October 7, 2024 • 19 mins
Wayne Turmel and Marisa Eikenberry tackle the challenge of proximity bias and its impact on coaching in remote and hybrid teams. Proximity bias, where leaders give preferential treatment to those physically closer, can skew coaching opportunities and development. Wayne and Marisa discuss how to overcome this bias and ensure remote team members receive equal attention and guidance. You’ll also learn practical tips on how to leverage technology, such as Zoom, Slack, and Teams, to create more effective and meaningful coaching experiences.
Key Takeaways
- Defining Proximity Bias: What it is and why it matters, not just for leaders but also for peers and teams.
- Coaching Differences: How coaching remote employees differs from in-person coaching and why proximity plays a significant role.
- The Importance of Regular Feedback: How coaching should be proactive, consistent, and more formal in remote settings to avoid isolation.
- Leveraging Technology: Tips on using tools like Zoom and Slack to enrich one-on-one coaching experiences and maintain engagement.
- Avoiding Bias in Hybrid Teams: Strategies to ensure that in-office employees don’t get favored over their remote counterparts during coaching sessions.
- The Emotional Impact: How not receiving feedback or coaching can be demotivating for remote employees, and what leaders can do to avoid this.
Timestamps
00:00 Intro
00:27 What is Proximity Bias?
01:35 How Proximity Bias Affects Coaching
03:11 Differences Between In-Person and Remote Coaching
05:14 Signs of Proximity Bias in One-on-Ones
07:45 Using Technology to Enhance Remote Coaching
09:48 Creating a Level Playing Field with Remote Tools
10:48 Coaching Conversations: Feedback and Emotional Dynamics
12:22 The Importance of Trust in Coaching
14:05 How to Start a Good Coaching Conversation
17:49 Final Thoughts on Hybrid Coaching
18:25 Long-Distance Leader Book Promotion
18:56 Outro
Related Episodes
Additional Resources
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:07):
Welcome back to.
The Long-Distance worksite,
where we help you live, work, and thrivein remote and hybrid teams.
I'm Russ, I can be a fellow remote worker.
And joining me is my co-hostand remote work expert, Wayne Trimble.
Hi, Lynn.
Hello, Marissa. How are you? I'm great.
How are you?
I'm fine.
Even though we're nowhere near each other.
Right, right.
(00:27):
You in Vegas and me in Indianapolissaid we're going to kind of talk
about that today,as we do every time on our remote show.
But today, specifically,we're talking about coaching
and differencesbetween coaching in-person and remote
and how to try to make those similarand avoiding proximity bias.
So one of the first things that I do
want to start with, andwe've talked about this a lot on the show,
(00:50):
but for people who have never listenedto an episode of ours before,
maybe we should definewhat is proximity bias.
Proximity bias as it relates to leaders.
Okay, is and I'm looking at thisvery fancy I generated definition
and okay, like all I generated definitionsI want to go.
That's not entirely it.
(01:11):
It says and I quoteproximity bias is a cognitive bias
that occurswhen people have positions of power, favor
employeeswho are physically closer to them,
and that includes things like promotionsand coaching opportunities
and an unintentional exclusion
(01:32):
for those who aren't there,and all of that good stuff.
The problem with this definition,of course,
is that it happens not just in leadership,
it happens in life,and it happens among peers.
On teams.
So when we're talkingproximity bias, yes, in this case,
(01:53):
because we're going to be discussingcoaching its leaders,
but it's also peers and colleaguesand stuff like that.
Right.
So how does proximity bias specificallylike affect the coaching experiences
of remote employeesas opposed to ones in person?
Yeah, well, proximity bias affects
(02:13):
coaching in some obvious ways, right?
An obvious way is if I'm in the officeand I see somebody
doing something incorrectlyor wrong or even really well,
and I want to give them some coachingand some feedback on that, my brain says,
I see this happening and I should respond,
(02:34):
the problem,of course, with remote workers
is you oftendon't see things happening in real time.
You see them long after the fact,
and they generally needto be pretty dramatic
in order for your brain to go, you know,I should pick up the phone.
(02:54):
I should type them a message.
I should make a point of mentioning this.
So coaching happens much
more spontaneously, much more frequently,
and often better in personthan it does remotely.
And the ultimate impact of thatis more than you would think.
(03:16):
Because when you are remote
and you perceivethat other people are getting coaching
and attention that you are not getting,it can be rather disheartening.
And the.
