Challenges of the C-Suite with Dr. Brian Underhill, Episode 31

Hello everybody, this is CB Bowman Live. You already know that, so what am I talking about? But I'm here today and I think I'm here again next Tuesday because— but you know, you have to follow me to find out because I'm a fast mover, right? Today my hair is looking a little flat. You know, my beautician abandoned me and moved to Florida. The nerve of him with his girlfriend. So it's taken me weeks to find a new person. And then, you know, you know this— well, we women know the story about getting fit into this. We talk. Oh, but here's the important thing. Today I have on a guest who is a long, long-term colleague. I'm so honored he decided to do our show. And come and talk. So we'll find out the secrets to his success, which is massive. That's my secret for today— massive success. Everybody in the coaching space knows this man. So without further ado, I'm going to introduce you to one of my favorite people, Brian Underhill. Let me just repeat that— it's Dr.

Brian.

Brian is the CEO for the famous CoachSource, which I think is probably the largest coaching cadre in the world, not just in the United States, in the world. So what better advice are we gonna get about the challenges that people in the suite— in the C-suite face? I'm tongue-tied today. than from Brian, who hires, who uses, and who, I don't know, assigns coaches— what's the best word— to help solve these problems. So without further ado, my friend Brian. Brian, welcome.

Hi, CB. Thanks for having me. I know we've known each other forever, and, um, even I knew you before you knew that I knew you, because you would host conferences and I always knew your name and I would see your name around before we actually ever met. Yeah, because you've been really involved in this coaching field for decades, I'm sure at this point.

Yeah, don't age me, Brian.

Oh yeah, yeah. Well, it's a new field, you know, this field of coaching hasn't been around that long, right? 10 years, 10 years at most.

First met in London, of all places, at our friend Marshall Goldsmith's, uh, what did he call it, the 50 leading coaches from around the world?

That's right.

Yeah, he had 50 countries represented. Who could pull something off like that other than Marshall Goldsmith, right?

That's right. And that was only in '19, so that's why I'm surprised we hadn't met met. Until then, given that we hang out in the same circles or whatnot. But we finally met then, and, uh, at that event late December. And it was one of the last things I went to, really. We had a few more months of normalness, I guess, into '20, and that's about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And you were one of the people, one of my professional family people, who met my husband before I proposed to him.

That's right. Yeah, he was there.

Yes.

And he was in the restaurant business. I remember us talking about, uh, the pros and cons of, of that at the time.

Absolutely. Yeah. Unfortunately, just before— I'm like, time-wise, minutes before COVID hit— he got out of the business.

Wow.

It was Pure luck.

Yes, you could say that. You could say that.

The restaurant business did not get along at all. So yeah, I'm hoping that he, he goes contemporary and gets a food truck. I would love that. Yeah, so it's— that's such a growing business right now throughout the United States. It really supports COVID because you're not claustrophobic in a restaurant, right? You're out, fresh air, good food, really living the life.

Well, I'm here in Silicon Valley and there's, there's a couple of San Francisco-based food trucks that are so popular that they announce the morning of where they're going to be on Twitter because you don't know and you can't guess, but they'll announce it and then there's a line waiting. As they start. I don't know if it's still like that in the post-COVID life, but it was just before. And I'd rely on my millennial daughters to tell me what were the hot trucks, you know, to frequent, because they always knew. They always knew where to go.

We have one called— I think it's called Cod. And you get— they only have one thing on the menu, one dish on the menu, which is deep battered fried cod And french fries. Perfect. What is it, dear? Oh, it's called Off the Hook. My husband is correcting me.

Okay.

Everything about food. That's a good example. It's called Off the Hook. And it's so good. I— and there are lines wherever you see that food truck. So yeah, it's, it's the thing to do now, right? Forget having a brick-and-mortar place that You know, too many rules and regulations and stuff. Hey, let's get to talking about the challenges of the C-suite. So, Brian, well, first of all, how many coaches do you have in your cadre? Is it something like 2,000?

No, not— we do have 1,100, 1,100 executive coaches. So we're an executive coaching firm, and with 1,100, we should be the largest pure-play coaching firm. In other words, that all we do is executive coaching. We don't have ancillary businesses. 1,100 independent practitioner coaches that we bring for various projects, and they reside in about 51 countries but certainly serve well over 100 in terms of countries they, they might go to once we start traveling again. So it's quite a network. It's taken me You know, I've been in the field about 25 years, and that's about when I started building this network of coaches, when I first started in the field, actually.

What made you get into this area?

