April 2, 2024 • 24 mins
Andria Gillis, an experienced executive coach specializing in systemic team coaching, dives into practical strategies for fostering open communication, enhancing emotional intelligence, and driving organizational transformation in this podcast conversation. Join us as Andria shares her expertise and insights to empower leaders and teams.
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Episode Transcript
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Andria Gillis (00:01):
I often will share the advice that my aunt
always gave me as a child, younever give feedback on
something that somebody can'tchange in five seconds. So it's
kind of this idea that when youlook at leadership and look at
feedback models, there arecountless models. Like my
partner and I counted over 23different models for how to
give feedback. At the core ofit, what's important is that
(00:24):
you give somebody advice orfeedback or feed forward what
they can do better in thefuture. People can't change the
past. So as soon as you startquestioning or telling somebody
how they could do somethingbetter in the past, that kind
of triggers the defensiveness.
So how can you say, goingforward, let's look at doing
this even better by doing this.
(00:46):
And one great model is whatworked well, even better if.
Troy Blaser (00:54):
Hello everyone.
Welcome to today's episode ofSimply Feedback, the podcast
brought to you by LearningBridge . I'm happy to be here.
I'm your host, Troy Blazer, andI'm excited to introduce our
guest. Our guest today isAndria Gillis, who is an
accomplished executive coachand team coaching practitioner
with over 15 years of diversebusiness experience spanning
(01:18):
operations, leadership, andentrepreneurship. Her client
base includes top executivesand leaders across various
industries like retail,healthcare , and finance, where
she employs a coaching stylebased on evidence and focused
on solutions. Drawing fromneuroscience and psychology,
Andria aims to foster personalgrowth and business results,
(01:39):
advocating for purposeful workenvironments, valued customers,
and inspiring leadership. Hermission is to empower
individuals and organizationsto navigate and thrive in our
rapidly evolving world. Andria,welcome to Simply Feedback.
It's so great to have you withus today.
Andria Gillis (01:56):
Hi, Troy. It's great to be here and I really
enjoyed hearing thatintroduction. Sounded great.
Troy Blaser (02:03):
Good. I'm interested to get to know you a
little bit today and maybe inthat vein, a question, we
always like to start out withon Simply Feedback is maybe to
ask you to tell us about a timethat you received some feedback
in your life. Maybe it had animpact on your professional
life or your personal life. Isthere a story that you can
share with us as we get to knowyou?
Andria Gillis (02:21):
Yeah, I was thinking about this and what
was coming up for me is areally impactful piece of
feedback that was really hardfor me to hear. I'm being a
little vulnerable here. When Istarted my business five or six
years ago, I was moderatingpanels where I would cultivate
groups of individuals, expertsin their area and we'd be
talking about emotionalintelligence and what that
(02:42):
looks like at work. And I was anew business, so I'm drawing on
my friends and my network to bethe panelists and and support
me. And I asked a good friendif she would moderate the panel
for me. She's a journalist andshe said no. She said, your
panel is completely white. Welive in a really diverse city
and I don't support that typeof work, which was like a gut
(03:04):
punch for me. I wasembarrassed. I felt defensive.
Because I hadn't notice becausethese are my friends . It
hadn't crossed my mind. So thatmoment really caused me to
pivot. Simply because it wasthis large blind spot that I
had. And since then I've beenreally intentional around
making sure that my panels arediverse, my sources in the
(03:27):
leadership development coursesare diverse, and I'm trying to
get the widest perspectivesinto the works that I do. So,
you know, thank you to Jen. Ifyou do listen to this. It was
definitely a moment that I willnever forget in terms of
feedback.
Troy Blaser (03:39):
Yeah. So now I'm curious, did Jen end up
moderating that panel? She saidno, but maybe you found someone
else to do at that time. Howdid it kind of turn out?
Andria Gillis (03:49):
She didn't do it, but put me in touch with
some other great people whocould do the work, who could
offer that more diverse lens. Itook a look at my network and
reached out to some otherexperts. So it was just a
moment of recognizing thatwhile I thought I was an ally,
it really helped me to stepinto like, no, you have to be
actually really intentional andbe an advocate and a sponsor of
(04:12):
diverse perspectives.
Troy Blaser (04:13):
Yeah. Not just neutral, but actually
proactively paying attention toit. And I imagine that
particular panel you hadprobably already invited the
panelists, so it's not like youcould say, well, my friend said
she wasn't going to do it, soyou're disinvited so that I can
get a more diverse panel thistime. But, like you say, it was
a pivot so that you can moveinto a new direction kind of
going forward. And that can be,like you say, a gut punch, a
(04:36):
vulnerable moment where you'relike, oh, I thought I was one
thing and this feedback haspointed out that there's more
to it than that.
Andria Gillis (04:44):
Yeah. A little bit of cognitive dissonance in
there.
Troy Blaser (04:47):
Yeah. Well, so you mentioned your business that
you started a few years ago. Iwonder, would you tell us more
about the work that you do?
Andria Gillis (04:55):
Yeah. I started People Lab as a way to bring
more compassion and empathyinto the corporate world. And
working with managers,directors, one-on-one, I was
noticing that we'd have greatresults , but we were stuck
inside the system that theywere in. You know, what's going
(05:15):
on in their organization orwhat's going on for them in
their leadership style. So Istarted to become curious about
how you can actually impact thesystem. So I started studying
the work of Peter Hawkins whocreated the title of Systemic
Team Coaching. I've moved intolooking at things from that
lens, which is a really nestedsystem of who is the
(05:37):
individual, who is the team?