Well, of course, but when you're the one
who is guilty of the bias,you often don't see that.
(03:39):
For example, you know, out of sight,out of mind to a lot of leaders is,
you know, unless there's a problem, I'mjust going to let Marissa do her thing.
And for some reason,you're okay with that.
For some people, they're okay with that.
But even peoplewho are really good at their jobs
and prefer to be left aloneto do them need a little love.
(04:03):
They need some attention.
They need positive reinforcementand and occasionally correction.
Because a lot of us who work remotely
and we've talked beforeabout the Wiley Coyote moments,
where, you know, it's like the Roadrunnercartoons where you run, run, run, run,
run and you're way off the cliff beforeyou realize that you're off the cliff.
(04:27):
Right.
But if you would have had, you know,weekly or biweekly meetings, you may have
if. You were getting regular feedback,which is ultimately
what all of this comes down to is feedbackloops, right?
And proximitybias tends to have really strong feedback
loops with the peoplewith whom you are physically proximate
(04:49):
and weaker, and less frequentfeedback loops with people
that you do not interactwith in a rich way nearly as often.
So what are some signs that a manager
might be showingproximity bias during one on one?
So if they are,you know, actually meeting.
But how might those one on ones
(05:11):
differ a little bitif they're showing proximity bias?
Yeah, I think there are a bunch of ways.
And I'll just tell youbecause everything ultimately is about me.
It used to make me crazy with managers
who, if they were in the office,would call people in.
They'd have a cup of coffee, they'd sitacross the desk, they do their thing.
(05:34):
But because I was usuallyon the other end of the country
or traveling or they were traveling,I would get my coaching conversations
on a staticky cell phonein a busy airport lobby.
Yeah, it was an afterthought.
It was, well, we got to do this.
It's schedule. Let's do it.
(05:54):
And so there wasn't time to connect.
There wasn't the visual component
where you could seethat somebody was stressed or not.
You basicallybecause you're trying to drown out
the distractionsaround you run from a checklist.
And so a lot of those one on oneswere not coaching opportunities
(06:18):
so much as they were check ins on tasks.
Right? Which is important.
But it's not the whole.
Coaching. Coaching is more than that.
Coaching is not just having a one onone coaching conversation or conversation.
Coaching is a very specific thing.
It involves feedback.
It involvesboth performance and development.
(06:43):
So it's not justthis is what you're doing,
but what would you like to be doing right?
What would you like to be doing better?
How can I help you do that?
Is true coaching.
It's not just feedback right.
So and that's onethat's a very obvious one.
I think the other thing is that coachingremotely
(07:06):
by definition is going to be more formal
and needs to be planned, which means
there are big coaching moments.
Okay.
But there's not a lot of that spontaneousin the hallway
giving somebody a thumbs upwhen you hear them on the phone,
doing a great job with a customer.
Yeah. That's fair.
(07:26):
So, you know, you were talkinga second ago about your old
coaching conversations where, you know,staticky cell phones and things like that.
And obviously we now have tools like Zoom
and Slack huddles and Microsoft Teamsthat give that visual and help
make things a little bit easier,even if it isn't quite the same way.
So how can technology helpto kind of create a level playing
(07:49):
field during one on onesbetween remote and in-office employees?
Sure.
Well, we have talked
a lot on this showabout the importance of richness
and scope and understandingwhen you use which right.
It's fair to say that coaching
(08:09):
should be an extremely rich experience.
It doesn't mean you can't sendan ad a girl over over slack or something
like that.
But in general, coaching, requires
a little bit more attention.
And, and so that's part of it.
So so the richer technologiesare probably helpful.
(08:32):
The other thing and not enoughcoaches do this, I think, is
when you're on teamsor whatever you're on,
is the ability to share data
so that you are not just staringat each other's faces, but you're actually
looking at numbers and saying, you know,if I say you're not hitting your numbers
(08:55):
or you were a little off this month,that's very different
than looking at a spreadsheetthat shows exactly how much you were off
relative to the month beforeor the last couple of months,
and it makes it more realwhen it's just face to face.
It's very easyfor coaching to become emotional.
(09:17):
Okay.
And emotional in good ways,but also emotional in ways of becoming
defensive or,
you know, putting on a front or whatever.
And and that's for both the coachand the coach.
Coach, of course.
The person being coached. Okay.
With that.
(09:38):
You know, are there some thingsthat managers can be doing, like to,
enhance
that a little bit during one on ones.