It's a very funny story. So, you know, you and many listening to this, of course, know Marshall Goldsmith's name. And so in 1996, I was in graduate school in Los Angeles. And we had to get an internship as part of our graduate school training. And the organizer said, hey, I have this internship in San Diego with this guy named Marshall Goldsmith. Now, in 1996, Marshall actually wasn't the level of fame he is today. So he had only just done one book. He was really more of an amazing trainer, corporate trainer of leadership. So, you know, 360-degree design and training and whatnot. That's really what he was known for in corporate circles, but he wasn't like worldwide famous like he is today. So I hadn't heard of him or anything. I actually hadn't even heard of coaching. And so I headed down to San Diego from Los Angeles, an easy trip. And also I grew up in San Diego and had the interview with him and we hit it off. Thankfully, and so I started my internship, and it was a small company. So immediately just threw me into coaching. So I suddenly was coaching at twenty something. I don't know. Twenty six. Twenty six. I was pretending to be an executive coach, and and Marshall like he would teach a three sixty leadership course, and then a handful of us would show up. Usually live or on the phone. And then we'd work with all the leaders one-to-one on their 360 feedback.

Wow!

And like I said, with zero training, I suddenly had to interpret these 360 feedbacks and then do a feedback review coaching session with the various leaders that we would encounter. And then that just started growing, honestly, as the field grew. It just started growing. More clients wanted more of that. You know, not just one session, but could we have several sessions, or could you do something for several months? And I remember the first time a client said, could you do something for a year? And not just with me, but with my whole team. And that was really the first time we had kind of a multi-coach long-term engagement, that Marshall would coach the top person and then the rest of us would coach various people. And we had to be somewhat coordinated in how we did it and so forth. And that would have been, yeah, late '90s when the first time we ever got something, got something like that.

So I need to ask you, at that age and now, what's the most memorable thing that's happened to you in giving 360? First, let's explain to the audience what 360 is. feedback is. Go.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So many companies, or there's, there's tools that basically ask about this whole range of leadership behaviors, and it gets sent out. If you're a leader, it gets sent out to everyone around you— your boss, your key peers, everyone who works for you, maybe even some customers, vendors, whatnot. They all fill this out, and indicating some of those leadership areas where you're really strong and those areas that you need help improving, improving in. And you get scores, and then there's some written comments, and sometimes you get a nice thick 50-page report all about your feedback on what you're good at and where you can improve.

Nicely put. Okay, so I remember when I had to do my first one when I was at General Foods, and I was the person that was taking it. And I thought, no way. No, I don't even want to know. I didn't understand it. I hated it. To me, they were all picking on me.

It can be a— if you've never done it before, the first time is a bit of a doozy. Sometimes it can be an eye-opener. That's why most companies don't just give you a report, they'll give you a coach. to help you talk through the report. And often that coach is someone outside your company who has no political affiliations with your company in any kind of way and is very objective in how they look at the feedback. So to help you soak it in and, and make sense of it and then do something about it.

Well, ours wasn't quite set up that way. It was done— you took it And you had group feedback. And it was really— you felt not great as a result. So it took me a long time to learn that this is actually a positive tool when used and when translated appropriately.

Absolutely. I mean, you need to know what you're good at and where you can improve. That's part of developing and growing as a leader is knowing yourself and knowing your strengths and your weaknesses. And, and tool— a tool like this is actually quite vital for that growth. And like I said, the first time, the first time I got it, everything I thought I was good at, I turned out to suck at. And all the things, all the things I thought I was no good at, they said I was good at. It was like a total flip-flop to how I saw myself. as a leader. It was a shocker, you know, it really was. It was like, wow, I never thought I was good at visioning or strategy or whatever. And I just never gave it thought. And they all say I'm actually good at that. And so that starts to change my thinking about myself. And then I thought I was really respectful and great with people, which I am, but I had a tendency to, to treat people not the best if they, if they worked for me or make destructive comments or jokes at other people's expense. I don't know that I've solved that last one because it's sometimes just too tempting.

Yeah.

But, you know, and I never thought that would be something I'd be bad at or not good at, but that was actually one of my lowest areas. And so I had to really work on Behaving a little better or a lot better.

Well, I think we all had that challenge when you get that sort of shock. What?

Exactly.

I tell the story that when I started at General Foods, I was fortunate enough to have a mentor and they came after fashion and they came to me one day and they said, CB, you've got a little problem here. And I said, what? I'm doing the best that I can. You know, you go on that defensive road. And they said, well, people don't think you're very friendly. And I'm like, what are you talking about? I'm so friendly. I said, what would cause them to say that? And they said, you don't say good morning to anyone.

Oh, okay.

Walking down the halls.

Yeah.

You don't say good morning. And when people say good morning, you just look at them. They say, how was your weekend? And you look at them very like, why are you asking me that question? Years later, a colleague of mine, who's now a colleague, but at the time was my therapist, said, and career counselor said, you are an In MBTI, you're a high introvert.

