July 8, 2025 • 37 mins
The episode features a profound discussion on the pivotal role of coaching in fostering effective leadership and enhancing employee satisfaction within organizations. Francie Jain, the esteemed guest, articulates her vision of creating a thriving community where individuals are supported in realizing their full potential, thereby instigating a ripple effect of positivity and productivity. She presents her company, Terawatt, as an innovative B2B marketplace designed to connect employers with coaches who can facilitate meaningful career transitions and personal development. The conversation delves into the nuances of leadership, emphasizing that true leadership transcends mere management and necessitates a genuine commitment to understanding and nurturing the aspirations of employees. Ultimately, this episode serves as a clarion call for organizations to invest in their human capital, as the well-being of employees is directly correlated with the overall success and growth of the company.
The episode features an enlightening discussion between Jaclyn Strominger and Francie Jain, focusing on the imperative of fostering leadership qualities that prioritize the development of individuals within organizations. Francie, the founder of Terawatt, articulates her vision for creating an impactful platform designed to assist individuals in navigating career transitions. Drawing from her background in finance, she highlights the disconnect often experienced by employees during such transitions and emphasizes the need for effective support systems. This leads to a broader exploration of the societal implications of job loss in America, particularly in the manufacturing sector, and the responsibilities of leaders to guide individuals through these challenges.
A significant portion of the dialogue is dedicated to the innovative business model of Terawatt, which serves as a marketplace connecting employers with professional coaches. Francie underscores the importance of treating all stakeholders equitably and ensuring that both employers and employees have a voice in the coaching process. This model not only enhances the effectiveness of coaching but also fosters a culture of collaboration and mutual respect. The conversation further addresses the financial implications of employee turnover and the potential benefits of investing in coaching as a means to enhance organizational performance.
As the episode concludes, Francie articulates a compelling vision for the future of work, where organizations prioritize the holistic development of their employees. The insights shared throughout the episode challenge conventional notions of leadership, advocating for a model that emphasizes empowerment, psychological safety, and continuous growth. By reimagining leadership in this manner, organizations can create environments where both individuals and the organization itself can thrive, ultimately leading to sustained success.
Takeaways:
- In the pursuit of effective leadership, we must first recognize our individual responsibility as the CEO of our own lives.
- Creating a thriving community necessitates support for individuals striving to achieve their fullest potential.
- The transformation of industries, such as healthcare and manufacturing, calls for innovative solutions to address job transitions and employee development.
- Investing in coaching and professional development yields significant returns, improving employee satisfaction and reducing turnover costs in organizations.
Links referenced in this episode:
Companies mentioned in this episode:
- Terawatt
- Yahoo...
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:58):
Well, hello everybody andwelcome to another great episode
of the Unstoppable LeadershipSpotlight podcast. I am your host,
Jaclyn Strominger and on thisshow we hear from amazing leaders
and their game changinginsights and great tips, things that
you can do to become a betterleader. And remember, each and every
one of us is the CEO ofourselves. So we have to start with
(01:21):
leadership right here. Sotoday I have Francie Jain on as my
amazing guest. Let me give youa little, little background on Francie.
She, first of all, this, Ilove this, believes that happy and
productive communities aremade up of people who strive and
receive support to becometheir best selves. Of course. And
she founded Terawatt to createan impactful, affordable and intellectually
(01:45):
honest way to help everyonethrive. And she believes that supporting
people to achieve theirpotential creates a ripple effect
in every community. I couldnot agree more. So welcome Francie
lady.
I'm so happy to be here.
Okay, so the, the what I justread, like the part where it's like
(02:09):
creating that thriving community.
Yeah.
Did this all come from for you?
Oh God. So such a goodquestion because this is not at all
my background. I, you know, Iwent to business school and I was
working, I was in finance fora long time and. But I was always
like the matchmaker. That waskind of my role. I was doing capital
(02:30):
raising for hedge funds and,and I think, you know, it's like
there's a kind of naturalprogression for a lot of people.
Like, you know, you're sort ofwhat intrigues you as a young person
or maybe before you had afamily or whatever might change later.
And so I, I sort of payingattention to like there's just this
one statistic about the lossof manufacturing jobs in America.
(02:53):
And it was very significant.And I thought, wow, are those numbers
true? Like it was likemillions and millions of jobs. And
I've done all this researchsince and. But yes, like the peak
of American manufacturing wasin the 40s. And so if you basically
look at in time series, it'slike lots of manufacturing jobs have
been lost just because it'snever been a flat industry. It's
(03:14):
always, it just peaked a longtime ago. And so I thought, well,
you know, who's helping thosepeople as they find a new career?
Because I knew in myexperience when I switched careers,
I freaked out my family andfreaked out my fan and my friends.
You know, people always like,like kind of hyper about it and I
was always like saying tothem, chill, like it'll be fine.
(03:36):
You know, like I'll Figure itout. And so I guess my insight was,
I bet that's really hard forthem because not that many people
are good at helping throughthese kinds of transitions. And then
I thought, oh, I wonder who's.I wonder if there's like a Yahoo.
Of like, career change.Because it's an American way, right?
There's a boom, the bus. Webelieve in capitalism. We, you know,
(03:56):
we just let things, like, fallwhere they may. And I couldn't find
anything. And I started to getreally obsessed with this idea of,
like, who's helping careerchange people? And is that, like,
a weird thing, like, somehowhasn't really happened in America?
And so, again, like, I mean, Ihad been an entrepreneur before that
(04:16):
I started a business raisingcapital, but I never thought of myself
as like a startup kind of aperson. And I definitely don't have
an HR background or learningand development background. It was
more just like I keptthinking, well, if no one's going
to do this, like, I'm going todo this. I think this really needs
to happen. This needs to be athing. And part of my thing was also,
like, I get annoyed byorganizations that look like they're
(04:39):
helping individuals but reallydon't. Like, conferences can be,
you know, questionable becauseyou're paying a lot of money, but
you're kind of sitting on yourbutt. Or, you know, headhunters,
but they're really working forthe employer. You know, all these
kinds of things or some or soeven like Facebook and these social
media, like, you're theproduct, you're being advertised
to. You know, all thesethings. I just felt like, theoretically
(05:02):
help people, but reallythey're. The people are being kind
of thrown to the walls alittle bit. And so this is. The whole
idea of this is like, how canI build something that really helps
people be great? And there'sintellectually honest. And I'm not,
you know, taking advantage ofanyone and, you know, everyone. And
so it's going to be a long,long time because, again, like, not
(05:24):
my background and because I'msort of leading with values. It took
a while to figure out, butultimately, now here we are. It's
a B2B marketplace, meaning wesell to employers. And what's cool
about that is we have threestakeholders. And the thing that
I love about this business isI've designed it so that everyone.
There's only one website. Itell the same thing to all three
groups. There's no, like, noone's being disadvantaged. Everyone's
(05:50):
being treated very well, andthe way they want to be treated.
And it makes me really happybecause, you know, certainly at the
outset you could probably makemore money by disadvantaging one
group, which lots oforganizations do right now. But I
really wanted to set somethingup so that I felt proud about what
I'd done. And a lot of, andlike a lot of people I know from
(06:12):
college are coaches is one ofmy jokes with the thing. So, like,
I also built this for them tohave it be a system that they make
makes sense for them. Theywant to stay. And, and so that, that's
sort of the 30,000 foot viewof the whole thing.
Okay, so I've got a couple ofdifferent questions, but I want to
start with because there's afew things here. But, but first.
(06:36):
And then I'm going to go intomy first question before I go to
the second question. But thefirst question is, you know, it's
what you just said about, youknow, like the transitions into people.
Right. People making thosetransitions. And, and really, you
know, who at the companies whoare doing that. And I look at that
(06:59):
and think in actuality, that'slike one of the key reasons why we
do this podcast is becauseleaders are supposed to be leaders
and that lead. The word is tolead people, not to manage.