What is the actual political,legal , environmental,
technological impact on theteam. So we're creating this
really non-linear perspectiveof what the opportunity is for
this team or this organization.
And often that means looking athow they, how clear they are on
their mandate and what theyneed to do, or what does great
(06:02):
collaboration look like. How dowe get the team aligned on
purpose and how do we learnfrom each other? Because the
world's moving so fast, we needto be in a more collaborative
learning space as teams . Sothat's the work I'm really
interested in. And that'swhere, you know, People Lab is
kind of heading as we evolve.
Troy Blaser (06:19):
I really can identify when you started to
talk about this idea that youwork with individuals and they
may get some great feedback,some great coaching, but then
to take that back to theorganization, there may be
obstacles there for them toimplement that just because of
the system that they're in. Itmakes me feel like times where
maybe I've gone off to aconference by myself, but
representing my company and youget all these great ideas and
(06:40):
then you come back and it'slike, well, I can't do all
these great things here at mycompany because of X, Y, and Z.
Right. And so I like that ideaof taking a step back, looking
at the whole system, the wholeenvironment, and making changes
there. So you said it's calledSystemic Team Coaching. What
are some of the factors thatwould make for a successful
(07:00):
team coaching intervention at acompany?
Andria Gillis (07:04):
I'll give you a real example. I was working
with a team who were part of astartup and they were revenue
operations team. And they werejust constantly putting out
fires. The data wasn't clean.
You know, they're always in aresponsive mode and had spent
the first year of theirexistence just putting out
fires, solving problems, butnothing proactive was
(07:26):
happening. They brought us into help them switch from being
a reactive to a proactive team.
And that really involved themunderstanding as a team, what
do each of us do? How are weserving the bigger mission of
the organization, and what dowe want our stakeholders to
know about us and what do ourstakeholders need? And what's
in that gap? So we were able tohelp them see themselves as
(07:50):
thought leaders in their spaceand experts, and really lean
into being a proactive partnerwith their stakeholders rather
than a reactive serviceorganization.
Troy Blaser (08:03):
I get the sense that at least for them it was
broadening the picture a littlebit. Helping them get a bigger
vision of where they fit in theorganization. And because they
have that bigger vision, thenthat maybe helps them turn to
be more proactive to say, no, Ihave a mission and I know where
I want to go. Instead of justreacting to what's coming in
because they have that biggerpicture, maybe a little bit.
Andria Gillis (08:26):
Yeah. And some of the interventions we might
do is attend business as usualmeetings and see what the
dynamics are and can we remindthem of how to bring that whole
picture into those meetings,which is a really powerful way
to, to make real shifts andchange, you know, the coaching
model as opposed to, like youtalked about that going to a
leadership convention, comingback to all kinds of ideas. And
(08:47):
then what, right, like you'reinspired and you get some
traction and then you kind ofgo back to the status quo.
Troy Blaser (08:54):
Absolutely. Yeah.
Andria Gillis (08:55):
So the coaching model, it's a longer
engagement, so we keep comingback to it over and over again
so that it starts to integrate.
So there's a stickiness to acoaching model or leadership
development or team coachingthat doesn't exist in a one-off
weekend or training mat model.
Troy Blaser (09:12):
That makes sense.
So the podcast is SimplyFeedback. And so Andria, I was
curious, how do you usefeedback in the work that you
do in your various engagements?
Andria Gillis (09:22):
Yeah, I think there's a couple ways that I
use it. With one-on-one withexecutives and managers, we try
to make sure that they'reasking for feedback and that
they're open to receivingfeedback. Because if you can
model what it looks like to beopen and not defensive and you
hear something that's a , aproblem, you start to create
that psychological safety inthe workplace and make it safer
(09:45):
for others to give feedback. Sothat's kind of the number one
thing I think is creating aculture where it's expected
that you ask for feedback.
Troy Blaser (09:53):
Is there specific advice that you give to leaders
who maybe are hesitant toembrace that feedback?
Andria Gillis (09:57):
So, it's not the traditional sandwich model of
good thing, bad thing, goodthing, right. But that what
worked well, what would be evenbetter if.
Troy Blaser (10:06):
One of our mottos, I guess here at Learning Bridge
, we, we talk a lot aboutreceiving feedback graciously
and acting on it visibly.
Andria Gillis (10:13):
Oh , I love that.
Troy Blaser (10:13):
And certainly it can be a scary thing for a
manager to be in the positionto receive feedback, but we
talk about a lot of ways toreceive that in a way that can
be a , you know, a safe way toreceive it, a way to use it to
your advantage, even if it'sdelivered in, in a way that
doesn't feel very friendly.
There are still a lot , a lotof ways that you can say, okay,
(10:35):
well I understand. How can Ireally incorporate that into my
own narrative, my own story. Ikind of sidetracked us . You
were talking a little bit aboutthe ways that you use feedback
in your work, obviously withindividuals maybe getting 360
degree feedback. Are thereother assessments or tools that
you use as you're working withteams?
Andria Gillis (10:55):
Yeah. So with teams we use a assessment
called the Team Connect 360,and that's a survey that goes
out to all the members of theteam, the leaders of the team,
and all the stakeholders asmuch as the organization is
comfortable, how far out can weget context and information
about how the team is working.