That's what I was thinking. And introverts are sometimes seen as aloof and unfriendly when it's more a bit of shyness, right? Sometimes it's just shy.

Exactly. Exactly. And I said, well, I don't know what that means, but I hate people. We have some work to do. Yeah. Well, I feel fine.

For now it's working.

No, no, it wasn't even working then.

Okay. All right.

Well, somebody tell me that I don't say good morning to people and I don't interact and I don't understand the purpose of saying good morning. We have work to do. And what do they care about how I spent my weekend? We're here today to get some— and he goes, There's where the problem is.

Mm-hmm.

I said, but I don't understand. You know, I'm very sensitive. And he said, and that's another problem. And I later found out about what— I found out about Myers-Briggs. And so today, to today, that's my favorite instrument because it allowed me to see that I'm not only a high introvert, I'm an INTJ. And I am high on every single marker. There's no gray for me. I'm off the charts.

Hmm. INTJ. Yes. No, it's a classic instrument still to this day. It really is. I even just— one of my daughters, I actually gave— just got her the instrument. I'm waiting for her to fill it out. She's a P, so she's taking a long time to fill it out.

No, Dad, you already know enough about men.

Maybe that's why she's not filling it out. I can guess what she is, but, uh, you know, I thought I'd do it for real, officially. I, uh, I'm gonna be guessing ISTP is what I'm gonna guess. So we'll see if she actually fills this thing out. It's the P, The introversion, you know, probably doesn't want me to know, you know, that kind of thing. So.

I think the first 2 call letters are always the easiest to identify in people. It's the middle ones that make the adjustment that are harder to figure people out. But now, okay, I want to go back to the 360. I want to know what was the most Challenging 360 that you had to give, and how did you handle it?

Hmm. Well, let's see, I've had a few 360s where the person got really slammed. I can think of one of the worst reports I've ever seen, and we were working with a police department, of all things. And they, they really committed to leadership development. So everyone in any leadership role went through 360 feedback. This might have been mid-2000s. And I had a number of really bad reports where they were kind of— in 360, it often tells you the percentile that the person falls in for certain questions. So it's comparing them to everyone else in that company who, who's taken the report. So this one person had zero percentile on a couple of her questions. I mean, that means she is at the bottom. There's no other place to be. Now, that was not a good example in one sense because she would not accept or recognize what the feedback had to say.

Hmm.

And as a coach, we only have an hour and you have to decide almost how hard are you gonna hit them with this, because she clearly wasn't seeing it. And I was very gently and then increasingly more forcefully trying to show that this is pretty severe feedback that would be worth listening to. She just wasn't going to see it. And in people's defense, sometimes it's, it's, it's hard to see that. And, you know, they get their feedback only an hour or 2 before they meet us. So Sometimes I recommend that we need a follow-up session in a week or something, because this stuff, sometimes it can be a pretty, pretty big hit for some people. And I think it was for her. She just looked like a bit of a deer in a headlight, and nothing I tried seemed to get her to kind of embrace and welcome the feedback. And I felt pretty ineffective as that session concluded. Now, I did have— I've had other times where the leader really took it seriously.

Tell us the end of the story there. What happened?

There's no end. We only had one session and that's it. That's all they gave us. It was one session. It's not like today where you have extended amounts of sessions and coaching. That's all I had, and I have no idea if I was able to help. My hope is that a couple of seeds got planted of In her mind of, of some areas that she could improve. And with some time, then leaders can start to see this stuff a little bit better sometimes. You know, sometimes they just stay in pure denial and they're just not going to see it. But with a little bit more time to let it soak in. But I can't tell you, I have no idea.

How sad.

Yeah, that's why I'm pivoting to this other person. This was one of my hardest.

Mm-hmm.

Where he also got— he did not get the worst feedback by any means. So he got some tough feedback. Honestly, it wasn't that bad. But as some leaders are really overachievers and they really get hung up on not getting perfect scores. I mean, some of these folks have gotten perfect scores their whole life on anything, right? I mean, straight-A students, great SAT scores, you know, Summa cum laude, whatever. So they're, they're very high-achieving people, they're very smart people. And so you get a 360, and because of the percentile thing, it has to rank you. And some of these behaviors, they just aren't going to be ranked 100 percentile, they're going to be low, lower. And I, so I remember this, this was one of these e-commerce startups back in the internet.com era. And his feedback wasn't terrible, but it was, you know, had some points. And he really started to lose it, and he was just focusing in on every wrong thing. And I can't believe they're saying this and they're saying that. And you could see a lot of emotion in his face. He didn't cry. I have had people cry.

Oh, good.

But he didn't. And he was just really struggling with this feedback. And as a coach, what we then need to do is twist and kind of turn them to, well, what are you going to do about it? Okay, your feedback is what it is. These are their perceptions. They might be right. Maybe there's misunderstandings, but what are you going to do about it?

