Can You Coach in 7 Minutes?

0:10 - Welcome back to extrashot of leadership. Kimberly, what is happening over there? I got to change it up every time.

0:17 - You crack me up when you do that. I never know what to expect.

0:21 - Every time I started, always think of that guy from WWE, the wrestling guy.

0:32 - Love it. I love it.

0:33 - Probably watch too much WWE as I was a kid.

0:35 - Yeah.

0:35 - Well, with the purple shorts.

0:42 - Oh, my gosh. Well, I just don't have a good comeback for all of that.

0:46 - What is happening over there? What are you doing?

0:48 - Well, we've just wrapped up a really nice weekend. It was chill. I got some time with my hubby and got to see my mom and dad date. Yeah.

0:57 - Was it a good time? Yeah, it was a good time. They're doing well. Yeah.

1:01 - I'm telling you, it just makes me think of, like, looking at them and then their eighty s and what are they doing? They're getting ready to go on a vacation and going to the airport and taking off. And I'm like, man, I really hope we are super active when we're eighty s. Eighty S. Even 90s, I've got that aunt, that's 92, that's a go getter. I mean, she gets on her tractor and shreds the grass or whatever. She is just incredible. And I want my life to look like that. Active. Active.

1:27 - Don't slow down.

1:28 - That's exactly what my mom says. She's like, you just don't slow down. So they're talking about buying bikes.

1:33 - Good for them. Yeah.

1:34 - And go ride bikes.

1:35 - Yeah, man. Don't slow down. Hey, so what are we doing today? I'm so curious because I know you've got something on your mind.

1:40 - Yeah, well, listen, something came up last week when I was talking with a few other leaders, and we were having a conversation about just informal coaching, informal catch ups. And I was just a little surprised that as long as they have been in their role, that they didn't really kind of grasp what that would sound like. Right. Coaching was something like when you're in trouble, you have a coaching conversation.

2:09 - It's more of a disciplinary punitive.

2:12 - Yes. And kind of after the fact right. Versus coaching for at the moment. Right. Setting people up for success. And so I thought, well, what if. We just did some kind of role playing?

2:25 - This will be interesting.

2:25 - Yeah. Role playing. I'll be the employee, you be the manager. All right.

2:31 - I think I can do that.

2:32 - And just how you do it, because I think you do an excellent job of this.

2:36 - Come on.

2:37 - You really do. And I think you showed me how to do it and not be so weird about it. Performance conversations shouldn't have to be weird. They shouldn't be weird, period.

2:46 - It should be fun.

2:47 - Fun.

2:48 - Engaging, insightful.

2:49 - Yeah. Helpful for them. Helpful for you as a leader. So anyway, I just thought, can we just do that? Can we just do some informal coaching? We may do several different kinds, right? Because I feel like there are different ways you catch up.

3:01 - Okay.

3:01 - So I think we ought to do that.

3:03 - All right. As I'm listening to you, what I'm thinking is let's do a role play and then maybe a little after action review of Why Did I Ask what questions is that?

3:12 - Yes. I would love that.

3:13 - All right. So let's set the stage. We're jumping right in. I like this. We're going to set the stage and we're doing an informal kind of catch up with somebody. Is that what you said?

3:23 - Yeah.

3:23 - So we're heading to lunch, and we're in the car together. Okay. Is that okay? Okay. You like that?

3:29 - We're going to drive to lunch. All right.

3:30 - We're going to go to lunch.

3:32 - So this could be a manager in the car with anybody, right?

3:34 - Anybody.

3:35 - They may be going across campus or something.

3:37 - Yeah. Maybe you're walking to the cafeteria or to your lunchroom, your break room. Maybe you're walking to another building, a meeting. Yes. But you got how much time? You got about seven minutes for catch up, if that right. So you're driving to the old Subway, pick up a lunch sandwich, and at some point in the conversation, I'm just going to be like, hey, so what's going on? How are you doing?

4:00 - I'm good. It was a nice weekend. We just kind of hung out and good, I guess. How about you?