Right, right, right, right, right.
We're not managing people.Right. We're leading them. So if
(07:21):
I'm leading you, I'm yourtechnically your manager, I'm really
your leader, then I should beable to in a company lead up to help
you.
Yeah.
And that doesn't necessarilyhappen. And it should be that I know
you like, I like. Oh, Francie,I know who you are. You're doing
great here. Oh, but let mefind out from you, like, where do
you want to go? What is yourvision? What's your mission in your
(07:43):
life? Maybe this position isnot the right position for you. Maybe.
Yes.
Like so, so I love what you'redoing because it's it to me that's
what's missing so much in somany companies today. So where do
you find. And you know, asyou're working with people today,
(08:05):
is it. Is it working with thecompanies so that the company better
leaders or is it theindividual or is it the Both.
Yes, a great question. So likewe kind of a few processes is like
the way to think about it. Solike on one side we are constantly
betting coaches. We have likealmost like 100 coaches on terrawatt
(08:27):
and that side of it's likesemi viral. Meaning like we have
great coaches. They tell othercoaches they Admire or who they like,
they respect and then theyintroduce them to us. And so that's
one side and we. And becausewe're a marketplace, we always want
to keep the ones we have andadd more. So there's just more choice
from the buyer then the otherside is the employers and the employees.
(08:48):
And so we're really mostlymarketing to the employers because
the art. Our argument rightnow, because a lot of times people
say, well, coaching, that'sgreat, if I had extra money, I would
do it. But we're saying isactually, listen, it's not, that's
not how it works. Is this aninvestment in your company? The way
any investment would be like Rand D or bonds. You know, there is
(09:09):
a return on investment forthis and like there's data about
this and this will make yourcompany better. And there are no
downsides. So just a questionof like, you know where you want
to start. And so, yeah. Soright now really are. I'm finding
the best conversations happenat the C level. Because what I like
to say to people in the Csuite is, listen, like, what does
(09:30):
your employee turnover costyou? Because that is incredibly expensive.
And what if you could spend.Yeah, sorry, sorry.
It's a 45 billion dollarexpense in the United, just in the
United States alone. Andthat's like a, that's like a, A statistic
that I, that I don't know, Imust have googled it. I don't know
(09:52):
how many, like two or twoyears ago, whatever. So. And it was
like just in the UnitedStates. It didn't mean to interrupt,
but I was like, oh, it's like.
Yeah. And then what happens isI think a lot of times organizations
just assume it's just the costof business and it just actually
doesn't have to be that way.And one thing that's really interesting
and maybe you know this too,but like every industry has its own
(10:12):
like weird average of employeeturnover. Like I, I pay a ton of
attention to like hospitalsand healthcare because that's around
20% up depending on the place.But it can be expensive, especially
expensive in hospitals becauseyou have like traveling nurses or
you have ways to plug a hole.But it's very expensive. The other
day I was looking up theconstruction industry. It's like
(10:34):
60% employee turnover in theconstruction industry. I know, isn't
that crazy? And it's alsoreally high like that for food retail,
like, you know, McDonald'sand, and, or maybe it's like fast.
I don't. Anyway, but everyindustry has their own like Number,
like, it's like 14% in tech.It's all like, a little bit different.
And, and kind of my pitch isthat a, what if you weren't average?
(10:58):
What if you're better thanaverage? You know, what would that
mean to your business and whatwould that mean to your recruiting
and what would that mean toyour revenue? And. And that's kind
of what I kind of think thatwe all should be striving for is
like, instead of just saying,this is just what it is, what it
is, it's like, let's find away to be excellent, you know, and
in a way that's cost efficient.
(11:20):
You know, Francie, I love thatbecause I'm just like, oh, got it.
Like, you're speaking mylanguage. I'm like, because it's
so true. Like, I look at you,look at. To me, leadership is not.
And, and companies andbusinesses should be, you know, it
shouldn't be people runningaway from them.
Yeah, it should be.
(11:41):
And, and, and trust me, Idon't want to say, oh, my God, all
these people should not becomeentrepreneurs. And, but. But imagine
if, like, turnover wasn't asgreat and the company truly invested
in the people and they hadgreat leadership. And you could say
to, you know, your leader and.Or maybe even to the CEO or whatever
(12:03):
and say, hey, you know, CEO orperson. I have this idea. And why
can't we make companiesentrepreneurial? You know, you could
be sitting, you know, in thisposition, be like, God, you know,
we could be doing it better ifwe, you know, maybe if we went, you
know, instead of pressing thebutton like this, we pressed it like
this. You know what I mean?And so create that internal entrepreneurial
(12:30):
feeling where people are partof something bigger than themselves
versus just a time punch ordoing the work.
Yeah, 100. In fact, it's sofunny, when you were speaking, it
reminded me of thisconversation I had the other day,
which is like, you know, kindof the conversation was, well, how
do you keep rising stars? And.And one of the things is you have
to constantly. If reallyeveryone in the company, but especially
(12:53):
stars, you have to developthem professionally. You can't just,
like, hire, be like, oh, thisperson's a star. They're gonna, like,
change our culture. That's,like, not how it works. So, like,
even if you, like, are doinggrass is greener thing, and you pull
on someone who's a star, youstill have to be developing them.
And then I think what the kindof future of human capital is a little
(13:13):
bit is, like you said, lettingpeople Be a little entrepreneurial.
Maybe it's a little bitoutside the lines, but if someone
has a lot of energy andcreativity, why not let them start
to develop something that theyfind interesting? It's almost like
that Google idea, like 20 ofyour time is working on this other
area. And it makes a lot ofsense because if you are, if you
have so many great ideas andyou're kind of like bound in by like
(13:37):
the infrastructure of acorporation, like, so, okay, like,
let them try something else.And like, who knows what that will
lead for the company. And Ithink when companies give up that
kind of control, like, reallyinteresting things happen. Like there's
also that story of the, thejanitor who was like the Cheetos
guy who came up with likespicy, you know, like more like Mexican
(13:57):
or just South American.
Right. They did that wholedocumentary on that whole thing.
Yeah.
And it's really, I mean, youknow, the, the. This, which I know
is a real story, but the otherstory to me is to. That is when I
was growing up, my parentswere manufacturers reps. I grew up
in Massachusetts. And Iremember my parents were sold to
(14:23):
this gentleman. I cannot thinkof his name, which is really horrible,
and I apologize for that. Buthe ended up becoming the CEO of TJ
Maxx. TJX started in the mailroom. You don't hear of those stories.
Like, he's in the mailroom andhe worked, he worked his way up.
(14:45):
He became a buyer. My parentsworked with him as a buyer. I mean,
the guy was at my bat mitzvah.I mean, like, you know, and then
he became the CEO of thiscompany. And I remember forget, like
when I moved to, when I movedback to Boston after living in New
York. I remember when walkinginto his office and you know, meeting
him and like he's CEO of thismassive conglomerate. And you just
(15:06):
think again, where did hestart? But if, you know, it is every
single person, if we know thatevery person in a company, if every
person, no matter where theyare, it's not about their title or
their position, it's abouttheir drive and their feeling for
the company. Them. Right. And,and, and their love company. You
(15:30):
know, you could be thejanitor. You know, it's. They tell
the story about, I don't know,I think it was in one of the compound
effect or something. Whateverabout, you know, maybe it was JFK
or I don't know, going tovisit NASA. Right. And the janitor
is like, you know, what do youdo? He goes, oh, I help. I help people.
(15:52):
I help get people on the moon, whatever.