(11:15):
And you know, we're talkingabout do we understand the
team's purpose? Do weunderstand what needs to be
created to succeed in thefuture? What do your
stakeholders need from you inthe future? Where are they
changing and moving towards? Sothat's the Team Connect 360,
which is a great model forworking with a team. And then
sometimes we go into theindividuals themselves and
(11:35):
something like the GallupClifton strengths where they
can get a real sense of howthey show up as individuals and
what they might be noticing inother individuals. So it's
great to give an organizationsome language. So often we'll
do that as well. Another onethat they use quite a bit is
the EQI 2.0 and EQI 360. Thatone I find it's really well in
(11:57):
organizations that are alreadypretty open to feedback and
they already have someself-awareness as leaders.
Emotional intelligence is kindof that next level in in
leadership. Having thatawareness of how you show up as
a leader.
Troy Blaser (12:11):
So in your experience, how, are there ways
that you can foster thatculture of feedback in an
organization so that thatfeedback is sought on a
consistent basis and it's, it'sgiven an effective way. You
mentioned earlier about thatidea that your aunt's advice of
giving it, giving them feedbackon something they can change in
five seconds or less. Right.
(12:31):
But how can an organizationfoster that kind of a culture?
Andria Gillis (12:35):
So, you know, I think we , I've already talked
about modeling.. But the otherpiece is clarity of what
success looks like. Like ifI've changed this behavior, how
will I know I'm successful?
What are the benchmarks thatyou're looking at implied or
explicit? How will I know I'msuccessful? What are we
measuring? So having thatfollow up to the feedback is
(12:59):
really important. So as leadersbeing really intentional, but
where can you start tointroduce feedback? And
feedback doesn't always, it'snot always negative, right ?
Like feedback is all around us.
So how can we get into thehabit of giving feedback? You
know, sometimes it feelsmechanical at first . But can
you start meetings with whatwere the wins this week? Like,
(13:20):
I noticed that you did a greatjob on this, Troy. So you start
to create places whereconversations can happen
easily. People should neverfind out anything in their
review that they didn't alreadyknow. Right?
Troy Blaser (13:32):
Yeah . Yeah.
Andria Gillis (13:33):
So those creating opportunities for
those conversations to happen.
Troy Blaser (13:37):
So talking about measuring things, I'm curious,
how do you measure the impactor the success that an
engagement would have for youin a coaching engagement? For
example, how do you set theexpectations so that you can
tell whether you've succeededor not?
Andria Gillis (13:51):
So in initial conversations with the client,
we're talking about what istheir pain point that we're
solving for? What's the cost ofthat pain point? So often team
coaching is a great tool whenthere's low employee engagement
or you know , high turnover,high churn. That's a
substantial business cost. Cancoaching help build that
(14:15):
retention and, and stop thatchurn so that that is something
that, you know, the client canmeasure. That's an external
measurement. We also talk aboutqualitative versus quantitative
measurement. Right. Qualitativemeasurement being how do people
feel about the program? How dothey feel about their job? Or
another way to think about itis, how satisfied are they with
their position? How satisfiedare they with their
(14:39):
professional development? Andby doing kind of a soft
qualitative, where are westarting from at the beginning
of the engagement? How do youfeel now at the end? What
shifted c an be a reallypowerful way for, for the
organization or the team to seewhat's moving. And for me as
well to see, you know, whatinterventions worked and what,
there's still opportunity forthe team to grow.
Troy Blaser (15:00):
Yeah. I wonder, is there a specific experience
you've had recently whereyou've seen feedback cause a
point of inflection? I mean,you talked about it for you
personally earlier with thatfeedback, but as a coach, have
you been able to be part of aninteraction where feedback has
really made an impact onsomeone's career as they've
received that?
Andria Gillis (15:21):
Yeah. I have a , a client who came to me a
couple years ago as anexecutive, getting ready to
move from a national positionto a global position, and was
told that one thing that wasgoing to really help him in
this transition was to thinkabout executive presence and
emotional intelligence. Thefeedback he got was that he's
(15:44):
very low in emotionalintelligence and tends to be
too direct. So in our worktogether, he was able to shift
from emotional intelligence isthe latest buzzword, I'm
curious about it, but I don'tsubscribe to it, to, you know,
we essentially did a book cluband read about emotional
(16:04):
intelligence and how thatshowed up for him at work. And
so tried to connect the theoryof emotional intelligence to
what he was experienced day today , and where were the
opportunities for him to seethe impact of that work on his
team. And his team noticedthis, he was bringing back
feedback that his team feltmore relaxed, that there was
more banter in morningmeetings. And that he was
(16:28):
having higher qualityconversations and seeing better
impact because he was payingattention to the people on his
team and how he showed up forthem. So that was, it's quite a
privilege to be along for thoseconversations.
Troy Blaser (16:39):
I agree. It, can be very rewarding to see
changes like that happen overtime. And presumably he made
the jump to the global positionand is finding great success
down the road now. That'sfantastic. I mean, I can assume
that's probably what partly whyyou went into coaching is for
experiences like that right.
To, to feel like a successfulcoach who has made a
(17:02):
difference. Andria, I reallylike this idea that you
mentioned about essentiallydoing a book club with this
individual to kind of learnabout emotional intelligence
and what that means. And so itmade me curious if someone else
wants to do a book club, arethere a few books you would
recommend that might be goodcandidates for a book club?