4:08 - Mine was really good. So tell me, what did you do? Who did you hang out with?

4:13 - Well, I went to see my mom and dad.

4:16 - All right.

4:16 - And kind of hung out with them a little bit, and we went to the movies.

4:19 - Hey, man, that's great. Yeah, mom and dad, they're good.

4:21 - They're good. They're going and blowing. But I think I would say it was nice to get out to the movies. I don't know if you've been to the movies lately, but it's been a while since COVID, right?

4:32 - You all really went to the movies?

4:33 - We went all into the movies.

4:35 - What did you go see?

4:36 - We saw that movie Gucci.

4:37 - Gucci? Was it good?

4:39 - It's all right.

4:40 - Yes, it's all right.

4:40 - It's more probably like a girly movie.

4:42 - Doesn't sound like you recommend it.

4:44 - I wouldn't recommend it for dudes.

4:46 - All right, but you had a good time with your parents? Yeah, I had a good time with my parents.

4:50 - We went to see a movie and anyway, it was just good to get out and kind of do something that we haven't done since Covet. And it was all very socially distanced. It's cool, it's clean. I liked it. The only thing I didn't like was that I had to go get my popcorn and stuff where you used to they would bring it right to my chair.

5:07 - Yeah, that's right there. You used to deliver? They don't do that anymore.

5:10 - They don't do that anymore? Not at that place.

5:12 - So you had a good weekend?

5:14 - Yeah.

5:14 - You're ready to go for the week?

5:15 - I think so. Yeah. All right. Pumped, I guess.

5:18 - Anything on your mind for the week?

5:22 - Not really. Not really. It's going to be busy. I think we got a lot of work to do, and so no, just a lot of meetings and stuff.

5:30 - Yeah. So I get it. We are pretty busy in our group. Anything specific you're going to work on this week or that you're targeting your focus on, anything like that?

5:38 - Yeah, well, I'm working on a little bit of structure. So for a program that we've had. For a while right. I'm working on the project that we do with supervisors, and I got that project what was it, like a year and a half ago or something like that? And we had a meeting last week. We had a team meeting last week for those of us that are working on that project, and we just talked. About how we could add a little bit of structure to it, maybe in our presentations. Right. Thinking about how we choose the presentations that we use for those different training sessions. So we're going to just work on putting some structure to it.

6:15 - You feel good about it?

6:18 - I think it's going to be a lot of work, so it's going to be hard to fit it in with the other work that's going on, but I think it will add some value once we get it done. Once we get some structured presentations done, I think it will make our development process faster on the back end, but I think it's going to be painful just getting some figuring out what those presentations should look like to begin with.

6:41 - Is there one thing you're targeting to help kind of overcome the pain that you think, you know what, if I do this one thing in this project, it will really help kind of overcome whatever barriers or challenges that I know we're going to face as a team. What are you targeting?

6:56 - I think it's just making sure that there's what I think is good. Right. What I think looks good, but there's other people on that team, and I think that if we all had a consensus of what does a good presentation look like, and maybe if we bring in our instructional design people to give us some feedback on, is this a good presentation? I think if we would do that, that would really set us up for success in the future.

7:24 - So you think you have all the resources you need?

7:28 - We'll see the jury's out. Yeah, the jury's out. Because like I said, we're busy, and so I'm trying to fit that in, and so the one resource that I could see maybe that might be helpful is if we all determine what changes should be made to the presentation. If we had someone else that could just go make those changes and we move on to the next one that's the only thing I can think of.

7:52 - Okay. Will you let me know if there's anything I can do to help you? Because I want you to be successful. I think that's an important project, an important focus for the team in terms of standardization and structure. So it looks like we're already here at Subway.

8:09 - Yeah.

8:09 - Right. That was a sandwich or a salad? I think I'm going to get a sandwich. I really like their honey wheat bread.

8:16 - Oh, nice.

8:16 - What do you like?

8:17 - I like their steak and cheese. I don't like a Philly sandwich. I think I'm going to get that.

