July 4, 2024 • 24 mins
By any measure, Frances Frei is unusual. She’s a professor, advisor, author, strategist, TED speaker, and spent 2017 at Uber on a leave of absence to lead Leadership & Strategy at Uber for the several thousand employees contending with rapid growth and a quickly evolving culture. Listen to this fascinating conversation in which Frances Frei and Sam Jayanti discuss why leaders who cannot create trust, a learning environment, and empower the members of their team lead to poor business outcomes and company culture. The future is about soft skills and this conversation expains why.
Subscribe to ideamix - Coaching, Performance, and Wellness, and stay tuned for new episodes every other Thursday. On ideamix podcasts, we speak with innovators and coaches to help you build the life, business, and career you want. ideamix is the go-to destination for individuals to find their ideal coach. Check out our website at www.theideamix.com. For comments, questions, podcast guest ideas, or sponsorship inquiries, please email info@theideamix.com.
Subscribe to ideamix - Coaching, Performance, and Wellness, and stay tuned for new episodes every other Thursday. On ideamix podcasts, we speak with innovators and coaches to help you build the life, business, and career you want. ideamix is the go-to destination for individuals to find their ideal coach. Check out our website at www.theideamix.com. For comments, questions, podcast guest ideas, or sponsorship inquiries, please email info@theideamix.com.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:03):
Welcome to Idemics Performance and Wellness,where world leading coaches and scientists explain how
their research can help you achieve yourpersonal and professional goals. Foster hi It's
Sanjayanti, co founder and CEO ofIdemics Coaching. Coaching has played an important
role in my life. It's helpedme through my journey to become a powerful
(00:24):
leader, mother and wife. IDMXcoaches help you increase your self awareness,
improve your problem solving skills, andevolve your habits to achieve your goals,
all things I'm grateful to have learnedand done through my own coaching journey.
Our easy one minute assessment matches youwith an Idemics coach that best fits your
needs and values. Each Idemics coachis vetted and experienced. It helps clients
(00:46):
mad and achieve their wellness, professionaland business goals. If you or someone
you know could benefit from coaching,visit our website at www dotidemics dot com.
We also know that not everyone caninvest in coaching right now, and
that's what we provide free coaching inour Coach Shorts episodes. If you think
someone you know would benefit from it, please share our podcast with them.
(01:07):
Thanks for listening and see you nexttime. Welcome to Coaching for Performance and
Wellness. I'm your host Jamie Cosmarand I'm your co host Samita Jayanti,
and today we are here to talkto you about the role of talent and
investment. And I'm very excited weare going to be speaking today about an
(01:32):
article that Saan Jayanti wrote for peHub entitled the most important part of diligence
that nobody is talking about. Sothis is the next frontier of investing.
Yeah, I think investing is sucha particular industry, right. We happen
to have a really good understanding ofit because it's an industry that we do
(01:53):
so much work in. But Ithink one of the biggest idiosyncrasies of it
is that investment firms are making privateequity investments and then have a very limited
timeframe over which those investments play out, which then prompts the question of what
are the biggest drivers of value inan investment? And that's what the article
(02:16):
is about, or one of thetopics that it touches upon. So in
this article you speak about the nextfrontier of due diligence in the investment process
being hiring a deeper, broader poolof talent and having the right organizational architecture
in place to enable high performance execution. So why don't you delve into a
(02:37):
little bit about like what do youmean by this? Because there are a
lot of big word yeah and bigconcepts, and how do these two elements
lead to improved value creation? SoI think if you start at the beginning
and you ask the question of whatare the key value drivers of value creation
(02:57):
and investments, one of the thingsat the very top of that list is
human capital, right, and that'sthe leadership team, the management team of
these companies. Traditionally, in privateequity, there wasn't much of an emphasis
on a data driven methodology to actuallyassess management teams. Right. There were
(03:22):
lots of There was lots of financialdiligence, There was a lot of diligence
around product market fit, around marketsizing, etc. But traditionally there hasn't
been a ton of diligence around talent. And I would also argue until several
years ago, the awareness level oftheir being a variety of different assessment tools
(03:46):
that can actually give you a datadriven view of an individual and a team
didn't exist. Today, we're ina very different world and This is why
best in class investment firms are embracingthese tools of talent assessment to help them
wrap their arms around one of thebiggest value drivers that's going to drive the
(04:06):
outcomes of their investing management team effectiveness, which is which is great because that
segues wonderfully into our next question,which is you state in this article that
it remains the single most important factordetermining the success actual success of an investment.
