167: The Difference Between Coaching & Managing Your Team | Kerry Rockers

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real coaching isn't about giving advice it's about helpingsomebody reconnect with what they already know people

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aren't looking to be fixed they're looking to be heard andthat's exactly what today's conversation is all about

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welcome to the Learn It All Podcast the show for today'sleaders who want to get ahead and stay ahead because we believe

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great leaders aren't born or made they are always in themaking i'm your host Damon Lebby two-time best-selling author

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and CEO of Learn It a live learning platform that has helpedupskill over two million people over the past three

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decades joining me today is Carrie Rocker an executive coachand HR veteran

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who's helped countless leaders show up with more intentioncoach with more presence and create teams where people

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actually want to stay and grow think about what are somesmall things I can do to help make sure I understand what

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is important to this person in their work and there may bethings that come up like wow that is fascinating I want

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to hear more about that but we got to get on to XY and Zlet's go grab coffee later and talk more about it or put that on the agenda fornext time I'm going to

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ask Cara to share her perspective on why coaching isn'tabout giving advice it's about holding space for people to think

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out loud how burnout often stems from disconnection not justwork overload the

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difference between leading and manage managing and why itmatters more now than ever how to turn a thinking about

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leaving moment into a real conversation that builds trustand why HR's role

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needs to shift from enforcing policies to shaping cultureand strategy now you said that coaching isn't about fixing

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people it's actually about helping them remember what theyalready know what do you mean by that the basic premise of

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coaching is people come to coaching whole and resourcefuland full of inner

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wisdom and coach the process of coaching the askingquestions the slight you know

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challenging and and gentle ways the sharing observations allthat helps to

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bring out and rem help remind them of that inner wisdominner strength inner leader whatever you want to call it

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inside them so I the other thing it also means is like Idon't know like I don't

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know what it's like to be Damon i don't know what it's liketo be my client um I only know what it's like to be me so for

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me to say I'm going to fix you it's like acting like I knowwhat's going on with you and I don't you know you know your

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experience you know what's going on with you not me so thewhole premise of coaching is like okay you are whole

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you're resourceful you know what's best for you and I'm hereto help pull it out

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and what I've als what happens a lot in coaching is someonemay come and their

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kind of inner you could call it inner belief inner leaderwhatever you want to call it has gotten dim they're having

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trouble hearing it they're just hearing the negative stuffthey're really feeling stuck and not remembering

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everything they've done who they are what they can do um andso with coaching

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part of the process I believe is also helping them hear thatvoice again helping them rem you know listen to that

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inner wisdom that they have inside and figure out what'sgetting in the way of them hearing it what's getting in the

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way of them following it um and so that's I think the beautyand the magic of coaching um and I'm h happy to give

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an example if that would be helpful does it show updifferently for somebody who's growing and doing really well or

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maybe even pivoting changing compared to somebody who's justflat out like you mentioned a minute ago stuck yeah it it

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does it does um Yeah i mean so when someone comes tocoaching it's because

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they're needing some support and ch making some kind ofchange whether they want to take it to the next level like

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they're wanting to take their job to the next level theywant to really you know get that promotion or whatever um or

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they or there's you know another reason but they want tomake some kind of change they need some help so if someone

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is um wanting to go to that next level they might need somejust again some

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gentle pushing challenging listening working through thingsto figure out how do I get there um so it may not be maybe

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their voice is already very strong but they're still notknowing what do I need to do to get to that promotion what is

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my next step what how do I take it to the next level so umit's through that

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questioning and thinking and reflection that the person doesthey can they start to get the answers so they know okay

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yeah this is what I need to do or I need to experiment alittle bit and then I'll figure it out so um it may not be so dim

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but they still need help seeing it um or listening to it andfiguring out okay what am I supposed to do here and

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getting that clarity now do you think that coaching is foreverybody or does it take a certain type of mindset for

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somebody to engage with a coach to be successful coachingcan work for everybody but you have to be in that

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coachable space so you have to be ready to to invest thetime and the effort um

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and you have to really want it you know if someone signs youup for coaching you don't want it and you're not and we could ask the bestquestions but if you

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don't are not engaged in it then it's and and you're notseeing an issue or not wanting to work towards what someone

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signed you up for coaching for it's not going to work soit's it's it can be for

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everybody when they're in the right space for it and they'reready to um do some work to to make the change happen

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that they're seeking let's take it back a little bit umyou've had a pretty incredible journey you know from

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building and leading global HR teams guiding executivesthrough major change and now you relatively recently have

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pivoted into coaching walk us through a little bit aboutyour personal journey

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so as you mentioned I've um been in HR for over well I'vebeen HR for over 20

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years and all kinds of threads of HR um but the common themethroughout has been

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coaching and consulting with leaders um about their teamsand their people and

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um loved it you know and it's included things like you knowor reorganizations transforming their team um people

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development t talent management people issues compensationall the whole gamut