8:22 - All right, well, let's hop out. We're right at seven minutes. So that was one of the conversations that a leader could have with their employee. So give me some feedback. How did that conversation go?

8:34 - I think it was good. I think I was just kind of caught off guard. I wasn't sure what you wanted to know. It felt a little weird. A little bit?

8:42 - Why did it feel weird?

8:44 - I guess because I wasn't expecting you to ask me questions. I thought we were just going to chit chat about the weekend, and then. You start asking me questions, and then it felt like, what's going on here? Yeah. I had to think at the moment, and I had to get myself it's Monday, and I had to get myself kind of back in gear from where I was over the weekend at the Gucci movie and think about, what am I going to do this week? What am I going to work on? So I was winging it a little bit.

9:13 - Okay. When I think about those kinds of conversations, for me, I open up with some sort of general statement right. And I'm looking to the employee to tell me where they want to go. And my first question, I think, to you at that time was, hey, how was your weekend? I don't really know what I have going on. What's going on? Right. It's a very basic question. How's it going? What's going on? And I'm looking for where the employee wants to go. Right. What is the employee going to tell me? And they can choose to tell me work or personal? And that little exchange, you decided to go personal, which tells me that's where you're headed at, which is perfectly fine. Right.

9:50 - Yeah. You kind of saw that. Right. Because when you move over to the work, I'm like, yeah.

9:57 - And there was a deliberate shift into the work. Right. But the first, I don't know, probably two or three questions, I'm kind of listening to your mom and dad and the movies, and so I'm really trying to warm up this conversation, and I'm trying to understand where you're at. How was your weekend? I'm just trying to understand you. I want to build that relationship with.

10:19 - You and where they focus.

10:21 - Yeah. And I want to understand you a little bit more granted, seven minutes is a very short time frame in order to do any sort of catch up, but you can absolutely start with seven minutes. Right. I think we had it right on the nose at seven minutes. Maybe it was seven minutes 30. And then I got you into thinking a little bit about your week, right. And what's your biggest priority? And then it was like, how are you going to overcome that big priority? Because sometimes I think as employees, we see this big priority and it's we kind of push it off. Right. I don't have that plan. I haven't thought about it a little bit. So my intention as a leader in those conversations, specifically with my employees, is really to start getting them thinking very in a targeted fashion. This is my biggest priority. This is what I could do. These are my resources I need. If I had a little bit more time with the person, I might say things like, how are you going to get that resource? Are there options for Gate? Is it realistic to get that resource? Right? More questions. And what I find and this is just my personal kind of experience on this, obviously, that's why I'm speaking about it. But what I find is when you have people start saying out loud what their hill is and how they're going to conquer that hill, the minute you kind of speak it out into the world, it gives them some direction.

11:44 - Yeah, I absolutely felt that because that's not my project. That's not my current work. Right. I'm just over here winging it. And I really kind of was in the shoes of that person, having to come up with the answers for why is that important, what is that going to help with in the future? I'm, like really kind of having to think about it. So I think that would be the same for the employee. You're going to challenge them to think strategically.

12:08 - Yes. The other thing that I would add so this first conversation we had, I would call it the personal conversation. I think that's what we would label it, because that's where the employee went. You went personal, you went to the movies, you went with your mom and dad, you watched Gucci. You wouldn't recommend it to anybody else. That is what I would call a personal conversation. People who are listening, that are leaders and you're doing this kind of update. What I would really get you to think about is go back and listen to whatever, 1 minute 30 when I ask my first question, replay it and listen to how much I spoke. I didn't speak a whole lot. That's right. And so, as leaders, when you're doing even that personal update, because you asked me, how was your weekend? And I was like, It's good, but.

12:53 - You threw that ball back across the Court.

12:55 - I quickly pivoted back. Right. Because my intention is to hear from you. Right. I want to build this relationship with you. In order to build that relationship with you, I have to have my ears on and my mouth shut. Right?

13:09 - That's good.