Yeah, I love that. Well,another thing I was going to say
to you is I think like, forme, like, I'm always so in awe of
the coaches. Like, I, youknow, I'm not a coach, but I love
being coached. And I thinkthat the big thing that coaches do
is that they help people whodon't have, that they haven't grown
(16:14):
up with this like a plusparenting can do, you know, growth
mindset. And, and I wasthinking about like you were saying,
the guy grew up in themailroom. Like, I bet that guy was
like the. Not like, probablyone of like the top 1% of like growth
mindset people is my guess.And he was probably full of ideas,
always coming up with ways toimprove efficiency, you know, prove,
(16:37):
make efficient, blah, blah.And like, not everyone has that right,
but like, coaches can teachyou that and we could all be that,
you know. And so I think, Ithink about that so much, which is
like, listen, like, noteveryone has all the things. They
didn't have the exactbackground they all wish. But like,
when you bring in experts, wecan all be great, you know, if that's
(16:59):
what you want. And that's theother thing. It's like, you know,
employees have or people justhave to like, opt in. I think the
opting in is like a major gamechanger for these organizations because
when you tell someone you haveto do this training or that they're
like, oh, but if you can tellthem, like, yeah, but here's why
this matters and here's whythis is interesting. You, here's
why it'll make you better,blah, blah, like, that's much more
(17:20):
interesting. Or like, Janiceover here took this training and
then look what she did. Or youknow, I think like everyone wants
to before and after. Everyonewants to know, why me? Like, why
do I care? And I just, as Ithink about all this stuff and like,
why can't it be more often?Why can't that be more scalable?
Like, and we have all thetools now, so there's no reason why,
(17:41):
you know, everyone's justsaying, I'm from on top, do this,
do this, do this. It reallyshould be like, hey, we think if
you did these things, it wouldmake you more valuable or more effective
at your job. Like, you decidewhat do you, would you like to do
these? And I think in the pastpeople have just been like, well,
it's just not efficient tolike get everyone to buy in. I'm
(18:01):
just going to tell them to doit. But I actually think that like,
the better way to. Ultimately,the better way to do it is let people,
like, choose for themselves.
And, you know, it's so true.Because, you know what happens when
people are buying intosomething and they, and they feel
that they're part ofsomething. Right?
Yeah, exactly.
Right. They feel so muchbetter about them. And it's, and
(18:24):
it's true. You know, noteverybody was brought up in this
can do.
Right.
You know, and I, and, and Ishared this the other day. I was,
I was a guest on a podcast.And I'm going to share this because
I think it's, it's, it'smaking me think about this. You know,
movies, kids movies are reallygreat at coming up with and sharing
(18:51):
little nuggets. And so I thinkCars, the cars movie, cars three,
if you haven't seen.
It, you know.
Okay, cars three, it. Thewhole thing about cars three is that,
that, that lightning McQueenis kind of like, he's, he's old,
(19:13):
right? He's, you know, he's,he's not the shiny new thing anymore.
There's bigger muscle. There'sother people have, you know, different
configurations in the cars andthere's like, some things newer and
shinier and faster and, andwhat. There's a person who's training
him, who's supposed to betraining, and he sees something in
(19:34):
her and he asks. And she, shesaid to him, she said, you know,
I had my chance and I lost it.I got up to the starting line and,
you know, and I just, Icouldn't go. And. And so she ended
up asking, Lightning McQueen,she said, what made you get to that
(19:55):
starting line and, and knowthat you could do it? He said, I
didn't, but I never thought Icouldn't. Like, I never thought,
like, that wasn't in myvocabulary. It wasn't in my mind.
It just. I just thought that Icould, like, I know that I knew that
I could. Would. I. I don't know.
But.
And so, and it was thatmindset shift, like, knowing that,
(20:19):
you know, is it the. Is it?And so that's one of the things that
I love about what you're doingand, and how, how we can help people
better shift their mindsets incompanies to know that anything is
possible.
Yeah. And I think. And so oneof my big things is, you know, I'm
(20:39):
sure you know all about this,but like the, the Google project,
Aristotle and how they, theydiscovered and published, I guess,
in 2015, that they done a big,like, deep dive into their best teams
and to try to figure out whatMakes the best team. And like, was
it geography? Was it this? Wasthat? And the. The only, like, the
one through line waspsychological. And, and since then,
(21:03):
everyone's been trying tofigure out, like, well, how do you
scale psychological safety?And I think my takeaway is coaching,
group coaching, because youhave to practice it. You have to
have someone who reallyunderstands it. And it doesn't have
to be like, someone who'slike, certified in psychological
safety, but it's. It's anexpert who just helps people, like,
understand how to respectdifferences or how to, like, you
(21:25):
know, communicate with someonewho sees the world differently. And,
like, that's what all thesecoaches are doing, right? It's like,
instead of saying, like,janice is so annoying, I'm not going
to talk to her anymore becauseshe's toxic, it's like, okay, well,
how can I get Janice on myside? Like, how. What's the way to,
like, understand her better?Like, what motivates her? Like, that's
a different. It's a. It's alittle bit of a game. It is a mindset
(21:46):
shift. But, you know, ifyou're able to, like, have the support
of other people around you andit becomes. Everyone realizes, like,
that's a different way tooperate and it's effective. Like,
let's try it, you know, And Ithink that's what everyone ultimately
is doing in thesepsychologically safe places, is everyone's
connecting, everyone'sspeaking to their truth. It may not
go the way you want, but, youknow, it's like you just say what
(22:09):
you like. And, and, andreally, it also makes me think of
intersectionalism, which isthis idea that I learned about it
a long. Not a long time ago,but, like, was that 2016? But basically
that when you, you. How do yousay it? When you work on the problems
of the most vulnerable people,that solves everyone's problem, right?
(22:31):
And so that same idea of,like, well, actually just like, focusing
on these small details, whichare probably not super efficient,
and maybe it's an edge case,but who knows who else might have
that edge case and you justmight not know it, you know, so,
like, when you help peoplewho, like me, let's say, are disabled,
that will help people who havea broken leg. And that might be temporary,
(22:51):
but, you know, all theseideas. And so I think it's like helping
everyone kind of thrive andraise their potential is kind of
like my sort of vision. And fancy.
I love, I love that. I lovethat. So talk to me a little bit
about the three differentgroups that you have in, you know,
that you said that you have.So what are the three?
(23:13):
Yeah, yeah. So the coaches andthey're experts and, and like I say,
they're like all the stars inthe sky. Like, everyone has a different
perspective and, and obviouslyeveryone has a different sort of
story and experiences. We havelike, you know, we have many PhDs,
you know, who basicallycreated their own, like, tests and,
and content. And then we havepeople who haven't gone to college
(23:35):
who are just crazy talented.Like, you know, one guy does group
coaching in prisons. Like,that's super cool. Or just people
who've done it their wholelives and didn't realize there was
like a name for it stuff. Likethere's just. They're just cool people.
And, and so, you know, webasically, for the coaches were just
bas trying to say to them, youbring your content, you bring your
(23:56):
expertise, you tell us theprice, and we let the employer choose.
And so typically what it lookslike is like, we'll help, we'll work
with an employer to come upwith an rfp, a request for proposal,
and then we send it out to allthe coaches and we say, you tell
us what they should do. Wewant to hear directly from you and
like, what's your rate? What'show much time will it take? You know,
(24:18):
blah, blah, blah. And then wesend it to the employer to kind of
react to. And so, you know,typically we'll have anywhere from
like four to 20 proposals. Andthen the buyer can kind of decide
what they want their next stepto be. But again, like, it's just
a way to give them so muchchoice and see a variety of prices
and a variety of coaches andstyles. And. And again, like, I,
(24:41):
I just, I'm a big believer inbuy in. Right? So it's not like we're
saying to the employer like,this is what you need. It's more
like we're trying to say tothem, what's your problem? Let's
try to find experts who canhelp you with that problem. Let's
see how you react to like,their proposals. And then, you know,
let's get really specific. Sothe person you hire is like the perfect,
perfect person for you. Andthen the third group is the employee
(25:02):
isn't. And the one funny thingabout it is that sometimes what the
employer thinks the employeesneed is not what the employee wants.
