November 1, 2023 • 41 mins
Brian Houp, an executive coach and CEO of Rezone Coaching, was named the number one executive coach in Louisville. He coaches experienced leaders to embrace the behaviors required to thrive at the executive level when working with clients. In this episode, Brian discusses his unique three phase process for continuing growth and development for the future. This process involves collecting feedback about the individual, having the leaders go public with their intentions, and then preparing to transition beyond his program.
Check out the free Q&A videos that we have produced with tips to help you receive feedback graciously and act on it visibly at www.learningbridge.com/tips.
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Episode Transcript
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Brian Houp (00:00):
And then the other thing that was great about
that, by going public, as he,as a grown man who's been
working in the real world fordozens of years, was trying to
change his behaviors, they gavehim some grace. 'cause they
knew he was trying to getbetter. And I think that's
important because there's thisother stress we carry of , I'm
(00:22):
trying to change this, but Idon't wanna be awkward and I
don't want to , you know, andif we get other people
involved, I think that helps.
Troy Blaser (00:34):
Hello, welcome to Simply Feedback the podcast
brought to you byLearningBridge. I'm your host,
Troy Blaser. It's great to haveyou with us today. I'm glad to
have you along. I'm excited tointroduce our guest today. His
name is Brian Houp. Brian , whowas named the number one
executive coach in Louisville,is an executive coach and CEO
of Rezone coaching. He coachesexperienced leaders to embrace
(00:58):
the behaviors required tothrive at the executive level
when working with clients. Hisunique three phase process
involves collecting feedbackabout the individual, having
the leaders go public withtheir intentions, and then
preparing to transition beyondhis program. This process
allows them to continue theirgrowth and development for the
future. Brian has supportedhundreds of key leaders on
(01:20):
their leadership journeys. He'salso on the Forbes Coaches
Council, so you can watch forhis articles there. And we're
excited to have him on the showtoday to share his insights
with us. Brian , welcome toSimply Feedback. It's great to
have you with us.
Brian Houp (01:33):
Thanks, Troy. I'm excited to be here.
Troy Blaser (01:37):
Well, maybe just to help us get to know you a
little bit, could you tell usabout a time that somebody gave
you feedback, maybe it had animpact on your life, on your
career, or something like that?
Is there a story you couldshare with us?
Brian Houp (01:48):
Yeah, sure. It's , um, yeah, it's interesting. I'm
thinking about a time I workedin the corporate world , and I
was in the same environment fora long time. I worked with a
lot of the same coworkers . Iwas a leader in that space and
I was a part of a leadershipteam and I got a new boss , and
we were all working togetherand collaborating. And after a
(02:08):
couple weeks he pulled me asideand he said, its been a long
time ago, so I don't know thespecifics of this, but
essentially the message was,you need to change the way
you're interacting with people.
And it was some version ofdon't be so argumentative or
something along those lines.
And , that I was just caughtvery much off guard . And , I
(02:29):
asked for clarification and Idon't remember the nuances of
the conversation, but what I doremember is I didn't take
anything else away except quitdoing what you're doing , and
don't challenge and don'tdisagree. And so it's
interesting. So I went to hispeer who was higher than me,
(02:50):
who I'd worked with for awhile, and I said, Hey, can I
get your opinion on this? And Ishared it with him and I said,
can you help me with that? Andhe said, I don't really see it.
I don't know what he's talkingabout. And , it's interesting
because it totally like frozeme up. And he, and what he said
to me was you know what,sometimes you'll challenge
people, but that's what we alldo. And you know, that's why
(03:11):
we're doing great things aroundhere. And then , and so, I was
very much on edge and I went toone of my coworkers and asked
her, and she said, I don't knowwhat you're talking about. I
found that a week later he cameto her and told her the same
thing. You know, I , I reflectback on that now. And so why it
impacted me was that I wasscared and I stopped working
the same way. And as I reflectback on it now, I wish I knew
(03:34):
because if I knew what I knownow, I would've said to him,
can you be specific? Can yougive me some suggestions of
what to do differently? Can youmonitor me and maybe catch me
doing it so I can know what I'mdoing? But all I did was, you
know, in the interest of beingrespectful, you know, you tell
(03:54):
me, help me understand it, andI'll go do what you say. And ,
and it just really locked meup.
Troy Blaser (04:00):
I'll bet. Yeah.
It's like you operate in oneway for a long time and you're,
you're basically told don'toperate that way. And you're
like, I don't know how else todo it. Right?
Brian Houp (04:09):
That's right.
That's right.
Troy Blaser (04:10):
It's Interesting as you're telling me that
story, we talk about sometimes,as we're talking about
feedback, we'll sometimes saythat the feedback that you
receive often says as muchabout the person giving the
feedback as it does about youyourself. And then when you
said that he had given the samefeedback to another colleague
of yours, that's where youthink, okay, you know, what is
this feedback saying about yourboss in this situation? Right?
Brian Houp (04:35):
100% . Yeah. And so that, you know, it was
interesting. There were someother things that same boss
gave me some feedback that Ihadn't got before that actually
was helpful. And so it wasinteresting. I was very
fortunate that I had had a lotof success to that point in my
career. And a lot of peoplesort of gave me a lot of leeway
and if I was challenged, it wasin a productive way. And he
(04:58):
kind of just stopped me in mytracks a few times. Yeah . And
, uh, it just, it froze me morethan sort of opened me up You
know?
Troy Blaser (05:07):
I'm guessing that , you know, as time went on,
assuming you still worked underthat same supervisor, did you
just kind of slowly return tonormal, essentially?,
Brian Houp (05:18):
You know what, I didn't . Eventually , I left.
Eventually I left. Yeah. AndI'd tell you what I, what I did
do, I would tell you this, Icame became very alert to, if I
give feedback to someone else,I'm gonna make sure that they
can do something with it. Ididn't, I didn't have the
language for it. I didn'treally know, I hadn't gone
through any sort of formal 360or had any sort of training on
(05:40):
it. I just sort of knew thatthe way he did it was eating me
up and I didn't wanna do thatto anybody else.
Troy Blaser (05:49):
Yeah.
Brian Houp (05:49):
You know what I mean ? Yeah. You weren't really
necessarily prepared to receiveany feedback and it just kind
of came outta the blue . And so, and that's really
interesting. You received thisfeedback in this moment and it
taught you a few thingsseparate from the specifics of
what he was telling you . Butit sounds like those, those
things that you learned , thoselessons that you learned have
(06:10):
really helped through the restof your career. And especially
as a coach where you're oftenin a position to give or
facilitate feedback, I imagine. Yeah. And I think it helps it
, it helps me, we'll probablytalk about it today, but a big
part of what I do is involvescollecting feedback. When I'm
coaching someone, helping getinput from others on what
they're observing about anindividual. You know? It helps
(06:30):
me guide the individuals I'minteracting with to encourage
more helpful inputs. You know?
Troy Blaser (06:39):
Yeah, yeah. For sure. And I think, I'm glad you
brought that up. We mentionedin the introduction, you kind
of use a three step process inyour coaching engagements. And
maybe as part of that firststep, collecting the feedback.
It sounds like you conduct bothstakeholder interviews and a
360 degree assessment? Often, Iguess the leadership circle ,
(06:59):
profile 360 . I'm curious alittle bit about the two ways
you collect that feedback. Canyou just tell us a little bit
about the information you'reable to get from the
stakeholder interviews versusthe written comments that might
be in a 360 ?
Brian Houp (07:11):
Yeah, of course.
Yeah. So the, the 360 I use isleadership circle profile. I
don't know if you're familiarwith that or not, but it's
focused specifically on seniorlevel leadership. And it has a
lot of questions, multiplechoice answers where people are
inputting their observationsand others are inputting their
own about themselves. So howthey spend their time and
(07:32):
energy. And then thattranslates into some scores
that are compared to otherleaders around the globe. And
so they can look in apercentile form, you know,
where they stack up as itrelates to certain leadership
competencies, like setting aclear vision or mentoring and
developing or being authentic.
And, you know, that gives ussome quantifiable, comparative
(07:53):
information to look at. Andthen within that we also
collect some written commentswhere it's just a few
questions, like, what's theperson's greatest strength and
how can they better leverageit? What's their opportunity
for development? And what wouldsuggestions do you have? Just
very, very limited. And so whenI first started doing 360s,
that was the tool I used. Andwhat, and it was, it was very
(08:16):
powerful and very helpful. Andthen I did a 360 with a
different situation where wedidn't use that assessment and
I just basically didstakeholder interviews. And I
realized in that process that Iwas able to ask, follow-up
questions to their initialinformation that they gave me.
You know? And then also I wouldsay as I was going through the
(08:37):
leadership circle information,and let's just use my last
story, my boss as an example.
Troy Blaser (08:43):
Yeah .
Brian Houp (08:43):
Had I been in that situation, he probably would've
put into, you know, a websitethat I needed to change the way
I interact with people and notbe so confrontational. And I
wouldn't have known what to dowith that. And that create more
problems than whatever. Theother thing I would add, and
this is a big part of why Ireally love the stakeholder
interviews. And if I werehaving that conversation with
(09:03):
him today asking forinformation about an employee,
and he gave the same insight, Iwould first of all ask for
those specifics. And then Iwould say, give me some more
context. And what suggestionsdo you have for improvement? So
I can bring back some moremeat, but I also use that as an
opportunity to do a little sidecoaching and say, you know,
based on what you're tellingme, I want you to understand
(09:25):
this isn't terribly clear. Iunderstand that you have a
challenge, but
Troy Blaser (09:28):
Yeah.
Brian Houp (09:29):
I would encourage you to study this person and
point out to them as you startto see more, get more clarity
on that. That's just, what Iwould say to them is, you could
take it or leave that. That'sjust the coach in me feels
compelled to share that whilewe're in this conversation. And
so I try to be prettycomprehensive with my approach.
'cause I've found that thetimes I do that, boy, just the
(09:50):
overall impact goes updramatically.