So why don't we define for ouraudience today what we mean by effectiveness
here? Right? Because that isa very term, the term where you
(04:30):
could interpret a lot from it.And why is it the most important factor?
And how does one determine how effectivea team is? That's a great
question. So I think the reasonthat management team effectiveness is such a critical
driver is that you can have thebest laid plans, and if a management
(04:55):
team isn't able to execute on thoseplans, then the plan falls apart,
right, and the investment falls apart. In many instances, management team effectiveness
is really driven by three pillars whichwe spend a lot of time thinking about
and working with coaching customers and coachesat at idemics, which are clarity around
(05:18):
roles, alignment among those roles,and then last the communication and collaboration among
a management team. If any ofthose three things doesn't exist, there isn't
either clarity around what each person's roleis, there isn't alignment around how all
(05:39):
of those roles fit together, andthat team is not able to communicate and
collaborate effectively in service of executing onthe investment plan, then things fall apart.
So basically, if there isn't clarity, if there isn't alignment, and
if there isn't collaboration, then wecould say the team is in effective exactly.
(06:00):
So then that leads to the question, is it how do we go
about diagnosing an ineffective team and thenhow do we turn around ineffective team?
Yeah, that's a great question.So I think to answer the first question
of how do you actually diagnose whethera team is effective or not? Let's
(06:23):
go back to the assessment tools,right, What are the assessment tools do?
There are a variety of different assessmenttools. There are, there's a
suite of six to eight and assessmenttools that are really best in class and
most appropriate to a professional services investmentfirm environment. And what those assessment tools
(06:44):
allow us to get at our individualpersonality, individual professional skills, and then
most importantly, perhaps how both ofthose knit together across a team to either
render that team effective or not effective. So here's an example. If you
had a CEO who scored very lowon vision and strategy and was very high
(07:13):
on risk aversion, that's probably nota great set of qualities to have in
a CEO because that person absolutely needsto be driving vision, strategy and execution.
On the other hand, if youhad a CFO or a COO,
both of which are roles really thatare tossed with keep the trains running on
time and moving forward, and theyhad no attention to detail, no clarity
(07:41):
and ability to delegate roles effectively andmanage process as well, then they're not
particularly effective in those roles. Andso this picture that the assessment tools give
us is is the talent set andthe capabilities across this management team one that's
going to knit together and work wellwell or there are some key strengths and
(08:01):
talents that are really missing. Andit allows investment firms to look at that
picture and then form a view onHey, this management team, the CFO,
the COO, and the CEO aregreat, but we now need a
chief revenue officer, or we needa head of sales, and that person
(08:24):
needs to have this set of complementaryskills that fit well with the existing management
team. So it's like taking ayou're basically creating a map or a puzzle,
shall we say, of an executivemanagement team. You're saying, I
have all these pieces, but Iactually then need also these additional pieces.
So when I'm bringing in somebody new, or perhaps I'm I'm trying to grow
(08:48):
the talent that I have, I'mdoing it for these gaps. Exactly.