Yes.

And as soon as I turned him more to focus on that, like, there's something you can do about this. What do you want to do? It was amazing to watch his countenance change and everything to the point of empowerment. So he got out of, you know, wallowing in his misery.

Mm-hmm.

And he realized that no matter what my feedback says, I still have a responsibility to do something about it. And once we got him thinking like that, we could focus on an area of development that would make a lot of sense, start action planning, and Again, it was one session, so I don't know how he did thereafter, but, uh, I felt a lot more encouraged that something was going to happen.

I wish we as a profession would make it illegal to, um, give instruments that can really affect a person's life On the fly. Because one session is— doesn't even come near the surface of supporting people in change. And I'm such a strong advocate, if you're not gonna provide the right amount of sessions, don't give it. Don't use the instrument.

Yeah.

Right. It's really abusing the instrument, and it's abusing the relationship with the person.

Yeah, absolutely.

Brian, challenges of the C-suite. What do you see— uh-oh, I see a smile coming— what do you see are the biggest, let's say, 3 challenges that people in the C-suite are facing today?

Hmm, well, today, I think the biggest challenge is You know, we're in unprecedented times, as we know. It's really crazy times. So as a C-suite leader, I'm sure most C-suite leaders are really trying to figure things out quickly. You know, we've gone through an incredible shift and disruption. to our work lives. And now we're starting to see kind of a light at the end of the tunnel and some climbing out of there. Depending on what industry you're in, I mean, some industries are just decimated. Others actually did way better than expected.

Hmm.

I, you know, I don't know that I have a perfect answer at all. I mean, it is a crazy time of change, of, you know, upheaval, even renewal. And coaches are in a great position to help leaders through these times. You know, coaches can help leaders contend with change, contend with trying to figure out how to make sense of the world around them, to be a confidential and safe place to talk about some of their concerns. You know, coaching is, as you're well aware, is generally very confidential. Dialogue, questioning, and so I would imagine if I'm a leader and we're dealing with some tough business challenges right now, and and you might not want anyone on your team know about some of the things you're thinking through and considering, or some of your fears, concerns. It's not really safe to be doing that with your own team members. Probably never is. But now, you know, you don't want if you're really worried about the future, you may not necessarily want every person in your company to know. that you're worried about the future. And so a coach is a great place to work through some of that. So I think the first answer to your question is honestly just the incredible upheaval and turmoil we're feeling through the pandemic, for sure.

So, so let's break this down. You know, the United States right now is going through 5 pandemics, right? We've got— see if I can remember them all. We've We've got COVID, we've got social unrest, we've got economic, we've got mental health, and we have environment.

Hmm.

So LEAD is taking on all 5 pandemics. We're seeing different behaviors surface to the top. But I'd say that one of the behaviors we see surfacing to the top that people are having a real— people in the C-suite as well as people in general, but mostly in the C-suite, are having a real tough time in figuring out what's the best way to connect and support employees. Because I think—

Hmm.

This time they have— during these times, they've realized, you know, you can't treat employees like, you know, a piece of paper that you move From one point of your desk to another point of your desk. You can't treat them like— well, maybe you should treat them like water, because if you try to hold on to water, it slips right through your fingers.

Mm-hmm.

You have to have some kind of support underneath to hold that water together. And I think it's scaring leaders at the top, because some of the conflicts with laws that we have, some of it doesn't, and their behavior is one of being quite insecure right now. What thoughts can you offer to help them through this? Some are even being called— it's being called feminizing of leadership because we're asking leaders to display behavior that is contrary to what they've been trained to do? What's your thinking there?

Well, I know that as the pandemic unfolded— so my company is, we have about 30 employees and 1,100 coaches. And as it unfolded, I remember And maybe a month or two in, I wasn't personally gripped with fear, and I wasn't personally extraordinarily worried about the future of my company. But what I started to figure out is that people in our company were, and they needed to hear from me. And we're an all-virtual company. We always have been. And they needed to hear and see me. And so we sort of got these informal kind of water cooler kind of Zoom things going, and we had fun with it. Like, you know, bring your favorite Zoom background, or we did one in the late afternoon and show us your beverage of choice, or—

Woo!