And so we also help them withlike, surveys and really trying to
get to the bottom of like,what would be interesting or helpful
to employees, because I thinkthere is that potential when you're
the buyer, you're like, oh, Iknow what the problem is, or I think
(25:23):
they should have this. Butthen again, you get the better buy
in if the employees aresaying, I could really use this,
not this other thing. And sothose are the three groups. And it's
funny because the employersand employees are obviously aligned
because they work together,but they have different perspectives
because a typical employee isthinking, like, what does this do
for me? What does this do formy career? How does this help me?
(25:46):
Where the employer is morethinking about the organization and
like an aggregate and alsoprice and roi, all that stuff. Right.
So they have different kind oflike, perspectives, but that those
are the three groups.
Yeah, yeah. And so do, do youhave any of the, the employees just
come directly to you?
(26:07):
I haven't yet. You know, Iwould, I would totally do that. I
would love to do that. Like,my vision is, you know, like, right
now we do employ employers.Right, because it's easy to corral
a group and you don't let outcompany secrets or whatever. But
I think there's a lot ofpotential for, you know, 20 people
around America, you know, toget on a call once a week or once
(26:27):
a month and to have some samegoal. It could be anything. Right.
It could be like negotiationor it could be tough conversation.
It could be anything, youknow, and I, I would, I would love
to do that. It's just more theherding of the cat is the, is the
issue with that. But, but Ialso love the idea of an employee
pitch, like pitching to theircompany. Like, I would be very helpful
(26:48):
with that as well because Ithink they know better than anyone,
like, about what they need.
Yeah, no, that's actuallyreally, that's really. So what's
your next. So what's your,where do you see the company going?
And what's, what are your,what are the next two steps that
you need to take?
Yeah. Oh, good question. Nexttwo steps. Well, the, the big thing
that we're kind of doing is Ireally think we could help with any
(27:09):
knowledge worker and probablyany worker. I haven't really been
focusing much on, like, bluecollar jobs, but I think there's
a really interesting use casefor that. But so initially we've
been focusing on, oh, youknow, knowledge workers, and I just
sort of define that as peoplewho are primarily using, you know,
the computer to do their work.Yeah, I didn't write a second book.
(27:30):
Well, how do you define that?And, and then we keep getting more
and more specific becausewe've had, we have some, like, Good
experience. Also some casestudies with hospitals and healthcare.
And so we're trying to focus alittle bit. Like I said, it's about
20% employee turnover. Andhospitals are actually interesting
(27:51):
to me because when they plug ahole, it's very expensive. So like
traveling nurses and all thesekinds of overtime things where you
need bodies, it's veryexpensive. And so I think there's
a lot we can help with. Andtypically doctors and nurses and
techs haven't ever receivedpersonal assessments or coaching
(28:12):
or there. It's actually thisfascinating area of the American
economy that has had verylittle professional development outside
of science and math.
Yeah, I could go down a rabbithole on healthcare. My husband's
a physician. Oh, so we cantake that offline.
(28:34):
It's so interesting to me. So,like, also, I mean, just in this
whole personal assessmentthing, like, again, like, we don't
have like a dog in this fight.But I had my first personal assessment
in business school and it waslike, mind blowing because I learned
I did Myers Briggs and somepeople liked it. That's fine. But
like, it was really helpful tome because it told me that I was
(28:57):
this crazy, off the chartsextrovert. And I never would have
thought of myself that way.It's more that I'm really just motivated
by relationships. It's notthat I'm like a glad, handy person
who walks into rooms and like,introduces myself to everyone. And
like, that really, like,opened my eyes. And we had a similar
thing with the hospital wherewe had a bunch of doctors and they
never had a personalassessment. They were like in their
(29:19):
30s and 40s and 50s and like,it's like, it blew their mind because
they were like, well, theyassumed that everyone thought the
way they did. And even withina doctor organization where it's
science and math, like, therewere like four, six, like groups
of different people seeing theworld differently and like what mattered
to them. And that reallyaffected hair because if they were
(29:39):
trying to tell someone why itwas important to immediately do this
thing, but the person hearingit wasn't their. Their key things
were not being checked off.They're like, I'll do that later.
And so anyway, it just blew mymind. I feel like, wow, there's so
much opportunity to help andit just wouldn't even. Wouldn't be
that long. It wouldn't takethat much money. So that's kind of
why I find it reallyinteresting in healthier space.
(30:01):
It's true because a lot oftimes people don't look at physicians
or even sometimes I'm going toput attorneys in sometimes.
Yeah, that's another good one.
Yeah, there's, you know, theysee things through a certain lens
and then when you switch thelens they're like, ooh. So it's like
helping them see thingsthrough those different lenses, you
(30:23):
know, and how, how they cannot, you know, they are in a position
almost like to be telling likeyou've got this or you need to do
this, but you need to almostlike, you know, take it from the
standpoint of the, of theperson that's sitting in front of
you.
Right, right, right, right,exactly. And I think that's the thing.
(30:46):
I call it like the engineeringbrain. I think when you are very
clear about the steps tosuccess, it seems really obvious
that there are sets ofsuccess. But you know, there, there
aren't many like thingsbetween humans where there's like
one right way. Right. Youknow, and so I think that like to,
to step out of that for amoment and realize like, yeah, you
(31:07):
might be the leading brainsurgeon in America, but that doesn't
mean that this person overhere doesn't have great ideas about
like, you know, how to washyour hands. You know, I mean they're,
they're, they're just like,there are all these ways that like
people see the worlddifferently that I think help each
other. And so I think thatlike that's this interesting opportunity,
(31:28):
I think for the health, thehealthcare space.
Okay, so, so, so step is onestep is, is working with, you know,
the blue collar, right?
Oh yeah, that would be cool.Yeah, that'd be cool. Yeah.
And so what's it, what's,what's the second step for you?
Oh, oh, okay. I will say.Okay, so in terms of like the steps,
what I have to do to be moresuccessful, I'm telling you, I'll
(31:49):
tell you right now. So I'mdoing this whole like focus of really
reaching out directly, likeone on one individual emails and
calls and like warm intros toC suite people at for profit hospitals.
And so that's kind of what I'mworking on. And I think, because
(32:09):
what I realized is this is nota, a spray and pray type product.
Right. I think it's somethingthat you really have to understand.
And I want to speak tothoughtful people and have thoughtful
conversations and I'm not liketrying to sell them on any one thing
but just really open up theaperture or let them realize that
like this exists. And so it'sa little bit of education as well
(32:31):
too. And so for me I reallyhave to, so Basically I have this
whole like, like elaborateidea about understanding who's hiring
the most and doing some workon like staffing websites and stuff
like that. So that's like mynext big step is to really just start
to do a lot of work to, to seeon these staffing websites who's
hiring the most. And I come upwith this like idea of like who's
(32:55):
hiring the most as a ratio oflike their total employees because
I feel like that would showyou who's like in under the most
pressure. And so I thinkthat's really interesting to me and
I need to focus on that. I'mvery close to being inbox zero. That's
another step I really want to.I have two emails in my inbox right
(33:17):
now and I'm like so excitedbecause for me it also feels like
a blank slate. Like I feellike I can like do things when I
don't have to dos and sittingin front of me. And so I'm really
trying to get rid of my todo's. So as I said, those are the
main things. You know, I'vebeen doing a lot of like one on one
networking with people andtrying to make intros and I love
(33:39):
that. That to me is like aperfect use of like my sort of brain.
And so I love sort of beinglike, you know, helpful and just
like generous with people withintroductions. And so I've been doing
a lot of that and I alwayswant to try to follow through on
that as I prioritize those as well.
That's awesome. That's really,really great. You know Francie, I
(34:02):
could talk to you for absolutehours. But so, but how can people
get in touch with you andlearn more about you and your company
and getting involved?