Yeah.
And I'm not going to make this whole thinga shameless plug
for the new book, the new old book,but in the Long Distance Leader
(09:59):
Revised Rules for Remarkable RemoteLeadership, which is the updated version.
One of the things that isn't updateda whole lot is the section on coaching,
because it's the same as it's been.
It's funny, one of the critiqueswe got of the book is, well,
there's all this stuff about coaching, butit's not specific to remote and hybrid.
(10:20):
And that is correct,because one of the things
that we don't dowell enough, even in person, is coaching.
And there's no evidencethat says we're going to do it better
without the visual and approximation cues.
And those sorts of things. Right.
But there aresome things that need to happen.
(10:41):
And a big one is when you are coaching,
you need to check your beliefs
because it's very easy to.
And this is part of proximity bias.
If you see people busily working, youassume that they're always busily working.
And that tells you somethingabout that person, right?
(11:01):
If you feel positive towards them,you are inclined to cut them
slack when something goes wrongbecause you see them working.
When you are dealing with
somebody who is surrounded by white space
and you don't see everythingthat's going on around them.
(11:21):
While we want to assume positive intent.
Right. We don't always.
Because if I've worked with Morrisa long enough,
there is a part of methat goes, you know what she's like.
And and
that colors how we approach our coaching.
And over time,if we don't check those beliefs,
(11:44):
if we don't stop and ask ourselvesif the information
we're getting or the impressionwe're getting is accurate,
we start to act on those beliefsby default.
Well, we've talked about thisin previous episodes too, but because,
you know, you can't see somebody,
maybe their performance is downthis month.
(12:05):
And you know, you notice that.
So you just assume, oh, they're lazy.
But if you had been seeing themyou would notice
like they're stressed out,they're overworked, they're burned out.
They've got something going on at homethat's affecting stuff.
And you have no ideaif you're not checking in like that.
Yeah.
And so, you know, a coaching conversationactually has several parts.
(12:28):
And one of the most important,you just said it
and we kind of glossed over that part,okay.
Is at the beginning of the conversationwhen we say, how are you?
We made the correct response withthe correct response is, oh, I am fine.
Let us please get to this meetingthat I don't really want to have.
(12:49):
But you have called.
Right? Right. Yeah.
And, and and so
and I'm sure I've said this beforebecause I'm mildly obsessed with it.
How are you?
Is both a greetingand a request for information.
Right.
And a good coaching conversationstarts with the request for information.
(13:11):
Yes. The second thingthat the coaching conversation does,
and hopefully over time,the person understands
that that is a legit requestfor information, right?
When I say to you, how are you doing?
You are generally pretty forthcomingwith me about how are you doing?
I mean, we have that trust established,right?
(13:31):
Like,I just I don't have to trust anybody.
Right. But we have that trust established.
I have demonstrated in the pastthat I am actually willing to listen.
I give a hoot.
And and so, I mean, we started we startevery conversation with how's it going?
How you doing?
Is, you know,what's going on in your world.
(13:52):
But the other thingthat a good coaching conversation does,
this is different than the sports modelcoaching
that we often think of,where the coach tells you stuff right.
Nobody sees Phil Jackson.
Ask Michael Jordanwhat's going on out there.
You see Phil talking to Jordan right.
(14:15):
You have these guysthat was maybe the oldest white guy
reference I could have made there.
But but
a good coaching conversationlets the other person speak first.
Yeah right.
What's going on.What would you like to talk about?
And the reason is very simple.
I can come in saying I need to give
(14:38):
Billy Bob feedback on this thingthat isn't work, and that's fine, right?
Because we need to get his performance up.
So I'm going to coach him.
But as you alluded to earlier, let'sfind out what's going on with Billy Bob.
And one of the really important things isdoes Billy Bob know there's a problem?
That's right.
(14:58):
If I say,tell me about your numbers last week,
oh, it's no big deal, blah, blah, blah.
If I say,tell me about your numbers last month.
And Billy Bob goes, oh, God,you wouldn't believe it.
It's such a okay.
Until he events, he is not going tobe able to hear my feedback.
If I think that
(15:18):
he's in denial,I'm going to give him different feedback
than I would if he is guilt riddenand knows that there is a problem, right?
Because he is guiltridden and knows that there is a problem,
he probably wants to get better.
And I am going to approach that coachingconversation different than I will.
If he doesn't think there's a problemat all.