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and then I've also done a lot internationally the last youknow 12 or so years of my last employer it was

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focused on those things but outside the US in particular myteam and I worked with in region HR teams and businesses

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on setting up entities new entities in new countries closingdown entities mergers acquisitions HR initiatives

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whatever business initiatives um you know primarily tied togrowth or contraction so all of those things um

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were great i love the working with um the leaders um and myteam on these

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various pieces um and I decided I wanted to really I lovedthe 101 pieces of it

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and I wanted to dive in more deeply on the coaching part ofit uh so for the last few years in my um HR career I got

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my coaching certification at the Hudson Coaching Instituteand focused and then

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started doing some coaching deeper coaching than you can doas an HR person uh on the side and my work was very

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supportive of it um and then I decided in the last year Iwanted to really just focus on that and consulting on my own

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and it's been great like it's it's a it's a slight pivot butit's just building off of what I've been doing and

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bringing some of that experience into it but also getting towork with deep people on a deeper level and really it's

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been so rewarding just to see see the changes people aremaking um through having you know really that dedicated

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support and and time to to work on it what are some of thebiggest changes

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you've seen in HR over the past couple decades when Istarted it wasn't first called personnel but wasn't too much

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before then that was called personnel so it was all aboutpayroll benefits and um

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just the very tactical things and then you know throughoutthe 20 years it's become more and more strategic more and

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more of that business partner um and more and more thingsautomated um and I

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think we'll continue to see that um and there still is thatneed for that human touch that human connection that human

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consulting human coaching um that it will that should nevergo away because we're talking about people and we're

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talking about organizations and teams um but it's definitelybe taken more shifted more and more strategically

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because some of the more tactical things have become moreautomated and they probably will continue to with with AI

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over the years definitely now I'm sure there's somelisteners out there who have worked at or are currently working

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at global uh organizations or been in in a company for uh areally long time and

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considering making that pivot to go out on their own whatwas that experience like for you was that was there some anxiety there wasthere some

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conversations at home like what happens if it doesn't workout or did you just jump right in and do it well there's um

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in full transparency there was a change made for me with mywork in terms of laid off but but I was thinking about it

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anyways and everything happened for a reason it happened fora reason so um so

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it was so so it still is kind of you know uh stressful wasthe wrong word but

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anxietyprovoking but it's great like I feel like thingsshift in our lives you

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learn certain things at different times to make us preparedfor the next thing and I feel like I have been you know all

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of the experience that I've had to this point has preparedme for what I'm doing now and um and I'm just taking it to the

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next level so yeah so I guess you said advice for peopledoing it on their own do your research it's kind of like with

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any career pivot right um do your research talk to peoplenetwork figure

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out okay what's your risk tolerance what's going to be yourbackup plan um

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and then put structures and systems in place to make it youfeel comfortable that you can do it um and then go for it

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i mean a certain point you just got to try it like with meat baseball my baseball career came to a kind of an

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abrupt end and I was kind of locked into the identity ofbeing a baseball player and it was kind of like well what do I

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do next what advice do you have for others who may be in asimilar situation where they got let go um from their job

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and maybe they want to try something different maybe they'rein accounting and they want to get into HR or get into sales how do you helpthem how would you

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coach them understand that they can make that pivot yeahthat's a great

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question so there's I think the first thing is um gettingclear as to what you want

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like is it clear you want to do HR or finance or whateverand what is it about

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it you like so really diving in what is it about it that youlike and that you want and try to and being clear on that

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and be a little broad if you can like it I had someone aclient the other day she's like I want to go into X Y and Z

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and I said why don't you you know are you sure about thatlet's maybe look a little broader and so we did and she

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that she still ended up on that one path that she came to mewith um it was a specific path within HR but then she

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expanded herself into two or three other tracks too becausethey all those things had the pieces of the work that she

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wanted the pieces that were meaningful to her these othertracks job-wise had it so um so the first thing I would say

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is figure out what you want but also really kind of try toexpand it to other

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what about that space that you you're looking to get into isappealing to you and where else is that because the more

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broad you are the better chances you're going to have offinding something that's you know meaningful to you or

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suitable for you um so that's the first thing I would do isfigure out what you want and then I would also talk to

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people you know find out what it's like to be there to be inthese kind of functions or roles uh so that's you know

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networking but really from an exploring standpoint um alsoask them what kind of

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skills do I need you know knowing my background what kind ofskills do I need to develop or whatever to be able to be

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considered for this and then the third thing once you'rekind of clear on that I would also experiment as you can and

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um it's so try you know if it's a space where you can maybevolunteer or do a um

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kind of internship is you know internship or something justcasually or

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dip your toe in it somehow try it see how that feels seewhat it's like you

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know maybe if you can shadow someone for a day or whateverum but try to experiment a little bit and see how that

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feels um so all those things and then really once you'reclear as kind of where you want to try if there's