Yeah, yeah. So Tarawatt Co isour website and we have a get in
touch page and that can eithertake you to set up a call with me
or you can also just join ournewsletter. Our most active social
(34:23):
media is LinkedIn. I'm prettyactive and then the company is pretty
active too. Those are the bestways to find me or engage. And we
have some other smaller socialmedia but it's a little bit sad.
So those are probably the main ones.
Okay, well absolutelyfantastic. So leaders listening to
this, you heard this, right?We are talking about using coaching
(34:46):
to really help grow your teamand to actually create great happy
people and employees in yourfold so that you have long standing
growth and have great, youknow, results and increase your bottom
line at the the ROI is youknow, happy people make a happy company,
(35:10):
which makes for a growingcompany. So I want you guys to all
connect with Francia. Connectwith her, learn about her company.
Engage. And remember, if wecan do this and make better leaders,
if you can become a betterleader, you will not only have an
(35:30):
unstoppable company, butyou'll have unstoppable employees.
So if you have gotten anygreat wisdom out of this, which I'm
sure you have, hit thesubscribe button. I am Jaclyn Strominger ,
your high performance coachand the host of Unstoppable Leadership
Spotlight. And I thank you allfor listening, and thank you, Francie,
for being an amazing guest.
Thank you, lady.
Well, hello everybody andwelcome to another great episode
of the Unstoppable LeadershipSpotlight podcast. I am your host,
Jaclyn Strominger and on thisshow we hear from amazing leaders
and their game changinginsights and great tips, things that
you can do to become a betterleader. And remember, each and every
one of us is the CEO ofourselves. So we have to start with
(01:21):
leadership right here. Sotoday I have Francie Jain on as my
amazing guest. Let me give youa little, little background on Francie.
She, first of all, this, Ilove this, believes that happy and
productive communities aremade up of people who strive and
receive support to becometheir best selves. Of course. And
she founded Terawatt to createan impactful, affordable and intellectually
(01:45):
honest way to help everyonethrive. And she believes that supporting
people to achieve theirpotential creates a ripple effect
in every community. I couldnot agree more. So welcome Francie
lady.
I'm so happy to be here.
Okay, so the, the what I justread, like the part where it's like
(02:09):
creating that thriving community.
Yeah.
Did this all come from for you?
Oh God. So such a goodquestion because this is not at all
my background. I, you know, Iwent to business school and I was
working, I was in finance fora long time and. But I was always
like the matchmaker. That waskind of my role. I was doing capital
(02:30):
raising for hedge funds and,and I think, you know, it's like
there's a kind of naturalprogression for a lot of people.
Like, you know, you're sort ofwhat intrigues you as a young person
or maybe before you had afamily or whatever might change later.
And so I, I sort of payingattention to like there's just this
one statistic about the lossof manufacturing jobs in America.
(02:53):
And it was very significant.And I thought, wow, are those numbers
true? Like it was likemillions and millions of jobs. And
I've done all this researchsince and. But yes, like the peak
of American manufacturing wasin the 40s. And so if you basically
look at in time series, it'slike lots of manufacturing jobs have
been lost just because it'snever been a flat industry. It's
(03:14):
always, it just peaked a longtime ago. And so I thought, well,
you know, who's helping thosepeople as they find a new career?
Because I knew in myexperience when I switched careers,
I freaked out my family andfreaked out my fan and my friends.
You know, people always like,like kind of hyper about it and I
was always like saying tothem, chill, like it'll be fine.
(03:36):
You know, like I'll Figure itout. And so I guess my insight was,
I bet that's really hard forthem because not that many people
are good at helping throughthese kinds of transitions. And then
I thought, oh, I wonder who's.I wonder if there's like a Yahoo.
Of like, career change.Because it's an American way, right?
There's a boom, the bus. Webelieve in capitalism. We, you know,
(03:56):
we just let things, like, fallwhere they may. And I couldn't find
anything. And I started to getreally obsessed with this idea of,
like, who's helping careerchange people? And is that, like,
a weird thing, like, somehowhasn't really happened in America?
And so, again, like, I mean, Ihad been an entrepreneur before that
(04:16):
I started a business raisingcapital, but I never thought of myself
as like a startup kind of aperson. And I definitely don't have
an HR background or learningand development background. It was
more just like I keptthinking, well, if no one's going
to do this, like, I'm going todo this. I think this really needs
to happen. This needs to be athing. And part of my thing was also,
like, I get annoyed byorganizations that look like they're
(04:39):
helping individuals but reallydon't. Like, conferences can be,
you know, questionable becauseyou're paying a lot of money, but
you're kind of sitting on yourbutt. Or, you know, headhunters,
but they're really working forthe employer. You know, all these
kinds of things or some or soeven like Facebook and these social
media, like, you're theproduct, you're being advertised
to. You know, all thesethings. I just felt like, theoretically
(05:02):
help people, but reallythey're. The people are being kind
of thrown to the walls alittle bit. And so this is. The whole
idea of this is like, how canI build something that really helps
people be great? And there'sintellectually honest. And I'm not,
you know, taking advantage ofanyone and, you know, everyone. And
so it's going to be a long,long time because, again, like, not
(05:24):
my background and because I'msort of leading with values. It took
a while to figure out, butultimately, now here we are. It's
a B2B marketplace, meaning wesell to employers. And what's cool
about that is we have threestakeholders. And the thing that
I love about this business isI've designed it so that everyone.
There's only one website. Itell the same thing to all three
groups. There's no, like, noone's being disadvantaged. Everyone's
(05:50):
being treated very well, andthe way they want to be treated.
And it makes me really happybecause, you know, certainly at the
outset you could probably makemore money by disadvantaging one
group, which lots oforganizations do right now. But I
really wanted to set somethingup so that I felt proud about what
I'd done. And a lot of, andlike a lot of people I know from
(06:12):
college are coaches is one ofmy jokes with the thing. So, like,
I also built this for them tohave it be a system that they make
makes sense for them. Theywant to stay. And, and so that, that's
sort of the 30,000 foot viewof the whole thing.
Okay, so I've got a couple ofdifferent questions, but I want to
start with because there's afew things here. But, but first.
(06:36):
And then I'm going to go intomy first question before I go to
the second question. But thefirst question is, you know, it's
what you just said about, youknow, like the transitions into people.
Right. People making thosetransitions. And, and really, you
know, who at the companies whoare doing that. And I look at that
(06:59):
and think in actuality, that'slike one of the key reasons why we
do this podcast is becauseleaders are supposed to be leaders
and that lead. The word is tolead people, not to manage.
Right, right, right, right, right.
We're not managing people.Right. We're leading them. So if
(07:21):
I'm leading you, I'm yourtechnically your manager, I'm really
your leader, then I should beable to in a company lead up to help
you.
Yeah.
And that doesn't necessarilyhappen. And it should be that I know
you like, I like. Oh, Francie,I know who you are. You're doing
great here. Oh, but let mefind out from you, like, where do
you want to go? What is yourvision? What's your mission in your
(07:43):
life? Maybe this position isnot the right position for you. Maybe.
Yes.
Like so, so I love what you'redoing because it's it to me that's
what's missing so much in somany companies today. So where do
you find. And you know, asyou're working with people today,
(08:05):
is it. Is it working with thecompanies so that the company better
leaders or is it theindividual or is it the Both.
Yes, a great question. So likewe kind of a few processes is like
the way to think about it. Solike on one side we are constantly
betting coaches. We have likealmost like 100 coaches on terrawatt
(08:27):
and that side of it's likesemi viral. Meaning like we have
great coaches. They tell othercoaches they Admire or who they like,
they respect and then theyintroduce them to us. And so that's
one side and we. And becausewe're a marketplace, we always want
to keep the ones we have andadd more. So there's just more choice
from the buyer then the otherside is the employers and the employees.