Troy Blaser (09:52):
That makes sense.
Having that back and forth andthe ability to clarify, ask,
follow up questions. When youdo the stakeholder interviews,
do you limit it to a certainset of stakeholders? Or is it,
you know, everybody that's alsoanswering the 360?
Brian Houp (10:06):
Great question.
Yeah. So when we do the online360 , I'm typically looking for
a minimum of a dozenparticipating evaluators. Yeah.
And so depending on the, youknow, the setup , we might
invite 20 or maybe a smidgemore. And then when I'm doing
the stakeholder interviews, Iwill try to kind of focus on
maybe about 10. And it reallydepends on what I'm getting.
(10:30):
I'm thinking about a lady I didthis with last year, and, you
know, she gave me names ofpeople that she thought would
be honest, that she thoughtknew her real well, and they
did know her real well. Theyliked her a lot. They didn't
give me much to work with,frankly. I went back to her and
said, can you gimme 10 morenames? Like, I wanna help you
and I don't have enough to helpyou yet.
Troy Blaser (10:51):
Okay .
(10:52):
And so, generally speaking, I mean, unless I've, I've worked
out some aggressive deal, Ikind of do whatever I have to
do to get the information. Theother, the other little nugget
I would maybe add to that, thatI've learned kind of over time
, I used to have either hr, ifI work with the HR department
or maybe the individualparticipant who , uh, we're
(11:14):
doing the 360 on, give me thenames. What I do now is I get
those names from those folks,but I also, part of my required
process is that theirsupervisors involved in the
discussion and that they alsohave a contribution on the
names. And I also tell people,you know, it's less about who
(11:35):
you think will be honest.
'cause this is confidential andanonymous, and you might be
surprised who's gonna actuallybe, who's gonna be honest and
helpful now , but also I findthat there are supervisors and
HR individuals quite frequentlyknow that there are some
individuals who have someimportant information to share
that maybe they haven't beencomfortable sharing. And so
making sure we've got thosefolks included is the way I try
(11:57):
to approach it.
Troy Blaser (11:57):
That makes a lot of sense. It sounds like it's
pretty thorough as you engagewith coaching those
individuals. It does seem like,you know, between the
stakeholder interviews and thena comprehensive 360 feedback
report, that can end up being alot of information. How do you
help the feedback recipientmake sense of all of that data
(12:18):
and kind of synthesize it downinto a coherent message?
Brian Houp (12:22):
Well, what I do with the online assessment, I
will send them bite-size piecesand I'll say, dive into these
comments. And then you tell meif you're reading this
information about somebodyelse, what are a few themes?
Let's don't get focused on theexceptions, but what are just a
few primary themes that younotice? And then we'll focus in
(12:45):
on the, the positive feedback,and then we'll go, let's look
at the negative feedback andthe suggestions for
improvement. Let's look at thatarea. Um, and then that's the
way that I'll do that part ofit with the stakeholder
interviews. Actually, you know,that's a conversation and I'm
taking notes and I put in theremy, and so I organize those
notes and I try to group themtogether thematically and say,
these are some of the trends Isaw, but then here's paraphrase
(13:08):
the notes I took. And then wekind of go from there. And it
can get a little hairydepending on the way a person's
wired. Like for me, when thefirst time I did something like
this, there's a lot of thingsyou can get lost in. And so we
gotta remember to bring itback.
Troy Blaser (13:23):
I like that approach of bite-size pieces.
Let's focus on one thing at atime , not just, you know,
here's all the data and diveinto it. I think that's a great
approach. As we were gettingready for this episode today, I
had a chance to read yourForbes article called Six Keys
to Maximizing Your 360 DegreeFeedback Process. And , you
know, we'll link to it in theshow notes so that people can
(13:45):
read the full article forthemselves. But along those
lines, are there a couple ofcommon reasons that people do
not receive robust or usefulfeedback in a 360 that they
could be on the lookout for?
Brian Houp (13:58):
Yeah, sure. I think two things jump out at me right
away. One is just lack ofparticipation. A big part of
what I do is I encourage theindividual who is the center
who's gonna be getting thefeedback. I encourage them to
have one-on-one conversationswith everyone who they're gonna
invite to participate. And toreally, we talk through that,
(14:21):
you know, and ask for just afive minute conversation to be
able to say, you know, I'mlooking for your honest input.
It's gonna be anonymous, it'sgonna be confidential. It's
only going to me, the way I setit up, it's not given to hr. It
only goes back to theindividual. And then the other
thing that I also encouragethem to say is, if you don't
participate and you don't giveme specific input, then I'm not
(14:42):
gonna be any different. I'm notgonna know what to do or how to
get better.
Troy Blaser (14:45):
Sure.
Brian Houp (14:46):
And the last piece of that I think that people
underestimate too, is helpingpeople understand what the
expectation is as far as time.
And so we've been talkingthrough sort of my preferred
process in all reality. I dealwith corporate clients and
sometimes there's budgetconstraints and we have to do
Sure. You know , maybe we justdo the leadership cycle , or
maybe we just do thestakeholder interviews . So
(15:07):
there can be variations. But,you know, I that online
assessment, I tell people toplan for about 30 minutes. I
just finished one up and alwayslike to ask people like, you
know, how long did it take? Andask people how long it took.
And some of them w ere saying,you know, 20 minutes. And, and
then with those phoneinterviews, I always try to
keep those under 15 minutes.
Troy Blaser (15:27):
That's quick.
Brian Houp (15:28):
Yeah. So I , you know, I'm just thinking about ,
I'm just going with a couple ofquick questions and I'll say to
folks, and I will on my owncalendar book, you know, I'll
give myself another half hourafter that.
Troy Blaser (15:38):
Sure.
Brian Houp (15:38):
So when I get in, I'll say, I wanna be respectful
of your time. And I'll say, youknow, it's , it's been about 13
minutes. And so, you know , Iwanna make sure, is there
anything else you wanna makesure we get in? I have found
that more often than not, whenwe have a good, honest
conversation going, people ifthey have the time, they go,
you know what, I got another 10minutes, let's keep going.
Yeah. And so, you know, I'llkinda have that flexibility,
but just that lack ofparticipation. And it's a lot
(16:02):
of times just the folks I'mdealing with are at a senior
level, and the people thatthey're asking to engage with
are frequently at a seniorlevel. They're already time
starved. And so, you know, tobe able to say, I'm asking for
if we're going all in on myprocess as much as maybe an
hour , if you can give an hoursometime , you know, to invest
(16:23):
in what I'm doing here , that'swhat I'm asking for. And so
being clear about theexpectations and having those
discussions in advance andgetting people to say, do you
think you'll be able toparticipate? Like getting them
to commit. And, and then we, inmy process, probably like most
others , we don't tell, youknow, who participated. We do
(16:44):
have some breaking out of like,these are within your direct
report audience, and there werefour people who participated,
or within your peers, therewere six people who
participated or whatever. But ,that is something I didn't do
early on. I wish someonewould've pushed me to do
because that, I think it made agreat difference in the quality
of what we had to work with.
Troy Blaser (17:04):
I do feel bad sometimes as we administer 360
and I, you know, see a listmaybe of 10 managers that are
taking a 360 in a group, andyou might have one or two that
they haven't received feedbackfrom their manager yet, you
know, and the survey goes andgoes, and goes, and they just
don't get that feedback. And Ithink it's a missed
opportunity, you know, and forwhatever reason, the manager
wasn't able to make time orfind time to give that
(17:27):
feedback. And, and you reallydo miss a great opportunity to
give some feedback, hopefullyuseful, clear feedback in cases
like that. So I agree.
Participation is vital.
Brian Houp (17:39):
I can add something if I can't.
Troy Blaser (17:40):
Yeah. Yeah, please.
Brian Houp (17:41):
One thing I'll tell you, and this is probably, I've
been doing this full-time forabout 10 years, and I've been
doing the 360s for about sevenyears, I guess. And so I've
done, you know, well over ahundred of them. Yeah . And you
know, I think in terms of athird, 40% of the time, within
two weeks after we're wrappingup, someone contacts me Yeah.
(18:02):
And says, Hey , I meant to ,you know, and it's like doggone
, you know, and in some casesI'll , I just, I'll have a
little one-on-one dialogue, andI'll , maybe it's email or a
phone call, and I'll just say,you know , we've closed it out.
If you can find the way to gohave a conversation, I'd
encourage you to, if you wannaspend a few minutes, I'm happy
to talk to you about how to dothat. But yeah, it , it seems
it happens way too often that Iguess they're cleaning out
(18:25):
their inbox and they go, darnit , that's already passed. You
know?
Troy Blaser (18:29):
Yep . I had one of those just this morning, I had
to write an email. Sorry, youknow, we've already produced a
feedback report, and so theperson can have it in time for
this program they're attending.
And so we just can't, we can'treopen it for you . It doesn't,
doesn't work that way.
Brian Houp (18:42):
Yeah, absolutely.
Troy Blaser (18:44):
We talked a little bit earlier about how you've
gathered all this data to helppeople understand it and accept
it. Are there some commonimpediments or obstacles that
you see with feedbackrecipients that would keep them
from accepting that some ofthat feedback that comes in? Or
maybe another way to ask thatquestion? Is there anything
that you do to help thefeedback recipient be prepared
(19:06):
to receive all of thisfeedback?