You know, we started to, you know, we said to everyone that, some Starbucks holiday coffee right at holiday time and just to hang out, just to chat. I could give them a few announcements of what we're seeing at the top, but honestly, to reassure people that, you know, it's going to be okay and, you know, the company is doing just fine. It's sort of like you always want to know on the That's awesome. If you get on a plane that the pilot's not worried, even if you're freaked, even if you're a bit of a nervous flyer or whatever, right? If the pilot starts to talk and he sounds confident and comfortable, then you'll calm down a bit because the pilot sees the view and he seems to know what's happening, he or she. And then so you feel better about that. But the very few times, if you see the flight attendants Scared or something. They're probably scared because they ran out of Diet Coke. But you know, if you're if you're a fearful flyer, you're thinking, oh, they seem scared and concerned. You know, they're calling each other. That gets you worried. So you need to see your leaders, and you need to feel comfortable. And that doesn't mean that your leaders have all the answers. Like I I don't. I didn't, and I still don't really have all the answers of what life is supposed to look like right now and in. The other side of these 5 pandemics, as it were? I don't, but I can be honest about that, but also promise folks that we're on top of it, we're watching it. You know, we've got the various metrics we pay attention to in front of us. We're meeting regularly, evaluating things. And I'm personally, you know, not worried that we're suddenly going to not have a company tomorrow or anything even close to that. And so my people needed to know that and needed to hear that and needed to hear that on a fairly regular basis, I think, just to keep their minds a little more at ease so they could focus on, on doing what they do.

Yeah, I think— I'm not— I think— I know that you did the thing that we as coaches advise leaders to do. So you actually walked the talk. The fact that you were in communication, you thought of fun ways to communicate. You didn't let worry settle in, in the minds of the employees. So it's so refreshing to do that. And I don't know if you just intuitively knew the right thing to do because you are a coach, you're in the service area, or whether you read it someplace. But how did you help your clients through this? Did you say— What we're doing? Did you say this is what the statistics are showing? How did you help them?

Hmm. Yeah. And so the people that I coach, and I, at this current moment, now I, because I'm the CEO of a company, I only coach maybe 2 or 3 people at the most. And by chance, the people I'm coaching, one is in tech and one is was in nonprofit, and neither of them were having a rough time in their business. I mean, they're having a rough time for all the other reasons, but their businesses were doing well. In fact, the nonprofit unexpectedly started to do really well because of what they did for a living. It was actually rather crazy. So they were both doing quite well. But I think there's still decisions to be made. You know, there's still challenges to deal with. Honestly, they both took the switch to virtual work kind of in stride.

Mm-hmm.

I did have issues with probably both of them, but one in particular where they started to work crazy hours and really losing— so the work-life balance started to become an issue. Well, for one gentleman, it always was an issue and we started coaching. When this happened, it got really bad and it's still bad and I've been trying to work with him on that one. For the other, it was pretty bad too because then all of a sudden you're at home and you're on video all day long and in the early days, of course, we couldn't really get out much or get some exercise to help our mental health and it was hard to sleep. sleep, or, you know, all that stuff that we were— we had been dealing with. So I did notice some challenges in the area of, you know, taking care of yourself and work-life balance for the people that I was coaching during that, during that time, and still, still today for that matter.

So in, in the coaches that, uh, are part of your company, CoachSource— let's mention that— um, do Do people come to you for advice on working with their clients?

They may not have come to me personally, but we have multiple ways for them to get help. So if they're on a particular project, then whomever is managing that project, who most of the time is a trained coach themselves, is someone they can come and bounce ideas off of. At times there's— many of our coaches get involved in all kinds of groups. It doesn't have to be at CoachSource by any means, but I find there's a lot of informal groups of coaches that like to get together virtually and meet at organizations like yourself or ICF or other places that coaches will sort of gather. I know the Harvard Institute of Coaching has done a lot of gatherings of coaches during this time. Some coaches, particularly those in Europe, work with coach supervisors, so they get a place to check in on themselves and their practice as well. So there's— coaches tend to be quite good at this kind of thing. And, you know, there's been no shortage of interesting free webinars and meetings and all kinds of, you know, I've been attended all kinds of interesting stuff that I might not have done if I was still moving around and out on the road and, and whatnot. There's actually been quite interesting how much is out there to consume and learn from.

Have you— well, let's just mention my organization while we're mentioning others, which is the Association of Corporate Executive Coaches, and our space is master-level coaches. In looking at the pandemics as they are moving through, have you found any common threads or your coaches found any common threads of need right now? Are you hearing anything on the streets?

Hmm. You know, I don't know that I have a scientific answer where I said, hey, here's what 1,100 coaches had to say. But in, in an unscientific way, there's the one area we talked about, which is work-life balance or taking care of yourself, is something we're seeing a lot of. Another area is transition. And of course, there's transition in the world, but there's transition in— excuse me— someone's taking a new job, they're onboarding somewhere, or they've gotten promoted. In our research, that's usually one of the most common reasons why a coach gets hired is because a leader is in transition into a new role. Excuse me. And the company wants to give them support. We're still seeing lots of those assignments out there.

Are you seeing an increase or a flat line?

