S1E1 - Corey-osity Unleashed, with Jo Wright

Welcome to Coriosity Unleashed, where we turn bold ideas into action and help businesses and leaders step it up.

We're your hosts, Deborah and Ken. Obsessed with fresh takes, bold moves and shaking up the way we lead and work.

Alongside our amazing guests, we'll dive into the good, the bad and and the actual what the hell of the workplace. Served with a side of sarcasm and a splash of wisdom.

Oh, and fair warning, this is an adult podcast. Expect swearing like Ken just did, brutal honesty, and the occasional dramatic reenactment of some of the most epic workplace fails we've ever seen or done.

So grab your drink, get comfy, and let's unleash some curiosity.

So welcome everyone. Today's guest is Jo Wright and we are so, so excited, Jo, to have you join us today. Welcome.

Thank you. Thank you both. I'm really pleased to be here, genuinely. I know we'll have a lot to talk about.

I know. I think the biggest challenge we're going to have is not spending two, three hours, but we promise we will not do that if it goes that long. We'll create different segments. There you go. So a little bit about you, Jo. You are the co founder of Coaching Cult and the best selling author of no More. There we go. Thanks, Ken. No More Shit Managers. I have to say it, it's in the title, seven Steps to a Coaching Culture. You are on a mission to change the way that we think about coaching. Love that. And with over 30 years of experience as a leader and it's not that long, don't worry, an accredited coach, you're absolutely passionate about helping organizations build trust, shape leadership and create high performing teams. You are also. Sorry, I'm almost finished talking about you. You are also. That. There's just so much to say. The host of Coaching Cultures Learncast series where you interview industry leaders on the power of transformational conversations. And your book this is Amazing Amazing became an an Amazon bestseller on day one. Is there anything on this where you can just go like applause or like confetti? Confetti. There we go.

Yeah, yeah, definitely. Yes. All of, all of that is true. Yes, indeed. I think that's because I've had a 30 year career like you said, Deborah.

And one more thing before I hand it over to Ken. Your book became an Amazon bestseller on day one.

One.

Woohoo. That's like amazing, amazing. Can I. You have a fun fact about her. Let's embarrass Jo one more time before we start interviewing her.

Yeah, I did hear a strange thing that you did. A parachute Jump and landed on a marquee. What was that all about?

Oh, so there's a. There's a funny story and a sad story. So the funny story is that is factually very correct. The marquee was there. Um, I'd done a previous parachute jump a number of months before and for some strange reason, went back to do another one. And where the previous X had been, where you're supposed to land, where I never managed to land, there was a huge marquee there. And the first thing I said was, I know I'm going to land on that. And it was weird. It was like. It was like I said it. So I definitely did land, and I did land on it. And no matter what, it was there and I was trying to avoid it, I couldn't avoid it. Well, I. I'm sure I could have avoided it. And I did land on it. And it literally was hosting the Lakeland Rose Festival. There was a lot of lovely retired people showing off their prize roses. And their next minute, Bridget Jones. Boom. Landed on the. Landed on the marquee. The parachute plopped over the side and I had the softest landing ever. So I did get a real telling off from the. From the parachute instructor. He said, you look like a milkmaid up there, pulling the cords, like. And there it was. It was coming up. It was like a scene out of Bridget Jones. You could imagine her doing that.

And when we see it on the big screen, we'll know they took it from you.

Absolutely. And to be honest, the previous one I did, guess what I landed on that time? A barbed wire fence.

Ooh. So the second time was a bit better.

It is an improvement.

It is. It is. I was just going to say, because I'm a big believer in connecting the dots. So I'm going to connect it to your book in that it just shows that no matter what you do in life, you're going to land in shit. You're going to live on land on a marquee. Ba boom. There you go, Ken, now you can ask the first question. Now that I've done that, that smooth.

Segue title, the next book, no More Shit Landings.

I'll look forward to that one. Right, so since we're all about curiosity here. Good heavens. It's in the podcast title, after all. What was the moment or experience that pushed you to write your book? And what was the story behind the bold and straight talking title?