Think of a management team as apuzzle, and if the pieces all fit
together, then you get puzzle completion. And if you're missing a piece in
this set of talents and skills thatwe're looking for in a management team,
(09:09):
then the puzzle doesn't complete. SoI think, you know, we started
to segue into the work that weparticularly have been doing in this space because
we have now a track record ofworking with clients in this way to basically
complete these puzzles. To draw theanalogy, So what have we seen,
(09:33):
what have our clients said with theright coach, what sort of feedback have
we heard in these cases? SoI think there are two things that have
really stood out to me from thevariety of feedback that we get, both
from the coaches as well as theboard members to whom these c suite teams
(09:56):
report in the end, and thosetwo things are that from a board perspective,
they see a clear raising of thegame and a clear positive change in
the way that the management team isboth working with and using the board,
(10:18):
communicating with the board, and executingon strategy, as evidenced by the performance
right and the results the financial results. Second, we've heard very consistently from
CEOs and their direct reports the restof the c suite team that in each
case, even in cases where individualshave been averse to coaching or not understood
(10:41):
the value of the coaching because ofthe hybrid approach that we use, where
some of the work happens in ateam based coaching session, but equally some
of it happens in individual sessions,that even people who felt it would not
deliver value to them have derived hugevalue from it, in fact, to
the point where some of those skepticsend up becoming the biggest users of the
(11:07):
coach's time, and really the reasonthat they do this is because in achieving
greater clarity around what they're meant tobe doing, how that aligns with the
rest of the team and the effortsunderway, and the rest of the operational
areas of the business, and theirown communication collaboration with one another. It
(11:28):
works a lot more smoothly, andas a result, they feel they're achieving
their results and sort of achievement againstplan a lot faster, and it's actually
providing them an accelerant to their ownperformance individually and as a team, but
also ultimately to the business's performance.That's amazing. So let's hypothesize where we've
(11:50):
got a team, they're super effective, We've got all the right skills.
Is there any reason to bring ina coach for a team that's already deemed
effective? And if so, whyso? I think? And it's a
great thing to draw an analogy herefor a second, which is effective management
(12:16):
teams are like high performance athletes,and high performance athletes, even when they
are at the peak of their success, are constantly asking the question what should
I be doing better or differently?Right? Like, what's the next thing?
How do I keep improving? Howdo I set off that flywheel of
continuous improvement. That's exactly the questionthat effective managers constantly ask themselves. When
(12:48):
that question is asked, I thinkmanagers quickly realize that the best person or
the most well equipped person to providean objective view on the individuals and the
team is a coach. It's nota board member or a mentor or some
other party with some other interest effectivelyin the the team or the individual or
(13:13):
the company. Right. It isa true outsider who's a trained professional as
a coach in the variety of methodologiesand assessment tools that we use, who's
able to act as a thought partnerto these individuals and teams and give them
a view in a completely confidential environmentof trust to actually help them do their
(13:35):
best work. Yeah, it's it'sinteresting as we've been talking about coaching as
a performance enhancement tool rather than aremedial tool, right, So, like
you know, I I've also beencontemplating why is it that you know you
can have somebody and we've had ourclients tell us that you can have somebody
within the team that's telling sort ofthis person who maybe is struggling that they
(14:00):
need to be doing X right,they need to be leading better whatever it
is, and for some reason thatadvice when it comes from somebody internally is
not as impactful or as effective,or maybe it just doesn't get through in
the same way as when it's comingfrom an independent party. And I don't
necessarily have an answer for this,but I've been thinking about why is that.
(14:22):
Well. I think we all bringour own cognitive biases to each situation,
right, and those biases are verymuch driven And there's a whole body
of research on this that these biasesare very much driven by the person delivering
the feedback. So when we hear, for example, from a peer or
(14:43):
even a boss, that we shouldknow do X, y or Z to
improve a B or C, wereceive it in a particular way that is
rife with that cognitive bias, andin a sense, it occludes our hearing.
We don't actually hear what's being said. We hear sort of what we
(15:03):
want to hear through the lens ofhow we perceive that person in our relationship.
I think when a coach delivers exactlythe same feedback, it's coming from
an objective third party who's not onlydelivering you that feedback, but then is
your trusted party with whom you canbe vulnerable and you can have an honest
(15:26):
discussion about a behavior that you mighthave or a mannerism that you might have
that might be leading to then anunconstructive situation at work. You're just never
going to be able to do thatwith a boss or a set of peers
or a set of direct reports,right, And I think that's where the
coach is not only able to getyou to hear a piece of feedback and
(15:50):
a piece of advice, but alsowork with you in a very tactical,
practical way to help you interpret thatadvice. So how do I actually do
this in my workplace tomorrow and nextweek, in the following week, and
then hold you accountable for actually tryingit, coming back to them and reporting
on how that went. Oh thiswork, This other thing didn't work.
(16:11):
Let's change it up, Let's trythis other approach. That entire process of
iteration is only something that you cango through with a coach. Yeah.
I think also just getting to yourpoint in general, you as the coach.