13:10 - Ask the question. And I have to listen. I have to listen to what you care about, what you did, what you're doing, what you're thinking. That is my job as the leader, is to listen. So, no, I'm not going to spend a whole lot of time talking about myself, because as the employee, the time you want with me, you want to talk, and you want me to listen. Most times, right, yes.

13:37 - They are trying to fly under the radar. I'm like, I got to get out of here.

13:41 - And granted, yes, there are times that the employee wants to build a relationship with a boss and listen to the boss. But I think, generally speaking, that employee boss time. The employee wants to share kind of what's on their mind and what they're thinking about and get some ideas, feedback, whatever it is, from the boss.

13:58 - Yeah.

13:58 - So what is important there is that's right. We're driving down the road, and I could have easily gone into you know what? I had a great weekend. I went and did this with my family. I went shopping. I got some stuff on sale. I got some new shoes. I mean, I could have gone into all of that, sure. But I deliberately didn't. Right. I withheld I went back, and I pivoted back, and I was like, oh, tell me about your mom and dad. All right. You want to stay young, you want to stay active. Okay. So now I know what's important to you.

14:25 - Yeah, I love that. So my question is because I feel like that is one you asking the question, them giving you some information. So they like to go to the movies. They haven't been to the movies in a long time. They saw a movie, they've seen their mom and dad, and then they've talked about activity. Right. So you have a lot of things now that you can talk about in the future. So have you been to the movies again? Right. How long has it been since you've seen your mom and dad? So what are you doing to stay active?

14:49 - I think that's a great point. Absolutely. Right now, going forward, I can talk about your mom and dad. Tell me about your mom and dad. Tell me about you, how you grew up, wherever you grow up, or what's your best memory. I mean, you can launch from that so much. Are you going to the movies again? Hey, how are you staying active? I remember when we had that conversation, you telling me about your aunt in the tractor and cutting stuff at 93 and how you want to keep doing that. What are you doing? How are you keeping your joints, keeping.

15:17 - Those joints lubricated over there?

15:19 - However you're going to do it. Right. But that's absolutely right. I have four things I can now go back and talk about the next time I see you.

15:27 - I love that. So I have another question for you, though. So let's just say I'm the employee and the conversation never turns to business. Right. I'm just like and I am going on and on and on about personal stuff, or I'm telling you a long story about the weekend or what's coming up or getting ready for vacation, whatever that is. Do you just let it go?

15:45 - I let it go. I do let it go. And I will tell you, listening to you as we're role playing, right? We're out of the role play now, but we were role playing this conversation on the way to Subway, and there was a point at which when you and I are talking, that I kind of felt like there was a lull. Right. I don't know if our listeners would.

16:04 - Say that if they go, I felt a lull.

16:06 - Yeah, I felt a lull. And so when I feel that lull, that's when I pivot to something else. Right. And so I pivoted. At that point in our conversation, we didn't plan it.

16:16 - Yeah. Because they may be done talking about their personal life. They may have something they really wanted to chat with you about.

16:21 - That's right. So I pivoted back to work. So what's on your target this week? Right, but you're absolutely right. There's going to be conversations where it's just about personal. I don't have a problem with that. I think stay focused on whatever the employee wants to talk about, unless there's something, as a boss, you have to address. But look, we're on the way to Subway, right?

16:48 - We didn't even know we were going to go.

16:50 - This is my opportunity to build relationships with you and get to know you a little bit better. And you want to talk about family. At some point, you wanted to talk about something different. I got to read that room and I've got a pivot.

17:01 - I love that.

17:02 - So that's what's important. As the boss, I think you've got to really be able to kind of sense, what are we doing here? And then I think you're right. Some employees are just going to naturally want to keep saying on the personal, right? And they might even be more you threw me one question. They might throw three or four. Right. They might kind of continue to ask you more about you because they want to get to know you. You've got to read what your employees are looking for. As a boss. To me, when I think about these little conversations, there's a dance going on. That's the way I see it. It's like there's a dance going on. And as the boss, I'm the lead, and I have to really kind of bring this person along with me. Right. We've got to get into this rhythm, get into this groove, and sometimes I'm going to lead and I'm going somewhere. Sometimes I'm going to allow them to lead, and I've got to kind of follow where they want to go. In this one, I took the lead.