Two questions. So the first. Let's get straight there. The first answer is at Coaching Culture, we decided to create a Framework, because people were sort of saying, you know, coaching culture, how do we build it? What do we do? So we created the seven step framework and gave it away for free. And it's still available for free in a little booklet, just a bit of a factual little booklet. Download this for free. Go and kind of learn how to build a coaching culture. And the. And it was so, so popular. It's like. And my business partner at Coaching Culture said, we, we should write a book. We should write a book and put case studies in there, you know, stories in there. And when he always says we should do something, he often there was no we. It was, go ahead, Jo, go write. So I was like, well, I've never written a book before, I don't even know how to do this. So I went off to learn how to write a book. So that was the moment. It was the fact that the framework was really, really popular and still is. So download this freebie. But actually, let's do this on steroids, but with funny stories. And there are some funny stories in the book as well as what I call toe curling stories and heartwarming case studies. There's a bit of both, bit of everything in there. Definitely not a boring business. And then the title. So the title. There is a story behind this, obviously there's a story behind everything. The title was going to be Start small, comma, Go Everywhere. Seven Steps to a Coaching Culture. And. And I was really stuck on this title and I took it to my team and they were like, joe, that shit. I was like, oh, what do you mean? That's a title. I love it. Start Small, Go everywhere. That's what happens. No, that's probably a better title for a travel book, Joe, rather than a book about building a coaching culture. Start small and go everywhere. I was like, okay. So I was stuck on what to call the book, but I carried on writing the book and I thought the title's going to come to me in some sort of flash of inspiration. And we were at the exhibition Learning Technology Technologies in London and I was stood there and it was coming towards the end of the day and people were coming up saying, oh, what do you do at Coaching Culture? And I was sharing our purpose. I was like, ah, we exist to make work better. They were like, ooh. I was like, we make good managers even better. They were like, ah. And I went, to be honest, we're on a mission to eradicate the world of shit managers. And I think I was tired, I was complacent at that point. I was like, you know what, I'm just going to say it as it is. And people went crazy for that, for that phrase. That should be your purpose. Never mind, we exist to make work better. I was like, I can't have a, a corporate business purpose saying we're here to eradicate the world of ship managers. And they were like, no. And literally people were regaling story after story of ship managers. And I just thought. And in that moment I thought, maybe there's a title in a book here. So I did my usual, went off to LinkedIn, did a poll, so I didn't share the title. I was like, what jerk? With a cheeky swear word in the title. And there was like 85 were like, oh, hell yeah, say it as it is. 15 was like, oh, no, no, no, don't do that. And I thought, 85 to 15, I'll go with that. And then my last piece of important research was, and I know you'll know this because of the parachute story, you've obviously read that part of the book. I decide my dad hates swearing. And you know, I thought, oh, this is my first book. I want my dad to be proud of me. You know, even though I was like 51, 52 at the time of launching the book, I'm still on my dad to be proud of. And I said, dad, I'm writing this book and what do you reckon with the title? With a cheeky swear word in the title. And he said, well, what is it? So I told him, he went, oh, as long as it's not the F word, Jo, that's fine. So I was like, done. That's it, final piece of important research. And that's where the title came from. And it's interesting because I got the title and then I launched the book at the very end of November, early December time. And in the August, I was starting to have a bit of a wobble. It was that kind of, you know, pre launch nerves. What will people think? And then I got over myself and I just thought, you know what 85 of people said, plus dad said, go for it. You know, we all say your vibe attracts your tribe. I thought, you know what, I'm saying it as it is. And in a few weeks time, people have forgotten about the title, you know, But I also wanted a title. I didn't want just a boring, bland title that was going to just sit on the bookshelf. I wanted it to jump off itself. I wanted people to. My ultimate goal was for people to read the book, to actually learn how to Build a coaching culture. And if I'd have just called the book Seven Steps to a Coaching Culture that had gone, woo, move along. Thank you very much. I've got other things to do with my time. So I thought actually I needed it to grab people's attention, to get them to read it, to start to make a change. So I just thought, you know What, I'm early 50s. What have I got to lose? Apart from credibility and business? Yeah, apart from that, what else have I got to lose?

We were, when we started to work on our book, we were really surprised at the response that we got talking about bad bosses. Everybody seems to have a story about a bad boss. Everybody has, has, has a little bit of torture going on. Yeah, it's what, what a shame. I, I, I, I really hope the world grabs your book and reads it and learns how to do better coaching.

Thank you. Thank you, Ken. I do appreciate that. And, and it was so people did read it. I was like, I want you. I am obsessed with everybody having a better experience at work. And the book has been called A Love Letter to Humanity. And I absolutely love that because whileever the title sounds cheeky, bit unkind, but actually it's a headline grabber and everybody's somewhere. I don't believe there's many people in the world who's not had an experience, experience with somebody who could have been better. So actually if people read it and think, yeah, we need to do the certain, take snippets from it and make somebody's world of work a little bit better, you know what, job done.