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something you want to step into further figure out how youcan translate the skills you have already and you've used

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into skills they need is it do you have them and it's justpositioning it differently is it you need to gain some

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new skills so then how do you do that um is it um can or andor can you get into

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a company doing what you used to do but but stay but networkand try to connect

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with the area that you want to go into and and know it's acompany that is open to people switching positions and making

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it clear you're wanting to get in to this other group onceyou're there and you're working on the skills to get there so there's lots ofdifferent

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strategies but I think it starts with becoming clear andreally thinking about things broadly networking understanding

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and experimenting yeah I was just going to recap that myselfso it looks like it

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starts with being clear really under trying to understandwhat uh where you want to go two being like you said be be

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broad um so you don't you're not too narrow focused becauseyou might be if you're curious you might be surprised at

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what you learn i really like the idea the next two which isreach out to other

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people and have conversations with them uh to learn a littlebit more and then if possible experiment you know maybe

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take a volunteer role or you know even if you're workingsomeplace maybe ask your your boss if you could shadow

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somebody in a different you know organiza I mean differentdepartment you know I think that those are all um great

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steps to to help you uh and then look at the skills you haveand if if they're the right skill set or if you need

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additional skill sets do you have with the step one becauseI think this is always important Do you have any tips or

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advice uh for how to become more clear in what you want todo what what is it you like about the place that interests

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you where else can you think of that it happens talking topeople and honestly

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looking at sometimes looking at job postings if you'resomeone that is visual and and looking at things like I

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had a client do this who she just looked she's like I thinkI wanted this but I like these skills so she just spent some

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time looking at in I think it was Indeed she looked at andpulling out job postings that sounded interesting to her

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gosh this sounds interesting and and she ended up and sheshe I mean I she took a fair amount of time to do it but she was

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dedicated to it and she found it she just saw that she endedup having kind of three themes of jobs that were coming

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out and that's and and when we talked and dove into it Yepthat's was where

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what she liked about you know she was clear these are thethemes these are the kinds of roles I would like so but she

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did it through just looking at what's out there um and umlet me see if there's anything

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else so I think those are the main the main things aboutjust ex you know exploring looking what's out there

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reading seeing if there's themes that pop up for you talkingto people I mean but it comes down to how do you learn

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what's the best way for you to learn and is it some peoplejust through meeting people talking to people some it's

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reading some it's listening to podcasts you know just someit's taking classes to learn taking classes such as learn it

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exactly exact i was thinking that honestly throw the plugthere yeah yeah if you want to learn about management

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skills or whatever you know what's available to you sofigure out how you learn and then tap into that to explore

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in all seriousness I think that that is very important whatyou said right there um people learn differently and some

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people want to watch videos some people want to listen topodcasts other people want coaching or mentoring or taking

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classes find out what works for you don't force push a rockup the hill if one modularity is not right for you find

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something that works best for you i want to pivot a littlebit um but it kind of

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same line along the same lines here you talked about how HRbecame more strategic over the past 20 years i think

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part of that is because people across all levels are reallycraving more meaning in their work

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um why do you think that's happening more now than ever wellI am seeing it in my coaching people that want to make

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pivots or just get new jobs um after you know working on ahaving a finding a job

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that meets their skill set they want a job that they feel aconnection to they feel like can have a positive impact and

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has meaning for them so I'm seeing it and why now I think umI honestly I

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think co um really shifted the perspective for a lot ofpeople about

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what's important to them and how they spend their time anduh what they want

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and so I think the I think that has really shifted some ofthe mindset for

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people of like okay this is I want something that's moremeaningful i just lived through this you know this terrible time where it wasjust

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stressful and I had to reenter and and now they want theywant more and it also could be you know generational shifts as

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well um the workforce is changing but I also I do think coplays a big part of

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that um and really recentering on what's important forpeople how do you help

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your coaching clients from an individual perspective in amoment I want to talk about managers but if an individual

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perspective how do you help them come up with what'smeaningful for them or how

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do they you know to figure out what's most important forthem when it comes to especially you know their profession

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figure out where they are on things if they're not clear ontheir values we start there what's important to you uh

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as a person what's important to you in your in your lifewhat's important to you in your job what do you value like

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what do you want it to be like so what do you value um andthen when and then

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having them reflect on when did you feel like you weremaking a positive impact what was that like what did that feel like what wasthere what was in that

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space um and then there can always you know there's you knowassessments they can take as well um you know I love the

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StrengthFinder assessment um because it's simple and easyand that could guide them to more what they're good at

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but it could also help them find you know kind of what's insome ways meaningful to them um so it's really

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just a lot of reflection and um values work um and also youknow I think part

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of it also is looking at um how they're spending their timenow right so what's

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important to them and looking at I love this one saying lookat your calendar and your checkbook to find out how

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you're spending your time are you living according to yourvalues right are you spending your time and your money on the things that arein alignment with what