Whether it's emotionalintelligence or some other
topic that you think would bevaluable?
Andria Gillis (17:21):
Yeah, I mean, the book we used was Daniel
Goleman's EmotionalIntelligence. Two other great
books are How Emotions Are Madeby Lisa Feldman Barrett. Bit of
a textbook. She has anotherbook called Seven and a Half
Myths About the Brain, which isalso good, highly readable. And
it's Real-Time Leadership byCarol Kauffman is another great
book about, about leadershipand how you show up.
Troy Blaser (17:43):
Cool. I appreciate that. I may, I may have to take
some of those personally and domy own little bit of reading.
It sounds like it could beinteresting. Well, you know, as
you think about our audienceout there listening, HR
professionals, executives,other coaches, perhaps, is
there some specific advice thatyou would share to our
(18:03):
listeners as you think aboutthe work that you do?
Andria Gillis (18:06):
Well, what I was thinking about is this idea we
have in team coaching abouttransformational KPIs. And that
is, you know, we all kind ofknow what you, what you measure
grows. So, so what are youmeasuring around as an
organization, as a team aroundthese softer skills around
(18:26):
emotional intelligence, aroundbeing aligned with purpose? So,
for example, I had a team andthey were trying actually that
same team that was trying tomove from being reactive to
proactive and being seen asthought . One of the KPIs that
they wanted to start measuringwas, did we have all the right
people in that meeting? So theywould just do a little check,
(18:49):
like, yes, no, because they,you know, it saves so much time
if you have the right people inthe right meeting. And, you
know, that's just somethingthey started to measure. So
little things like that, like ,like transformational KPIs that
can help you measure whatyou're accomplishing as a group
that you wouldn't be able toaccomplish on your own.
Troy Blaser (19:07):
I love it. That can be a useful thing. And, and
like you said, what getsmeasured gets improved, right?
.
Andria Gillis (19:13):
Yeah.
Troy Blaser (19:14):
Something like that. So being very purposeful
about saying, we want to getbetter as a team. What are we
going to measure in order to beable to do that? What, what
things are going to help ustransform.
Andria Gillis (19:24):
Yeah. It , and it helps to hold the team or
the individual accountable toit as well. Right. It's not
just a , a nice idea and yes,let's do it. Let's check in.
Let's check in. How does , howis that going? What's getting
in the way? Yeah.
Troy Blaser (19:39):
Well, are there other projects that you're
working on that you want toshare with us? Whether it's
with People Lab specifically,or, or outside of People Lab ?
What are you really passionateabout right now, I guess?
Andria Gillis (19:50):
Yeah. I'm really excited about two partnerships
that I have. One of them iswith one of my longtime
coaching collaborators. Hername is Mel Boyd-Brown. And she
and I have spent a yeardeveloping a leadership
development program and we'vetested it out and we're just
getting ready to launch that.
So I'm really excited aboutthat because it takes that
(20:11):
coaching approach to leadershipdevelopment to get that
stickiness and that long-termgrowth over time. And the other
partnership I'm really excitedabout is working with a man
named Andy Forrest , who's anexpert in machine learning and
AI. And we're helpingorganizations figure out what
they want from AI and why theythink it's a good idea for
(20:31):
their organization and how canactually serve purpose instead
of being a shiny new thing. Sohe's the expert in the AI and
the machine learning. And thenI help the organization figure
out exactly what they're tryingto solve for with playing with
it. Because you know, everybodyin your organization is playing
around with it. How do youcreate absolutely responsible
policies and intentional useto, you know, be a great intern
(20:57):
and help for your companyrather than replacing
individuals.
Troy Blaser (21:01):
That sounds like it really is an area that's
really, there's a whole lothappening right now. And I
think many, many organizationsare asking themselves those
very questions. Right? Whatdoes AI mean for us as an
organization? How are we goingto use it to improve the
organization? Are therepitfalls that we need to be
aware of? So that does soundlike an interesting space to be
(21:23):
working in right now . I wasgoing to ask the leadership
development program, does ithave a name that we can be
watching for or is that stillin progress?
Andria Gillis (21:32):
Yeah, that is a great question. It does not
right now. It's a leadershipdevelopment program. Any
suggestions?
Troy Blaser (21:38):
Not yet. No. Is it something through People Lab or
is it outside of People Lab ?
Andria Gillis (21:43):
It's through People Lab . Okay. Yeah.
There's information about it onour website.
Troy Blaser (21:46):
Okay, cool.
Andria Gillis (21:47):
But you're right, it does need a catchy
title.
Troy Blaser (21:50):
Sounds like you guys have put a lot of work
into it, though. I hope thatyou find success in it. It is
so nice to have projects thatyou're excited about,
passionate about, and it'slike, I can't wait to get out
and share this with everybodyelse because there's so much
fantastic material here. Inthat vein, I guess if people
have enjoyed this conversation,if they w ant t o continue the
conversation with you, is thatsomething you're open to and
(22:13):
how can people get in touchwith you?
Andria Gillis (22:15):
Yeah, I would love that. Probably the easiest
way is on LinkedIn, Andria withan I , Andria Gillis, LinkedIn,
and my website is because I'mbased up in Toronto and Canada.
Troy Blaser (22:27):
Awesome. Well, Andria, thank you so much. I've
enjoyed our conversation andour time together today. I've
learned a few things. I willthink about that book club
opportunity and see how I canincorporate that into the work
that I'm doing. . But it's beengreat to get to know you. Thank
you so much for joining ustoday.