Brian Houp (19:08):
That's a good question. I mean, one of the
things I learned early on wasthis acronym SARA, S-A-R-A. And
it said, you know , this is acommon experience whenever
you're digesting feedback fromlike a 360 and the SARA , um,
that stands for the 'S' standsfor 'shock' or 'surprise,' and
(19:29):
then 'A' is 'anger,' and then'R' is 'rejection' or
'rationalization.' And then thelast 'A' is 'acceptance.' And
so I will tell people, youknow, there is, it's almost
like these sort of unofficialunscientific stages of grief,
if you will. Like, this isnormal to expect this and to
anticipate this. And so I will, and I had, I went through,
I've reviewed of results, theresults with someone literally
(19:52):
just , uh, I think it wasThursday or Friday of this last
week, and we had thatdiscussion. I sent her some
materials. She happens to behere locally in the same town
as me. And we actually metface-to-face, and we were, I
was going to give her the restof the information. And she
said to me, you know, I wrotedown that SARA and I continued
to reference it as I wasreading through. She got some
(20:13):
pretty significant feedbackthat was, you know,
constructive criticism, let'scall it. And she was processing
that, and then it was notideal. And, but she said that,
you know, she found that reallyhelpful. And as we were kind of
talking and she said herinclination was to rationalize
it or to say, you know, theyjust don't get it. Or, you know
, so I think just helpingpeople understand that that's
(20:34):
probably gonna happen is ahelpful thing to start. The
other thing that comes to mymind is, this is so weird. It
seems less likely it doesn'thappen as often with me. Most
people I work with areperforming at a very high
level, which also probablymeans that they are, you know,
open to getting better andthey're interested in getting
better. It doesn't always meanthat's the case, but it does
(20:57):
happen that, like, just in thelast six months, I've had two
different people who have saidto me, like early on in the
process, and they were broughtto me by their supervisors who
were the CEOs of theircompanies, disconnected. They
said to me early on in theprocess when we were starting
to talk through, we're gonnacollect feedback, they both
said some version of, I knoweverybody hates this and nobody
(21:18):
wants to do this. And I waslike, no, but not necessarily.
Troy Blaser (21:22):
Yeah.
Brian Houp (21:22):
They were very much...
(21:24):
For them . Yeah . Like, before we even started, that
was their frame of mind, youknow, I said, let's just unpack
that a little bit because ifyou're not in the right frame
of mind, this is not gonna be aproductive exercise for you.
Troy Blaser (21:35):
Yeah.
Brian Houp (21:35):
And so, you know, that's deeper going into the
coaching of that, but it'sreally understanding why
they're uneasy about that andwhat they do care about. And,
you know, and then they getsome feedback. I'm thinking of
this one gentleman who is verysmart and ran an organization
and he always worked inenvironments where there was no
(21:57):
sort of personal human sort ofrelationship thing. And that
one of the feedback things hegot was that he was very cold
and no one sort of knewanything about him. He didn't
know about, didn't care aboutthem. And he was kinda like why
we're here to work anyway, itdoesn't matter. And so, you
know, getting him to thinkabout what mattered to him and
how what matters to the otherpeople ultimately helps what
(22:19):
matters to him.
Troy Blaser (22:20):
Yeah.
Brian Houp (22:21):
At the same time, in that case , uh, part of the
reason that we started workingtogether was that his
organization said, you know, wehave a culture here that is
very caring, for lack of abetter word, and it's not his
style, and we wanna work onthat with him. And ultimately
he left the organization , butwe talked that out, like, you
(22:43):
know? Are you willing to dothis? Or, you know? Where are
you with it? And then , youknow, ultimately it worked out
better for him and theorganization. I didn't want
that to happen, but...
Troy Blaser (22:55):
Right.
Brian Houp (22:56):
I'm glad that they're not both continuing to
be frustrated
Troy Blaser (22:59):
Yeah. Yeah. It needs to be a good fit on both
sides for sure.
Brian Houp (23:03):
Yeah. And he did tell me that he got a lot of
value out of looking at itdifferently. I don't know how
much that he digested and howmuch he'll embrace, but who
knows?
Troy Blaser (23:12):
Yeah. Well, you know, I think that ownership is
important of the process, youknow , for someone to say,
well, I'm just doing thisbecause the CEO says I have to
do it. That's a far differentattitude than , Hey, this is an
opportunity for me to get somefeedback, you know, and having
some ownership and beingreceptive to that. I think, you
know , that makes a bigdifference. So it's important
(23:34):
to feel that out . I wanted toask you a little bit about the
second part of your process .
The 'Go Public' part.
Brian Houp (23:40):
Yeah .
Troy Blaser (23:41):
Can you share a little bit about what that
looks like and why it'sbeneficial ? Why you have it ,
it included in , in yourprocess?
Brian Houp (23:46):
Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. I think , first of
all, I'll just tell you why Ihave it. And I didn't use to do
that. And I used to casuallyencourage people to make people
aware that they were working onthemselves.
Troy Blaser (23:58):
Yeah.
Brian Houp (23:59):
And, and I have found that in some cases, that
I would have these wrap updiscussions with like,
supervisors and differentthings. And they were, it's
almost like they forgot that aperson was going through this
process. 'cause they , theywere just so busy. And so those
were in cases where therewasn't much movement in their
behavior. And so what I'vediscovered was, regardless of
(24:23):
how available I am, we'retalking, you know, a minuscule
percentage of the time of theirwork life and I'm not observing
them and I can't give 'emfeedback on what they're
actually doing. And so with the'Go Public' part, there's a
couple things I do there. Oneis I encourage people when they
start to get clarity aroundwhat they're working on . I'll
give you an example of agentleman that got a lot of
feedback that he came across asarrogant and unapproachable.
(24:45):
And he was on the executiveteam. And that individuals,
especially those that were moresort of frontline contributors
and frontline supervisors, theywere intimidated by him. And so
they wouldn't be honest withhim and speak up. And so he
wanted to work on that. And hewent and told everyone, like, I
wanna work on this. And hefollowed some of the things we
talked about, like asking forspecific ideas and specific
(25:07):
examples. And the reality wasthat most people could not,
didn't have a whole lot ofsubstance to give him. Part of
my going public process is torecruit some accountability
partners and ask people, willyou sort of study me? And when
you see me do something, pleasetell me. So that way I can get
some feet forward . So I've gotsome ideas of what to do
(25:30):
better. And so that , that guy,as an example, I remember
specifically three things thatpeople came up with him on.
Like one was they said he nevermade eye contact. And they're
like, that just sort of makesyou seem impersonal. Another
one was, they said like, youknow, I've been monitoring you.
This is when they all worked inthe corporate office and they
all interacted a lot. And theysaid, you know, people are
talking about personal thingsand you do as well, but when an
(25:53):
individual talks about theirpersonal stuff, it doesn't seem
like you ever ask a question.
Like you'd never sort of diveinto it. And then the last
piece was that they said thathe would sit at the head of the
table and like spread out. Likehe was holding court and it was
like he was in charge eventhough he's in meetings where
he's a peer. And so these weresome specific things that he
(26:15):
tried and that he would be ableto experiment with. And then
the other thing that was greatabout that, by going public, as
he, as a grown man who's beenworking in the real world for
dozens of years, was trying tochange his behaviors, they gave
him some grace. 'cause theyknew he was trying to get
better. And I think that'simportant because there's this
(26:37):
other stress we carry of, I'mtrying to change this, but I
don't want to be awkward and Idon't want , you know, and...
Troy Blaser (26:43):
Yeah.
Brian Houp (26:44):
If we get other people involved, I think that
helps . So the last thing I'llsay is , I try to incorporate
pulse surveys in my phase two ,where what we'll do is we'll
customize a few statements. AndI didn't do that back with this
gentleman, but I'm thinking ofanother gentleman now worked
with who was a chief qualityofficer in the hospital. And in
his case, he was very smart andhe wanted to institute his way
(27:06):
of doing things, and he neededto let other people take the
lead. And, you know, we wouldcustomize a few statements. And
so every six weeks they get anemail that they could fill out
in literally 60 secondsanswering three questions, you
know, where am I on this? Andthen they can add some
narrative and like using him asan example, this going public
(27:26):
part was so helpful because oneof the things was , he
encourages ideas different fromhis own and that sort of topic.
And he got some feedback wherehis score was, I don't remember
the details, but let's just sayone to five. It was four and it
had been like two, so it wasvery much better. But there was
some comments that saidspecifically like noticing a
(27:48):
lot of big improvements here,especially one-on-one. But when
we're in our executivemeetings, when the topic of
money comes up, it tends tostill be your way or the
highway. And so, like he and Iare reading this and we're
going like, okay, this issomething I can work with.
Like, but if we didn't, wedidn't go public with it, he
probably wouldn't have thatinformation. And he'd be
thinking, I think I'm doingbetter. I'm , I'm sure I'm
doing better. You know what Imean?
Troy Blaser (28:07):
Yeah. I love that.
I appreciate what you saidabout the grace that people
will have if they know it'ssomething you're working on. I
think we as humans have a hugecapacity to offer that grace.
Brian Houp (28:18):
Yeah.
Troy Blaser (28:19):
If you don't know that somebody's trying to focus
on that, then it's the way it'salways been. And you're just
like, oh, he's always likethat. And there's less
acceptance of, of trying toimprove.
Brian Houp (28:28):
Yeah. It also adds needed fuel to the development.
So like, it's hard. I mean ,most of the people that I work
with are probably between, youknow, the ages of, they're ,
most of them are over the ageof 40. Many of them are 50.
Like they've been developingthese habits for a long time.
Right? And so it's verydifficult to totally shift the
(28:50):
way you show up. And so itprovides people the opportunity
to also go, Hey, I, I noticedthat you, and that was the nice
thing about, I'm thinking aboutthat other gentleman with the
arrogant stuff. I remembermeeting with him in his office.
He happened to be here locallyas well. And I remember him
saying that, you know, after ameeting John Doe, his peer
like, stuck his head in andsaid, Hey, I noticed that you
(29:13):
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And you know what? That's agood job. Like that's g reat.
And I could see like his just,it was, you know, I could see
him getting energy off of it.
Troy Blaser (29:22):
It's the fuel.
Yeah. Like you said. Yeah. Andthe other thing it does too,
that I hadn't really thoughtabout this before, but if
there's a leader who's goingpublic saying, Hey, I'm working
on this, it sets a culture foreveryone that he's leading .