He will have an openness to acoach that you will not have to
all these people that you know,right, because you're you're you've already formed
(16:33):
a relationship habit with whoever that individualis, right, and so I think
that maybe your mind is open.I also think that a coach provides an
environment, just thinking about the accountabilitypiece, where it's safe to fail.
Absolutely, that is such a greatpoint. Yeah, so it's like if
you if it doesn't if they tellyou to try something it doesn't work out,
(16:55):
there's no repercussion exactly exactly, whereasa workplace, that's never the sentiment.
Right. We live in a workplacethat is defined by constant evaluation and
performance reviewing, and that's constructive,but what that's created is a void which
is now the space that's being filledby coaching and by coaches that creates an
(17:18):
environment where someone actually can ask theself aware and introspective questions of how do
I do this thing? Or whydo I behave this way? Or how
can I make this better? Yeah? Absolutely, absolutely, And so you
know, we've been talking about thisin the context of investment, but you
(17:41):
know, and we largely have workedwith professional services firms. But the work
that we're doing for alignment, clarityand collaboration, is it particular to sort
of that type of situation or isit applicable to other industries. It applies
across the board, and when youtalk to CEOs today, whether it's the
(18:04):
conversations we're having or what you readin the research, the single biggest worry
that CEOs have is leadership development.Right. They all feel that they're struggling
somehow to develop a bench of talentthat then can stand the company in good
(18:26):
stead going forward. One of thereasons for this, and there was an
article just recently about this in theFinancial Times, talked about how the everyday
demands of most leaders are in asense so overwhelming that it leaves no room
(18:47):
for that introspective moment of how canI do this differently, And there's no
thought partnership, as we said earlier, because you're in an environment which is
fundamentally competitive. I think that,particularly in the age of AI, as
we think about how the world isgoing to change as a result of AI,
(19:11):
the biggest change is going to bethat what we call soft skills today
are going to become hard skills becausea lot of the simple technical tasks will
be outsourced to the AI, butthe skills of managing a team, managing
(19:33):
a process, collaborating across borders,or across distributed teams or even among teams
that are all sitting together, allof those tasks fall to leaders, and
without individuals having leadership and management skills, companies will just experience reduced productivity.
And do you think that, forexample today, that's something that business schools
(19:56):
are teaching future business leaders. SoI went to business school hundred years ago
at this point, but yes,based on some of our conversations with,
for example, Professor Amy Edmondson orProfessor Madupa Akinola, there are now a
number of professors at business schools thinkingabout topics like in the case of Madupay,
(20:23):
stress and anxiety and the impact ofthat on leaders and teams, right,
psychological safety in the case of AmyEdmondson and the impact of that on
organizations and teams. Francis Fry's workwhere she in fact went into uber to
rebuild trust in an organization where trustedreally being destroyed. So all of these
(20:45):
topics are of paramount importance. Ascompanies grow in scale, it's very different
to manage tiny teams that are effectivelystartups with not a lot to lose,
compared to larger, more scaled organizationswith a reputation to guard and ensuring that
(21:08):
delivery is as consistent over time isreally all about the organization's culture. And
if you can't define a culture thatis a safe environment of innovation but also
acknowledgment of mistakes and a mechanism toteach people to do things differently or better
(21:30):
than how does one progress? AndI guess that then circles us back to
what we've been talking about today,which is the importance of role clarity,
alignment, and collaboration amongst the managementteams so that they can take an organization
and help build a culture, particularlyamongst large organizations that enables people to thrive
(21:52):
absolutely effectively. When you think aboutmost investment firms, they're buying companies that
are transitioning from one stay to another, going from small to medium or medium
to large, or they're getting readyfor some other transaction, or they're acting
as aggregators in their industry, whateverthat may be. But there's some sort
of significant step change that is goingto be expected of the company operationally over
(22:18):
this investment period of three to fiveyears. Given that this question of management
team effectiveness is all the more important, and increasingly, I think over the
last five to ten years, we'veseen as the markets and the politics,
the geopolitics have become more volatile,companies have had to deal with a set
(22:40):
of external inputs that affect their industriesand their businesses in all sorts of different
ways, and so it's led toa more complex task in terms of managing
teams and organizations and businesses than everbefore. And that's here to stay.
It seems like, yeah, it'snot going away, that's for sure.