(08:48):
And so we're really mostlymarketing to the employers because
the art. Our argument rightnow, because a lot of times people
say, well, coaching, that'sgreat, if I had extra money, I would
do it. But we're saying isactually, listen, it's not, that's
not how it works. Is this aninvestment in your company? The way
any investment would be like Rand D or bonds. You know, there is
(09:09):
a return on investment forthis and like there's data about
this and this will make yourcompany better. And there are no
downsides. So just a questionof like, you know where you want
to start. And so, yeah. Soright now really are. I'm finding
the best conversations happenat the C level. Because what I like
to say to people in the Csuite is, listen, like, what does
(09:30):
your employee turnover costyou? Because that is incredibly expensive.
And what if you could spend.Yeah, sorry, sorry.
It's a 45 billion dollarexpense in the United, just in the
United States alone. Andthat's like a, that's like a, A statistic
that I, that I don't know, Imust have googled it. I don't know
(09:52):
how many, like two or twoyears ago, whatever. So. And it was
like just in the UnitedStates. It didn't mean to interrupt,
but I was like, oh, it's like.
Yeah. And then what happens isI think a lot of times organizations
just assume it's just the costof business and it just actually
doesn't have to be that way.And one thing that's really interesting
and maybe you know this too,but like every industry has its own
(10:12):
like weird average of employeeturnover. Like I, I pay a ton of
attention to like hospitalsand healthcare because that's around
20% up depending on the place.But it can be expensive, especially
expensive in hospitals becauseyou have like traveling nurses or
you have ways to plug a hole.But it's very expensive. The other
day I was looking up theconstruction industry. It's like
(10:34):
60% employee turnover in theconstruction industry. I know, isn't
that crazy? And it's alsoreally high like that for food retail,
like, you know, McDonald'sand, and, or maybe it's like fast.
I don't. Anyway, but everyindustry has their own like Number,
like, it's like 14% in tech.It's all like, a little bit different.
And, and kind of my pitch isthat a, what if you weren't average?
(10:58):
What if you're better thanaverage? You know, what would that
mean to your business and whatwould that mean to your recruiting
and what would that mean toyour revenue? And. And that's kind
of what I kind of think thatwe all should be striving for is
like, instead of just saying,this is just what it is, what it
is, it's like, let's find away to be excellent, you know, and
in a way that's cost efficient.
(11:20):
You know, Francie, I love thatbecause I'm just like, oh, got it.
Like, you're speaking mylanguage. I'm like, because it's
so true. Like, I look at you,look at. To me, leadership is not.
And, and companies andbusinesses should be, you know, it
shouldn't be people runningaway from them.
Yeah, it should be.
(11:41):
And, and, and trust me, Idon't want to say, oh, my God, all
these people should not becomeentrepreneurs. And, but. But imagine
if, like, turnover wasn't asgreat and the company truly invested
in the people and they hadgreat leadership. And you could say
to, you know, your leader and.Or maybe even to the CEO or whatever
(12:03):
and say, hey, you know, CEO orperson. I have this idea. And why
can't we make companiesentrepreneurial? You know, you could
be sitting, you know, in thisposition, be like, God, you know,
we could be doing it better ifwe, you know, maybe if we went, you
know, instead of pressing thebutton like this, we pressed it like
this. You know what I mean?And so create that internal entrepreneurial
(12:30):
feeling where people are partof something bigger than themselves
versus just a time punch ordoing the work.
Yeah, 100. In fact, it's sofunny, when you were speaking, it
reminded me of thisconversation I had the other day,
which is like, you know, kindof the conversation was, well, how
do you keep rising stars? And.And one of the things is you have
to constantly. If reallyeveryone in the company, but especially
(12:53):
stars, you have to developthem professionally. You can't just,
like, hire, be like, oh, thisperson's a star. They're gonna, like,
change our culture. That's,like, not how it works. So, like,
even if you, like, are doinggrass is greener thing, and you pull
on someone who's a star, youstill have to be developing them.
And then I think what the kindof future of human capital is a little
(13:13):
bit is, like you said, lettingpeople Be a little entrepreneurial.
Maybe it's a little bitoutside the lines, but if someone
has a lot of energy andcreativity, why not let them start
to develop something that theyfind interesting? It's almost like
that Google idea, like 20 ofyour time is working on this other
area. And it makes a lot ofsense because if you are, if you
have so many great ideas andyou're kind of like bound in by like
(13:37):
the infrastructure of acorporation, like, so, okay, like,
let them try something else.And like, who knows what that will
lead for the company. And Ithink when companies give up that
kind of control, like, reallyinteresting things happen. Like there's
also that story of the, thejanitor who was like the Cheetos
guy who came up with likespicy, you know, like more like Mexican
(13:57):
or just South American.
Right. They did that wholedocumentary on that whole thing.
Yeah.
And it's really, I mean, youknow, the, the. This, which I know
is a real story, but the otherstory to me is to. That is when I
was growing up, my parentswere manufacturers reps. I grew up
in Massachusetts. And Iremember my parents were sold to
(14:23):
this gentleman. I cannot thinkof his name, which is really horrible,
and I apologize for that. Buthe ended up becoming the CEO of TJ
Maxx. TJX started in the mailroom. You don't hear of those stories.
Like, he's in the mailroom andhe worked, he worked his way up.
(14:45):
He became a buyer. My parentsworked with him as a buyer. I mean,
the guy was at my bat mitzvah.I mean, like, you know, and then
he became the CEO of thiscompany. And I remember forget, like
when I moved to, when I movedback to Boston after living in New
York. I remember when walkinginto his office and you know, meeting
him and like he's CEO of thismassive conglomerate. And you just
(15:06):
think again, where did hestart? But if, you know, it is every
single person, if we know thatevery person in a company, if every
person, no matter where theyare, it's not about their title or
their position, it's abouttheir drive and their feeling for
the company. Them. Right. And,and, and their love company. You
(15:30):
know, you could be thejanitor. You know, it's. They tell
the story about, I don't know,I think it was in one of the compound
effect or something. Whateverabout, you know, maybe it was JFK
or I don't know, going tovisit NASA. Right. And the janitor
is like, you know, what do youdo? He goes, oh, I help. I help people.
(15:52):
I help get people on the moon, whatever.
Yeah, I love that. Well,another thing I was going to say
to you is I think like, forme, like, I'm always so in awe of
the coaches. Like, I, youknow, I'm not a coach, but I love
being coached. And I thinkthat the big thing that coaches do
is that they help people whodon't have, that they haven't grown
(16:14):
up with this like a plusparenting can do, you know, growth
mindset. And, and I wasthinking about like you were saying,
the guy grew up in themailroom. Like, I bet that guy was
like the. Not like, probablyone of like the top 1% of like growth
mindset people is my guess.And he was probably full of ideas,
always coming up with ways toimprove efficiency, you know, prove,
(16:37):
make efficient, blah, blah.And like, not everyone has that right,
but like, coaches can teachyou that and we could all be that,
you know. And so I think, Ithink about that so much, which is
like, listen, like, noteveryone has all the things. They
didn't have the exactbackground they all wish. But like,
when you bring in experts, wecan all be great, you know, if that's
(16:59):
what you want. And that's theother thing. It's like, you know,
employees have or people justhave to like, opt in. I think the
opting in is like a major gamechanger for these organizations because
when you tell someone you haveto do this training or that they're
like, oh, but if you can tellthem, like, yeah, but here's why
this matters and here's whythis is interesting. You, here's
why it'll make you better,blah, blah, like, that's much more
(17:20):
interesting. Or like, Janiceover here took this training and
then look what she did. Or youknow, I think like everyone wants
to before and after. Everyonewants to know, why me? Like, why
do I care? And I just, as Ithink about all this stuff and like,
why can't it be more often?Why can't that be more scalable?