Like , oh , maybe I need toreflect , how am I doing? You
know? I see that my leader isworking on arrogance or being
(29:42):
more humble in the workplace?
How am I doing on that? Do Ineed to change what I'm doing?
And so it kind of can becontagious to the other people
that you're working with thisidea of reflecting and
improving.
Brian Houp (29:53):
Yeah. That's my sort of third thought on it too
for sure. Because, you know,there's a thing that, that I
like to kind of refer to as'the ripple effect.' And you
know, the example that we set,we don't even realize it. And
it, you know, it ripples outand it can be good or bad. And
if, you know, I'm thinkingabout, I'm very, very, very
fortunate that I worked forsome excellent leaders. And
(30:14):
when I became a leader, I justdid what I watched them do to
me, you know? And thankgoodness it was good stuff.
Troy Blaser (30:23):
Yeah. You don't even know you're picking up on
these good qualities, but youdo.
Brian Houp (30:27):
Yeah. Yeah. And I watched others and like I coach
others who their referencepoints are like, I've never
been around people who do this.
Like, you know, I'm 45 yearsold, they say, and I've, you
know, I've never seen a managerget concerned about a kid's
soccer game or, you know,whatever , just whatever it
might be. Right? And it's justnot within their reference
(30:50):
point. And so the more that wecan demonstrate that we're
working on ourselves and we'reseeking feedback and we're
trying to get better, the morethat we can create a culture of
that.
Troy Blaser (30:58):
I love that. What we've been talking about, this
idea of going public here atLearningBridge, we kind of
summarized that with a taglinethat we have that is , 'receive
feedback graciously and act onit visibly.' It's kind of part
of our mission statement. Youknow , let's help people
receive feedback graciously andact on it visibly. And we added
that second part because of allthose reasons we've just been
(31:19):
talking about. Why it's soimportant to go public so that
people know, here's what I'mtrying to do, help me out. And
all those benefits that we'vejust been talking about. You've
shared a a number of fantasticexamples of folks that have
received feedback. You sharedthe story of you receiving
feedback, you know, earlier on.
Is there a particular story ofsomeone maybe that you've been
(31:43):
coaching where you've, you'veseen that feedback mark and
inflection point in theircareer, in their life, whether
for good or bad, your feedbackwas kind of a less positive
experience. Have you seen atime when you've coached
somebody where that feedbackhas really made a turning point
in their career?
Brian Houp (31:59):
Yeah. I think of one right away that jumps out
at me. It was he first time Iever kind of experienced
something this significant. Ihad a lady that I coached who
had been promoted. She was thehead of a department in an
organization.
Troy Blaser (32:14):
Yeah .
Brian Houp (32:15):
I got connected with her to coach her, not
particularly because there wasan issue per se, but because
she had been promoted a coupletimes in a short period of
time, and they wanted to justgive her every resource to
ensure that she was just aswell prepared as possible and
to her to understand herselfand that kind of thing.
Troy Blaser (32:31):
Yeah.
Brian Houp (32:32):
And highly respected for her abilities and
what she'd done. And we did the360, and I did the interviews
as well, and I talked to somefolks and boy, they were not
happy with her. The feedbackthat she got on the 360, I
remember we sat in my officeand she burst into tears, like
at my conference room table.
(32:53):
And like I was not prepared forthat. And she said like, my
people hate me. I had no idea.
You know? And then ultimatelywhat happened was, what we
realized was she was just sobusy focused on the work that
she was just sort of neglectingand she was numb to the way
people were perceiving the wayshe, she was treating them. And
(33:16):
he was just sort of really justdriving and hard charging. And
when I had interviews oneperson said they were looking
for another job, and one personsaid tha she was the worst boss
they ever had. And she was justbeside herself, but there was
also a lot of positive stuff.
Like she really knew her stuffand whenever she was on the
right track, she was awesome.
And so these were the samepeople who said both things.
(33:39):
And so we worked on a number ofthings and she worked on a
number of things. I was just apartner in the process. At the
end, the other thing I dowhenever I'm doing my full plan
is I will do just a handful ofspot interviews, like later on
in the process, if I coachsomeone for the better part of
a year, it might be, you know,six months after we had the
(33:59):
first conversations. And Italked to the same exact people
and they were like differentpeople. They were like, oh my
gosh. Like, we love her andshe's great. And she embraced
the going public part. And so,you know, I think a lot of it
too, the more, I mean, I got toknow her 'cause we would talk
privately, one-on-oneconfidentially, and, you know,
(34:21):
she was really cared aboutpeople. She also cared about a
good job, doing a good job atwork. Unlike the example of the
gentleman told you earlier whohe , he cared about his, his
family, but he didn't reallycare about his coworkers.
Troy Blaser (34:33):
Yeah
Brian Houp (34:34):
She actually did care, but she didn't realize
that she was coming across.
Like she didn't. And so shetotally reset her approach, and
she was, you know, a couple ofmy favorite words are , you
know, she was proactive andintentional. And so she was
proactive and intentional withher own actions and her own
behaviors and the way sheshowed up. And as a result,
(34:54):
they welcomed that. They wantedthat, like, they all believed
in the company and they allbelieved in the department and
the initiatives they had inplace. She just had some
blinders on. And once she tookthose off and said, okay, now
I'm, I'm seeing things I wasn'tseeing, they were , they all
felt like they were on the samepage, which was great.
Troy Blaser (35:09):
Oh, that's really cool. It sounds like all that
drive and focus and energy sheoriginally had just on the work
on doing the job, it's like,okay, we'll take that, all of
that and just widen your scopea little bit to include the
people and lo and behold thatthere's a big change. I'll bet
that's very rewarding to you asa coach to have a situation...
Brian Houp (35:28):
Oh my gosh. 100%.
Yeah. And it's one of thereasons I love, I mean, I work
with what I would describequite frequently as
overachievers, you know, Imean, I was embarrassingly
voted office workaholic when Iwas in the corporate world, and
that's, so that's sort of kindathe bucket I fall into. And so,
but the people that I tend towork with and the people who
tend to be participating in aprocess like this, at least
(35:50):
with me, they work hard andthey want to do well. And so
most of them get a lot ofbenefit from this because it's
just another thing for them towork on. But sometimes it can
be a little superficial, likethe gentleman , you know, where
I have to kind of , we have tokind of twist the way he thinks
about like, we're gonna get youwhat you want. We need to
(36:10):
approach this differently. Butquite frequently, and it comes
up so often that, you know, Ihad a gentleman last year , a
couple years ago who said, youknow, on my grave, it's not
gonna , it's not gonna have alogo of our company. You know,
like, I don't want people toremember me this way. Sometimes
just getting people in a spacewhere they stop and reflect
and, and kind of dive into thisstuff and they just reset the
(36:31):
way they look at it. Thepossibilities are endless.
Troy Blaser (36:34):
That's exciting.
Well, you were talking, justtalking a little bit about the
rewards that come, I was gonnaask, are there particular
projects or things that you'reinvolved with maybe in the last
year or so that you'reespecially passionate about
that you wanna share with us?
Brian Houp (36:47):
Yeah, I mean, I think , uh, you, you mentioned
the Forbes Coaches Council. Iwas invited to join that last
year. And that's been realrewarding to, to collaborate
with other executive coachesaround the world really. And
I've written a number oforiginal articles there, and
I've participated in articleswhere I've been quoted as a
(37:08):
quote leadership expert, if youwill. And so, you know, that's
been a lot of fun. And so it'ssort of opened my eyes to
appreciating that there arepeople out there who seek and
can benefit from some of myexperience sort of bottled up,
you know, if you will. Yeah.
And so , I'm in the process ofupdating my website to where
(37:29):
I'm gonna put a learninglibrary on my website where
it'll be free. I'm just gonna,you know, have these articles
and maybe some videos. And ifsomething like this, it'd be a
great example if we have aconversation as a podcast guest
and we're talking about aspecific topic, you know, to be
able to go, you're diving intoa 360 in feedback, like, here's
an article, or here's someresources you might wanna
(37:51):
listen to this podcastinterview. And so I'm gonna
organize that by sort of topicand I'm gonna get that going
pretty soon. I've got anewsletter that I do, you know,
monthly maybe every two tothree weeks if anybody has an
interest in that, they couldjump on my newsletter list and
connect with me on LinkedIn.
'cause it's not there now, butit will be there.
Troy Blaser (38:10):
Sure. So LinkedIn, they can find you. Um , Brian
Houp.
Brian Houp (38:14):
Yep .
Troy Blaser (38:15):
Tell us your website. Where should they go?
Brian Houp (38:17):
My website is letsrezone , letsrezone.com. Or
you can type my name in. Yeah .
My company is called RezoneCoaching. It's this idea that
everybody's got a zone, andquite frequently the busier
that you get, the moreresponsibility it gets put on
you, the more you probably getpulled out of that zone. And
the zone, as I see it as kindof a Venn diagram between I'm
(38:39):
getting results and I'm growingand I'm learning and I'm having
fun at the same time. You know,the more we take on, the more
we get pulled out of that. Youknow, I came up with that name
a long time ago with the ideaof like, let's marry these
things together and let's bringyou back to that. Because if we
can get there so much moreworks out in our world and our
life. Right?
Troy Blaser (38:57):
Yeah. I like that.
letsrezone.com is the website.
That's cool. Yep . And Iappreciate the explanation of
the, the name as well. That'sfantastic. Well, Brian , it's
been wonderful to have thisconversation with you. I really
appreciated it. I've learned alot today. I appreciate your
enthusiasm and your approach tocoaching. I think it's
fantastic. So thank you so muchfor joining us today.
Brian Houp (39:18):
You're very welcome. And thank you. I
appreciate it . I wrote down, Ityped out your , receive
feedback graciously, and Iguess I was typing while I was
looking at you, so I , maybe Ididn't type .
Troy Blaser (39:28):
Act on it Visibly Yeah.
Brian Houp (39:29):
Act on it visibly.