(15:39):
Well, it's really important for meto know where the coached person is
psychologically,mentally in terms of the problem,
because that's going to radically
dictate how we have that conversation.
Right.
Well, it'sinteresting that you're saying this too,
because it'sone of those things that like,
(16:01):
I, I mean, I've been working for the Kevinlike Burger for ten years, right?
And I did not realizethat almost every conversation
I've had with any managerthat I've had has been like that.
The one on one started off with, okay,I have some things for you,
but let's start with you first.
What do you have for me?
And then and sometimes it's the same stuffthat's on their list.
But it was just, you know,I mean, I have a biweekly meeting with,
(16:25):
you know, my manager now, and it's alwayswhat's on your list first.
And it didn't occur to me until nowthat it's like, oh, yeah, well, like that
let me lead the conversationfirst for a little bit.
Well, you know, we both have lists, right?
Right.
The manager here has aKevin has a waiting list.
Right. These are the things I needto talk to Wayne about.
(16:47):
And Wayne has a Kevin list.
And it is an actual physical running listthat I keep.
And if what is on the top of Kevin's
list is not what's on the top of mine,
I'm going to be responsiveto what Kevin's telling me.
But in the back of my headI'm going, yeah,
but what I really want to talk aboutis right, right, right.
(17:08):
Or whatI really think is important is this.
And I may not be fully in the game.
Right.
Well, it may be somethingthat's not on Kevin's radar.
Right.
So here we arerunning radically out of time.
And most of what we have talked aboutis coaching, because coaching is coaching.
And the nuances of doing itremotely are important.
(17:33):
There not the biggest things in the world,but they matter.
The only thing before we wrap up
is that in hybrid hybrid coaching,if you've got people couple days
in the week, blah blah blah, choosewhen to do it in person.
And coaching in person is almost
always more valuablethan coaching at a distance.
(17:55):
So if you can schedule your timeand arrange your schedules
so that if you are in the office together,that's when that stuff happens.
Right? Have it be as rich as possible.
Of course.
So Wayne, thank you so much for this.
And I really hope that our listenersgot a lot out of this.
But before we go, the second edition ofThe Long Distance Leader is now available,
(18:18):
and this updated guide is perfectfor navigating today's remote
and hybrid work environmentswith new principles and proven strategies.
Kevin and Wayne
show you how to lead effectivelyno matter where your team is located.
Don't miss out on the latest insightsand exercises
designed to boost productivityand morale, and order your copy now!
At long distance work life.com/l
(18:40):
d l and strengthenyour remote leadership skills today.
And thank you so much for listeningto the long distance work life
for Shownotes transcripts
and other resources, make sure to visitLong Distance Work life.com
and if you haven't yet,
subscribe to the showso you don't miss any future episodes.
And while you're there,make sure to give us a rating and review
your feedback helps us improveand reach more listeners just like you.
(19:03):
And feel free to contact us via email orLinkedIn with the links in our show notes.
Let us know you listen to this episode,
or suggest a topic for Wayneand I to tackle in a future episode.
We would love to hear from you.Thanks for joining us.
And as Wayne likes to say,don't let his weasels get you down. Hey.
There. You.
Welcome back to.
The Long-Distance worksite,
where we help you live, work, and thrivein remote and hybrid teams.
I'm Russ, I can be a fellow remote worker.
And joining me is my co-hostand remote work expert, Wayne Trimble.
Hi, Lynn.
Hello, Marissa. How are you? I'm great.
How are you?
I'm fine.
Even though we're nowhere near each other.
Right, right.
(00:27):
You in Vegas and me in Indianapolissaid we're going to kind of talk
about that today,as we do every time on our remote show.
But today, specifically,we're talking about coaching
and differencesbetween coaching in-person and remote
and how to try to make those similarand avoiding proximity bias.
So one of the first things that I do
want to start with, andwe've talked about this a lot on the show,
(00:50):
but for people who have never listenedto an episode of ours before,
maybe we should definewhat is proximity bias.
Proximity bias as it relates to leaders.
Okay, is and I'm looking at thisvery fancy I generated definition
and okay, like all I generated definitionsI want to go.
That's not entirely it.
(01:11):
It says and I quoteproximity bias is a cognitive bias
that occurswhen people have positions of power, favor
employeeswho are physically closer to them,
and that includes things like promotionsand coaching opportunities
and an unintentional exclusion
(01:32):
for those who aren't there,and all of that good stuff.