Andria Gillis (22:45):
Oh, my pleasure, Troy. Thanks so much for having
me. I really enjoyed theconversation.
I often will share the advice that my aunt
always gave me as a child, younever give feedback on
something that somebody can'tchange in five seconds. So it's
kind of this idea that when youlook at leadership and look at
feedback models, there arecountless models. Like my
partner and I counted over 23different models for how to
give feedback. At the core ofit, what's important is that
(00:24):
you give somebody advice orfeedback or feed forward what
they can do better in thefuture. People can't change the
past. So as soon as you startquestioning or telling somebody
how they could do somethingbetter in the past, that kind
of triggers the defensiveness.
So how can you say, goingforward, let's look at doing
this even better by doing this.
(00:46):
And one great model is whatworked well, even better if.
Troy Blaser (00:54):
Hello everyone.
Welcome to today's episode ofSimply Feedback, the podcast
brought to you by LearningBridge . I'm happy to be here.
I'm your host, Troy Blazer, andI'm excited to introduce our
guest. Our guest today isAndria Gillis, who is an
accomplished executive coachand team coaching practitioner
with over 15 years of diversebusiness experience spanning
(01:18):
operations, leadership, andentrepreneurship. Her client
base includes top executivesand leaders across various
industries like retail,healthcare , and finance, where
she employs a coaching stylebased on evidence and focused
on solutions. Drawing fromneuroscience and psychology,
Andria aims to foster personalgrowth and business results,
(01:39):
advocating for purposeful workenvironments, valued customers,
and inspiring leadership. Hermission is to empower
individuals and organizationsto navigate and thrive in our
rapidly evolving world. Andria,welcome to Simply Feedback.
It's so great to have you withus today.
Andria Gillis (01:56):
Hi, Troy. It's great to be here and I really
enjoyed hearing thatintroduction. Sounded great.
Troy Blaser (02:03):
Good. I'm interested to get to know you a
little bit today and maybe inthat vein, a question, we
always like to start out withon Simply Feedback is maybe to
ask you to tell us about a timethat you received some feedback
in your life. Maybe it had animpact on your professional
life or your personal life. Isthere a story that you can
share with us as we get to knowyou?
Andria Gillis (02:21):
Yeah, I was thinking about this and what
was coming up for me is areally impactful piece of
feedback that was really hardfor me to hear. I'm being a
little vulnerable here. When Istarted my business five or six
years ago, I was moderatingpanels where I would cultivate
groups of individuals, expertsin their area and we'd be
talking about emotionalintelligence and what that
(02:42):
looks like at work. And I was anew business, so I'm drawing on
my friends and my network to bethe panelists and and support
me. And I asked a good friendif she would moderate the panel
for me. She's a journalist andshe said no. She said, your
panel is completely white. Welive in a really diverse city
and I don't support that typeof work, which was like a gut
(03:04):
punch for me. I wasembarrassed. I felt defensive.
Because I hadn't notice becausethese are my friends . It
hadn't crossed my mind. So thatmoment really caused me to
pivot. Simply because it wasthis large blind spot that I
had. And since then I've beenreally intentional around
making sure that my panels arediverse, my sources in the
(03:27):
leadership development coursesare diverse, and I'm trying to
get the widest perspectivesinto the works that I do. So,
you know, thank you to Jen. Ifyou do listen to this. It was
definitely a moment that I willnever forget in terms of
feedback.
Troy Blaser (03:39):
Yeah. So now I'm curious, did Jen end up
moderating that panel? She saidno, but maybe you found someone
else to do at that time. Howdid it kind of turn out?
Andria Gillis (03:49):
She didn't do it, but put me in touch with
some other great people whocould do the work, who could
offer that more diverse lens. Itook a look at my network and
reached out to some otherexperts. So it was just a
moment of recognizing thatwhile I thought I was an ally,
it really helped me to stepinto like, no, you have to be
actually really intentional andbe an advocate and a sponsor of
(04:12):
diverse perspectives.
Troy Blaser (04:13):
Yeah. Not just neutral, but actually
proactively paying attention toit. And I imagine that
particular panel you hadprobably already invited the
panelists, so it's not like youcould say, well, my friend said
she wasn't going to do it, soyou're disinvited so that I can
get a more diverse panel thistime. But, like you say, it was
a pivot so that you can moveinto a new direction kind of
going forward. And that can be,like you say, a gut punch, a
(04:36):
vulnerable moment where you'relike, oh, I thought I was one
thing and this feedback haspointed out that there's more
to it than that.
Andria Gillis (04:44):
Yeah. A little bit of cognitive dissonance in
there.
Troy Blaser (04:47):
Yeah. Well, so you mentioned your business that
you started a few years ago. Iwonder, would you tell us more
about the work that you do?
Andria Gillis (04:55):
Yeah. I started People Lab as a way to bring
more compassion and empathyinto the corporate world. And
working with managers,directors, one-on-one, I was
noticing that we'd have greatresults , but we were stuck
inside the system that theywere in. You know, what's going
(05:15):
on in their organization orwhat's going on for them in
their leadership style. So Istarted to become curious about
how you can actually impact thesystem. So I started studying
the work of Peter Hawkins whocreated the title of Systemic
Team Coaching. I've moved intolooking at things from that
lens, which is a really nestedsystem of who is the
(05:37):
individual, who is the team?