So I mistyped that to so act onit visibly .
Troy Blaser (39:32):
No worries .
Brian Houp (39:32):
I love that. Thanks so much. I love this kind of
conversations and diving intothis stuff, so thank you. Thank
you for having me.
Troy Blaser (39:38):
Yep . You bet.
And then the other thing that was great about
that, by going public, as he,as a grown man who's been
working in the real world fordozens of years, was trying to
change his behaviors, they gavehim some grace. 'cause they
knew he was trying to getbetter. And I think that's
important because there's thisother stress we carry of , I'm
(00:22):
trying to change this, but Idon't wanna be awkward and I
don't want to , you know, andif we get other people
involved, I think that helps.
Troy Blaser (00:34):
Hello, welcome to Simply Feedback the podcast
brought to you byLearningBridge. I'm your host,
Troy Blaser. It's great to haveyou with us today. I'm glad to
have you along. I'm excited tointroduce our guest today. His
name is Brian Houp. Brian , whowas named the number one
executive coach in Louisville,is an executive coach and CEO
of Rezone coaching. He coachesexperienced leaders to embrace
(00:58):
the behaviors required tothrive at the executive level
when working with clients. Hisunique three phase process
involves collecting feedbackabout the individual, having
the leaders go public withtheir intentions, and then
preparing to transition beyondhis program. This process
allows them to continue theirgrowth and development for the
future. Brian has supportedhundreds of key leaders on
(01:20):
their leadership journeys. He'salso on the Forbes Coaches
Council, so you can watch forhis articles there. And we're
excited to have him on the showtoday to share his insights
with us. Brian , welcome toSimply Feedback. It's great to
have you with us.
Brian Houp (01:33):
Thanks, Troy. I'm excited to be here.
Troy Blaser (01:37):
Well, maybe just to help us get to know you a
little bit, could you tell usabout a time that somebody gave
you feedback, maybe it had animpact on your life, on your
career, or something like that?
Is there a story you couldshare with us?
Brian Houp (01:48):
Yeah, sure. It's , um, yeah, it's interesting. I'm
thinking about a time I workedin the corporate world , and I
was in the same environment fora long time. I worked with a
lot of the same coworkers . Iwas a leader in that space and
I was a part of a leadershipteam and I got a new boss , and
we were all working togetherand collaborating. And after a
(02:08):
couple weeks he pulled me asideand he said, its been a long
time ago, so I don't know thespecifics of this, but
essentially the message was,you need to change the way
you're interacting with people.
And it was some version ofdon't be so argumentative or
something along those lines.
And , that I was just caughtvery much off guard . And , I
(02:29):
asked for clarification and Idon't remember the nuances of
the conversation, but what I doremember is I didn't take
anything else away except quitdoing what you're doing , and
don't challenge and don'tdisagree. And so it's
interesting. So I went to hispeer who was higher than me,
(02:50):
who I'd worked with for awhile, and I said, Hey, can I
get your opinion on this? And Ishared it with him and I said,
can you help me with that? Andhe said, I don't really see it.
I don't know what he's talkingabout. And , it's interesting
because it totally like frozeme up. And he, and what he said
to me was you know what,sometimes you'll challenge
people, but that's what we alldo. And you know, that's why
(03:11):
we're doing great things aroundhere. And then , and so, I was
very much on edge and I went toone of my coworkers and asked
her, and she said, I don't knowwhat you're talking about. I
found that a week later he cameto her and told her the same
thing. You know, I , I reflectback on that now. And so why it
impacted me was that I wasscared and I stopped working
the same way. And as I reflectback on it now, I wish I knew
(03:34):
because if I knew what I knownow, I would've said to him,
can you be specific? Can yougive me some suggestions of
what to do differently? Can youmonitor me and maybe catch me
doing it so I can know what I'mdoing? But all I did was, you
know, in the interest of beingrespectful, you know, you tell
(03:54):
me, help me understand it, andI'll go do what you say. And ,
and it just really locked meup.
Troy Blaser (04:00):
I'll bet. Yeah.
It's like you operate in oneway for a long time and you're,
you're basically told don'toperate that way. And you're
like, I don't know how else todo it. Right?
Brian Houp (04:09):
That's right.
That's right.
Troy Blaser (04:10):
It's Interesting as you're telling me that
story, we talk about sometimes,as we're talking about
feedback, we'll sometimes saythat the feedback that you
receive often says as muchabout the person giving the
feedback as it does about youyourself. And then when you
said that he had given the samefeedback to another colleague
of yours, that's where youthink, okay, you know, what is
this feedback saying about yourboss in this situation? Right?
Brian Houp (04:35):
100% . Yeah. And so that, you know, it was
interesting. There were someother things that same boss
gave me some feedback that Ihadn't got before that actually
was helpful. And so it wasinteresting. I was very
fortunate that I had had a lotof success to that point in my
career. And a lot of peoplesort of gave me a lot of leeway
and if I was challenged, it wasin a productive way. And he
(04:58):
kind of just stopped me in mytracks a few times. Yeah . And
, uh, it just, it froze me morethan sort of opened me up You
know?
Troy Blaser (05:07):
I'm guessing that , you know, as time went on,
assuming you still worked underthat same supervisor, did you
just kind of slowly return tonormal, essentially?,
Brian Houp (05:18):
You know what, I didn't . Eventually , I left.
Eventually I left. Yeah. AndI'd tell you what I, what I did
do, I would tell you this, Icame became very alert to, if I
give feedback to someone else,I'm gonna make sure that they
can do something with it. Ididn't, I didn't have the
language for it. I didn'treally know, I hadn't gone
through any sort of formal 360or had any sort of training on
(05:40):
it. I just sort of knew thatthe way he did it was eating me
up and I didn't wanna do thatto anybody else.
Troy Blaser (05:49):
Yeah.
Brian Houp (05:49):
You know what I mean ? Yeah. You weren't really
necessarily prepared to receiveany feedback and it just kind
of came outta the blue . And so, and that's really
interesting. You received thisfeedback in this moment and it
taught you a few thingsseparate from the specifics of
what he was telling you . Butit sounds like those, those
things that you learned , thoselessons that you learned have
(06:10):
really helped through the restof your career. And especially
as a coach where you're oftenin a position to give or
facilitate feedback, I imagine. Yeah. And I think it helps it
, it helps me, we'll probablytalk about it today, but a big
part of what I do is involvescollecting feedback. When I'm
coaching someone, helping getinput from others on what
they're observing about anindividual. You know? It helps
(06:30):
me guide the individuals I'minteracting with to encourage
more helpful inputs. You know?
Troy Blaser (06:39):
Yeah, yeah. For sure. And I think, I'm glad you
brought that up. We mentionedin the introduction, you kind
of use a three step process inyour coaching engagements. And
maybe as part of that firststep, collecting the feedback.
It sounds like you conduct bothstakeholder interviews and a
360 degree assessment? Often, Iguess the leadership circle ,
(06:59):
profile 360 . I'm curious alittle bit about the two ways
you collect that feedback. Canyou just tell us a little bit
about the information you'reable to get from the
stakeholder interviews versusthe written comments that might
be in a 360 ?
Brian Houp (07:11):
Yeah, of course.
Yeah. So the, the 360 I use isleadership circle profile. I
don't know if you're familiarwith that or not, but it's
focused specifically on seniorlevel leadership. And it has a
lot of questions, multiplechoice answers where people are
inputting their observationsand others are inputting their
own about themselves. So howthey spend their time and
(07:32):
energy. And then thattranslates into some scores
that are compared to otherleaders around the globe. And
so they can look in apercentile form, you know,
where they stack up as itrelates to certain leadership
competencies, like setting aclear vision or mentoring and
developing or being authentic.
And, you know, that gives ussome quantifiable, comparative
(07:53):
information to look at. Andthen within that we also
collect some written commentswhere it's just a few
questions, like, what's theperson's greatest strength and
how can they better leverageit? What's their opportunity
for development? And what wouldsuggestions do you have? Just
very, very limited. And so whenI first started doing 360s,
that was the tool I used. Andwhat, and it was, it was very
(08:16):
powerful and very helpful. Andthen I did a 360 with a
different situation where wedidn't use that assessment and
I just basically didstakeholder interviews. And I
realized in that process that Iwas able to ask, follow-up
questions to their initialinformation that they gave me.
You know? And then also I wouldsay as I was going through the
(08:37):
leadership circle information,and let's just use my last
story, my boss as an example.
Troy Blaser (08:43):
Yeah .
Brian Houp (08:43):
Had I been in that situation, he probably would've
put into, you know, a websitethat I needed to change the way
I interact with people and notbe so confrontational. And I
wouldn't have known what to dowith that. And that create more
problems than whatever. Theother thing I would add, and
this is a big part of why Ireally love the stakeholder
interviews. And if I werehaving that conversation with
(09:03):
him today asking forinformation about an employee,
and he gave the same insight, Iwould first of all ask for
those specifics. And then Iwould say, give me some more
context. And what suggestionsdo you have for improvement? So
I can bring back some moremeat, but I also use that as an
opportunity to do a little sidecoaching and say, you know,
based on what you're tellingme, I want you to understand
(09:25):
this isn't terribly clear. Iunderstand that you have a
challenge, but
Troy Blaser (09:28):
Yeah.
Brian Houp (09:29):
I would encourage you to study this person and
point out to them as you startto see more, get more clarity
on that. That's just, what Iwould say to them is, you could
take it or leave that. That'sjust the coach in me feels
compelled to share that whilewe're in this conversation. And
so I try to be prettycomprehensive with my approach.
'cause I've found that thetimes I do that, boy, just the
(09:50):
overall impact goes updramatically.
Troy Blaser (09:52):
That makes sense.
Having that back and forth andthe ability to clarify, ask,
follow up questions. When youdo the stakeholder interviews,
do you limit it to a certainset of stakeholders? Or is it,
you know, everybody that's alsoanswering the 360?