Well, an unscientific answer would be yes, I'm probably seeing an increase in those types of assignments. And then I don't know if I— you know, we're seeing a rise in the interest of team coaching, in group coaching, also shorter coaching assignments that are maybe aimed at leading through specific situations. And then, of course, a big rise in the area of coaching in DE&I. We're starting to see more clients that are specifically designing coaches— coaching programs or leadership programs for diverse leaders and then giving them coaching to go along with that. We've had a new influx of requests in that regard as well, which has been quite exciting and one that I imagine is going to continue to grow. In the corporate world.

How are you preparing people, coaches, to deal with this space? Because the reality is that most of the coaches that are out there are white. And because, you know, we just know that the way that things have unfolded in the United States, most of the coaches are not people of color. So is there Is there now a sudden request for people of color, or are companies hiring white coaches to try to mitigate the D&I space? What's happening?

Yeah, I mean, there's definitely a big interest in coaches of color. I remember chatting with one of our coaches just a couple of weeks ago, and she said, how's business? And I said, well, it's okay, you know, we're sort of even from last year. So, you know, I guess you could say it's a bit flat. Flat, but we're not shrinking. We're not growing, but it's okay. And she said, really? I'm like, yeah, why should we be growing or shrinking right now? She said, she said, growing. She goes, I can't, I have so much work. And she's an African American coach from here in the Bay Area, and everyone— and she's, uh, got a background like you can't imagine— and everyone is trying to hire her. And she's crazy busy and able to charge a lot more than she used to. And, and that's fantastic. So coaches of color are in high demand. At CoachSource, we keep track of our diversity numbers and we have a whole new initiative designed to get more coaches of color into our organization because we still feel like we don't have enough. And with some of these requests I've just described, in most cases it would be coaches of color doing the coaching. There are some white coaches that really specialize in diversity and inclusion too. And we have places in our system where a coach can indicate some of their specialty areas that they focus in, that being one of them. And so we can then figure out who does this kind of work. It was interesting. I met one coach recently who's African American, and she's been in the field as long as me, 25 years.

Brian, I have to tell you, with all love and respect, I'm going to update your terminology.

Yes.

We don't say African American if they're from the United States.

Okay.

Because that implies they're from Africa. And living in the United States, we just say Black coaches.

We just say Black. Yeah, right on.

Okay.

I was, I was chatting with her and she told me that for 25 years she's purposely not done DEI work. Generally, she didn't want to be pigeonholed as that being her specialty. So she hadn't done it, but now in our new kind of movement and new world, she feels called to it. And she's now designing programs in this regard, and she's partnering with us because we can provide coaches for her work. And this is, of course, becoming— she has several massive contracts with very well-known companies that are investing heavily here. So it's quite exciting. That's obviously going to be a big growth area, I think, for our field.

Yeah, I think so too. This is a great opportunity for me to talk about my new company, which is Workplace Equity and Equality. And that's where we're doing training for organizations who want to have a no-blame, no-shame approach to training, people in their organizations to support each other in a more inclusive manner. So you and I have to talk. You and I have to talk.

Yes, totally.

It's a wonderful thing. And what I'm impressed with, because people have said to me, oh, you know, are you sure you want to do this? Because the situation that caused the awakening with Floyd is going to pass. And my response has been, no, it won't. It won't pass. I have confidence in us as a country that we recognize that this is a time for change.

Mm-hmm.

And it's not going to be only Black employees. And what did we just see? And I had no crystal ball. Asian, employees now dealing with the same thing. And, you know, if you look at history, you're going to see it's a circle. It will go around. It'll be Latinx, it will be LGBTQ. We have to deal with equality, equity, inclusion regardless.

Mm-hmm.

It just so happens that, uh, Black Americans now have an opening, but I encourage us as Black Americans to bring in our colleagues who will go through that similar cultural evolution that we are going through.

Mm-hmm.

And I applaud your company for recognizing this and tracking this. And those— for those that are listening and wonder why there are so few coaches of color, the reality was, is that people of color traditionally were not at the top of the organization. And so organizations, as many people do, like to find like people to coach like people.

Mm-hmm.

So there was not a need for African American coaches coaches in their eyes. And now that more and more Africans are at the top of the— African-American, I just did it— more and more Black Americans are at the top of the organization, there are— there's a request and then there's an unfulfilled need. So that's really what's happening. It's an evolution of times. It was not done out of malice or lack of sight, but now it's a question of true need that's supporting us. And let me thank you for seeing that and opening the doors in your organization. We're, we're really excited about that.

So yeah, absolutely.

That aside, what, what else do you see is happening In terms of how executive coaches in general can support their clients in helping them move forward. So aside from the work-life balance, which has always been a challenge, it's just flaring up more.

Yeah, yeah, right, right.

Um, people in transition, why are you seeing that happening? I have my own theory. Why is there an increase?