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you is important to you um and so that's also a place tolook of okay here's my

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values here's what I'm doing how do I rightsize it where doI want it to be um so I think all those things together can

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help and then figuring out where where have they um thrivedwhere have they felt they were in their sweet spot in

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prior jobs and what is appealing to them as they as theylook and think about future roles and then talking to people

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too again all comes back to how the person reflects and howthey learn i think doing a calendar audit is huge you

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know even export from Outlook whatever calendar you're usingand just kind of go through it i think a lot of people

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are really shocked and surprised where their where theirtime is spent so that's really important i like to check

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uh the checkbook part i haven't done that one i shouldprobably I'll probably see uh who knows right i mean I'll have

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to look into that now when it comes to meaning let's look atit from a manager's perspective what can a manager

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do to help their people feel like that their work reallymeans something is matterful helping an employee see the

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meaning in their work and the impact they're having is sucha tool for leaders so important um and this is I

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think especially important now too based on where theeconomy is or going we

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don't know um but you know people are laying getting laidoff i'm sure budgets

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are tight um things are tighter right but it doesn't takeaway the fact that um people want to still do impactful

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work they want to have meaning and they want to feel likethey're making a difference in their job and it's a way

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to help increase that engagement even at times where maybeyou can't give them the big bonuses or what or the our jobs

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new jobs aren't opening up to be filled but you can stillhelp feed that um engagement piece so what can managers do

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um it all starts with knowing your people and that is such acritical

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important space and important thing for managers to know youdon't have to know like them in and out it's really

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probably inappropriate but but you need to know the what'simportant to them in

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their job like what what is what makes them tick what'simportant to them and there's lots of ways you can do that and

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then once you know what's important to them what brings themmeaning then you can you can help um find those

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opportunities for them to to do that kind of work and let megive some tips for helping if you don't mind helping

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managers find that um first thing is um

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listen for the values listen to what the employees say sothis is and all the tips I'm going to give are none of them

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going to take a ton of time but they're going to takeintentionality so listen to what your employees say in terms of

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like asking specific questions so how was your weekend whatare you doing this weekend what'd you do last weekend so

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you'll hear values in that like you and I could do it if youwant and you know tell if you tell me what we did last

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week I'm sure I could figure out some values that come lastweek we went to Wall-Ally's baseball game it was his

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second T-ball game of all time and uh Lucy had a play dateand uh with her

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friend Bobo and they hung out at our house that's what wedid first of all you're smiling the whole time you're

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talking about it so that's sounds like it's something thatyou're liking and um

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so you clearly value your kids and time with them youclearly value exercise and

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your son getting out and doing something it also sounds tome like you value um you know your fostering friendships with

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your daughter and her friends and having them engaging andengaging with them they're at your play date sounds like it

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was probably at your house so and you clearly enjoy it justby the way you talked it was very clear you were

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enjoying that so those are some you know family and andengaging with others and

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and helping kids get exercise are definitely things that I'mpulling that you you probably value um so listening

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for values and then and that's and then that opens a dooryou know as you in terms of building trust it depends how

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well you know let's stay there for one second because itlistening is so critical and it's hard you know

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uh I I've seen managers leaders ask questions like"What did you do last weekend?" And then the next thing they

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do they're checking their emails you know and and it justloses trust loses respect do you have one specific tip

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before we move on to the next step about how to lock in andbe a better listener being focused about it putting your

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phone down when you ask a question being intentional likelooking in the eyes um

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I honestly will say to my husband I need to see youreyeballs like I know that one i know that one you know that one

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too yeah show me those eyeballs last night yeah so um so Ithink that's just

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focusing on what they're saying and and then letting themknow you heard them like "Wow you know you ask a follow-up

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question or that sounds really great or how fun is that youknow just responding in some way that they know you heard

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them." But the first thing is putting down whateveryou're doing to take a look at them and and talk to them that's

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great yeah so to go to a couple other tips if you're open toit for me sharing about how to find meaning um I think the

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other thing and for man that managers can do to help figureout what would be

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impactful and meaningful for my for their employees is tointentionally build certain questions into their

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routines again this is not like causing a whole anotherhour's worth of work but you think about what are some small

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things I can do to help make sure I understand what isimportant to this person in their work one thing I love is

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in a one-on-one in all of your 101's you know set things upwith your team that

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okay for the first five minutes of our 101's going forward Iwant to hear what your professional high and what your

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professional low was between now when we met last highs andlows and and and tell them I'm going to time box it to five

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minutes because we have lots of other stuff we have to talkabout um and listen and you will hear themes over

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time it's going to force them to think about it right butalso hear what they have to say if they say what a

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professional high was for them and it's a consistent thingthroughout okay they like that that's enjoyable give them more of thoseopportunities or dive in

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further and find out more about that professional low goodfor you to know that period right as a manager and

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leader you need to know what the lows are um and what canyou do to manage those things um and there may be things