The problem with this definition,of course,
is that it happens not just in leadership,
it happens in life,and it happens among peers.
On teams.
So when we're talkingproximity bias, yes, in this case,
(01:53):
because we're going to be discussingcoaching its leaders,
but it's also peers and colleaguesand stuff like that.
Right.
So how does proximity bias specificallylike affect the coaching experiences
of remote employeesas opposed to ones in person?
Yeah, well, proximity bias affects
(02:13):
coaching in some obvious ways, right?
An obvious way is if I'm in the officeand I see somebody
doing something incorrectlyor wrong or even really well,
and I want to give them some coachingand some feedback on that, my brain says,
I see this happening and I should respond,
(02:34):
the problem,of course, with remote workers
is you oftendon't see things happening in real time.
You see them long after the fact,
and they generally needto be pretty dramatic
in order for your brain to go, you know,I should pick up the phone.
(02:54):
I should type them a message.
I should make a point of mentioning this.
So coaching happens much
more spontaneously, much more frequently,
and often better in personthan it does remotely.
And the ultimate impact of thatis more than you would think.
(03:16):
Because when you are remote
and you perceivethat other people are getting coaching
and attention that you are not getting,it can be rather disheartening.
And the.
Well, of course, but when you're the one
who is guilty of the bias,you often don't see that.
(03:39):
For example, you know, out of sight,out of mind to a lot of leaders is,
you know, unless there's a problem, I'mjust going to let Marissa do her thing.
And for some reason,you're okay with that.
For some people, they're okay with that.
But even peoplewho are really good at their jobs
and prefer to be left aloneto do them need a little love.
(04:03):
They need some attention.
They need positive reinforcementand and occasionally correction.
Because a lot of us who work remotely
and we've talked beforeabout the Wiley Coyote moments,
where, you know, it's like the Roadrunnercartoons where you run, run, run, run,
run and you're way off the cliff beforeyou realize that you're off the cliff.
(04:27):
Right.
But if you would have had, you know,weekly or biweekly meetings, you may have
if. You were getting regular feedback,which is ultimately
what all of this comes down to is feedbackloops, right?
And proximitybias tends to have really strong feedback
loops with the peoplewith whom you are physically proximate
(04:49):
and weaker, and less frequentfeedback loops with people
that you do not interactwith in a rich way nearly as often.
So what are some signs that a manager
might be showingproximity bias during one on one?
So if they are,you know, actually meeting.
But how might those one on ones
(05:11):
differ a little bitif they're showing proximity bias?
Yeah, I think there are a bunch of ways.
And I'll just tell youbecause everything ultimately is about me.
It used to make me crazy with managers
who, if they were in the office,would call people in.
They'd have a cup of coffee, they'd sitacross the desk, they do their thing.
(05:34):
But because I was usuallyon the other end of the country
or traveling or they were traveling,I would get my coaching conversations
on a staticky cell phonein a busy airport lobby.
Yeah, it was an afterthought.
It was, well, we got to do this.
It's schedule. Let's do it.
(05:54):
And so there wasn't time to connect.
There wasn't the visual component
where you could seethat somebody was stressed or not.
You basicallybecause you're trying to drown out
the distractionsaround you run from a checklist.
And so a lot of those one on oneswere not coaching opportunities
(06:18):
so much as they were check ins on tasks.
Right? Which is important.
But it's not the whole.
Coaching. Coaching is more than that.
Coaching is not just having a one onone coaching conversation or conversation.
Coaching is a very specific thing.
It involves feedback.
It involvesboth performance and development.
(06:43):
So it's not justthis is what you're doing,
but what would you like to be doing right?
What would you like to be doing better?
How can I help you do that?
Is true coaching.
It's not just feedback right.
So and that's onethat's a very obvious one.
I think the other thing is that coachingremotely
(07:06):
by definition is going to be more formal
and needs to be planned, which means
there are big coaching moments.
Okay.
But there's not a lot of that spontaneousin the hallway
giving somebody a thumbs upwhen you hear them on the phone,
doing a great job with a customer.
Yeah. That's fair.
(07:26):
So, you know, you were talkinga second ago about your old
coaching conversations where, you know,staticky cell phones and things like that.
And obviously we now have tools like Zoom
and Slack huddles and Microsoft Teamsthat give that visual and help
make things a little bit easier,even if it isn't quite the same way.
