Coaching insights for managing today's teams

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Transcription:

Transcripts are generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers, and may contain errors. Please check the corresponding audio for the authoritative record.

Patti Harman (00:07):

Effective leaders and managers must develop a wide range of skill sets to succeed in today’s business environment. With teams frequently a blend of in-person and remote workers, understanding their needs and how to train and empower them to reach their potential requires a clear understanding of how to coach them successfully. Joining me today to discuss the power and importance of coaching in the workplace is Ken Kinard, founding partner of RKE Partners and an executive with over 20 years of experience and leading a wide variety of teams in all different kinds of environments. Ken will be presenting at this year’s Women in Insurance Leadership Conference in Boca Raton, Florida on June 26th, and he’s going to give us a preview of some of the information he’ll be sharing at the conference. Thank you so much for joining us today, Ken.

Ken Kinard (01:01):

What a joy, Patti. So great to be here for this interview. This is just awesome.

Patti Harman (01:06):

I’ve been looking forward to this because coaching is such an important part of being a leader, and I thought I would start with something as basic is just what is coaching and how does it differ from training?

Ken Kinard (01:20):

Sure. Well, here’s the way I think about it, with managers in particular, right? There’s like four legs of the stool, four things that they do for us when we’re employees, first of all, resourcing. They provide and allocate resources. They give us what we need to do, our jobs, money, time, access to things, and they’re allocating those resources appropriately. I’m going to delegate this to you and you’re going to do this other thing, that kind of thing. So that resourcing component, we all think of good managers, good leaders is doing a good job at that. The second leg of the stool is training. You mentioned it. Training is what we need when we don’t have the necessary ability or skill to perform the job function. And of course this happens more and more as work is getting faster and faster and its rate of change.

(02:08):

So there’s always new software, there’s always something new to learn, and so a good manager will be on the lookout for how can I help to either train them myself or get these employees some kind of outside training. Third is mentoring, which isn’t always on the menu, but a lot of people are as leaders, they’re kind of saying, Hey, I can guide you. I can give you my personal experience. I can leverage my network and my influence to help you level up. And so that’s what many do. Some people will use outside mentors, some will mentor themselves, some will just avoid this leg of the stool. And then finally, you mentioned it. Here’s our topic coaching, which really used to be a three-legged stool, now it’s a four- legged stool. With the addition of coaching as a management skill, we now have this other way of helping and leading and guiding the people that we work with. And of course, coaching is just a dialogue of discovery where we’re helping our employees align their attitudes, that’s their perspectives, their emotions to the desired outcome. So coaching adds a relatively new leg in the last 30, 40 years, it’s been a development skill, a way of working, a way of leading, and it’s a powerful tool when used effectively.

Patti Harman (03:31):

You’ve touched on it a little bit, but why is coaching important for business leaders and managers then?

Ken Kinard (03:38):

Well, for one thing, you’re only using three of the four tools in the toolbox. So right there, you’re less effective than someone else will be. They’re going to outperform you. Second, it’s important because it solves problems that the others don’t have. If your problem is that you need training and no one trains you, then you can have all the resources in the world and you’re not going to do your job well. Same is true with coaching. If your problem is your attitude, your perspective, some relational conflict going on at work, all the training classes in the world are not going to fix that. The project management software and being assigned tasks, this is the typical case of the manager has a hammer, so this problem must be a nail, and it’s not a nail, right? It’s a screw. So you need a different tool for the job. And that’s where coaching provides a tool for the kinds of things, the kinds of problems that can crop up because we’re all humans and we’ve got human problems, we bring our whole humanity into work with us. And a coach approach in management is that tool that’s going to say, okay, let’s approach this a little differently.

Patti Harman (04:41):

So Ken, for our audience, can you explain to them basically what is coaching? What does it look like?

