaks what to do when it breaks and then the the master well they can see in
all different directions right they can see the trends and anticipate know how to mitigate right
(09:27):
can forecast best know all the chords all the variables and every s so so a lot of my online
training is built around what the most common steps you would take the most common situations
you would encounter except if you actually talk to me and I worked with you oneon-one anything that
(09:49):
you encounter I would have an answer for I would know what to do so that's what I mean by being a
master of something you all hopefully are a master at something but that's what you're working toward
so so you want to you want to know where they start so you can know how to coach them and how to
communicate with them speaking of which leads me to my next piece which is you've heard of the five
(10:19):
love languages Gary Chapman I've read the book The Five Love Languages I thought I was very clever by
saying I would adapt my his love language concept to feedback languages for you to communicate with
your people and then somebody was telling me uh let's stop with the whiteboarding here how did we
(10:39):
get that there um so somebody was telling me that he Elsa has like a five love languages at work I
haven't read that I don't know what that is I'm giving you uh the Andy version of what I think my
most recognizable languages are when I've managed and I've managed thousands and thousands of people
(11:00):
as a corporate practitioner the first half of my career was spent running fairly large teams
so there are a lot of people that I had managed and I noticed that when you are communicating
with somebody irrespective of what level they are at this tells you their level of proficiency but
everybody no matter what level of proficiency they are have different ways in which they
(11:25):
prefer to learn or language that registers more effective with them so I created what I thought
were analogous Love Languages nay physical touch for so many obvious reasons Andy right that's Andy
V not Andy L that we had to laugh about and so these are the four that I came up with so
(11:45):
people that you manage and they might use multiple ones of these and their language might change as
they evolve through the stages through the stages because actions number one means somebody needs to
see you in action I need to see you do it then I'll better understand so a a a beginner would
(12:09):
definitely could definitely benefit from more actions and examples that you provide so that's
one language some people are always going to need to see that it'll never register with me until I
can see an example other people are very rewards based how many people do you know maybe you're
one of them that said says show me the money I need the carrot and so if you do this you'll get
(12:36):
the corner office if you do this you'll get a big bonus that may motivate people that may get them
to move it could be a combination of these others might want your attention Andy is it okay Andy am
I doing this right a lot of you script out your interview stories and you say to me is this right
will you check this for me right that's that's an attention right I or I want your attention I
(13:00):
want I want to work through it with you I want to sound it I want you to I want you to be the
sounding board I need to talk this out with you they they just need to spend more time with you
and that's okay right there's some people that way other people are you just need to say yeah
yeah yeah you're on the right track so for some of you when you ask me questions in the system and
I say yeah you're on the right track go go go so these are generally the types of of of what I call
(13:29):
feedback languages that people will respond to now somebody who's a beginner might need have
this language actions they might need to see it or as you go up and up and up they might say okay I
got it I got it down I know what I'm doing where is my money show me the money now I'm really good
at this that could change too so you need to understand what are you dealing with because if
(13:53):
you're like I if I I mean and you know this is the love language example if I just keep coming home
home and every night after work and I give my wife a gift but she doesn't really care about that and
all she wants to do is hang out and have dinner together and talk right you're you're you're going
like this and it's not registering you're still not in sync so you need to you need to figure
(14:14):
out what's going to register with them now when you have a team I mean I I remember and I wrote
about this in the zebra code and I talked about I was managing a team of seven or eight I had seven
or eight direct reports they all had people they that reported to them I mean these people were
(14:35):
they were all from different backgrounds they were all different colors they were all different
religions they were all different upbringing environments and they all communicated differently
and some needed to go off in a corner and think by themselves other needed to you know wanted
to follow me all day I mean just so you're when you're trying to manage a team of people you have
(14:56):
to recognize that you are not managing a uh Team you are managing a whole bunch of individuals that
you need to figure out how to how to get them to perform at their maximum proficiency and enjoyment
and work together so you're communicating how they all fit so that the sum of the parts is
greater than right the whole is greater than the individual pieces so that's that's something that
(15:22):
that the Love Languages SL feedback languages as far as you're concerned in managing people are
going to help you all right so that's that's another thing and then let's see what do you
got uh let's see these are some good questions but let me let
(15:43):
me I okay these are good questions let me let me keep let me keep rolling let me keep
rolling all right here's another one I was working with actually wait before I go into
this I do want to say I'm I'm going to skip over a couple of other things that I think