What is the actual political,legal , environmental,
technological impact on theteam. So we're creating this
really non-linear perspectiveof what the opportunity is for
this team or this organization.
And often that means looking athow they, how clear they are on
their mandate and what theyneed to do, or what does great
(06:02):
collaboration look like. How dowe get the team aligned on
purpose and how do we learnfrom each other? Because the
world's moving so fast, we needto be in a more collaborative
learning space as teams . Sothat's the work I'm really
interested in. And that'swhere, you know, People Lab is
kind of heading as we evolve.
Troy Blaser (06:19):
I really can identify when you started to
talk about this idea that youwork with individuals and they
may get some great feedback,some great coaching, but then
to take that back to theorganization, there may be
obstacles there for them toimplement that just because of
the system that they're in. Itmakes me feel like times where
maybe I've gone off to aconference by myself, but
representing my company and youget all these great ideas and
(06:40):
then you come back and it'slike, well, I can't do all
these great things here at mycompany because of X, Y, and Z.
Right. And so I like that ideaof taking a step back, looking
at the whole system, the wholeenvironment, and making changes
there. So you said it's calledSystemic Team Coaching. What
are some of the factors thatwould make for a successful
(07:00):
team coaching intervention at acompany?
Andria Gillis (07:04):
I'll give you a real example. I was working
with a team who were part of astartup and they were revenue
operations team. And they werejust constantly putting out
fires. The data wasn't clean.
You know, they're always in aresponsive mode and had spent
the first year of theirexistence just putting out
fires, solving problems, butnothing proactive was
(07:26):
happening. They brought us into help them switch from being
a reactive to a proactive team.
And that really involved themunderstanding as a team, what
do each of us do? How are weserving the bigger mission of
the organization, and what dowe want our stakeholders to
know about us and what do ourstakeholders need? And what's
in that gap? So we were able tohelp them see themselves as
(07:50):
thought leaders in their spaceand experts, and really lean
into being a proactive partnerwith their stakeholders rather
than a reactive serviceorganization.
Troy Blaser (08:03):
I get the sense that at least for them it was
broadening the picture a littlebit. Helping them get a bigger
vision of where they fit in theorganization. And because they
have that bigger vision, thenthat maybe helps them turn to
be more proactive to say, no, Ihave a mission and I know where
I want to go. Instead of justreacting to what's coming in
because they have that biggerpicture, maybe a little bit.
Andria Gillis (08:26):
Yeah. And some of the interventions we might
do is attend business as usualmeetings and see what the
dynamics are and can we remindthem of how to bring that whole
picture into those meetings,which is a really powerful way
to, to make real shifts andchange, you know, the coaching
model as opposed to, like youtalked about that going to a
leadership convention, comingback to all kinds of ideas. And
(08:47):
then what, right, like you'reinspired and you get some
traction and then you kind ofgo back to the status quo.
Troy Blaser (08:54):
Absolutely. Yeah.
Andria Gillis (08:55):
So the coaching model, it's a longer
engagement, so we keep comingback to it over and over again
so that it starts to integrate.
So there's a stickiness to acoaching model or leadership
development or team coachingthat doesn't exist in a one-off
weekend or training mat model.
Troy Blaser (09:12):
That makes sense.
So the podcast is SimplyFeedback. And so Andria, I was
curious, how do you usefeedback in the work that you
do in your various engagements?
Andria Gillis (09:22):
Yeah, I think there's a couple ways that I
use it. With one-on-one withexecutives and managers, we try
to make sure that they'reasking for feedback and that
they're open to receivingfeedback. Because if you can
model what it looks like to beopen and not defensive and you
hear something that's a , aproblem, you start to create
that psychological safety inthe workplace and make it safer
(09:45):
for others to give feedback. Sothat's kind of the number one
thing I think is creating aculture where it's expected
that you ask for feedback.
Troy Blaser (09:53):
Is there specific advice that you give to leaders
who maybe are hesitant toembrace that feedback?
Andria Gillis (09:57):
So, it's not the traditional sandwich model of
good thing, bad thing, goodthing, right. But that what
worked well, what would be evenbetter if.
Troy Blaser (10:06):
One of our mottos, I guess here at Learning Bridge
, we, we talk a lot aboutreceiving feedback graciously
and acting on it visibly.
Andria Gillis (10:13):
Oh , I love that.
Troy Blaser (10:13):
And certainly it can be a scary thing for a
manager to be in the positionto receive feedback, but we
talk about a lot of ways toreceive that in a way that can
be a , you know, a safe way toreceive it, a way to use it to
your advantage, even if it'sdelivered in, in a way that
doesn't feel very friendly.
There are still a lot , a lotof ways that you can say, okay,
(10:35):
well I understand. How can Ireally incorporate that into my
own narrative, my own story. Ikind of sidetracked us . You
were talking a little bit aboutthe ways that you use feedback
in your work, obviously withindividuals maybe getting 360
degree feedback. Are thereother assessments or tools that
you use as you're working withteams?
Andria Gillis (10:55):
Yeah. So with teams we use a assessment
called the Team Connect 360,and that's a survey that goes
out to all the members of theteam, the leaders of the team,
and all the stakeholders asmuch as the organization is
comfortable, how far out can weget context and information
about how the team is working.