Ken Kinard (04:48):

So I think of coaching as a one-on-one dialogue that inspires our employees to take control of their own development. So they are improving their performance, they are maximizing their potential, and we do that really in four ways. Number one, we help them identify what challenges do they have and what are their growth opportunities? Second, we help them explore possible solutions like, well, what have you tried this and how did that go? Do you want to brainstorm that together? Third, we develop goals with them and craft action plans like, what’s your plan? What do you want to do about this? Which of these options appeals to you? And then we finally maintain momentum by providing encouragement and support and challenge. We keep them accountable for performing on the action plan that they came up with. So you can see how in coaching, the distinction here is they’re the one doing the work.

(05:45):

So we don’t solve the problem for them. We don’t say, oh, you’re having difficulty with Sally. Well, here’s how I deal with Sally. Let me give you some tips and tricks. No, it’s like, oh, you’re having a problem with Sally. Well, what’s in your way and what have you tried and what do you think Sally’s perspective is? And let’s start figuring out what approaches there might be that could help you with that. You’re kind of guiding them to do the work, and now you’ve shifted from being that problem-solver to being the one who’s helping them leverage their own problem-solving abilities.

Patti Harman (06:18):

It puts the power basically back in their lap.

Ken Kinard (06:21):

Oh, I like that. Patti. Yes. I can tell you’ve been a manager for a while.

Patti Harman (06:28):

So we’ve explained what coaching is. What are some of the common mistakes that managers make then when they’re coaching their teams

Ken Kinard (06:34):

Teams? Well, the first mistake is to solve the problem for them, like we just said. You know what I mean? And here’s the thing, Patti, it’s so hard. I mean, I’ve been trying to do this well for 15 years. It’s so hard when an employee comes to me that I manage and they say, here’s what I’m struggling with. I really want to solve it for them. I think I’m pretty smart. I love the sound of my voice. You can probably tell I come across as enthusiastic about the things I believe in. And to shut all that down and to allow them and keep the focus on them, to listen well, to notice, to ask powerful questions. That’s hard, especially if I’m a good manager because part of what being a good manager is, is being a good problem solver. That’s what made me a manager in the first place.

(07:24):

So here I am leveraging this muscle of solving people’s problems and then getting into a difficult situation where I can’t use the muscle that I’ve so well developed and I need to use this other muscle, which for many people might be a weaker muscle. Some it might be stronger, good for you, but most of the time it’s weaker. And so allowing them to struggle a little bit, you kind of have to be okay with them solving it their way. But what we know is this, if you solve it for them, they don’t buy in as much. They don’t believe in it as much. They don’t take as much, oh, there my manager goes again, blah, blah, blah. Whereas if they solve it themselves, all of a sudden they’re starting to be accountable for the actions and the things that they chose and they’re doing things their way and who knows, they might do it better. They can see things you can’t see, and you have to be okay with a little detachment from managing their process for them. That’s when you don’t want to be micromanaging how they solve problems. You want to be coaching them.

Patti Harman (08:27):

Wow, I love that explanation because I can see that with all of the different teams that I’ve managed. I always want them to figure out the solution or figure out a way to make it work better or differently. And I want to give them the freedom to do that because that’s an important part of the process.

Ken Kinard (08:44):

For sure.

Patti Harman (08:46):

So we operate in a hybrid work environment these days. I don’t know of too many companies that are all in-person the whole time, how can managers effectively coach their remote teams and what are some things maybe that they should or shouldn’t do?

Ken Kinard (09:02):

Well, no one saw this coming. Covid just totally disrupted this whole thing. So a lot of teams, when they went totally remote in the pandemic, they were panicking. They’re like, oh my gosh, this is not going to work. A lot of managers justifiably felt like some of the tools that they had for managing people were taken away from them because when you’re in-person, you’ve got a lot more access to how a person is feeling and how they’re coming across and their perspective. You’re noticing things. It’s all the stuff you notice when you’re not actively doing the work of the work, but you’re getting coffee or you’re in between meetings. And there’s so much there that relates to what is coachability, and relates to the things that we would coach on their attitude and their perspective and the way they’re getting along with folks. Everyone was all excited after they figured out how Zoom could really work.