Like, and we have all thetools now, so there's no reason why,
(17:41):
you know, everyone's justsaying, I'm from on top, do this,
do this, do this. It reallyshould be like, hey, we think if
you did these things, it wouldmake you more valuable or more effective
at your job. Like, you decidewhat do you, would you like to do
these? And I think in the pastpeople have just been like, well,
it's just not efficient tolike get everyone to buy in. I'm
(18:01):
just going to tell them to doit. But I actually think that like,
the better way to. Ultimately,the better way to do it is let people,
like, choose for themselves.
And, you know, it's so true.Because, you know what happens when
people are buying intosomething and they, and they feel
that they're part ofsomething. Right?
Yeah, exactly.
Right. They feel so muchbetter about them. And it's, and
(18:24):
it's true. You know, noteverybody was brought up in this
can do.
Right.
You know, and I, and, and Ishared this the other day. I was,
I was a guest on a podcast.And I'm going to share this because
I think it's, it's, it'smaking me think about this. You know,
movies, kids movies are reallygreat at coming up with and sharing
(18:51):
little nuggets. And so I thinkCars, the cars movie, cars three,
if you haven't seen.
It, you know.
Okay, cars three, it. Thewhole thing about cars three is that,
that, that lightning McQueenis kind of like, he's, he's old,
(19:13):
right? He's, you know, he's,he's not the shiny new thing anymore.
There's bigger muscle. There'sother people have, you know, different
configurations in the cars andthere's like, some things newer and
shinier and faster and, andwhat. There's a person who's training
him, who's supposed to betraining, and he sees something in
(19:34):
her and he asks. And she, shesaid to him, she said, you know,
I had my chance and I lost it.I got up to the starting line and,
you know, and I just, Icouldn't go. And. And so she ended
up asking, Lightning McQueen,she said, what made you get to that
(19:55):
starting line and, and knowthat you could do it? He said, I
didn't, but I never thought Icouldn't. Like, I never thought,
like, that wasn't in myvocabulary. It wasn't in my mind.
It just. I just thought that Icould, like, I know that I knew that
I could. Would. I. I don't know.
But.
And so, and it was thatmindset shift, like, knowing that,
(20:19):
you know, is it the. Is it?And so that's one of the things that
I love about what you're doingand, and how, how we can help people
better shift their mindsets incompanies to know that anything is
possible.
Yeah. And I think. And so oneof my big things is, you know, I'm
(20:39):
sure you know all about this,but like the, the Google project,
Aristotle and how they, theydiscovered and published, I guess,
in 2015, that they done a big,like, deep dive into their best teams
and to try to figure out whatMakes the best team. And like, was
it geography? Was it this? Wasthat? And the. The only, like, the
one through line waspsychological. And, and since then,
(21:03):
everyone's been trying tofigure out, like, well, how do you
scale psychological safety?And I think my takeaway is coaching,
group coaching, because youhave to practice it. You have to
have someone who reallyunderstands it. And it doesn't have
to be like, someone who'slike, certified in psychological
safety, but it's. It's anexpert who just helps people, like,
understand how to respectdifferences or how to, like, you
(21:25):
know, communicate with someonewho sees the world differently. And,
like, that's what all thesecoaches are doing, right? It's like,
instead of saying, like,janice is so annoying, I'm not going
to talk to her anymore becauseshe's toxic, it's like, okay, well,
how can I get Janice on myside? Like, how. What's the way to,
like, understand her better?Like, what motivates her? Like, that's
a different. It's a. It's alittle bit of a game. It is a mindset
(21:46):
shift. But, you know, ifyou're able to, like, have the support
of other people around you andit becomes. Everyone realizes, like,
that's a different way tooperate and it's effective. Like,
let's try it, you know, And Ithink that's what everyone ultimately
is doing in thesepsychologically safe places, is everyone's
connecting, everyone'sspeaking to their truth. It may not
go the way you want, but, youknow, it's like you just say what
(22:09):
you like. And, and, andreally, it also makes me think of
intersectionalism, which isthis idea that I learned about it
a long. Not a long time ago,but, like, was that 2016? But basically
that when you, you. How do yousay it? When you work on the problems
of the most vulnerable people,that solves everyone's problem, right?
(22:31):
And so that same idea of,like, well, actually just like, focusing
on these small details, whichare probably not super efficient,
and maybe it's an edge case,but who knows who else might have
that edge case and you justmight not know it, you know, so,
like, when you help peoplewho, like me, let's say, are disabled,
that will help people who havea broken leg. And that might be temporary,
(22:51):
but, you know, all theseideas. And so I think it's like helping
everyone kind of thrive andraise their potential is kind of
like my sort of vision. And fancy.
I love, I love that. I lovethat. So talk to me a little bit
about the three differentgroups that you have in, you know,
that you said that you have.So what are the three?
(23:13):
Yeah, yeah. So the coaches andthey're experts and, and like I say,
they're like all the stars inthe sky. Like, everyone has a different
perspective and, and obviouslyeveryone has a different sort of
story and experiences. We havelike, you know, we have many PhDs,
you know, who basicallycreated their own, like, tests and,
and content. And then we havepeople who haven't gone to college
(23:35):
who are just crazy talented.Like, you know, one guy does group
coaching in prisons. Like,that's super cool. Or just people
who've done it their wholelives and didn't realize there was
like a name for it stuff. Likethere's just. They're just cool people.
And, and so, you know, webasically, for the coaches were just
bas trying to say to them, youbring your content, you bring your
(23:56):
expertise, you tell us theprice, and we let the employer choose.
And so typically what it lookslike is like, we'll help, we'll work
with an employer to come upwith an rfp, a request for proposal,
and then we send it out to allthe coaches and we say, you tell
us what they should do. Wewant to hear directly from you and
like, what's your rate? What'show much time will it take? You know,
(24:18):
blah, blah, blah. And then wesend it to the employer to kind of
react to. And so, you know,typically we'll have anywhere from
like four to 20 proposals. Andthen the buyer can kind of decide
what they want their next stepto be. But again, like, it's just
a way to give them so muchchoice and see a variety of prices
and a variety of coaches andstyles. And. And again, like, I,
(24:41):
I just, I'm a big believer inbuy in. Right? So it's not like we're
saying to the employer like,this is what you need. It's more
like we're trying to say tothem, what's your problem? Let's
try to find experts who canhelp you with that problem. Let's
see how you react to like,their proposals. And then, you know,
let's get really specific. Sothe person you hire is like the perfect,
perfect person for you. Andthen the third group is the employee
(25:02):
isn't. And the one funny thingabout it is that sometimes what the
employer thinks the employeesneed is not what the employee wants.
And so we also help them withlike, surveys and really trying to
get to the bottom of like,what would be interesting or helpful
to employees, because I thinkthere is that potential when you're
the buyer, you're like, oh, Iknow what the problem is, or I think
(25:23):
they should have this. Butthen again, you get the better buy
in if the employees aresaying, I could really use this,
not this other thing. And sothose are the three groups. And it's
funny because the employersand employees are obviously aligned
because they work together,but they have different perspectives
because a typical employee isthinking, like, what does this do
for me? What does this do formy career? How does this help me?
(25:46):
Where the employer is morethinking about the organization and
like an aggregate and alsoprice and roi, all that stuff. Right.
So they have different kind oflike, perspectives, but that those
are the three groups.
Yeah, yeah. And so do, do youhave any of the, the employees just
come directly to you?
(26:07):
I haven't yet. You know, Iwould, I would totally do that. I
would love to do that. Like,my vision is, you know, like, right
now we do employ employers.Right, because it's easy to corral
a group and you don't let outcompany secrets or whatever. But
I think there's a lot ofpotential for, you know, 20 people
around America, you know, toget on a call once a week or once
(26:27):
a month and to have some samegoal. It could be anything. Right.
It could be like negotiationor it could be tough conversation.