(23:03):
So if any of our any ofour audience members would like to read the
article that you wrote, where canthey find it. It's on pe hub
and it's it's a short piece,under eight hundred words, and it really
talks about why this is such animportant driver as we've talked about, but
also how we do this work andwhy this work works in a sense.
(23:29):
Great, well, thank you everybodyfor joining us today and we look forward
to to you joining us for thenext episode of Coaching for Performance and Wellness.
Thank you so much, thanks forlistening. Please subscribe wherever you listen
and leave us a review. Findyour ideal coach at www dot viidmix dot
(23:49):
com. Special thanks to our producerMartin Mluski and singer songwriter Doug allen z
Welcome to Idemics Performance and Wellness,where world leading coaches and scientists explain how
their research can help you achieve yourpersonal and professional goals. Foster hi It's
Sanjayanti, co founder and CEO ofIdemics Coaching. Coaching has played an important
role in my life. It's helpedme through my journey to become a powerful
(00:24):
leader, mother and wife. IDMXcoaches help you increase your self awareness,
improve your problem solving skills, andevolve your habits to achieve your goals,
all things I'm grateful to have learnedand done through my own coaching journey.
Our easy one minute assessment matches youwith an Idemics coach that best fits your
needs and values. Each Idemics coachis vetted and experienced. It helps clients
(00:46):
mad and achieve their wellness, professionaland business goals. If you or someone
you know could benefit from coaching,visit our website at www dotidemics dot com.
We also know that not everyone caninvest in coaching right now, and
that's what we provide free coaching inour Coach Shorts episodes. If you think
someone you know would benefit from it, please share our podcast with them.
(01:07):
Thanks for listening and see you nexttime. Welcome to Coaching for Performance and
Wellness. I'm your host Jamie Cosmarand I'm your co host Samita Jayanti,
and today we are here to talkto you about the role of talent and
investment. And I'm very excited weare going to be speaking today about an
(01:32):
article that Saan Jayanti wrote for peHub entitled the most important part of diligence
that nobody is talking about. Sothis is the next frontier of investing.
Yeah, I think investing is sucha particular industry, right. We happen
to have a really good understanding ofit because it's an industry that we do
(01:53):
so much work in. But Ithink one of the biggest idiosyncrasies of it
is that investment firms are making privateequity investments and then have a very limited
timeframe over which those investments play out, which then prompts the question of what
are the biggest drivers of value inan investment? And that's what the article
(02:16):
is about, or one of thetopics that it touches upon. So in
this article you speak about the nextfrontier of due diligence in the investment process
being hiring a deeper, broader poolof talent and having the right organizational architecture
in place to enable high performance execution. So why don't you delve into a
(02:37):
little bit about like what do youmean by this? Because there are a
lot of big word yeah and bigconcepts, and how do these two elements
lead to improved value creation? SoI think if you start at the beginning
and you ask the question of whatare the key value drivers of value creation
(02:57):
and investments, one of the thingsat the very top of that list is
human capital, right, and that'sthe leadership team, the management team of
these companies. Traditionally, in privateequity, there wasn't much of an emphasis
on a data driven methodology to actuallyassess management teams. Right. There were
(03:22):
lots of There was lots of financialdiligence, There was a lot of diligence
around product market fit, around marketsizing, etc. But traditionally there hasn't
been a ton of diligence around talent. And I would also argue until several
years ago, the awareness level oftheir being a variety of different assessment tools
(03:46):
that can actually give you a datadriven view of an individual and a team
didn't exist. Today, we're ina very different world and This is why
best in class investment firms are embracingthese tools of talent assessment to help them
wrap their arms around one of thebiggest value drivers that's going to drive the
(04:06):
outcomes of their investing management team effectiveness, which is which is great because that
segues wonderfully into our next question,which is you state in this article that
it remains the single most important factordetermining the success actual success of an investment.
So why don't we define for ouraudience today what we mean by effectiveness
here? Right? Because that isa very term, the term where you
(04:30):
could interpret a lot from it.And why is it the most important factor?