(09:53):

And then they were like, oh, I don’t have to dress up. I don’t have to commute, all this stuff. And then what they realized is that the relationship with the employees was getting a little difficult and we had this great resignation, so many people leaving work and getting upset and rage quitting and all that. I think what we’ve learned about hybrid work is, number one, you have to work harder when you’re remote at really connecting with people. It’s not enough to say what I did, I’m just going to do it. And no, it is not enough. So think about what this means. I think the ideal is probably that you’re in person with your employees if you can do it. If you’re local, like one to three times a week, you’re in the office, or for some, that’s not ever going to happen. I mean, if you went hybrid and remote, you might have people thousands of miles away in another country, another state.

(10:51):

So then the question is, well, how often can you get together? Can you make the personal connection more? And what we’ve found in our consulting is that the ones who really make the effort, I know it’s expensive, flights and time and so on, the payoff is worth it if you can get in person and you can really talk about what’s really going on. Now, I say that as a coach, most coaching is done remotely. We zoom in, we zoom out. It’s an hour long, two-hour long conversation, but all of our training programs are hybrid, and we always get our groups together in person. And what we’ve heard from them is that some of the best benefit of the training was just how collaborative it was. They were sharing best practices, they were sharing resources. They were helping save the company money by learning how they can help each other, all these great benefits that we used to take for granted.

(11:40):

So I would just say find a way to increase not only in person, but also could you have different kinds of meetings. And here’s what I mean by that. I’m using the same Zoom technology to talk to you as I talk to clients, as I talk to team members, as I talk to prospect, as I talk to my mother on her birthday. So it feels a lot. All of these types of meetings are all really the same because the technology is the same. It kind of puts me in my zoom mode, if you know what I’m talking about. And yet we’d never do that in person, right? In person. There’s like, oh, I’m going to this party and then I’ve got this business meeting, and then I’m shopping for bagels and whatever. So I like to think about different kinds of virtual meetings. What can we do, whether it’s our agenda or our background or what we’re wearing or how flexible the schedule is or find creative ways to make different kinds of meetings feel different.

(12:41):

And the kind of meeting you really want to have, if all you do is just get tasks done all day is how can we have a more casual, more personal, deeper, more intimate kind of meeting? That’s where coaching is going to find its way in. And you can start to develop more trust. You can start to feel like you know each other better and that trust is going to really matter when the coaching problem comes up and they’ve got a perspective or an emotion or something preventing them from really getting things done and now they might feel comfortable revealing that, and that’s where the fun begins.

Patti Harman (13:19):

What are some of the biggest mistakes that managers make when they are coaching a remote team then?

Ken Kinard (13:26):

Well, they don’t do what I said. They just have task meetings. They have agenda-driven meetings. There’s no chance for people to talk about anything else. No. Hey, okay, it’s time to start. Let’s get started. Let’s do the work. Best practices would be building time into your meetings for how are you really doing, what’s going on in your life? Tell me the classic one that everyone does pretty well, although it’s become pretty boring and trite, how was your weekend, and on Friday, what are you doing for the next weekend? That’s fun. That’s a good step in the right direction. But I was in a meeting the other day with one of my teams and one of the team members put together a trivia game for all of our opening time. It was on Kahoot, which is this app for multiple choice and playing it like, okay, you might say, well, that’s silly, but it revealed things about each other. We didn’t know. It brought a lot of levity. I made some side comments about things in my personal life that I would not have thought to reveal otherwise, have some fun with it. But I would say you need an environment. If this is your work environment and these are your collaborators, you need an environment, even if it’s virtual most of the time, where you can bring your personality into it and you can get to know one another and you can start to trust each other. It doesn’t have to be boring.

Patti Harman (14:47):

Oh, I love the idea of having fun with that. I have managed remote teams for probably at least like 25 years, and you’re so right when you say that it’s important. You have to put in the time and the effort to get to know your team members and to kind of try and connect with them on a deeper level because you want them to know that you care about them and what’s going on, not just in their work lives, but in their personal lives too, because it’s all part of the whole person. And you can’t coach and encourage and manage just one aspect of an individual because everything kind of spills over into other areas. How we coach our teams tend to evolve over time.