Yeah, I don't know if I have the perfect answer. I mean, we're obviously naturally in a period of transition. I, you know, you would, to have more transition coaching requests, you would need businesses that are expanding, so they need someone to take over a new expansion. You would need, or maybe a churn of the workforce. People leaving jobs, and I don't know statistically if that's happening more than usual or not. I suspect on one level it could be, uh, you know, people are reevaluating their lives. I like to call this period kind of the great big reset button, and I think we all see it. Maybe we're doing it ourselves, or we know someone who is, who's really taking a new look at their life and what do they really want. And so maybe that's causing a churn in the leadership ranks, or some people don't want to do this anymore, or do want to do something like this more, whatever it might be. So that could be part of it. So I don't know if I have, again, scientific answers as to why we're getting these types of requests, but it is, you know, I remember 10, 20, 30 years ago you would read, oh, change is always happening and the only constant is change and VUCA world and all of this stuff. None of that compares to this, right?

Yeah.

I mean, that was just, that was the warmup. That was the appetizer compared to what we see now. I mean, within a day, the whole world shut down practically, you know, a little over a year plus ago. And now that's real change. That's real VUCA.

Yeah, yeah, I think VUCA is a real scary word. You know, here's what I'm seeing. I'm seeing it's a very interesting dynamic which really ties into a lot to that work-life balance. It's also, I need to look at my values.

Yes, yes.

Because as a result of that, 5 pandemics, there is an awareness of how we're spending our time.

Mm-hmm.

And we're moving now from this robotic stage as a workforce that, you know, you get up in the morning, you take your shower, you eat your breakfast, you go to work, you come home, you eat your dinner, you try to relax, you get— it's the same routine. that we tended to do without question. You know, it was about earning enough income to be happy when you retire and taking care of your family. Now we're seeing, as Simon Sinek likes to say, what's the why?

Mm-hmm.

Why am I with this company?

Mm-hmm.

We're catching up to the Gen Xers who have always said, what's in it for me? So our version is, what's the why?

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

And the why has become much more passion-driven than what we've seen before. And I believe, Ryan, it's because for the first time as a society, we faced death head-on.

Mm-hmm.

But my husband and I both had COVID, and that was one scary, scary disease that we God. You really face mortality in a way that you— what? I didn't plan for this. And it's not like being in an accident and you're gone. It's you're still cognizant of something that's out of my control. And how am I spending my life? As a result of this? And more, am I working for a company that really represents who I am? And do I want to spend a great deal of my life with this organization?

Mm-hmm. Absolutely. And that's part of what coaches can help leaders figure out. Now granted, the company has usually hired the coach for a different purpose, which is maybe to help the leader grow in a certain area of their leadership capabilities. But coaching is that confidential, safe space with an objective, experienced, you know, coach. And it's a place where a leader could explore that. And I haven't done it since the pandemic started, just because the 2 leaders I'm coaching I'm not sure we're having those existential thoughts, but coaches I know have absolutely have, and I can see how that would occur where a leader starts to wonder, what am I doing here? And do I want to work for this type of company or in this career or in this profession? Or is this the time to start my business I'd always wanted to? Or Spend more time with certain key family and friends or whatnot. I mean, this is, like I say, the great big reset button to get us to rethink our priorities and what we value most in life.

Yeah, as a mentor once said to me, during the time of crisis, there goes the time for great change and opportunity.

Right.

Right. And I think even people who are thinking about change, not necessarily thinking about it in terms of, you know, my family and me and I, but some are thinking about it in terms of, is there a better way of doing this with a different organization but staying in the same role? In addition, is this the role that I want to stay in? And I have no, as you like to say, no scientific research on this, but once the schools open up, I wonder if more adults will be returning to school to find their great why.

Mm-hmm.

I'm noticing that those that are parents The parents are talking more about their children in an envious way of, gosh, they get to choose now. They get to choose their path.

Yeah.

And maybe I need to stay out of their way as a parent, whereas before the parents were like, yeah, you've got to be a doctor like me, you know. But now I think they're seeing that children are looking at things differently, and maybe that's the way they should be looking at things. I don't know. You're a parent of what, 4 children?

Yes.

What are you seeing is the discussion around the dinner table?

It's crazy because our 4 kids are in different phases of life. One's a high schooler, one's at college, one's finished college and starting to move towards grad school, and then one's professional and working. And they're in different phases of life dealing with this. And it's been kind of interesting to watch, you know, the students, of course, can school virtually. The professional works for Facebook, so she could work from home.

Oh.

She and I are competing for bandwidth, because I noticed the— I noticed my bandwidth go down a bit while our call started with you. It got me nervous. She gets paid to be on Facebook all day long.

What does she do for Facebook?