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that come up like "Wow that is fascinating i want tohear more about that but we got to get on to X Y and Z

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let's go grab coffee later and talk more about it or putthat on the agenda for next time." But you know ask those

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questions that's a great way to find out what's important tothem so Carrie if

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you're asking these questions in your 101 and yourprofessional low happens to be about whether it's the

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relationship with the manager they're speaking with or maybethe task they're put on uh what tips or advice do you

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have for leaders who maybe aren't great at receivingfeedback listen don't get

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defensive just listen take it in um try to be

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curious and just keep your mouth shut if you're not good atgetting feed at receiving it just receive it listen and

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thank them if you can and and then come back to them ifyou're not ready to ask more about it in the moment um come back

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to them next time say "I'd love to talk more about thisi just need to process it for a bit." But getting defensive

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or blaming or whatever is not going to serve anybody um butbut listening and

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then and opening keeping that door open for us to for you totalk about it later with them um in in the next 101 that you

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know it's important to hear what you have to say um and Ineed to process it and if you're right there in the moment

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and processing it and feel like you can have a calmconversation just get curious and ask about it um and then and

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then you know see what you can do in the moment withoutbeing defensive but the best thing is just to receive it and

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think about it and process and then come back to them as towhat you're going to do differently or or if or maybe it's a

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misunderstanding who knows what the feedback was or is thatcan only help in the in the you know thank god they're

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telling you versus not telling you and starting to leavesomewhere else or and and that's a sign of trust too if they

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feel like they can tell you something that's a good signthat's a sign of trust and that's a key part of a manager

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employee relationship i agree 100% with that and you'llerode that trust if you

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do get defensive and jump down their throat and I've saidthis a million times on this uh podcast that tr

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receiving feedback is really the fuel for growth you knowfor everybody and so you want to keep the door open that for

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a manager one other area maybe you could speak to this alittle bit about eroding trust like I believe 101's are super

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important one thing that erodess trust is constantly movingand cancelling 101's it does it can cuz it cuz the

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person could interpret it as okay I guess I'm not asimportant as what they need to do or talk whoever they need to

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meet that's taking my space so it can so some things areunavoidable and I think

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a good technique for that is to say okay I want to talk toyou I'm sorry I need to focus on this let's make sure we do x

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y and z but stop cancelling you know making the time anddoing it it's you know prioritizing it more than the

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others and maybe it's the cadence that wrong you know iswrong maybe you have oneonone weekly and you just can't do it

28:52

you're you know and you got to step back and move them toevery other week but then you got to stick to them or stick to them as much asyou can uh or find

28:59

other ways to say "I can't meet tomorrow but I can meetThursday in the meantime can you send me a summary of what you've

29:04

been working on or what you have for me?" So you youknow you still tell them "I want to hear you i want to know what's goingon and I need to wait until

29:11

Friday but let's talk Friday." So it's just all aboutthem knowing they want

29:17

you want to still hear from them um and making sure you finda way to do that and do it consistently i think that's

29:24

important to to identify the cadence because if you if youhave one ones booked every week and then it gets

29:30

cancelled every other week uh and that goes for regularmeetings too i mean I remember about a year ago one of our

29:36

sales leaders it just seemed like he was always cancellingor moving meetings all the time and I know that the rest of the

29:41

team was probably either getting frustrated or just didn'tbelieve that those meetings were even going to happen so I mean that's reallyimportant do you

29:48

have any other great questions that you ask during a uhone-on-one session you

29:54

know so I have this practice that I have done and I've alsoencouraged managers

29:59

to do and it's called a stay interview i don't know if youare you familiar with the stay i think it's great yeah great

30:05

and a lot of our listeners aren't so let's talk about thatokay let's talk about it yeah so it's it's the the first

30:11

time I started encouraging managers to use it was duringlike you know the technology boom and you know I'm in the

30:17

Bay Area so a lot of you know at that time a lot of peoplewere leaving right and so anyway so during the technology

30:22

boom a lot of people were were leaving their jobs and I wasworking in the tech space and as an HR business partner in the tech space atthe time so we

30:28

encourage managers to do these stay interviews and what itis is you ask key questions of your top performers or

30:36

people you cannot you know afford to lose and um and it'squestions around

30:42

you know what do you like is some are basic and you got totailor it to make it work for the person basic is great

30:48

yeah so what do you like about your job what's frustratingabout your job if you could change something about it what would it be if you Ilove this one

30:54

question if you won the lottery um and quit your job whatwould you miss about your work you know so you know you know

31:01

finding and if you could change one thing what can I do dobetter to support you there's a whole list of questions

31:07

but being really intentional about what is it that makesthem tick what's it that makes them stay what can I do as

31:14

your manager to help things and your leader to help thingsbe um more

31:19

meaningful for you to make it be some place you want to beum and then doing what and some of the stuff maybe you