Ken Kinard (15:34):

Yes, it does. I would say in two ways. One way it evolves over time is if you look at the big picture of how coaching has evolved over time, so it used to be brand new and only coaches were coaches, and you got trained and certified as a coach. And so a lot of us did that when we started coaching individuals and teams and so on. What’s happened over time is that coaching has become demonstrably proven to be effective. And so because of that, it’s become more popular. And now not just executives have coaches, but managers have coaches, and a lot of people have coaches, teams will have coaches, etcetera. And the new thing, and this is why this topic for this upcoming workshop is important, managers have learned that they could actually level up their game if they brought in some of these basic coaching tools into their toolbox.

(16:29):

Now, as I say that we all recognize, look, if you need a counselor, you get a professional. If you need a coach, you get a professional. If we have a medical emergency in my office, I’m not going to do surgery, but I might have a first aid kit and the first aid kit would stop the bleeding and take care of some of the basics. I think of coaching as kind of the same toolkit for a manager. They don’t have to become certified as a professional coach like I am to have some basic skills for just making this a better team and making this a better environment and helping people get more productive and get out of their own way. So that has changed over time. The second way that coaching changes over time is it changes as the individual moves up the corporate ladder or gets more into their career.

(17:17):

So what a 25-year-old needs from a coach, I think is often very different from what a 45-year-old needs or what a 65-year-old needs. Why is that? Well, as we get more responsibility and life gets more complex and our roles and responsibilities are changing as they move up, they might need a lot more management skills, training skills as they get into leadership, they need executive presence, they need to learn more about emotional intelligence. There’s assessments we would use for later level workers that we just wouldn’t use when people are starting out and there’s no need to spend time on them. So in terms of my coaching toolbox, that’s kind of how I think of that. What are your thoughts on that?

Patti Harman (18:03):

I think that makes a lot of sense and I’m glad that you mentioned what people need changes depending on where they are in their career. I know at the WIL conference, we’re looking at women that are in mid-level management and moving up. And so you’re right that skillset is going to be totally different, and that’s one of the things that we’re trying to bring out while we’re there. And I think people make the mistake that when they are promoted, they don’t realize they need to change their skillsets too. As they become a manager, some people are really willing to learn and acquire the different skills that they need to make them a good manager. And other people, I think sometimes think, oh, well, I already know how to do this, and that is not always the case.

Ken Kinard (18:48):

Right? We’re both laughing because we’ve all had that experience, right? Yes. What makes you a good candidate for management a lot of times is just how well you performed as an individual contributor. You’re doing the job that you were trained for, you’ve got the core skill, and then suddenly you’re either promoted or voluntold, Hey, you’re going to be a manager. And there’s that initial rush of excitement and then that initial kind of dread when you realize, oh my gosh, what got me here is not going to take me there. It’s a different level of skill. It’s a different kind of skill. Many times, you didn’t get trained in it. So all of us are kind of learning as we go. It’s kind of on the job training and how willing and able you are to pick up those skills will to determine your success as a manager, not how well you performed your job.

Patti Harman (19:35):

That is so true. So we’ve talked about this a little bit. Is coaching an ongoing aspect of management or do you find that it’s something that becomes maybe less vital as a team grows and becomes more experienced?

Ken Kinard (19:50):

I think it’s kind of like I always need my mom, no matter how old I am, I always appreciate that I can call her up and she adapts to what I’m learning and growing. I kind of feel like that way with coaching. I feel like I’m always going to need a coach. Now, what I’m getting coaching on today is different from what I got coached on 20 years ago when I first hired a coach. I’m in a different place. Life is different, work is different, but the idea that I could have a professional person solely dedicated to my success, a safe place to bounce my ideas off of someone who can show me a mirror and say, this is what you look like, how do you think that’s going to go across? Just some of that challenge and support. I just feel like I’m always going to need that because I’m never going to arrive and be that perfect leader. I’m always going to have things that I could do better and change. And so if I think of coaching as a resource, why wouldn’t I use it? Right? The value is way higher than the expense.