It's interesting we went on the same journey with our title because the first part of our title is Bad Bosses Ruin Lives. And it was the same thing. We're like, should we use a title? Should we not use the title? But for us, what happened is the second book that I wrote, I told a story to my co author and at the end of the story I said, you know, bad bosses ruin lives. And the phrase stuck. My company, they put it on onesies, they put it on T shirts, they put it on stickers. So when we went to write this book, and I do say we, because we both did write it, not just me, unlike you, where you said that you wrote it all yourself. People are like, you have to use that title. And it's a shame, it's a shame. But not a shame that you have to like be so bold and so blunt with the title. But to your point, that's how you get attention. So yeah, no, I think it's great.

Yeah. So my next book, Start small, Go Everywhere. Might just be a travel book.

There you go. You've got a title. It's funny. My second book is called the Rebel Playbook, and we did the same thing. We went out and we said, if we use the word rebel, is everyone just going to, you know, like, not read it? And we're like, they're the people. They're our tribe, as you call them, so. Absolutely.

Absolutely. And you know what? It's really interesting because I've been building coaching culture for a number of years, just shy of eight years now, and I think people know me more for the title of my book, and they forget the seven steps to a Coaching culture bit. They literally. I think people think of me. If they think of Jo, they think of no more ship managers.

Not a bad thing to be known about.

You've got to leave a legacy that's pretty darn good.

It'll be on a tombstone at the end. There you go.

Absolutely.

She.

She. She succeeded to eradicate the world of. Honestly, if that was the case when I. On my. On my. On my tombstone, then that is a job well done.

Absolutely. Which leads us to the second part of our title. So the first part of the title of the podcast is Curiosity, and the second part is Unleash, which is all about just challenging the status quo, doing things differently. And your title does that, but also your whole approach. So why do you think that we need to shake things up and do things differently when it comes to coaching and leadership? Big question.

There's so many myths that are out there about coaching that just. If I had a giant sledgehammer, I'd just be like, bust. Bus, bus, bus. Get rid of them all. People are still frightened of it, even now. What even is it? And we genuinely. I did my. I'd always been. No, not always. That's not true. Probably from my early 30s, I've been a leader and manager who coached my teams more of the time because I accidentally fell into it. No, into having better conversations because I just realized I didn't have all the answers. So my default was, well, I better ask my team some questions. And they were like, oh, you know, way more than me. And this is brilliant. Let's. Let's get all this together. And it. That coaching. I then did a coaching qualification. I was like, wow, coaching is. I had so many epiphany moments. I was like, why is coaching? Just got this thing where people think it's just reserved for a few people in an organization. Actually it's about better conversations. And where the magic happens are leaders and managers who are having more of the conversations more of the time. So how do we get coaching conversations happening more often? And what do I mean by coaching conversations? It's about literally asking questions, listening. Listening. That'd be nice. You know, listening, building trust, high support, but also high challenge. This is getting greater results on the back of these better relationships. This is all coaching conversations. Whereas I think people think, oh, it's for that external coach to come in and have a special conversation. Now, there's. To me, there's a place for external coaches, but there's a place for leaders and managers having a level of capability and confidence to have better conversations. So I think we need to change the narrative about what coaching is and what it isn't. And I say to people, I get a bit sort of excitable about. It's all about the C word. And what do I mean by that? It's, you know, coaching is communication. It's conversation, it's creativity, it's change, it's curiosity, it's collaboration. It's all these wonderful things. Because when you ask people, when you think of coaching, what do you think? And it's all these positive words, well, why aren't we all doing this more then, you know, if. If a coat, if you're bringing in a coach to help somebody unleash their potential, surely we should be giving more people the skills to help others and themselves unleash their own potential. So I. I do get on my soapbox, and I think a lot of it is still about raising awareness. Now, in my small view of the world, I do think more and more people are starting to wake up to the power of coaching. And on the other side of that positive statement, some organizations are also going backwards. So I've kind of got a little bit of both going on at the moment. I've got like this movement of we know we need to do something and we know coaching is part of the solution. I often say it is the silver bullet. And then we've got other organizations who are absolutely going back into the dark ages, which really concerns me.

Well, it's interesting because in our book, we have a model called the Great Boss building block model. And when we were first drafting it, we had development as a building block. And then in talking to people like you and understanding how, you know, we need to change the narrative, and we created an entire building block. This is our gift to you, Joe.

Yes.

Called coaching.