Brian Houp (10:06):
Great question.
Yeah. So when we do the online360 , I'm typically looking for
a minimum of a dozenparticipating evaluators. Yeah.
And so depending on the, youknow, the setup , we might
invite 20 or maybe a smidgemore. And then when I'm doing
the stakeholder interviews, Iwill try to kind of focus on
maybe about 10. And it reallydepends on what I'm getting.
(10:30):
I'm thinking about a lady I didthis with last year, and, you
know, she gave me names ofpeople that she thought would
be honest, that she thoughtknew her real well, and they
did know her real well. Theyliked her a lot. They didn't
give me much to work with,frankly. I went back to her and
said, can you gimme 10 morenames? Like, I wanna help you
and I don't have enough to helpyou yet.
Troy Blaser (10:51):
Okay .
(10:52):
And so, generally speaking, I mean, unless I've, I've worked
out some aggressive deal, Ikind of do whatever I have to
do to get the information. Theother, the other little nugget
I would maybe add to that, thatI've learned kind of over time
, I used to have either hr, ifI work with the HR department
or maybe the individualparticipant who , uh, we're
(11:14):
doing the 360 on, give me thenames. What I do now is I get
those names from those folks,but I also, part of my required
process is that theirsupervisors involved in the
discussion and that they alsohave a contribution on the
names. And I also tell people,you know, it's less about who
(11:35):
you think will be honest.
'cause this is confidential andanonymous, and you might be
surprised who's gonna actuallybe, who's gonna be honest and
helpful now , but also I findthat there are supervisors and
HR individuals quite frequentlyknow that there are some
individuals who have someimportant information to share
that maybe they haven't beencomfortable sharing. And so
making sure we've got thosefolks included is the way I try
(11:57):
to approach it.
Troy Blaser (11:57):
That makes a lot of sense. It sounds like it's
pretty thorough as you engagewith coaching those
individuals. It does seem like,you know, between the
stakeholder interviews and thena comprehensive 360 feedback
report, that can end up being alot of information. How do you
help the feedback recipientmake sense of all of that data
(12:18):
and kind of synthesize it downinto a coherent message?
Brian Houp (12:22):
Well, what I do with the online assessment, I
will send them bite-size piecesand I'll say, dive into these
comments. And then you tell meif you're reading this
information about somebodyelse, what are a few themes?
Let's don't get focused on theexceptions, but what are just a
few primary themes that younotice? And then we'll focus in
(12:45):
on the, the positive feedback,and then we'll go, let's look
at the negative feedback andthe suggestions for
improvement. Let's look at thatarea. Um, and then that's the
way that I'll do that part ofit with the stakeholder
interviews. Actually, you know,that's a conversation and I'm
taking notes and I put in theremy, and so I organize those
notes and I try to group themtogether thematically and say,
these are some of the trends Isaw, but then here's paraphrase
(13:08):
the notes I took. And then wekind of go from there. And it
can get a little hairydepending on the way a person's
wired. Like for me, when thefirst time I did something like
this, there's a lot of thingsyou can get lost in. And so we
gotta remember to bring itback.
Troy Blaser (13:23):
I like that approach of bite-size pieces.
Let's focus on one thing at atime , not just, you know,
here's all the data and diveinto it. I think that's a great
approach. As we were gettingready for this episode today, I
had a chance to read yourForbes article called Six Keys
to Maximizing Your 360 DegreeFeedback Process. And , you
know, we'll link to it in theshow notes so that people can
(13:45):
read the full article forthemselves. But along those
lines, are there a couple ofcommon reasons that people do
not receive robust or usefulfeedback in a 360 that they
could be on the lookout for?
Brian Houp (13:58):
Yeah, sure. I think two things jump out at me right
away. One is just lack ofparticipation. A big part of
what I do is I encourage theindividual who is the center
who's gonna be getting thefeedback. I encourage them to
have one-on-one conversationswith everyone who they're gonna
invite to participate. And toreally, we talk through that,
(14:21):
you know, and ask for just afive minute conversation to be
able to say, you know, I'mlooking for your honest input.
It's gonna be anonymous, it'sgonna be confidential. It's
only going to me, the way I setit up, it's not given to hr. It
only goes back to theindividual. And then the other
thing that I also encouragethem to say is, if you don't
participate and you don't giveme specific input, then I'm not
(14:42):
gonna be any different. I'm notgonna know what to do or how to
get better.
Troy Blaser (14:45):
Sure.
Brian Houp (14:46):
And the last piece of that I think that people
underestimate too, is helpingpeople understand what the
expectation is as far as time.
And so we've been talkingthrough sort of my preferred
process in all reality. I dealwith corporate clients and
sometimes there's budgetconstraints and we have to do
Sure. You know , maybe we justdo the leadership cycle , or
maybe we just do thestakeholder interviews . So
(15:07):
there can be variations. But,you know, I that online
assessment, I tell people toplan for about 30 minutes. I
just finished one up and alwayslike to ask people like, you
know, how long did it take? Andask people how long it took.
And some of them w ere saying,you know, 20 minutes. And, and
then with those phoneinterviews, I always try to
keep those under 15 minutes.
Troy Blaser (15:27):
That's quick.
Brian Houp (15:28):
Yeah. So I , you know, I'm just thinking about ,
I'm just going with a couple ofquick questions and I'll say to
folks, and I will on my owncalendar book, you know, I'll
give myself another half hourafter that.
Troy Blaser (15:38):
Sure.
Brian Houp (15:38):
So when I get in, I'll say, I wanna be respectful
of your time. And I'll say, youknow, it's , it's been about 13
minutes. And so, you know , Iwanna make sure, is there
anything else you wanna makesure we get in? I have found
that more often than not, whenwe have a good, honest
conversation going, people ifthey have the time, they go,
you know what, I got another 10minutes, let's keep going.
Yeah. And so, you know, I'llkinda have that flexibility,
but just that lack ofparticipation. And it's a lot
(16:02):
of times just the folks I'mdealing with are at a senior
level, and the people thatthey're asking to engage with
are frequently at a seniorlevel. They're already time
starved. And so, you know, tobe able to say, I'm asking for
if we're going all in on myprocess as much as maybe an
hour , if you can give an hoursometime , you know, to invest
(16:23):
in what I'm doing here , that'swhat I'm asking for. And so
being clear about theexpectations and having those
discussions in advance andgetting people to say, do you
think you'll be able toparticipate? Like getting them
to commit. And, and then we, inmy process, probably like most
others , we don't tell, youknow, who participated. We do
(16:44):
have some breaking out of like,these are within your direct
report audience, and there werefour people who participated,
or within your peers, therewere six people who
participated or whatever. But ,that is something I didn't do
early on. I wish someonewould've pushed me to do
because that, I think it made agreat difference in the quality
of what we had to work with.
Troy Blaser (17:04):
I do feel bad sometimes as we administer 360
and I, you know, see a listmaybe of 10 managers that are
taking a 360 in a group, andyou might have one or two that
they haven't received feedbackfrom their manager yet, you
know, and the survey goes andgoes, and goes, and they just
don't get that feedback. And Ithink it's a missed
opportunity, you know, and forwhatever reason, the manager
wasn't able to make time orfind time to give that
(17:27):
feedback. And, and you reallydo miss a great opportunity to
give some feedback, hopefullyuseful, clear feedback in cases
like that. So I agree.
Participation is vital.
Brian Houp (17:39):
I can add something if I can't.
Troy Blaser (17:40):
Yeah. Yeah, please.
Brian Houp (17:41):
One thing I'll tell you, and this is probably, I've
been doing this full-time forabout 10 years, and I've been
doing the 360s for about sevenyears, I guess. And so I've
done, you know, well over ahundred of them. Yeah . And you
know, I think in terms of athird, 40% of the time, within
two weeks after we're wrappingup, someone contacts me Yeah.
(18:02):
And says, Hey , I meant to ,you know, and it's like doggone
, you know, and in some casesI'll , I just, I'll have a
little one-on-one dialogue, andI'll , maybe it's email or a
phone call, and I'll just say,you know , we've closed it out.
If you can find the way to gohave a conversation, I'd
encourage you to, if you wannaspend a few minutes, I'm happy
to talk to you about how to dothat. But yeah, it , it seems
it happens way too often that Iguess they're cleaning out
(18:25):
their inbox and they go, darnit , that's already passed. You
know?
Troy Blaser (18:29):
Yep . I had one of those just this morning, I had
to write an email. Sorry, youknow, we've already produced a
feedback report, and so theperson can have it in time for
this program they're attending.
And so we just can't, we can'treopen it for you . It doesn't,
doesn't work that way.
Brian Houp (18:42):
Yeah, absolutely.
Troy Blaser (18:44):
We talked a little bit earlier about how you've
gathered all this data to helppeople understand it and accept
it. Are there some commonimpediments or obstacles that
you see with feedbackrecipients that would keep them
from accepting that some ofthat feedback that comes in? Or
maybe another way to ask thatquestion? Is there anything
that you do to help thefeedback recipient be prepared
(19:06):
to receive all of thisfeedback?