Patti Harman (20:53):

Yeah, I can totally see that and I can see how it would change going forward. I asked you earlier about some of the common mistakes when it comes to coaching, but what would you say are maybe the top three to five factors to keep in mind as a manager in coaching a team?

Ken Kinard (21:11):

Okay. Well, besides going into the individual coaching skills, which we could talk about, you can get trained on those skills and get better, but if you’re just looking at management and coaching your team, what do you need to keep in mind? First thing I would say is I would challenge you to track how much time do you currently spend in those four roles? So resourcing, training, mentoring and coaching. What percentage of the time are you doing those? And notice that and notice how that aligns to your strengths and weaknesses. You might think, oh yeah, I do all that. And then you start tracking your time and you realize, wait a minute, I’m doing a lot of, let’s say resourcing, but I’m not doing any mentoring or coaching or whatever. And then based on your strengths and weaknesses and your situation, what would you like to improve?

(22:05):

How could you get better? If coaching is needed and it’s not happening, how could you get better as a coach? Or if you think someone really could use a mentor but you don’t have the time to do it, well, that’s a resource issue. How can you resource them so that a mentor could come in and mentor that person and they could get a leg up or they could still benefit from someone who’s gone before them in that same role or industry. So I think that’s what I would encourage people to keep in mind, look at your job as a manager in those four ways, evaluate yourself and then see how can I get better? If resourcing is what you need to lean into, then maybe you need to get some project management software to help or train yourself on some different systems or talk to your leaders about getting more resources for your team.

(22:51):

If it’s training that’s needed, maybe it’s time to go out and take a fresh look. What are the courses that are out there? Well, who are the trainers I could bring in? Where’s the consultant that knows about this that can come and help my team? If it’s mentoring, you need to connect with folks. I mean, the baby boomers, let’s face it, they’re not going to be around much longer and they have so much to offer and they like mentoring. When I talk to them about mentoring, they get excited first. They feel the two common things with them is they feel like they’re no longer useful, and then when they realize they can have a lot of value as a mentor or a coach, they get really excited. And then coaching, do you want to do the coaching yourself? Do you want to get trained or maybe find outside coaches that you could bring in when needed, but those are the four legs of the stool. You might as well hit all four and see how that could improve your game.

Patti Harman (23:44):

I’m glad you talked about mentoring. That is also an important aspect of the management process for a lot of people. And I think a lot of times mentors first, they’re a little bit intimidated to be a mentor, and then they realize it’s such a give and take in a great mentoring relationship.

Ken Kinard (24:04):

It really can be. I’ve had good mentors and bad mentors. One I was assigned and didn’t pick and didn’t like and didn’t work, and another that I picked and it was fantastic, and it really moved my career forward faster. I think I probably saved three to five years on my career development from the four years I spent with a mentor. It was amazing.

Patti Harman (24:23):

Wow, that really is amazing. We talked a little bit about the different types of coaching. Does the type of coaching depend on who is on the team? And I’m thinking about this in terms of folks who are new to a company, there are going to be certain things that they need versus individuals who’ve been with the company are on that team for a long time. So how is that going to differentiate in terms of the type of coaching they’ll need?

Ken Kinard (24:48):

What a smart question, Patti. So yes, it’s true that when you first join a team, there’s just this enculturation process. You need to figure out who’s here, where’s the power? How do things get done, what are the values around here? So, some of the work we do with companies is we help them get really clear on that so that when they bring people in, it’s smooth. And one of the things we do with individuals is, look, if you can’t change your company, it is what it is. Let us give you some skills and tools for revealing those values early so you don’t have to make a mistake and find out what the values are. By breaking them, which is how we usually find out what the values are, you just stepped on my value. That’s how I know that you don’t know what’s going on.

(25:33):

Maybe I should have told you ahead of time, but oops, too late. That kind of situation. Now, once you have established and enculturated, now you have teams. And really it’s really about how can we get those teams really high functioning? How can we get them eliminating the friction and really moving faster towards a growth mindset, getting the company moving and really making a big impact. And that is a different agenda. Sometimes a little bit different coaching techniques will come out there because of that. But yeah, either way, the goal is the same. You want real clarity about their values. You want alignment to those values, and then you want to use that alignment to be productive.