(11:15):
And you know, we're talkingabout do we understand the
team's purpose? Do weunderstand what needs to be
created to succeed in thefuture? What do your
stakeholders need from you inthe future? Where are they
changing and moving towards? Sothat's the Team Connect 360,
which is a great model forworking with a team. And then
sometimes we go into theindividuals themselves and
(11:35):
something like the GallupClifton strengths where they
can get a real sense of howthey show up as individuals and
what they might be noticing inother individuals. So it's
great to give an organizationsome language. So often we'll
do that as well. Another onethat they use quite a bit is
the EQI 2.0 and EQI 360. Thatone I find it's really well in
(11:57):
organizations that are alreadypretty open to feedback and
they already have someself-awareness as leaders.
Emotional intelligence is kindof that next level in in
leadership. Having thatawareness of how you show up as
a leader.
Troy Blaser (12:11):
So in your experience, how, are there ways
that you can foster thatculture of feedback in an
organization so that thatfeedback is sought on a
consistent basis and it's, it'sgiven an effective way. You
mentioned earlier about thatidea that your aunt's advice of
giving it, giving them feedbackon something they can change in
five seconds or less. Right.
(12:31):
But how can an organizationfoster that kind of a culture?
Andria Gillis (12:35):
So, you know, I think we , I've already talked
about modeling.. But the otherpiece is clarity of what
success looks like. Like ifI've changed this behavior, how
will I know I'm successful?
What are the benchmarks thatyou're looking at implied or
explicit? How will I know I'msuccessful? What are we
measuring? So having thatfollow up to the feedback is
(12:59):
really important. So as leadersbeing really intentional, but
where can you start tointroduce feedback? And
feedback doesn't always, it'snot always negative, right ?
Like feedback is all around us.
So how can we get into thehabit of giving feedback? You
know, sometimes it feelsmechanical at first . But can
you start meetings with whatwere the wins this week? Like,
(13:20):
I noticed that you did a greatjob on this, Troy. So you start
to create places whereconversations can happen
easily. People should neverfind out anything in their
review that they didn't alreadyknow. Right?
Troy Blaser (13:32):
Yeah . Yeah.
Andria Gillis (13:33):
So those creating opportunities for
those conversations to happen.
Troy Blaser (13:37):
So talking about measuring things, I'm curious,
how do you measure the impactor the success that an
engagement would have for youin a coaching engagement? For
example, how do you set theexpectations so that you can
tell whether you've succeededor not?
Andria Gillis (13:51):
So in initial conversations with the client,
we're talking about what istheir pain point that we're
solving for? What's the cost ofthat pain point? So often team
coaching is a great tool whenthere's low employee engagement
or you know , high turnover,high churn. That's a
substantial business cost. Cancoaching help build that
(14:15):
retention and, and stop thatchurn so that that is something
that, you know, the client canmeasure. That's an external
measurement. We also talk aboutqualitative versus quantitative
measurement. Right. Qualitativemeasurement being how do people
feel about the program? How dothey feel about their job? Or
another way to think about itis, how satisfied are they with
their position? How satisfiedare they with their
(14:39):
professional development? Andby doing kind of a soft
qualitative, where are westarting from at the beginning
of the engagement? How do youfeel now at the end? What
shifted c an be a reallypowerful way for, for the
organization or the team to seewhat's moving. And for me as
well to see, you know, whatinterventions worked and what,
there's still opportunity forthe team to grow.
Troy Blaser (15:00):
Yeah. I wonder, is there a specific experience
you've had recently whereyou've seen feedback cause a
point of inflection? I mean,you talked about it for you
personally earlier with thatfeedback, but as a coach, have
you been able to be part of aninteraction where feedback has
really made an impact onsomeone's career as they've
received that?
Andria Gillis (15:21):
Yeah. I have a , a client who came to me a
couple years ago as anexecutive, getting ready to
move from a national positionto a global position, and was
told that one thing that wasgoing to really help him in
this transition was to thinkabout executive presence and
emotional intelligence. Thefeedback he got was that he's
(15:44):
very low in emotionalintelligence and tends to be
too direct. So in our worktogether, he was able to shift
from emotional intelligence isthe latest buzzword, I'm
curious about it, but I don'tsubscribe to it, to, you know,
we essentially did a book cluband read about emotional
(16:04):
intelligence and how thatshowed up for him at work. And
so tried to connect the theoryof emotional intelligence to
what he was experienced day today , and where were the
opportunities for him to seethe impact of that work on his
team. And his team noticedthis, he was bringing back
feedback that his team feltmore relaxed, that there was
more banter in morningmeetings. And that he was
(16:28):
having higher qualityconversations and seeing better
impact because he was payingattention to the people on his
team and how he showed up forthem. So that was, it's quite a
privilege to be along for thoseconversations.
Troy Blaser (16:39):
I agree. It, can be very rewarding to see
changes like that happen overtime. And presumably he made
the jump to the global positionand is finding great success
down the road now. That'sfantastic. I mean, I can assume
that's probably what partly whyyou went into coaching is for
experiences like that right.
To, to feel like a successfulcoach who has made a
(17:02):
difference. Andria, I reallylike this idea that you
mentioned about essentiallydoing a book club with this
individual to kind of learnabout emotional intelligence
and what that means. And so itmade me curious if someone else
wants to do a book club, arethere a few books you would
recommend that might be goodcandidates for a book club?
Whether it's emotionalintelligence or some other
topic that you think would bevaluable?