So how can technology helpto kind of create a level playing
(07:49):
field during one on onesbetween remote and in-office employees?
Sure.
Well, we have talked
a lot on this showabout the importance of richness
and scope and understandingwhen you use which right.
It's fair to say that coaching
(08:09):
should be an extremely rich experience.
It doesn't mean you can't sendan ad a girl over over slack or something
like that.
But in general, coaching, requires
a little bit more attention.
And, and so that's part of it.
So so the richer technologiesare probably helpful.
(08:32):
The other thing and not enoughcoaches do this, I think, is
when you're on teamsor whatever you're on,
is the ability to share data
so that you are not just staringat each other's faces, but you're actually
looking at numbers and saying, you know,if I say you're not hitting your numbers
(08:55):
or you were a little off this month,that's very different
than looking at a spreadsheetthat shows exactly how much you were off
relative to the month beforeor the last couple of months,
and it makes it more realwhen it's just face to face.
It's very easyfor coaching to become emotional.
(09:17):
Okay.
And emotional in good ways,but also emotional in ways of becoming
defensive or,
you know, putting on a front or whatever.
And and that's for both the coachand the coach.
Coach, of course.
The person being coached. Okay.
With that.
(09:38):
You know, are there some thingsthat managers can be doing, like to,
enhance
that a little bit during one on ones.
Yeah.
And I'm not going to make this whole thinga shameless plug
for the new book, the new old book,but in the Long Distance Leader
(09:59):
Revised Rules for Remarkable RemoteLeadership, which is the updated version.
One of the things that isn't updateda whole lot is the section on coaching,
because it's the same as it's been.
It's funny, one of the critiqueswe got of the book is, well,
there's all this stuff about coaching, butit's not specific to remote and hybrid.
(10:20):
And that is correct,because one of the things
that we don't dowell enough, even in person, is coaching.
And there's no evidencethat says we're going to do it better
without the visual and approximation cues.
And those sorts of things. Right.
But there aresome things that need to happen.
(10:41):
And a big one is when you are coaching,
you need to check your beliefs
because it's very easy to.
And this is part of proximity bias.
If you see people busily working, youassume that they're always busily working.
And that tells you somethingabout that person, right?
(11:01):
If you feel positive towards them,you are inclined to cut them
slack when something goes wrongbecause you see them working.
When you are dealing with
somebody who is surrounded by white space
and you don't see everythingthat's going on around them.
(11:21):
While we want to assume positive intent.
Right. We don't always.
Because if I've worked with Morrisa long enough,
there is a part of methat goes, you know what she's like.
And and
that colors how we approach our coaching.
And over time,if we don't check those beliefs,
(11:44):
if we don't stop and ask ourselvesif the information
we're getting or the impressionwe're getting is accurate,
we start to act on those beliefsby default.
Well, we've talked about thisin previous episodes too, but because,
you know, you can't see somebody,
maybe their performance is downthis month.
(12:05):
And you know, you notice that.
So you just assume, oh, they're lazy.
But if you had been seeing themyou would notice
like they're stressed out,they're overworked, they're burned out.
They've got something going on at homethat's affecting stuff.
And you have no ideaif you're not checking in like that.
Yeah.
And so, you know, a coaching conversationactually has several parts.
(12:28):
And one of the most important,you just said it
and we kind of glossed over that part,okay.
Is at the beginning of the conversationwhen we say, how are you?
We made the correct response withthe correct response is, oh, I am fine.
Let us please get to this meetingthat I don't really want to have.
(12:49):
But you have called.
Right? Right. Yeah.
And, and and so
and I'm sure I've said this beforebecause I'm mildly obsessed with it.
How are you?
Is both a greetingand a request for information.
Right.
And a good coaching conversationstarts with the request for information.
(13:11):
Yes. The second thingthat the coaching conversation does,
and hopefully over time,the person understands
that that is a legit requestfor information, right?
When I say to you, how are you doing?
You are generally pretty forthcomingwith me about how are you doing?
I mean, we have that trust established,right?
(13:31):
Like,I just I don't have to trust anybody.
Right. But we have that trust established.
I have demonstrated in the pastthat I am actually willing to listen.
I give a hoot.
And and so, I mean, we started we startevery conversation with how's it going?
How you doing?
Is, you know,what's going on in your world.
(13:52):
But the other thingthat a good coaching conversation does,
this is different than the sports modelcoaching
that we often think of,where the coach tells you stuff right.