18:02 - Yeah. And I felt you taking the lead. And so let's just say you have an employee, and we were at that pivoting moment, right. Or we had the conversation about my project, my work, but you see some other because I know how you read body language. Right. And there's something else, right? There's still this lull because there's something I want to say. Then how do you get to that part? Because there's something like, I'm glad we're here in this car and you're talking about that project, or you asked me questions about that, but there really is something else I want to talk about.

18:31 - So I would say let's go back. Right. I got to kind of put myself back into that chair. So I'm with that employee, and I asked the question, what are you working on? And it's kind of this hesitation right there's. A little bit of a right. We're dancing, and all of a sudden the left foot got in the way, right. And I'm like, what's that about? I'm going to redirect, and I'm going to say, is there anything else on your mind? Is there anything else you're working on besides that project? That project might be cover for some other fire that's brewing, and maybe it's not a fire, but it's something else. They're either chewing on, they're struggling with, they're having some sort of challenging thing to do. I'll sense that, and I'll go back, and rather than focusing on that one project, I'm going to pivot again, and I'm going to go, okay, I hear you on that structure thing, and I think you're right on the money. I think that's a high priority for the organization. Is there anything else that's going on with your team, with your workload? Anything else that kind of is on your mind?

19:38 - Nice.

19:39 - And I'm going to wait for the response.

19:41 - Yeah. So you opened the door wide, wide open. Yeah. Okay. I love that. All right. So look, I'm looking at our time, and we've already blown through 20 minutes, and I think this is good. I'm loving this. Are you liking it?

19:53 - I do. I really like this. This is a little bit different for us, and I hope our listeners like this.

19:57 - So here's what I'd like to do. I'd like to just stop this one here because I have a couple of other conversations, but I think it's just going to take too long today. All right. If we can break it up and make it a series and come back and have a couple of more informal conversations that are just structured a little bit differently.

20:14 - Okay. I like it.

20:15 - Focus on different things, maybe, is what I should say.

20:17 - I think that's right on the money. I think people hopefully, if you guys are listening and you give us some feedback, right? Did you like the role play? Did it make sense? Was it weird? But before we go, because I think you're right, we're going to drag this on too long. If we stay here and move on to the next one, I do want to recap. So here are the questions that I use. I like to use just when I have that informal catch up with somebody, right? This is I'm walking to another building. I'm walking to a meeting. I mean, I might catch somebody in five minutes and ask a few questions. My questions can be, how's it going? What's the latest? What's going on? How's your week? Basic, how's your week? How's your week going? Right. What's the latest? What's going on? And however they respond gives me insight to what's on their mind. Right. And your comment about your parents and the movies and all of that, it was somewhat benign, right. And what I mean by benign, you're just kind of just chatting. Sometimes people are going to say, man, my dad is not well. And right now I'm thinking about my dad. Right. They've got heavy burdens and heavy burdens kind of want to keep the work away. You want to allow them that time to express some of that stuff that's on their heart and what they're stressed over. It's the personal stuff. Right. So this conversation was personal. I think the most important thing when I think of leaders going in and trying this kind of conversation is you got to get somewhat quick on your feet in terms of thinking, what is the next question? And in order to know what is the next question, as leaders, we have to be thinking about what is the purpose of this conversation. Right now, we're just driving the subway. Some people might say, oh, good grief, you're just driving a subway. Why is everything out to be purchaseful? I think as leaders, we have the opportunity to support, guide, coach all the time. I really do believe that. And you have to be very purposeful and deliberate in these little interactions. Right. Just kind of get in and ask some questions and kind of start to help this employee think about things. And it's not that I'm giving you direction. I'm not telling you what to think. I just want you to think. Right. And kind of, what is your approach for this structured project? So I think as leaders, we have to be purposeful in these conversations when we're having them and what we're trying to get out of them. Sure. And that's what drives the questions. Right. It's like, that's what helps me go onto the next question.