And how does one determine how effectivea team is? That's a great
question. So I think the reasonthat management team effectiveness is such a critical
driver is that you can have thebest laid plans, and if a management
(04:55):
team isn't able to execute on thoseplans, then the plan falls apart,
right, and the investment falls apart. In many instances, management team effectiveness
is really driven by three pillars whichwe spend a lot of time thinking about
and working with coaching customers and coachesat at idemics, which are clarity around
(05:18):
roles, alignment among those roles,and then last the communication and collaboration among
a management team. If any ofthose three things doesn't exist, there isn't
either clarity around what each person's roleis, there isn't alignment around how all
(05:39):
of those roles fit together, andthat team is not able to communicate and
collaborate effectively in service of executing onthe investment plan, then things fall apart.
So basically, if there isn't clarity, if there isn't alignment, and
if there isn't collaboration, then wecould say the team is in effective exactly.
(06:00):
So then that leads to the question, is it how do we go
about diagnosing an ineffective team and thenhow do we turn around ineffective team?
Yeah, that's a great question.So I think to answer the first question
of how do you actually diagnose whethera team is effective or not? Let's
(06:23):
go back to the assessment tools,right, What are the assessment tools do?
There are a variety of different assessmenttools. There are, there's a
suite of six to eight and assessmenttools that are really best in class and
most appropriate to a professional services investmentfirm environment. And what those assessment tools
(06:44):
allow us to get at our individualpersonality, individual professional skills, and then
most importantly, perhaps how both ofthose knit together across a team to either
render that team effective or not effective. So here's an example. If you
had a CEO who scored very lowon vision and strategy and was very high
(07:13):
on risk aversion, that's probably nota great set of qualities to have in
a CEO because that person absolutely needsto be driving vision, strategy and execution.
On the other hand, if youhad a CFO or a COO,
both of which are roles really thatare tossed with keep the trains running on
time and moving forward, and theyhad no attention to detail, no clarity
(07:41):
and ability to delegate roles effectively andmanage process as well, then they're not
particularly effective in those roles. Andso this picture that the assessment tools give
us is is the talent set andthe capabilities across this management team one that's
going to knit together and work wellwell or there are some key strengths and
(08:01):
talents that are really missing. Andit allows investment firms to look at that
picture and then form a view onHey, this management team, the CFO,
the COO, and the CEO aregreat, but we now need a
chief revenue officer, or we needa head of sales, and that person
(08:24):
needs to have this set of complementaryskills that fit well with the existing management
team. So it's like taking ayou're basically creating a map or a puzzle,
shall we say, of an executivemanagement team. You're saying, I
have all these pieces, but Iactually then need also these additional pieces.
So when I'm bringing in somebody new, or perhaps I'm I'm trying to grow
(08:48):
the talent that I have, I'mdoing it for these gaps. Exactly.
Think of a management team as apuzzle, and if the pieces all fit
together, then you get puzzle completion. And if you're missing a piece in
this set of talents and skills thatwe're looking for in a management team,
(09:09):
then the puzzle doesn't complete. SoI think, you know, we started
to segue into the work that weparticularly have been doing in this space because
we have now a track record ofworking with clients in this way to basically
complete these puzzles. To draw theanalogy, So what have we seen,
(09:33):
what have our clients said with theright coach, what sort of feedback have
we heard in these cases? SoI think there are two things that have
really stood out to me from thevariety of feedback that we get, both
from the coaches as well as theboard members to whom these c suite teams
(09:56):
report in the end, and thosetwo things are that from a board perspective,
they see a clear raising of thegame and a clear positive change in
the way that the management team isboth working with and using the board,
(10:18):
communicating with the board, and executingon strategy, as evidenced by the performance
right and the results the financial results. Second, we've heard very consistently from
CEOs and their direct reports the restof the c suite team that in each
case, even in cases where individualshave been averse to coaching or not understood
(10:41):
the value of the coaching because ofthe hybrid approach that we use, where
some of the work happens in ateam based coaching session, but equally some
of it happens in individual sessions,that even people who felt it would not
deliver value to them have derived hugevalue from it, in fact, to
the point where some of those skepticsend up becoming the biggest users of the
(11:07):
coach's time, and really the reasonthat they do this is because in achieving
greater clarity around what they're meant tobe doing, how that aligns with the
rest of the team and the effortsunderway, and the rest of the operational
areas of the business, and theirown communication collaboration with one another. It
(11:28):
works a lot more smoothly, andas a result, they feel they're achieving
their results and sort of achievement againstplan a lot faster, and it's actually
providing them an accelerant to their ownperformance individually and as a team, but
also ultimately to the business's performance.That's amazing. So let's hypothesize where we've
(11:50):
got a team, they're super effective, We've got all the right skills.