Patti Harman (26:19):

And the talk about values, that has a lot to do with the company culture too. So that is something that’s really important to share with everybody.

Ken Kinard (26:26):

It really is. And you know what? It’s the hardest thing to do is to write out your values. If you haven’t thought much about it, it’s kind of like asking a fish, what kind of water do they like? What’s water? They don’t know what water is. So when it comes to our values, we all have them and we operate by them, but we don’t really give ’em a lot of thought until something breaks them or goes against them. And then we have conflict, and now we just think we have conflict. We don’t even back up and say, what values were they stepping on when that made me react like this? So it is a leadership question. If you’re the leader of the organization, you’re actually in charge of the values, you’re in charge of the culture that rests on your shoulders. That’s why you’re in the position. Someone has to do that. If you’re not the leader of the organization, you still have a role to play in those values. You can help shape them, you can challenge them. You can bring up other values and say, can we consider them? You’re not in charge of them, but you’re an influencer and you are in charge of helping your team know them, align to them and reinforce them. And that’s what we do in our management training courses.

Patti Harman (27:36):

Yeah, that’s just a really important aspect and something to keep in mind. What’s one thing you’d like our audience to take away from this conversation today?

Ken Kinard (27:46):

I would just say if your company isn’t really using coaching much, you’re missing out on the biggest return on investment opportunity right now in talent development. I can’t think of anything else that has a bigger bang for the buck. It’s tailored to the individual. It’s really powerful and it’s really effective. So that’s why coaching has expanded as an industry in the last 30 years. And you should think about either ways to bring coaching in as a skill set for your toolbox or bring on some outside coaches that can help you. Either way it’s worth it.

Patti Harman (28:23):

Yep. There are a number of studies out there talking about how much the insurance industry is going to change in the next say 15 to 20 years, and the number of people are going to be retiring is absolutely incredible. I think it’s like 40% of the industry. So coaching individuals and just training them up and building into them I think is going to become so much more important going forward. We have covered an awful lot in the last half hour or so. Is there anything that I haven’t asked you about coaching that you think is really important for our audience to know?

Ken Kinard (29:00):

Well, I just want to reiterate to managers, look, management is hard. Okay? It is a hard job, and most of us that do management are not trained in this discipline at all. So we learn to be good at our jobs by doing individual work, contributing as individuals and being good team members. But when we’re either told we’re a manager or decided we wanted to be a manager, you suddenly need a completely different skillset. And many of us are doing both at the same time. You’re an individual contributor and a manager on the team. We call it a player and a coach at the same time on the same team. So we really need you to be a good manager in the workplace. Right? In the past few years, it’s really come to the fore, think about what’s happened, the great resignation, many people quitting their jobs and what’s the number one reason they quit?

(29:49):

It’s because of their relationship with their manager. That’s the number one reason. It’s the most important relationship people have at work is the relationship with their boss. So we really need to get this right, and no matter how experienced you are now, how good you are at it, you can get better. And so that when you realize you never arrive as a manager or leader, you are always improving. And if you’re hungry to grow, if you want to learn to be a better manager, then you’re the kind of person or team that we love helping because there’s a big payoff. There’s a great potential to impact your company, to impact your industry, and really to impact the world.

Patti Harman (30:27):

Wow. That puts it in a completely different context then. Thank you so much, Ken, for sharing your expertise with our audience today, and thank you for listening to the Dig in podcast. I produced this episode with audio production by Adnan Khan. Special thanks this week to Ken Kinard of RKE Partners for joining us. If you’d like to learn more about the importance of coaching your teams, please plan to join us at the Women in Insurance Leadership Conference in Boca Raton, Florida on June 26th. Please rate us, review us, and subscribe to our content at dig in.com/subscribe. From Digital Insurance, I’m Patti Harman, and thank you for listening.