Yes, I love.

Yep. So to your point, it's not all about sending somebody to a class. You, as a boss, just can't do that. You need to. I love what you talk about it, you know, embracing it and bringing out the, you know, the various Cs to create this coaching, this coaching culture and.

Your book, actually, all your building blocks, when you put them together, there's. There's a really strong smell of a coaching culture when you put all your building blocks together, because they're all the positive words that, that we want organized, you know, authenticity, listening, all those communication, all those great things. That's what a coaching culture is. And I honestly, I so just want more people to just start opening their heart and mind to, to giving leaders and managers and everybody the expectation that building relationships in an organization is where the magic happens. And we do that through better conversations, empathy, care. We care for our people. We get so much more back.

And it's a win, win. It's a win for your employees, and it's a win for you. But, yeah, poor Ken. I know you're trying to get in a word here.

I do want to jump in there. Joe, you were talking about how on the one hand, some people admit that they need to be more coach. Coachy, excuse the phrase. But then other people or other. Other companies are regressing, going back to the stone age. I'm wondering, is that the dichotomy of individual and corporate behavior? So on an individual level, we can be friendly, we can be charming, we can be caring and all that kind of stuff, but on the corporate scale, that's a really difficult call to make because it has to do with fluffy things that don't have really clear roi. I think everybody on this call understands that the things that we talk about in both of these books do have a real impact on financials of a business and retention of employees and all that. But my experience is that companies don't tend to behave that way.

What do you think? Yeah, absolutely. And it's interesting because when we first set up coaching culture, the. The ROI conversation happened a lot. Well, what's the roi? We know we should be doing it, but what's the roi? And it was really difficult to prove. And it's like, you know what? Hold our hands up here. It's really difficult. It's kind of the right thing to do. It's the essential thing to do. But as we've studied more organizations who are investing in development, investing in their people, investing in better conversations and having an expectation of coaching skills being part and parcel of the organization, We've started to be able to see the tangible benefits more and therefore the roi. Actually, there's a cost to not doing it. You know, this isn't, this is about return on so many things and not just the investment on, like you said, those things where people, people won't stay in organizations anymore if they're not being invested in. People won't stay in organizations anymore if they're feeling they're in a toxic culture. You know, we've had the great resignation, we've had the great power shift. We've also got something called the great migration. And that's what's happening. You know, people are moving to organizations who care. There's such a huge cost to not doing this. This is just, to me, this is basic now. And one of our facilitators is out today and you've probably seen me talk about it on LinkedIn and, and there's been two sides to this argument of I work with an organization who expect coaching skills and a coaching mindset to be mandatory. So they do it through a level of training, but it's also done throughout the organization. It's not just put somebody on a workshop and job done because that, we know that's not the answer either. And some people say, well, it shouldn't be mandatory. You know, when you force people, they resist. And I get that. But actually what they're saying, having a level of coaching skills which is, you know, building relationships, questioning, listening, caring for your people is the red thread underneath the foundation blocks for everything, then everything else can fit on top. You can have more difficult conversations. If you've got a coaching conversation, a relationship trust is built. You can give and receive feedback every. You can have performance conversations. You can hold people to account because they trust you. So building trust for me is the foundation here. And I just think there's organizations that they will. They're the ones who are going to be winning, are the ones that are investing in people. And, and I think even people who are, I don't know, I've not, I've not gone out speaking to the organizations who are actively changing strategies right now because there are some then, because I'm, you know, there's organizations who are pulling back on know DNI and, and that just breaks my heart and I'm sort of going, okay, well the solution has got to be go up a level then and call it your cultural strategy. Of which dni, well, being co. All of this is part of the overall cultural strategy. And it doesn't have to have a badge, let's, let's call it culture and make sure we're doing the right thing underneath it.

I think what I, yeah, what I've seen with coaching is that people who get it either, like I was a competitive gymnast, there was no way in the world I would get on the balance beam and try a new trick without a coach. I mean, I just wouldn't. So to me, I was brought up with the idea of coaching and I think a lot of other people from sports, they get it. But I'm sure you find until you get the light bulbs going off and that they embrace it and they see that whole win, win, then they're going to be resistant to it. But once you've been coached or you've had a positive situation where you've coached someone, then it's like, why haven't I been doing this forever?