you really need empathy uh and and the reason that I obviously that's important is what I
(16:09):
opened up with when I said you really need to understand what operating environment they're
coming from right so I need to be more patient with a 22-year-old who wants to text me when I
when I need you to pick up the phone and call me right because that's their their preferred
mode of communication or email or whatever and so there's an empathy athetic part and there's
(16:30):
a trust building part now the the empathy if you're in the if you're in the book club you
actually have access to the building empathy um skill the lesson that coincides with that
and then the trust building that's in the leadership library but it all goes hand inand
but what I wanted to talk with you about today is moving forward to the technique to to to try
(16:50):
to to to try to move the team along and motivate them is I am a huge fan of the Socratic method
and the Socratic method if you don't understand what that is is it's teaching by asking questions
not giving the answers and so I also feel the greatest thing about the Socratic method is
(17:11):
it engages people to think at a higher level hopefully you're asking the right questions as
the boss or the mentor or the coach but the other thing that it does is it gives them ownership
into whatever the solution is the process you're going to go through or whatever that might be so I
was working with somebody and I can't remember if this was before or after I had created the session
(17:33):
and she and I were working together on some high performance stuff and she was managing a team of
people and she was in real estate and she was in Property Management of commercial buildings and
she was having a um let's just say an interesting time trying to manage different people that were
(17:57):
on her team that she wasn't she wasn't skilled at what they do so as an example a big part of
what she was responsible for was the property management in the promotion of the commercial
building to attract new tenants but also serve the existing tenants so imagine you have multiple
different businesses in a building and there's a Lobby well the lobby is designed from an interior
(18:22):
decorating standpoint that's a skill somebody knows how to do that um there's the art that
goes up on the wall there's actually artists that are on our team that are employed by the company
how about that right instead of just buying the art there were so there's different kinds of and
then maybe project coordinator and just different kinds of things now she's not an artist and she's
(18:42):
not an interior decorator she's a property manager those aren't even her skills and she
says Andy I'm having a Dickens of a time trying to get these people to work together so that we
can create basically a harmonious solution that accomplishes our goal of creating an
environment whether it's in the foyer area or the lobby or the front desk or the hallways or
(19:04):
whatever it was where we're creating the kind of environment that we want for that building
to attract the kind of tenants that we want to attract so you can see this is hug I mean these
are like different people going in different directions and she's responsible for getting
them all the work in sync to pull this off so she wasn't sure how to do this and I said okay you
(19:25):
you got to get together so that the artist isn't creating something crazy modern when you're trying
to be vintage or vice versa or colorful when you're trying to be thematically black and white
or whatever it is the paint colors the the the the furniture itself what whatever it is so instead of
you trying to dictate to them what you want and then seeing what they come up with or even worse
(19:51):
letting them go and create something that isn't really in sync with the overall strategy of what
you're trying to build or the vision I should say sit them down and start asking them you know what
are we trying to create here what are the kind of customers we're we're trying to attract right we
as an organization are trying to attract these kind of tenants okay well what kind of art do
(20:14):
you think would attract that kind of tenant and you literally got to walk them through question
by question and get them to give you the answers and then when they get out of line meaning all
the way out in the left field you sort of well first off let them do do that because you never
know they might come up with a brilliant idea and you wouldn't have known that if you'd have
put the guard rails on them and just said I want this this this and this but as you as you guide
(20:38):
them through this if something is way out in left field you challenge it tell me more about that
why is that what do you think that will do do you think that will accomplish this that and the other
thing what would what could go wrong like all the questions that you might ask to engage them
to think to ultimately focus on the goal not not the techniques of what they're going to deliver
(21:01):
this is a a totally different lesson but as an aside I want you to think about this one of the
reasons that a lot of people don't produce what it is that they want to produce is because they focus
so heavily on doing the activity and not focusing on the output that they want don't get me wrong I
don't want you to misconstrue what I'm saying when you're doing something I want you to be present
(21:25):
and focused and concentrating on what you're doing I want to enjoy the process and enjoy the journey
a big part about enjoying the journey is cranking out outputs that are awesome that are fun that you
could work with that you can iterate and so on a lot of the productivity stuff we're going to be
talking about in a couple of weeks but my point is if if if if if you're an artist they think about
(21:48):
the the Swirls and the art they're not thinking about the customer so you have to redirect their
focus to the output that you ultimately want because when you understand the output you want
you will almost naturally adjust the activity to accommodate the output who gets what I'm saying
do you understand like that's got to register like I know I know what has to happen by the end of the