Is there any reason to bring ina coach for a team that's already deemed
effective? And if so, whyso? I think? And it's a
great thing to draw an analogy herefor a second, which is effective management
(12:16):
teams are like high performance athletes,and high performance athletes, even when they
are at the peak of their success, are constantly asking the question what should
I be doing better or differently?Right? Like, what's the next thing?
How do I keep improving? Howdo I set off that flywheel of
continuous improvement. That's exactly the questionthat effective managers constantly ask themselves. When
(12:48):
that question is asked, I thinkmanagers quickly realize that the best person or
the most well equipped person to providean objective view on the individuals and the
team is a coach. It's nota board member or a mentor or some
other party with some other interest effectivelyin the the team or the individual or
(13:13):
the company. Right. It isa true outsider who's a trained professional as
a coach in the variety of methodologiesand assessment tools that we use, who's
able to act as a thought partnerto these individuals and teams and give them
a view in a completely confidential environmentof trust to actually help them do their
(13:35):
best work. Yeah, it's it'sinteresting as we've been talking about coaching as
a performance enhancement tool rather than aremedial tool, right, So, like
you know, I I've also beencontemplating why is it that you know you
can have somebody and we've had ourclients tell us that you can have somebody
within the team that's telling sort ofthis person who maybe is struggling that they
(14:00):
need to be doing X right,they need to be leading better whatever it
is, and for some reason thatadvice when it comes from somebody internally is
not as impactful or as effective,or maybe it just doesn't get through in
the same way as when it's comingfrom an independent party. And I don't
necessarily have an answer for this,but I've been thinking about why is that.
(14:22):
Well. I think we all bringour own cognitive biases to each situation,
right, and those biases are verymuch driven And there's a whole body
of research on this that these biasesare very much driven by the person delivering
the feedback. So when we hear, for example, from a peer or
(14:43):
even a boss, that we shouldknow do X, y or Z to
improve a B or C, wereceive it in a particular way that is
rife with that cognitive bias, andin a sense, it occludes our hearing.
We don't actually hear what's being said. We hear sort of what we
(15:03):
want to hear through the lens ofhow we perceive that person in our relationship.
I think when a coach delivers exactlythe same feedback, it's coming from
an objective third party who's not onlydelivering you that feedback, but then is
your trusted party with whom you canbe vulnerable and you can have an honest
(15:26):
discussion about a behavior that you mighthave or a mannerism that you might have
that might be leading to then anunconstructive situation at work. You're just never
going to be able to do thatwith a boss or a set of peers
or a set of direct reports,right, And I think that's where the
coach is not only able to getyou to hear a piece of feedback and
(15:50):
a piece of advice, but alsowork with you in a very tactical,
practical way to help you interpret thatadvice. So how do I actually do
this in my workplace tomorrow and nextweek, in the following week, and
then hold you accountable for actually tryingit, coming back to them and reporting
on how that went. Oh thiswork, This other thing didn't work.
(16:11):
Let's change it up, Let's trythis other approach. That entire process of
iteration is only something that you cango through with a coach. Yeah.
I think also just getting to yourpoint in general, you as the coach.
He will have an openness to acoach that you will not have to
all these people that you know,right, because you're you're you've already formed
(16:33):
a relationship habit with whoever that individualis, right, and so I think
that maybe your mind is open.I also think that a coach provides an
environment, just thinking about the accountabilitypiece, where it's safe to fail.
Absolutely, that is such a greatpoint. Yeah, so it's like if
you if it doesn't if they tellyou to try something it doesn't work out,
(16:55):
there's no repercussion exactly exactly, whereasa workplace, that's never the sentiment.