Nobody sees Phil Jackson.
Ask Michael Jordanwhat's going on out there.
You see Phil talking to Jordan right.
(14:15):
You have these guysthat was maybe the oldest white guy
reference I could have made there.
But but
a good coaching conversationlets the other person speak first.
Yeah right.
What's going on.What would you like to talk about?
And the reason is very simple.
I can come in saying I need to give
(14:38):
Billy Bob feedback on this thingthat isn't work, and that's fine, right?
Because we need to get his performance up.
So I'm going to coach him.
But as you alluded to earlier, let'sfind out what's going on with Billy Bob.
And one of the really important things isdoes Billy Bob know there's a problem?
That's right.
(14:58):
If I say,tell me about your numbers last week,
oh, it's no big deal, blah, blah, blah.
If I say,tell me about your numbers last month.
And Billy Bob goes, oh, God,you wouldn't believe it.
It's such a okay.
Until he events, he is not going tobe able to hear my feedback.
If I think that
(15:18):
he's in denial,I'm going to give him different feedback
than I would if he is guilt riddenand knows that there is a problem, right?
Because he is guiltridden and knows that there is a problem,
he probably wants to get better.
And I am going to approach that coachingconversation different than I will.
If he doesn't think there's a problemat all.
(15:39):
Well, it's really important for meto know where the coached person is
psychologically,mentally in terms of the problem,
because that's going to radically
dictate how we have that conversation.
Right.
Well, it'sinteresting that you're saying this too,
because it'sone of those things that like,
(16:01):
I, I mean, I've been working for the Kevinlike Burger for ten years, right?
And I did not realizethat almost every conversation
I've had with any managerthat I've had has been like that.
The one on one started off with, okay,I have some things for you,
but let's start with you first.
What do you have for me?
And then and sometimes it's the same stuffthat's on their list.
But it was just, you know,I mean, I have a biweekly meeting with,
(16:25):
you know, my manager now, and it's alwayswhat's on your list first.
And it didn't occur to me until nowthat it's like, oh, yeah, well, like that
let me lead the conversationfirst for a little bit.
Well, you know, we both have lists, right?
Right.
The manager here has aKevin has a waiting list.
Right. These are the things I needto talk to Wayne about.
(16:47):
And Wayne has a Kevin list.
And it is an actual physical running listthat I keep.
And if what is on the top of Kevin's
list is not what's on the top of mine,
I'm going to be responsiveto what Kevin's telling me.
But in the back of my headI'm going, yeah,
but what I really want to talk aboutis right, right, right.
(17:08):
Or whatI really think is important is this.
And I may not be fully in the game.
Right.
Well, it may be somethingthat's not on Kevin's radar.
Right.
So here we arerunning radically out of time.
And most of what we have talked aboutis coaching, because coaching is coaching.
And the nuances of doing itremotely are important.
(17:33):
There not the biggest things in the world,but they matter.
The only thing before we wrap up
is that in hybrid hybrid coaching,if you've got people couple days
in the week, blah blah blah, choosewhen to do it in person.
And coaching in person is almost
always more valuablethan coaching at a distance.
(17:55):
So if you can schedule your timeand arrange your schedules
so that if you are in the office together,that's when that stuff happens.
Right? Have it be as rich as possible.
Of course.
So Wayne, thank you so much for this.
And I really hope that our listenersgot a lot out of this.
But before we go, the second edition ofThe Long Distance Leader is now available,
(18:18):
and this updated guide is perfectfor navigating today's remote
and hybrid work environmentswith new principles and proven strategies.
Kevin and Wayne
show you how to lead effectivelyno matter where your team is located.
Don't miss out on the latest insightsand exercises
designed to boost productivityand morale, and order your copy now!
At long distance work life.com/l
(18:40):
d l and strengthenyour remote leadership skills today.
And thank you so much for listeningto the long distance work life
for Shownotes transcripts
and other resources, make sure to visitLong Distance Work life.com
and if you haven't yet,
subscribe to the showso you don't miss any future episodes.
And while you're there,make sure to give us a rating and review
your feedback helps us improveand reach more listeners just like you.
(19:03):
And feel free to contact us via email orLinkedIn with the links in our show notes.
Let us know you listen to this episode,
or suggest a topic for Wayneand I to tackle in a future episode.
We would love to hear from you.Thanks for joining us.
And as Wayne likes to say,don't let his weasels get you down. Hey.
There. You.
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