Brian Houp (19:08):
That's a good question. I mean, one of the
things I learned early on wasthis acronym SARA, S-A-R-A. And
it said, you know , this is acommon experience whenever
you're digesting feedback fromlike a 360 and the SARA , um,
that stands for the 'S' standsfor 'shock' or 'surprise,' and
(19:29):
then 'A' is 'anger,' and then'R' is 'rejection' or
'rationalization.' And then thelast 'A' is 'acceptance.' And
so I will tell people, youknow, there is, it's almost
like these sort of unofficialunscientific stages of grief,
if you will. Like, this isnormal to expect this and to
anticipate this. And so I will, and I had, I went through,
I've reviewed of results, theresults with someone literally
(19:52):
just , uh, I think it wasThursday or Friday of this last
week, and we had thatdiscussion. I sent her some
materials. She happens to behere locally in the same town
as me. And we actually metface-to-face, and we were, I
was going to give her the restof the information. And she
said to me, you know, I wrotedown that SARA and I continued
to reference it as I wasreading through. She got some
(20:13):
pretty significant feedbackthat was, you know,
constructive criticism, let'scall it. And she was processing
that, and then it was notideal. And, but she said that,
you know, she found that reallyhelpful. And as we were kind of
talking and she said herinclination was to rationalize
it or to say, you know, theyjust don't get it. Or, you know
, so I think just helpingpeople understand that that's
(20:34):
probably gonna happen is ahelpful thing to start. The
other thing that comes to mymind is, this is so weird. It
seems less likely it doesn'thappen as often with me. Most
people I work with areperforming at a very high
level, which also probablymeans that they are, you know,
open to getting better andthey're interested in getting
better. It doesn't always meanthat's the case, but it does
(20:57):
happen that, like, just in thelast six months, I've had two
different people who have saidto me, like early on in the
process, and they were broughtto me by their supervisors who
were the CEOs of theircompanies, disconnected. They
said to me early on in theprocess when we were starting
to talk through, we're gonnacollect feedback, they both
said some version of, I knoweverybody hates this and nobody
(21:18):
wants to do this. And I waslike, no, but not necessarily.
Troy Blaser (21:22):
Yeah.
Brian Houp (21:22):
They were very much...
(21:24):
For them . Yeah . Like, before we even started, that
was their frame of mind, youknow, I said, let's just unpack
that a little bit because ifyou're not in the right frame
of mind, this is not gonna be aproductive exercise for you.
Troy Blaser (21:35):
Yeah.
Brian Houp (21:35):
And so, you know, that's deeper going into the
coaching of that, but it'sreally understanding why
they're uneasy about that andwhat they do care about. And,
you know, and then they getsome feedback. I'm thinking of
this one gentleman who is verysmart and ran an organization
and he always worked inenvironments where there was no
(21:57):
sort of personal human sort ofrelationship thing. And that
one of the feedback things hegot was that he was very cold
and no one sort of knewanything about him. He didn't
know about, didn't care aboutthem. And he was kinda like why
we're here to work anyway, itdoesn't matter. And so, you
know, getting him to thinkabout what mattered to him and
how what matters to the otherpeople ultimately helps what
(22:19):
matters to him.
Troy Blaser (22:20):
Yeah.
Brian Houp (22:21):
At the same time, in that case , uh, part of the
reason that we started workingtogether was that his
organization said, you know, wehave a culture here that is
very caring, for lack of abetter word, and it's not his
style, and we wanna work onthat with him. And ultimately
he left the organization , butwe talked that out, like, you
(22:43):
know? Are you willing to dothis? Or, you know? Where are
you with it? And then , youknow, ultimately it worked out
better for him and theorganization. I didn't want
that to happen, but...
Troy Blaser (22:55):
Right.
Brian Houp (22:56):
I'm glad that they're not both continuing to
be frustrated
Troy Blaser (22:59):
Yeah. Yeah. It needs to be a good fit on both
sides for sure.
Brian Houp (23:03):
Yeah. And he did tell me that he got a lot of
value out of looking at itdifferently. I don't know how
much that he digested and howmuch he'll embrace, but who
knows?
Troy Blaser (23:12):
Yeah. Well, you know, I think that ownership is
important of the process, youknow , for someone to say,
well, I'm just doing thisbecause the CEO says I have to
do it. That's a far differentattitude than , Hey, this is an
opportunity for me to get somefeedback, you know, and having
some ownership and beingreceptive to that. I think, you
know , that makes a bigdifference. So it's important
(23:34):
to feel that out . I wanted toask you a little bit about the
second part of your process .
The 'Go Public' part.
Brian Houp (23:40):
Yeah .
Troy Blaser (23:41):
Can you share a little bit about what that
looks like and why it'sbeneficial ? Why you have it ,
it included in , in yourprocess?
Brian Houp (23:46):
Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. I think , first of
all, I'll just tell you why Ihave it. And I didn't use to do
that. And I used to casuallyencourage people to make people
aware that they were working onthemselves.
Troy Blaser (23:58):
Yeah.
Brian Houp (23:59):
And, and I have found that in some cases, that
I would have these wrap updiscussions with like,
supervisors and differentthings. And they were, it's
almost like they forgot that aperson was going through this
process. 'cause they , theywere just so busy. And so those
were in cases where therewasn't much movement in their
behavior. And so what I'vediscovered was, regardless of
(24:23):
how available I am, we'retalking, you know, a minuscule
percentage of the time of theirwork life and I'm not observing
them and I can't give 'emfeedback on what they're
actually doing. And so with the'Go Public' part, there's a
couple things I do there. Oneis I encourage people when they
start to get clarity aroundwhat they're working on . I'll
give you an example of agentleman that got a lot of
feedback that he came across asarrogant and unapproachable.
(24:45):
And he was on the executiveteam. And that individuals,
especially those that were moresort of frontline contributors
and frontline supervisors, theywere intimidated by him. And so
they wouldn't be honest withhim and speak up. And so he
wanted to work on that. And hewent and told everyone, like, I
wanna work on this. And hefollowed some of the things we
talked about, like asking forspecific ideas and specific
(25:07):
examples. And the reality wasthat most people could not,
didn't have a whole lot ofsubstance to give him. Part of
my going public process is torecruit some accountability
partners and ask people, willyou sort of study me? And when
you see me do something, pleasetell me. So that way I can get
some feet forward . So I've gotsome ideas of what to do
(25:30):
better. And so that , that guy,as an example, I remember
specifically three things thatpeople came up with him on.
Like one was they said he nevermade eye contact. And they're
like, that just sort of makesyou seem impersonal. Another
one was, they said like, youknow, I've been monitoring you.
This is when they all worked inthe corporate office and they
all interacted a lot. And theysaid, you know, people are
talking about personal thingsand you do as well, but when an
(25:53):
individual talks about theirpersonal stuff, it doesn't seem
like you ever ask a question.
Like you'd never sort of diveinto it. And then the last
piece was that they said thathe would sit at the head of the
table and like spread out. Likehe was holding court and it was
like he was in charge eventhough he's in meetings where
he's a peer. And so these weresome specific things that he
(26:15):
tried and that he would be ableto experiment with. And then
the other thing that was greatabout that, by going public, as
he, as a grown man who's beenworking in the real world for
dozens of years, was trying tochange his behaviors, they gave
him some grace. 'cause theyknew he was trying to get
better. And I think that'simportant because there's this
(26:37):
other stress we carry of, I'mtrying to change this, but I
don't want to be awkward and Idon't want , you know, and...
Troy Blaser (26:43):
Yeah.
Brian Houp (26:44):
If we get other people involved, I think that
helps . So the last thing I'llsay is , I try to incorporate
pulse surveys in my phase two ,where what we'll do is we'll
customize a few statements. AndI didn't do that back with this
gentleman, but I'm thinking ofanother gentleman now worked
with who was a chief qualityofficer in the hospital. And in
his case, he was very smart andhe wanted to institute his way
(27:06):
of doing things, and he neededto let other people take the
lead. And, you know, we wouldcustomize a few statements. And
so every six weeks they get anemail that they could fill out
in literally 60 secondsanswering three questions, you
know, where am I on this? Andthen they can add some
narrative and like using him asan example, this going public
(27:26):
part was so helpful because oneof the things was , he
encourages ideas different fromhis own and that sort of topic.
And he got some feedback wherehis score was, I don't remember
the details, but let's just sayone to five. It was four and it
had been like two, so it wasvery much better. But there was
some comments that saidspecifically like noticing a
(27:48):
lot of big improvements here,especially one-on-one. But when
we're in our executivemeetings, when the topic of
money comes up, it tends tostill be your way or the
highway. And so, like he and Iare reading this and we're
going like, okay, this issomething I can work with.
Like, but if we didn't, wedidn't go public with it, he
probably wouldn't have thatinformation. And he'd be
thinking, I think I'm doingbetter. I'm , I'm sure I'm
doing better. You know what Imean?
Troy Blaser (28:07):
Yeah. I love that.
I appreciate what you saidabout the grace that people
will have if they know it'ssomething you're working on. I
think we as humans have a hugecapacity to offer that grace.
Brian Houp (28:18):
Yeah.
Troy Blaser (28:19):
If you don't know that somebody's trying to focus
on that, then it's the way it'salways been. And you're just
like, oh, he's always likethat. And there's less
acceptance of, of trying toimprove.
Brian Houp (28:28):
Yeah. It also adds needed fuel to the development.
So like, it's hard. I mean ,most of the people that I work
with are probably between, youknow, the ages of, they're ,
most of them are over the ageof 40. Many of them are 50.
Like they've been developingthese habits for a long time.
Right? And so it's verydifficult to totally shift the
(28:50):
way you show up. And so itprovides people the opportunity
to also go, Hey, I, I noticedthat you, and that was the nice
thing about, I'm thinking aboutthat other gentleman with the
arrogant stuff. I remembermeeting with him in his office.
He happened to be here locallyas well. And I remember him
saying that, you know, after ameeting John Doe, his peer
like, stuck his head in andsaid, Hey, I noticed that you
(29:13):
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And you know what? That's agood job. Like that's g reat.
And I could see like his just,it was, you know, I could see
him getting energy off of it.
Troy Blaser (29:22):
It's the fuel.
Yeah. Like you said. Yeah. Andthe other thing it does too,
that I hadn't really thoughtabout this before, but if
there's a leader who's goingpublic saying, Hey, I'm working
on this, it sets a culture foreveryone that he's leading .
Like , oh , maybe I need toreflect , how am I doing? You
know? I see that my leader isworking on arrogance or being
(29:42):
more humble in the workplace?
How am I doing on that? Do Ineed to change what I'm doing?
And so it kind of can becontagious to the other people
that you're working with thisidea of reflecting and
improving.