Andria Gillis (17:21):
Yeah, I mean, the book we used was Daniel
Goleman's EmotionalIntelligence. Two other great
books are How Emotions Are Madeby Lisa Feldman Barrett. Bit of
a textbook. She has anotherbook called Seven and a Half
Myths About the Brain, which isalso good, highly readable. And
it's Real-Time Leadership byCarol Kauffman is another great
book about, about leadershipand how you show up.
Troy Blaser (17:43):
Cool. I appreciate that. I may, I may have to take
some of those personally and domy own little bit of reading.
It sounds like it could beinteresting. Well, you know, as
you think about our audienceout there listening, HR
professionals, executives,other coaches, perhaps, is
there some specific advice thatyou would share to our
(18:03):
listeners as you think aboutthe work that you do?
Andria Gillis (18:06):
Well, what I was thinking about is this idea we
have in team coaching abouttransformational KPIs. And that
is, you know, we all kind ofknow what you, what you measure
grows. So, so what are youmeasuring around as an
organization, as a team aroundthese softer skills around
(18:26):
emotional intelligence, aroundbeing aligned with purpose? So,
for example, I had a team andthey were trying actually that
same team that was trying tomove from being reactive to
proactive and being seen asthought . One of the KPIs that
they wanted to start measuringwas, did we have all the right
people in that meeting? So theywould just do a little check,
(18:49):
like, yes, no, because they,you know, it saves so much time
if you have the right people inthe right meeting. And, you
know, that's just somethingthey started to measure. So
little things like that, like ,like transformational KPIs that
can help you measure whatyou're accomplishing as a group
that you wouldn't be able toaccomplish on your own.
Troy Blaser (19:07):
I love it. That can be a useful thing. And, and
like you said, what getsmeasured gets improved, right?
.
Andria Gillis (19:13):
Yeah.
Troy Blaser (19:14):
Something like that. So being very purposeful
about saying, we want to getbetter as a team. What are we
going to measure in order to beable to do that? What, what
things are going to help ustransform.
Andria Gillis (19:24):
Yeah. It , and it helps to hold the team or
the individual accountable toit as well. Right. It's not
just a , a nice idea and yes,let's do it. Let's check in.
Let's check in. How does , howis that going? What's getting
in the way? Yeah.
Troy Blaser (19:39):
Well, are there other projects that you're
working on that you want toshare with us? Whether it's
with People Lab specifically,or, or outside of People Lab ?
What are you really passionateabout right now, I guess?
Andria Gillis (19:50):
Yeah. I'm really excited about two partnerships
that I have. One of them iswith one of my longtime
coaching collaborators. Hername is Mel Boyd-Brown. And she
and I have spent a yeardeveloping a leadership
development program and we'vetested it out and we're just
getting ready to launch that.
So I'm really excited aboutthat because it takes that
(20:11):
coaching approach to leadershipdevelopment to get that
stickiness and that long-termgrowth over time. And the other
partnership I'm really excitedabout is working with a man
named Andy Forrest , who's anexpert in machine learning and
AI. And we're helpingorganizations figure out what
they want from AI and why theythink it's a good idea for
(20:31):
their organization and how canactually serve purpose instead
of being a shiny new thing. Sohe's the expert in the AI and
the machine learning. And thenI help the organization figure
out exactly what they're tryingto solve for with playing with
it. Because you know, everybodyin your organization is playing
around with it. How do youcreate absolutely responsible
policies and intentional useto, you know, be a great intern
(20:57):
and help for your companyrather than replacing
individuals.
Troy Blaser (21:01):
That sounds like it really is an area that's
really, there's a whole lothappening right now. And I
think many, many organizationsare asking themselves those
very questions. Right? Whatdoes AI mean for us as an
organization? How are we goingto use it to improve the
organization? Are therepitfalls that we need to be
aware of? So that does soundlike an interesting space to be
(21:23):
working in right now . I wasgoing to ask the leadership
development program, does ithave a name that we can be
watching for or is that stillin progress?
Andria Gillis (21:32):
Yeah, that is a great question. It does not
right now. It's a leadershipdevelopment program. Any
suggestions?
Troy Blaser (21:38):
Not yet. No. Is it something through People Lab or
is it outside of People Lab ?
Andria Gillis (21:43):
It's through People Lab . Okay. Yeah.
There's information about it onour website.
Troy Blaser (21:46):
Okay, cool.
Andria Gillis (21:47):
But you're right, it does need a catchy
title.
Troy Blaser (21:50):
Sounds like you guys have put a lot of work
into it, though. I hope thatyou find success in it. It is
so nice to have projects thatyou're excited about,
passionate about, and it'slike, I can't wait to get out
and share this with everybodyelse because there's so much
fantastic material here. Inthat vein, I guess if people
have enjoyed this conversation,if they w ant t o continue the
conversation with you, is thatsomething you're open to and
(22:13):
how can people get in touchwith you?
Andria Gillis (22:15):
Yeah, I would love that. Probably the easiest
way is on LinkedIn, Andria withan I , Andria Gillis, LinkedIn,
and my website is because I'mbased up in Toronto and Canada.
Troy Blaser (22:27):
Awesome. Well, Andria, thank you so much. I've
enjoyed our conversation andour time together today. I've
learned a few things. I willthink about that book club
opportunity and see how I canincorporate that into the work
that I'm doing. . But it's beengreat to get to know you. Thank
you so much for joining ustoday.
Andria Gillis (22:45):
Oh, my pleasure, Troy. Thanks so much for having
me. I really enjoyed theconversation.
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