31:26

might may not be able to change but and then being honestabout it say "Okay let me look into that i don't know if I can

31:31

do that but what else can I do what else can we dotogether?" So it's really being intentional and having those

31:37

conversations so you know what's going to keep them and ifyou can't meet it and they're pretty clear they want X Y

31:43

and Z then it also gives you a heads up they're probablygoing to be leaving soon so start having them document what they're doing startbuilding having your

31:50

own research out there so you can find someone to replacethem if they're a key member of your team yeah absolutely i I

31:56

feel a lot of times we don't have enough bench strength andand we're not doing enough documentation and and somebody

32:01

gets up and leaves but one of the things I like about thestay interview that you brought up right there is it helps get

32:07

you uh ahead of the game on this and and there are timeswhere you can you change things and make it better i've also

32:13

found though if people give you all this feedback and allthese recommendations

32:18

you don't necessarily have to do something about it all thetime but you know you should at least give them every once in a while if you dodo something

32:24

about it you know say "Hey thank you for this advice wemade this change or everything like that." Yeah i see so

32:30

you're saying "I I heard you i see you i'macting." And that's why like even with employee surveys it's so important

32:36

to go back i heard you i see what you said and we're doingsomething about it or we're not doing something about it but I still heard youand here's what

32:42

you know our decision-m so one group of employees that Ithink have it really

32:47

tough are middle managers you know middle managers you knowthey're they're really stretched you know if they got

32:53

stuff coming from leadership and then they have their directreports and a lot of great middle managers I found you

32:59

know they want to build that trust and connection with theirteam so what is one simple mind shift or change they can

33:06

make to help continue to build trust and connection outsideof just the one ones we talked about authenticity is

33:12

something that is so important especially in that middlemanager space

33:18

um you know and so I think the more a manager especially themiddle manager

33:24

can just be authentic and genuine and honest but prof andand you know tow the

33:31

line corporate wise as well but with their team to say youknow what this is hard guys I get it i get it this is hard

33:38

this is where we are and this is where I want to go and Ibelieve in us or whatever but the more someone is like

33:45

authentic with someone I think the greater the trust that isbuilt and it and and also the more you allow others

33:52

to be kind of um authentic and true with him the more moregreater trust that

33:58

would be i'll never forget an example I had with a wonderfulmanager of mine i was really frustrated about something

34:05

and and I told her I just you know I I just I was reallyfrustrated she's like "No tell me i want to hear it." I'm like

34:11

"I don't know if you want to hear all this." Shesaid "No I need to hear it i want to hear it." And it wasn't against

34:17

her it was a broader situation thing um and so I told her Ijust told her and she's like "Thank you." That was How did

34:24

it make you feel to be able to get off your chest it feltgreat oh it felt great and it felt like I was in a safe

34:30

space she made it safe for me she's like "I'm not goingto get mad at you i just need to know this so I can help fix it

34:35

and we can help." Because you know I was playing anintegral role in her team and so it felt it gave me that confidence

34:42

that she she wanted the best for me and for the team and wasgoing to do what she could and she just wanted to hear it

34:47

and I and it felt great to be heard and um and it helpedreally build that trust

34:53

even more and and I didn't complain to her all the timeafter that i just got it off she knew where I was and then she

34:58

did what she could and it just really helped solidify thattrust even more now

35:04

you told me in the pre-in I don't think this is the samestory but um that you had a manager who really saw something

35:10

in you and they gave you a push um what was that and thatstayed with you uh

35:16

moving forward yeah so she saw um she understood my

35:22

um my strengths and she understood what was meaningful forto me at the time so

35:28

and again and I want to reiterate for people listening youdon't have to be having these deep philosophical conversations with people norshould you

35:35

in many cases but but she understood what was important tome she listened and she pointed me um so the situation

35:43

is I had got my MBA while working and um in HR and there wasa job hosting for a

35:50

program a new program at my company where you could rotateacross the different um areas of HR and it was for

35:56

MBA grads and I didn't really think twice about it becauseI'd been in HR for a while and like what am I going to

36:01

be learning here why why would I do this she she said Carriedid you see this and I I said yeah yeah and she said no she

36:08

said "Kar you should consider this because she's likeyou would then this is going to help you dive in more deeply

36:13

and learn more." She knew I like to learn because I wasdoing this MBA she also knew that I was ready for something

36:19

else and she said "It's going to help you learn morethis could lead to other things it's going to give you great

36:24

exposure." I'm like "Oh I like I hadn't eventhought about it." Um and so I explored it further and it ended up

36:30

being one of the you know pivotal pieces in my career whatreally gave me some more exposure and helped get me to that

36:36

next level and um it will forever be grateful to her and itwas a quick thing

36:41

but she knew what was important to me she knew where I wasin my career and she was the other thing is she was open

36:48

to losing a member of her staff for something that was goingto be more meaningful for me um and so she was open