It could be anything, youknow, and I, I would, I would love
to do that. It's just more theherding of the cat is the, is the
issue with that. But, but Ialso love the idea of an employee
pitch, like pitching to theircompany. Like, I would be very helpful
(26:48):
with that as well because Ithink they know better than anyone,
like, about what they need.
Yeah, no, that's actuallyreally, that's really. So what's
your next. So what's your,where do you see the company going?
And what's, what are your,what are the next two steps that
you need to take?
Yeah. Oh, good question. Nexttwo steps. Well, the, the big thing
that we're kind of doing is Ireally think we could help with any
(27:09):
knowledge worker and probablyany worker. I haven't really been
focusing much on, like, bluecollar jobs, but I think there's
a really interesting use casefor that. But so initially we've
been focusing on, oh, youknow, knowledge workers, and I just
sort of define that as peoplewho are primarily using, you know,
the computer to do their work.Yeah, I didn't write a second book.
(27:30):
Well, how do you define that?And, and then we keep getting more
and more specific becausewe've had, we have some, like, Good
experience. Also some casestudies with hospitals and healthcare.
And so we're trying to focus alittle bit. Like I said, it's about
20% employee turnover. Andhospitals are actually interesting
(27:51):
to me because when they plug ahole, it's very expensive. So like
traveling nurses and all thesekinds of overtime things where you
need bodies, it's veryexpensive. And so I think there's
a lot we can help with. Andtypically doctors and nurses and
techs haven't ever receivedpersonal assessments or coaching
(28:12):
or there. It's actually thisfascinating area of the American
economy that has had verylittle professional development outside
of science and math.
Yeah, I could go down a rabbithole on healthcare. My husband's
a physician. Oh, so we cantake that offline.
(28:34):
It's so interesting to me. So,like, also, I mean, just in this
whole personal assessmentthing, like, again, like, we don't
have like a dog in this fight.But I had my first personal assessment
in business school and it waslike, mind blowing because I learned
I did Myers Briggs and somepeople liked it. That's fine. But
like, it was really helpful tome because it told me that I was
(28:57):
this crazy, off the chartsextrovert. And I never would have
thought of myself that way.It's more that I'm really just motivated
by relationships. It's notthat I'm like a glad, handy person
who walks into rooms and like,introduces myself to everyone. And
like, that really, like,opened my eyes. And we had a similar
thing with the hospital wherewe had a bunch of doctors and they
never had a personalassessment. They were like in their
(29:19):
30s and 40s and 50s and like,it's like, it blew their mind because
they were like, well, theyassumed that everyone thought the
way they did. And even withina doctor organization where it's
science and math, like, therewere like four, six, like groups
of different people seeing theworld differently and like what mattered
to them. And that reallyaffected hair because if they were
(29:39):
trying to tell someone why itwas important to immediately do this
thing, but the person hearingit wasn't their. Their key things
were not being checked off.They're like, I'll do that later.
And so anyway, it just blew mymind. I feel like, wow, there's so
much opportunity to help andit just wouldn't even. Wouldn't be
that long. It wouldn't takethat much money. So that's kind of
why I find it reallyinteresting in healthier space.
(30:01):
It's true because a lot oftimes people don't look at physicians
or even sometimes I'm going toput attorneys in sometimes.
Yeah, that's another good one.
Yeah, there's, you know, theysee things through a certain lens
and then when you switch thelens they're like, ooh. So it's like
helping them see thingsthrough those different lenses, you
(30:23):
know, and how, how they cannot, you know, they are in a position
almost like to be telling likeyou've got this or you need to do
this, but you need to almostlike, you know, take it from the
standpoint of the, of theperson that's sitting in front of
you.
Right, right, right, right,exactly. And I think that's the thing.
(30:46):
I call it like the engineeringbrain. I think when you are very
clear about the steps tosuccess, it seems really obvious
that there are sets ofsuccess. But you know, there, there
aren't many like thingsbetween humans where there's like
one right way. Right. Youknow, and so I think that like to,
to step out of that for amoment and realize like, yeah, you
(31:07):
might be the leading brainsurgeon in America, but that doesn't
mean that this person overhere doesn't have great ideas about
like, you know, how to washyour hands. You know, I mean they're,
they're, they're just like,there are all these ways that like
people see the worlddifferently that I think help each
other. And so I think thatlike that's this interesting opportunity,
(31:28):
I think for the health, thehealthcare space.
Okay, so, so, so step is onestep is, is working with, you know,
the blue collar, right?
Oh yeah, that would be cool.Yeah, that'd be cool. Yeah.
And so what's it, what's,what's the second step for you?
Oh, oh, okay. I will say.Okay, so in terms of like the steps,
what I have to do to be moresuccessful, I'm telling you, I'll
(31:49):
tell you right now. So I'mdoing this whole like focus of really
reaching out directly, likeone on one individual emails and
calls and like warm intros toC suite people at for profit hospitals.
And so that's kind of what I'mworking on. And I think, because
(32:09):
what I realized is this is nota, a spray and pray type product.
Right. I think it's somethingthat you really have to understand.
And I want to speak tothoughtful people and have thoughtful
conversations and I'm not liketrying to sell them on any one thing
but just really open up theaperture or let them realize that
like this exists. And so it'sa little bit of education as well
(32:31):
too. And so for me I reallyhave to, so Basically I have this
whole like, like elaborateidea about understanding who's hiring
the most and doing some workon like staffing websites and stuff
like that. So that's like mynext big step is to really just start
to do a lot of work to, to seeon these staffing websites who's
hiring the most. And I come upwith this like idea of like who's
(32:55):
hiring the most as a ratio oflike their total employees because
I feel like that would showyou who's like in under the most
pressure. And so I thinkthat's really interesting to me and
I need to focus on that. I'mvery close to being inbox zero. That's
another step I really want to.I have two emails in my inbox right
(33:17):
now and I'm like so excitedbecause for me it also feels like
a blank slate. Like I feellike I can like do things when I
don't have to dos and sittingin front of me. And so I'm really
trying to get rid of my todo's. So as I said, those are the
main things. You know, I'vebeen doing a lot of like one on one
networking with people andtrying to make intros and I love
(33:39):
that. That to me is like aperfect use of like my sort of brain.
And so I love sort of beinglike, you know, helpful and just
like generous with people withintroductions. And so I've been doing
a lot of that and I alwayswant to try to follow through on
that as I prioritize those as well.
That's awesome. That's really,really great. You know Francie, I
(34:02):
could talk to you for absolutehours. But so, but how can people
get in touch with you andlearn more about you and your company
and getting involved?
Yeah, yeah. So Tarawatt Co isour website and we have a get in
touch page and that can eithertake you to set up a call with me
or you can also just join ournewsletter. Our most active social
(34:23):
media is LinkedIn. I'm prettyactive and then the company is pretty
active too. Those are the bestways to find me or engage. And we
have some other smaller socialmedia but it's a little bit sad.
So those are probably the main ones.
Okay, well absolutelyfantastic. So leaders listening to
this, you heard this, right?We are talking about using coaching
(34:46):
to really help grow your teamand to actually create great happy
people and employees in yourfold so that you have long standing
growth and have great, youknow, results and increase your bottom
line at the the ROI is youknow, happy people make a happy company,
(35:10):
which makes for a growingcompany. So I want you guys to all
connect with Francia. Connectwith her, learn about her company.
Engage. And remember, if wecan do this and make better leaders,
if you can become a betterleader, you will not only have an
(35:30):
unstoppable company, butyou'll have unstoppable employees.
So if you have gotten anygreat wisdom out of this, which I'm
sure you have, hit thesubscribe button. I am Jaclyn Strominger ,
your high performance coachand the host of Unstoppable Leadership
Spotlight. And I thank you allfor listening, and thank you, Francie,
for being an amazing guest.
Thank you, lady.
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