Right. We live in a workplacethat is defined by constant evaluation and
performance reviewing, and that's constructive,but what that's created is a void which
is now the space that's being filledby coaching and by coaches that creates an
(17:18):
environment where someone actually can ask theself aware and introspective questions of how do
I do this thing? Or whydo I behave this way? Or how
can I make this better? Yeah? Absolutely, absolutely, And so you
know, we've been talking about thisin the context of investment, but you
(17:41):
know, and we largely have workedwith professional services firms. But the work
that we're doing for alignment, clarityand collaboration, is it particular to sort
of that type of situation or isit applicable to other industries. It applies
across the board, and when youtalk to CEOs today, whether it's the
(18:04):
conversations we're having or what you readin the research, the single biggest worry
that CEOs have is leadership development.Right. They all feel that they're struggling
somehow to develop a bench of talentthat then can stand the company in good
(18:26):
stead going forward. One of thereasons for this, and there was an
article just recently about this in theFinancial Times, talked about how the everyday
demands of most leaders are in asense so overwhelming that it leaves no room
(18:47):
for that introspective moment of how canI do this differently, And there's no
thought partnership, as we said earlier, because you're in an environment which is
fundamentally competitive. I think that,particularly in the age of AI, as
we think about how the world isgoing to change as a result of AI,
(19:11):
the biggest change is going to bethat what we call soft skills today
are going to become hard skills becausea lot of the simple technical tasks will
be outsourced to the AI, butthe skills of managing a team, managing
(19:33):
a process, collaborating across borders,or across distributed teams or even among teams
that are all sitting together, allof those tasks fall to leaders, and
without individuals having leadership and management skills, companies will just experience reduced productivity.
And do you think that, forexample today, that's something that business schools
(19:56):
are teaching future business leaders. SoI went to business school hundred years ago
at this point, but yes,based on some of our conversations with,
for example, Professor Amy Edmondson orProfessor Madupa Akinola, there are now a
number of professors at business schools thinkingabout topics like in the case of Madupay,
(20:23):
stress and anxiety and the impact ofthat on leaders and teams, right,
psychological safety in the case of AmyEdmondson and the impact of that on
organizations and teams. Francis Fry's workwhere she in fact went into uber to
rebuild trust in an organization where trustedreally being destroyed. So all of these
(20:45):
topics are of paramount importance. Ascompanies grow in scale, it's very different
to manage tiny teams that are effectivelystartups with not a lot to lose,
compared to larger, more scaled organizationswith a reputation to guard and ensuring that
(21:08):
delivery is as consistent over time isreally all about the organization's culture. And
if you can't define a culture thatis a safe environment of innovation but also
acknowledgment of mistakes and a mechanism toteach people to do things differently or better
(21:30):
than how does one progress? AndI guess that then circles us back to
what we've been talking about today,which is the importance of role clarity,
alignment, and collaboration amongst the managementteams so that they can take an organization
and help build a culture, particularlyamongst large organizations that enables people to thrive
(21:52):
absolutely effectively. When you think aboutmost investment firms, they're buying companies that
are transitioning from one stay to another, going from small to medium or medium
to large, or they're getting readyfor some other transaction, or they're acting
as aggregators in their industry, whateverthat may be. But there's some sort
of significant step change that is goingto be expected of the company operationally over
(22:18):
this investment period of three to fiveyears. Given that this question of management
team effectiveness is all the more important, and increasingly, I think over the
last five to ten years, we'veseen as the markets and the politics,
the geopolitics have become more volatile,companies have had to deal with a set
(22:40):
of external inputs that affect their industriesand their businesses in all sorts of different
ways, and so it's led toa more complex task in terms of managing
teams and organizations and businesses than everbefore. And that's here to stay.
It seems like, yeah, it'snot going away, that's for sure.
(23:03):
So if any of our any ofour audience members would like to read the
article that you wrote, where canthey find it. It's on pe hub
and it's it's a short piece,under eight hundred words, and it really
talks about why this is such animportant driver as we've talked about, but
also how we do this work andwhy this work works in a sense.
(23:29):
Great, well, thank you everybodyfor joining us today and we look forward
to to you joining us for thenext episode of Coaching for Performance and Wellness.
Thank you so much, thanks forlistening. Please subscribe wherever you listen
and leave us a review. Findyour ideal coach at www dot viidmix dot
(23:49):
com. Special thanks to our producerMartin Mluski and singer songwriter Doug allen z
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