36:55

to supporting me in that so and she'd had to replace me soand she was she saw

37:00

the bigger picture and I will forever be grateful to her forthat and that that will always stay with you and it kind of

37:06

reminds me the part I like the most of that whole story wellfirst of all that she knows you and and opened up your

37:13

mind to something that you didn't even see you connected sheconnected you going uh to get your MBA with learning

37:20

and and this opportunity but the the second part uh Iinterviewed a guy

37:26

wonderful Gary Ridge the the uh old the used to be the CEOof WD40 and he talked

37:33

about how leaders need to get out how they protect their owncomfort zone uh

37:39

sometimes yeah and what it sounds like your leader was doingwas saying "Look I might lose this person somewhere else in

37:46

the organization and that's uncomfortable for me and I gotto backfill that." But instead of putting

37:51

themsel first that she did what a great leader does she putshe put her team members first and said "I'll figure out

37:59

how to backfill that later." And look what that did foryou and your career and I'm sure for your organization overall oh yeah oh yeahand she and I

38:06

have interacted since in various roles that I've been in youknow that foundation is still there it's Yeah it's

38:11

great she really Yeah was not thinking of herself butthinking of how can I help Carrie how can uh a leader who

38:19

maybe thinks of himself too much uh instead of their teameither recognize

38:26

that that's what they're doing or or find other ways to toget out of their comfort zone let's say to for the

38:32

best interest of their team well I think you mentioned a keypart is feedback right um and if they're not getting it

38:40

from their manager or team directly a fabulous tool for thatis 360 a 360 assessment you'll get you'll get common

38:47

themes from there so if if he or she is not listening totheir team or putting the team first it'll come out in an

38:54

assessment um a 360 assessment so I think that's a great wayto just get the data because sometimes if people aren't

39:00

seeing it they may not believe it but you get it you get thedata it's there it's hard to deny it that if if it's a

39:07

common theme that's coming out from everybody so that's onestep I think that could be taken um another one um if

39:16

they're not seeing their team is is mentoring i mean I thinkyou know talking to someone that that's really

39:25

good at that and having you know a relationship even if it'sjust going to lunch every month or whatever but being

39:31

intentional about talking about it and hopefully there thisperson's manager would raise it to the individual that

39:37

you need to think about your team more too but um you knowif that's happening finding a mentoring relationship and it

39:43

could be like I said informal a lunch but talk about what dothey do see you know get some tips from them hearing you

39:49

know someone you trust that that they would trust that theycould bounce ideas off of or that could share ideas with

39:55

them and then I'm trying to think so I think 360 mentoringand and then just

40:00

listening really trying to get listen to feedback listen toum what you're hearing listen to um what's coming up

40:08

from customers listen see how your your patterns look atyour patterns if you're you know and they can look at your day

40:15

how much of my day is spent on focusing on things I need andwant versus what my

40:20

team wants here's a question that I got uh stuck on uh onetime somebody asked me and and so maybe it's a curveball for

40:27

you too but a lot of this requires self-awareness oh yeah umand I don't

40:32

know if you have any coaching clients i have some people whocome to me saying they want mentorship but they really

40:38

lack self-awareness is that something that you think you canyou could help build in people or is that more innate

40:46

oh no i think we can help build it and it's based onfeedback you know feedback

40:51

and then being open to it um you have to be open to it itcan't be know all yeah right you have to be open to it um and

40:57

it could and however the feedback comes it could be that'swhy I love the 360s

41:03

it could come though through oneoff feedback from directreports it could come from you know but the but you can I

41:10

believe you can build self-awareness as you start to hearthings and listen to feedback from other people but you you

41:17

know if you're and if you're at a certain point too lack ofself-awareness is going to smack someone in the face

41:23

right they're going to be they're not going to get to go upto a certain point because they're doing things that are damaging themselvesand so coaching can

41:31

really play a role with some of that too if coaching fromthe manager I mean here's what I'm seeing here's what's

41:36

happening you know really giving that feedback directly totheir employee um and then and then potentially coaching

41:42

with an outside coach too um but that manager needs to beinvolved as well you know giving make sure they're getting

41:47

that feedback um but at a certain point it's it's likelygoing to stop the person because it's going to they're

41:54

going to come up against a wall because they're notunderstanding how they're coming off and they're offending people or whateveris happening yeah the two

42:00

things I see the most often that stall people's careerreally uh very sharp

42:06

people are lack of self-awareness and poor communicationskills you know especially if you want to move

42:11

into leadership well Carrie I we've I mean we're already at45 minutes i mean this has actually gone by very quickly

42:17

for me you're awesome before we wrap up what is somethingthat we haven't discussed that you want to leave our uh

42:23

audience with yeah this is going to sound silly but I thinkit's really helpful for leaders especially if you're a leader new to a team orum you're just

42:32

wanting you're struggling or something with your team is Ilove those kind of team assessments like the strength