Brian Houp (29:53):
Yeah. That's my sort of third thought on it too
for sure. Because, you know,there's a thing that, that I
like to kind of refer to as'the ripple effect.' And you
know, the example that we set,we don't even realize it. And
it, you know, it ripples outand it can be good or bad. And
if, you know, I'm thinkingabout, I'm very, very, very
fortunate that I worked forsome excellent leaders. And
(30:14):
when I became a leader, I justdid what I watched them do to
me, you know? And thankgoodness it was good stuff.
Troy Blaser (30:23):
Yeah. You don't even know you're picking up on
these good qualities, but youdo.
Brian Houp (30:27):
Yeah. Yeah. And I watched others and like I coach
others who their referencepoints are like, I've never
been around people who do this.
Like, you know, I'm 45 yearsold, they say, and I've, you
know, I've never seen a managerget concerned about a kid's
soccer game or, you know,whatever , just whatever it
might be. Right? And it's justnot within their reference
(30:50):
point. And so the more that wecan demonstrate that we're
working on ourselves and we'reseeking feedback and we're
trying to get better, the morethat we can create a culture of
that.
Troy Blaser (30:58):
I love that. What we've been talking about, this
idea of going public here atLearningBridge, we kind of
summarized that with a taglinethat we have that is , 'receive
feedback graciously and act onit visibly.' It's kind of part
of our mission statement. Youknow , let's help people
receive feedback graciously andact on it visibly. And we added
that second part because of allthose reasons we've just been
(31:19):
talking about. Why it's soimportant to go public so that
people know, here's what I'mtrying to do, help me out. And
all those benefits that we'vejust been talking about. You've
shared a a number of fantasticexamples of folks that have
received feedback. You sharedthe story of you receiving
feedback, you know, earlier on.
Is there a particular story ofsomeone maybe that you've been
(31:43):
coaching where you've, you'veseen that feedback mark and
inflection point in theircareer, in their life, whether
for good or bad, your feedbackwas kind of a less positive
experience. Have you seen atime when you've coached
somebody where that feedbackhas really made a turning point
in their career?
Brian Houp (31:59):
Yeah. I think of one right away that jumps out
at me. It was he first time Iever kind of experienced
something this significant. Ihad a lady that I coached who
had been promoted. She was thehead of a department in an
organization.
Troy Blaser (32:14):
Yeah .
Brian Houp (32:15):
I got connected with her to coach her, not
particularly because there wasan issue per se, but because
she had been promoted a coupletimes in a short period of
time, and they wanted to justgive her every resource to
ensure that she was just aswell prepared as possible and
to her to understand herselfand that kind of thing.
Troy Blaser (32:31):
Yeah.
Brian Houp (32:32):
And highly respected for her abilities and
what she'd done. And we did the360, and I did the interviews
as well, and I talked to somefolks and boy, they were not
happy with her. The feedbackthat she got on the 360, I
remember we sat in my officeand she burst into tears, like
at my conference room table.
(32:53):
And like I was not prepared forthat. And she said like, my
people hate me. I had no idea.
You know? And then ultimatelywhat happened was, what we
realized was she was just sobusy focused on the work that
she was just sort of neglectingand she was numb to the way
people were perceiving the wayshe, she was treating them. And
(33:16):
he was just sort of really justdriving and hard charging. And
when I had interviews oneperson said they were looking
for another job, and one personsaid tha she was the worst boss
they ever had. And she was justbeside herself, but there was
also a lot of positive stuff.
Like she really knew her stuffand whenever she was on the
right track, she was awesome.
And so these were the samepeople who said both things.
(33:39):
And so we worked on a number ofthings and she worked on a
number of things. I was just apartner in the process. At the
end, the other thing I dowhenever I'm doing my full plan
is I will do just a handful ofspot interviews, like later on
in the process, if I coachsomeone for the better part of
a year, it might be, you know,six months after we had the
(33:59):
first conversations. And Italked to the same exact people
and they were like differentpeople. They were like, oh my
gosh. Like, we love her andshe's great. And she embraced
the going public part. And so,you know, I think a lot of it
too, the more, I mean, I got toknow her 'cause we would talk
privately, one-on-oneconfidentially, and, you know,
(34:21):
she was really cared aboutpeople. She also cared about a
good job, doing a good job atwork. Unlike the example of the
gentleman told you earlier whohe , he cared about his, his
family, but he didn't reallycare about his coworkers.
Troy Blaser (34:33):
Yeah
Brian Houp (34:34):
She actually did care, but she didn't realize
that she was coming across.
Like she didn't. And so shetotally reset her approach, and
she was, you know, a couple ofmy favorite words are , you
know, she was proactive andintentional. And so she was
proactive and intentional withher own actions and her own
behaviors and the way sheshowed up. And as a result,
(34:54):
they welcomed that. They wantedthat, like, they all believed
in the company and they allbelieved in the department and
the initiatives they had inplace. She just had some
blinders on. And once she tookthose off and said, okay, now
I'm, I'm seeing things I wasn'tseeing, they were , they all
felt like they were on the samepage, which was great.
Troy Blaser (35:09):
Oh, that's really cool. It sounds like all that
drive and focus and energy sheoriginally had just on the work
on doing the job, it's like,okay, we'll take that, all of
that and just widen your scopea little bit to include the
people and lo and behold thatthere's a big change. I'll bet
that's very rewarding to you asa coach to have a situation...
Brian Houp (35:28):
Oh my gosh. 100%.
Yeah. And it's one of thereasons I love, I mean, I work
with what I would describequite frequently as
overachievers, you know, Imean, I was embarrassingly
voted office workaholic when Iwas in the corporate world, and
that's, so that's sort of kindathe bucket I fall into. And so,
but the people that I tend towork with and the people who
tend to be participating in aprocess like this, at least
(35:50):
with me, they work hard andthey want to do well. And so
most of them get a lot ofbenefit from this because it's
just another thing for them towork on. But sometimes it can
be a little superficial, likethe gentleman , you know, where
I have to kind of , we have tokind of twist the way he thinks
about like, we're gonna get youwhat you want. We need to
(36:10):
approach this differently. Butquite frequently, and it comes
up so often that, you know, Ihad a gentleman last year , a
couple years ago who said, youknow, on my grave, it's not
gonna , it's not gonna have alogo of our company. You know,
like, I don't want people toremember me this way. Sometimes
just getting people in a spacewhere they stop and reflect
and, and kind of dive into thisstuff and they just reset the
(36:31):
way they look at it. Thepossibilities are endless.
Troy Blaser (36:34):
That's exciting.
Well, you were talking, justtalking a little bit about the
rewards that come, I was gonnaask, are there particular
projects or things that you'reinvolved with maybe in the last
year or so that you'reespecially passionate about
that you wanna share with us?
Brian Houp (36:47):
Yeah, I mean, I think , uh, you, you mentioned
the Forbes Coaches Council. Iwas invited to join that last
year. And that's been realrewarding to, to collaborate
with other executive coachesaround the world really. And
I've written a number oforiginal articles there, and
I've participated in articleswhere I've been quoted as a
(37:08):
quote leadership expert, if youwill. And so, you know, that's
been a lot of fun. And so it'ssort of opened my eyes to
appreciating that there arepeople out there who seek and
can benefit from some of myexperience sort of bottled up,
you know, if you will. Yeah.
And so , I'm in the process ofupdating my website to where
(37:29):
I'm gonna put a learninglibrary on my website where
it'll be free. I'm just gonna,you know, have these articles
and maybe some videos. And ifsomething like this, it'd be a
great example if we have aconversation as a podcast guest
and we're talking about aspecific topic, you know, to be
able to go, you're diving intoa 360 in feedback, like, here's
an article, or here's someresources you might wanna
(37:51):
listen to this podcastinterview. And so I'm gonna
organize that by sort of topicand I'm gonna get that going
pretty soon. I've got anewsletter that I do, you know,
monthly maybe every two tothree weeks if anybody has an
interest in that, they couldjump on my newsletter list and
connect with me on LinkedIn.
'cause it's not there now, butit will be there.
Troy Blaser (38:10):
Sure. So LinkedIn, they can find you. Um , Brian
Houp.
Brian Houp (38:14):
Yep .
Troy Blaser (38:15):
Tell us your website. Where should they go?
Brian Houp (38:17):
My website is letsrezone , letsrezone.com. Or
you can type my name in. Yeah .
My company is called RezoneCoaching. It's this idea that
everybody's got a zone, andquite frequently the busier
that you get, the moreresponsibility it gets put on
you, the more you probably getpulled out of that zone. And
the zone, as I see it as kindof a Venn diagram between I'm
(38:39):
getting results and I'm growingand I'm learning and I'm having
fun at the same time. You know,the more we take on, the more
we get pulled out of that. Youknow, I came up with that name
a long time ago with the ideaof like, let's marry these
things together and let's bringyou back to that. Because if we
can get there so much moreworks out in our world and our
life. Right?
Troy Blaser (38:57):
Yeah. I like that.
letsrezone.com is the website.
That's cool. Yep . And Iappreciate the explanation of
the, the name as well. That'sfantastic. Well, Brian , it's
been wonderful to have thisconversation with you. I really
appreciated it. I've learned alot today. I appreciate your
enthusiasm and your approach tocoaching. I think it's
fantastic. So thank you so muchfor joining us today.
Brian Houp (39:18):
You're very welcome. And thank you. I
appreciate it . I wrote down, Ityped out your , receive
feedback graciously, and Iguess I was typing while I was
looking at you, so I , maybe Ididn't type .
Troy Blaser (39:28):
Act on it Visibly Yeah.
Brian Houp (39:29):
Act on it visibly.
So I mistyped that to so act onit visibly .
Troy Blaser (39:32):
No worries .
Brian Houp (39:32):
I love that. Thanks so much. I love this kind of
conversations and diving intothis stuff, so thank you. Thank
you for having me.
Troy Blaser (39:38):
Yep . You bet.
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