22:47 - Right.

22:48 - Anyway, so you're going to do something.

22:49 - Well, and I just think that what you're saying, it needs to have purpose, and I completely agree with that, because as managers and supervisors, people are busy. And so maximizing, you have five minutes right here. Maximizing that time to build relationships, to have conversations, to check in on the work, to have performance conversations, whatever it is, is just maximize so that you can fit it into your day. They're fitting it into their day. And it doesn't have to be long and it doesn't have to be the whole let's shut the door and have a conversation.

23:18 - Because that's really when it gets that's when it gets weird. Weird and awkward and uncomfortable. Right. But we have to OK, put it on the conversation.

23:27 - Yes.

23:27 - It's like no, they should be ongoing. They should be all the time. They should be very natural. People should expect when they see you. And it's funny. This makes me laugh. We were at a happy hour a couple of weeks ago and I was sharing something about my kids. And I was just saying something about we did something. I don't even remember what it was, but after whatever it was that we did, I was talking to my kids and say, okay, so what did you learn? What are you going to do next time? And they just started kind of giggling about me. One of them specifically said, can you imagine being peppers kids? Everything is a lesson.

24:04 - I know I feel for your kids, I really do. And so used to like years ago when I first met you and I was like, she is a lot. I was like, I can't even imagine. I'd be scared to have her as a mama.

24:17 - Everything is a lesson. Everything is you can do better, you did good. But let's talk about the modification and I'm sure that they can get exhausted over it.

24:28 - Sure. But listen, I want to come back. To this one more thing that you said because I thought that was good. And you were talking about how you have to be quick on your feet as a leader. You have to be quick on your feet. Well, I think one of the things to be able to be quick on your feet too is you have to be able to listen to what they're saying. Because that's where the next question comes from. I'm talking about the movies. The next question is what did you see? I talked about my parents. How are your parents doing?

24:52 - That's critical. And you see this when you think about leadership and the topic of leadership, you see this conversation of active listening. And I think sometimes people are like active listening.

25:04 - It's an HR thing.

25:05 - It is so important that you are listening to what it is the person is saying.

25:12 - Yes.

25:12 - If you are not a good listener, that's where you need to start. Forget honing your questions, man. You got to step back and you got to get better at listening. And you have to put the phone away. You cannot glance at the phone. You've got to be in on this. Conversation. And that's what helps the flow, right? That's what helps kind of the dance. Yeah, because that's where you get the rhythm of where this other person is going. If you're not listening and all you're doing is thinking about, what's my next question? What's my next question? It's going to feel weird. They're going to know you're not in it. They're going to be like, are you paying attention to me? And as leaders, we all know when we're in and we all know when we're not sure. If you're not in and you got other stuff in your brain and now is not the time, don't do it, right? That's not the time to do the informal catch up.

26:04 - Yes. And I think often I think what I see is leaders, they don't go in for the next question because they're not really listening and they don't know how to ask the next question. So then they go talk about themselves, right? Because that's what they can do. They got like that I can talk about my weekend, right? And then it takes up all the time and then there goes your five minutes.

26:21 - Yes, that's exactly right. It's like, let me pivot to me because that's my safe zone. I like talking about myself. You're right on the money. So a couple of tips, and I think they're all good. Be purposeful. Make sure you're listening more than you're talking. Make sure you've got some sort of cadence to your questioning, understanding what you're trying to get out of this conversation. I think all of that is fantastic. I hope that this has been a great conversation. I hope those of you who are leading people, you are walking away today and you're like, you know what, I'm going to try this informal ketchup because I can do it. Yes, you can. You can do it. It's going to feel weird the first 1234, maybe ten times. Keep doing it.

27:00 - Keep going.

27:01 - This is what it takes to do coaching and formally engaging, building relationships, all of those things. It builds your listening skills. Get after it.

27:10 - There you go. Then if you love this podcast, if you are into this podcast and you're like, hey, we like that role playing, do more of that, let us know.

27:18 - Let us know.

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