Oh, she's got this crazy— she's in the part of the company that content moderation. These are the people who take all the bad stuff off of Facebook, you know. So yeah, that's a crazy job. So most of the— most of it computers do. At this point, but she's in the area and her team are people who look at the stuff that's been reported that the computer can't figure out what's wrong, and then they have to figure out you know what to do. So that can be a pretty stressful job, but it can definitely be done virtually. But I you know it's just different for each generation. I tell my kids that just this is such an interesting time. Imagine when you tell your kids about this time. But they watched some movie that was filmed during the pandemic, and maybe the movie includes masks on everyone or something, right?

Yeah.

You know, just telling your kids, your grandkids are never going to believe this, that this happened, that we all had to kind of live through that. Or if you've missed your own graduation or, you know, my daughter's college, you know, she's paying full college tuition for basically a University of Phoenix experience at this point. You know, for a year and a half now, you know, she's at college living in an apartment but not actually going to the college.

That's wild.

Yeah, I mean, you know, again, all of this is gonna shake things up, you know, and I bet you there'll be more college courses online in the future because we've learned we can actually get away with it. Of course, more people working from home because we've figured out that it's not so bad and we can get things done.

So I want to ask about that daughter that's in school, college commitment. Does she find it's really difficult to sit in the class at home, pay attention, and do the homework without somebody, you know, a colleague of hers in school saying, hey, did you get that done?

I, you know, I'm gonna guess yes, only because I know it's hard for me to sit in like a webinar for a whole hour and not get distracted during the webinar. And if I had gone to the live conference that it used to be, I would be a lot more present and attentive and probably not distracted. So I've also signed up for conferences that I then didn't show up to because I knew the recording, and then I don't listen to the recording. So I intend to listen to the recording. I probably have 5 conferences that I'm supposed to attend by recording. One is a year ago by now, and I've never gone back to get those recordings. So, you know, there's something to be said about being in person for both college students and for us. I think, I think, you know, it does focus your attention more to be physically in the room. And yeah, for her, I know it can be pretty distracting to be really paying attention to class and your texts come in on your laptop screen or your phone or whatnot, and that will distract you.

Oh my gosh, that is really funny. I, you know, I, I totally get what she's talking about because in our conference we sold, uh, the number of tickets we wanted to sell, um, minusing out the fact that we're on Zoom and not live. And we had— Oh, actually, relatively speaking, we had maybe 20% that did not show up. And, um, you know, and people paid, didn't ask for their money back, but we said, you, you can have the full recording. Yep, I, I get it. Oh my gosh. Hey, Brian, this has been tremendous. We're almost at the top of the hour. Um, any secrets, any information you want to share with us? that our listeners should know about? We love secrets.

Secrets? Well, what department are we talking about? That depends which secrets I might tell, you know, in terms of—

You're turning red, Brian. Uh-oh, uh-oh.

I can— I think it's just my ring light. This is— it's just, you know, something's wrong with my ring light up here.

Okay, I'll take you off the spotlight. Not.

Okay. I don't know that I have a secret to say, but what I do say is, because I've been doing a lot of speaking to coaches and to different groups, but coaches a lot of times, and reminding coaches— coaches, when you think of various professions, I would argue that coaches are one of the better or best-positioned professions to help the world during this time.

Yes.

And when you think about these 5 pandemics, you know, granted, we've all had our own processes to work with and deal with, but we're there to serve and to help those that we coach, not just executive coaches, but coaches of all shapes and sizes. And so I would argue and remind coaches that, you know, the time is now for us as a profession to be of service to leaders and to others that we serve. To help them cope, help them think through, help raise their consciousness, help make, you know, the workplace a better place and of course the world a better place through the work that we do. It sounds quite aspirational, but, you know, there aren't too many professions that are perfectly suited for this type of a time, and I feel like coaching is one of them that is. And so I encourage my brothers and sisters in coaching Uh, to, uh, keep that in mind that you're, you're, you know, you are in a very noble profession that, um, is adding value during this time. And, um, you know, keep it up, keep up the great work.

COVID are noticing they have more work than they can handle right now. I encourage people in our space to partner with each other so that you can take on more work and support each other in learning and in solving the problems of the world.

Mm-hmm.

And with that, Bryan, I'm going to say that I loved having you on the show. I think that you added such a great perspective of what's going on in the coaching space and how we're helping to resolve the issues. And I also want to take a moment in— out of respect for George Floyd. This is the one-year anniversary of his death. And I encourage people to go to our conference website, which is weee-conference.org, to look at— .org, O-R-G— to look at how the work we're doing in helping to bring us as a people together as one. So with that, on a serious note, we end our interview for today. Thank you so much, Brian. We look forward to seeing you again.

Thank you. Thanks for having me. God bless everybody. Thank you.

It's been wonderful. So hold on, I'm going to log off and, um, say goodbye to everybody, and we'll see you next week.