42:38

finders or anything like that but I like that one becauseyou get to understand how someone works at a high level and it

42:46

opens up the conversation and you can under and you canit'll help you as a manager know how to manage that person a

42:53

little better based on some natural innate strengths oftheir own and by what you have and it will help them

42:58

manage you better as a manager so there is so much value inin really just

43:04

understanding more about your team and working styles andstrengths and and whatever and that can open up

43:10

conversations to many other things and help make it a betterum leader and

43:15

manager experience for you and for your team i've seen I cangive so many examples of how it works even and even

43:21

from individual give us one let's give us one example beforewe close out i will give you one from my coaching so

43:28

um so this one woman she um had gotten her strength you knowstrength she took

43:33

Strengthfinders or Clifton Strengths is what it's now calledand she came out her top two of her top five strengths

43:39

were discipline and consistency and one of the things sheand I have been coaching on is the chaotic space her

43:46

team her team was in she was an indigital contributor andshe kept saying "Oh my gosh things keep changing

43:53

i can't it's I I can't get my footing it's just chaotic itwas really hard for her and she's having a tough time she

43:59

saw her strength and she had an epiphany she's like"This is why I'm having such a hard time why I'm going home exhausted

44:04

every night because my top two strengths are all aboutstructure and consistency and I don't have that here um in this

44:11

team." So that was an epiphany for her and then throughcoaching we said "Okay how else can you look at this?" Cuz

44:17

she's on this team right now she's got to find a way to makeit work right you know at that moment and so we she

44:23

switched her mindset and said "Yeah they need me onthis team i can bring the

44:29

consistency and the structure to this team i am their secretweapon i can

44:34

really help them here because it's natural for me i love itand it's great." So that really was a shift for

44:40

her and helped her understand why she was really reacting somuch um so that

44:45

was another she loved that i can give another example if youwant really quick for a manager employee let's do it so

44:52

this is another personal example i had a manager her topfive thing was activator

44:57

i mean she liked to move she got things done i loved I meanI loved working for her because if she said she's going to

45:03

do something she did it and she did it within five minutesum and so I had to learn that if I wanted her not to act I

45:10

had to be very clear i'd say you know thank you i'm I'm justgoing to share something with you for awareness not

45:17

something for you to do i I I got it here i will take careof it you don't need to do anything but you just need to be aware and so she'slike "Oh okay." So

45:23

she you know so she wouldn't do it but I had to be explicitum and I also knew that if she said she was going to do

45:29

something she would do it um so and then I did similarthings with members of my

45:35

team i know some of them I knew from their strength findersthey needed time to reflect and think and whatever so I

45:40

would send them information in advance to read it and thenthey'd be ready for our conversation the next day yeah small

45:46

things make a big difference and you know even like you saidsimple as well right oh yeah this is not a difficult

45:52

tool that's one of the things I like about it there's lotsof things out there but this is just simple and it's inexpensive and and I canalso help any

45:58

leader if they want to facilitate discussion or whatever onit too but but their HR team might be able to do it but

46:03

it's just an easy great tool out there well this has beengreat and and I love the passion you bring behind this and

46:10

the stories and the tips and I'm just going to recap alittle bit of what we talked about today we talked about um

46:17

finding meaning in work and how over la last 20 years HR hasplayed a more

46:22

strategic role role in in the world as well as theimportance of finding

46:28

clarity which kind of goes back to the to the meaning uh wejust we ted on one-on ones and some great open-ended

46:35

questions you could ask um you're passionate about tools andleveraging things like StrengthFinders um and then

46:43

career pivots you know making making your leap even if itwas forced into your own business we'll talk a little

46:50

bit about the difference between coaching and leading alittle bit there and also uh I think it's important about

46:55

intentionality and curiosity i think that those so those twoare so important

47:00

um all right well I I'm excited to um see you at theassembly coming up you know for kids school yes um but for

47:07

those of you who are not going to see you Carrie where canour uh audience connect with you at yes they can find me

47:13

um through my website kyrockers.com they can find me onLinkedIn you can search me on car I mean there's not that many

47:19

Carrie rockers out there and I think I'm the only one thathas the website kyro rockers.com so you can find me in all those places reachout to me on LinkedIn

47:25

would love to hear from you love to help you and your teamsfor all of you out there who got value out of this I'm sure

47:31

you did do me a favor but think of somebody who could usesome of the tips uh that Carrie's spoken about maybe

47:38

somebody who's in HR or maybe somebody who's a leader who'sstruggling connecting with their team members or

47:44

maybe somebody who doesn't even see the value in helpingtheir team members uh find meaning in their work this will

47:50

really help them so share this episode with them and untilnext time everybody stay curious keep learning have a great

47:58

day see you next time thanks Gary the big thing is I got asecond story out of it with a with a photo which is

48:05

very rare in the a paper like the New York Times and thatthat really started

48:11

the

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