(22:16):
week I adjust everything I do in order to make that happen I don't lose track of what I'm doing
I don't get lost in some C minus activity when I should be focusing on an A+ activity
okay got you got what I'm saying right the end goal I I hate the expression think with the end
of mind but it's kind of like think with the end in mind what do we want to happen how do we make
(22:39):
that how many times have you heard me say that what do you want to happen how do we make that
happen that's what I'm talking about here okay you could use this to guide them they will love this
not to mention it's fun and you usually come up with better ideas doing this knowing what
questions to ask okay then I think the next thing I want to kind of cap it off with this because I
(23:01):
know you've got a lot of of detail in the packet all right well you got to have some way to track
it everything any of you ever do with me you have some kind of spreadsheet table list or things you
got to add up right so what do you need at a minimum okay what are the skills inventory
(23:24):
I'm going to coach you what do we got to get you better at what is what are those skills
where are you beginner intermediate expert Maestro all right what yeah you know hang on I can't
stand these typos Next Level Next Level I rocket interrupted me he threw up on my shirt when I when
(23:45):
I wrote that so I'm blaming I'm blaming my little boy dog all right Next Level and the date so where
are we trying to get to by the way the next level does not mean I've got to go from beginner to to
inter immediate it could be beginner with these levels of proficiency you're a beginner plus one
or you're a beginner plus two or what is it that you're trying to get to because to go
(24:08):
from beginner to intermediate might take you a few years to go from expert to to to master is going
to take you a long time so we we're always looking for where's the flag in the ground your entire
life works this way if you cancel on somebody tell them I can't make it but let's book it to Boom put
the flag down and you job searching right hey you just had an interview great when will I hear from
(24:31):
you bye boom when's the next response Boom the flag goes in the ground you love that you you
you have you have a better understanding of either what you're waiting for what you're working toward
or how to operate yourself so what is the next level I'm shooting for and what's the date and
then okay what do I need to do to get there don't tell somebody well you're you know your
(24:52):
next review we're going to you know you need to be at this level of proficiency without showing
them okay here if you put the Reps in here's the level of proficiency you should be here's how I
would do that make sure that when you make that cold call you're you're notating every cold call
while you're trying to make a sale what your re your real goal here today in your first day on the
(25:13):
job is to make the number of calls that's first second thing is to capture every rebuttal you
hear because you're inventorying a uh a number of rebuttal so that when tomorrow you show up you're
going to know how to respond to those rebuttal because you collected them that's right these are
all the different steps we need to take in order to get you proficient at pitching this to a higher
(25:38):
level group or whatever so you want to be as specific as possible what are the actions and then
when are we going to have checkpoints so your next level and the date by which we are shooting for is
not when we have checkpoints we have checkpoints along the way right so if if if you're goal is
we need you over the course of the year to reach this level we're going to have checkpoints every
(26:04):
week once a month once a quarter or so what are those checkpoints and what do those checkpoints
entail each week you're going to let me know 10 minutes just let me know what you did what you're
struggling with any of the issues anything that's unanswered we'll knock those out every week once
a month I want a little more of a detail write up of how many calls did you make how many of these
(26:26):
we get invited to or whatever whatever date it is you're tracking and so we'll have these kind
of checkpoints to know when the checkpoints are and what you need to produce as a someone who's
being coached makes it a lot easier for you to grow is a coach or a mentor or a manager or a
leader or a team leader or whatever it's going to make it much easier for you to actually make sure
(26:49):
they're on the right path so just very quickly you have some more steps in the workbook and in
the full lesson but make sure you know where they're starting and starting means where are
you and what are we going to call you and do we agree this is your level of proficiency what's
helpful for you ask them you can observe but ask them right there's no substitute just ask use the
(27:16):
Socratic method to build to build ownership and then make sure you've got some kind of grid some
kind of table some kind of PL some of you probably have very SE very sexy career development model
models or succession planning tools or all kinds of good stuff that your companies might pay for
but you got to have some kind of table or metrics or whatever to know where you're going all this
(27:38):
is in the is in the booklet uh and then all the other lessons for those of you that are in the
leadership program you have lessons on fullon lessons not only on the empathy but on building
trust you have lessons on delegating you have lessons on motivating others the motivational
aspects and other things Rel reled to that but for coaching and mentoring this is a this is a good
(28:01):
little summary for you uh if you haven't seen the full lesson I would definitely take it in and um
and I think I think if you just if you can just especially if you do some of those early stage
steps you you'll get off on the right foot and you'll start working better with the people that
you're trying you're trying to teach all right I hope I hope you enjoyed that portion of this
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