It's, it is that. It is that. And for me, I've got this sort of what I call this capability triangle. So at the very top, there's the sort of external coach who's a professional accredited coach. They've got hours and hours of coaching conversations. They've got cpd, it's very much focused on coaching. Then we've got the people internally who are coaches and they may have a certain level of accreditation. Then we've got leaders and managers, then we've got team coaching, we've got then self coaching. Because the more you learn how to coach others, the more you go, actually, I was just about to ask somebody this question. Let me ask myself the question first because I've probably got the answer myself and the power is just incredible. But for me, it's all of those. They all work together in an organization. It's not one or the other. It's all of those to complement each other. And I think the word coaching is possibly part of the problem, if I'm being honest. And actually, you know, I've got one organization who, featuring features in the book about they invested in our coaching culture solutions, but they were also doing human things and face to face, not just digital. And they said with all the different solutions. They said, we knew our leaders and managers were having conversations, they just weren't the right ones. So now they say coaching is the air that we breathe because it's just the way we communicate around here. We ask better questions. We, we know that we're going to be collaborating creatively, innovatively, because we're asking questions and we're listening and we're then coming up with our solutions as a Group. Oh, it's, you know, I honestly, it's, I'm so passionate about it because I've experienced, experienced it. I've done it, I've, I've been part of it.

I like that, the whole expectation rather than the mandate, making it mandatory. Because if it's just, that's just the way it is.

It's.

We do it. This is, you don't have a choice. It's the air. You have to, you have to have it. I love that.

And for me, it's also about, this isn't just about work. This is life. This is a life skill. You know, this isn't just. Let's stop, let's stop having the conversations. You know people, you know people because, you know, I have a lot of kind of coaching conversations with friends, with family. And you, you even see it in people's relationships at home where they just, they might just be telling people, I want somebody to change. I'm going to tell them to change. I want them to tell them to change. It's not going to work. The more you tell, the more they won't change. You've got to coach them. If you want, you coach them and they either will change or they won't. Everyone changes when they want to, not when somebody else wants them to. So it, it' life skill. And you know, I, I often, you may have heard me say it before, but we liken coaching to cooking. Everybody should know how to cook, but not everybody needs to be a professional chef. And coaching is the same. Everybody should be able to have some level of coaching conversation. But not everybody needs to be a professional accredited coach.

So where were you when my kids were teenagers? I think you need. Your next book is something about how to manage shit teenagers. But that's another conversation. Another conversation.

It's going to be a really thick book, that one.

No more shit teenagers.

Should we move on then? Let's move on to the second part of your title, which is a bit about the seven steps. So again, just tell us a little bit about where did the seven steps come from? Did it evolve? Did you start from day one? Give us a bit of the background?

So the seven steps I created as part of the framework while at coaching culture, I think. But all I did was think about. So my real change expertise came through, obviously years and years of working in a career, but actually being part of a change program. So I learned as part of a change program, it was one of those career roles where it was one of those critical roles where you suddenly start having Those light bulbs going, oh, hang on a minute, things are happening here. And, and I started connecting the dots. So I was part of a transformational change program because they are all called transformational change programs. And I recognize people weren't just changing when you tell them to. So I was starting to think there's a bit of a science behind this. There's some psychology here and I wasn't, I didn't know about it. I was like started to get really interested and I started connecting the dots with actually what is it? What are all the dots that need connecting here to enable people to change now for me, coaching was the greatest part of this. I noticed people were changing when you had one to one conversations, group conversations, team conversations. But it all had to link with the overall strategy of the organization. The vision, the strategy, the resources, winning hearts and minds. So I started connecting the dots through that transformation and then I thought actually that's how people change in an organization. So I put those I wish my seven steps because I love a good acronym to be honest. Honestly if I, if I didn't do the job I did, I'd just be an acronym maker because you know, I just would, that would be my role.

Had an acronym. I was going to tell you that only my first, but none of the. I love an acronym but it's hard to get to do an acronym sometimes.

It is indeed. And I would have loved to have had a clear acronym but I couldn't quite get one. So I just thought well do you know what? I'll do my seven steps. So it came from knowledge and experience over my career of how people change and then having my coaching qualification, learning more about the psychology, the sort of neuroscience behind change. And I thought, yeah, these are the steps, these are the steps, steps. And even in the book, you know, I think I actually say I could have made five steps, I could have made nine steps. But actually if I can put them into seven steps, it's a good number and people can kind of, it's good enough for people to remember but actually to take them on a journey because that's what it is. And so the seven steps came from, from experience really and knowledge and then connecting the dots. And I think, you know, as, as we all fall forward into our career that you can only then look back and connect those dots and make sense of things. And, and I think that's what, what I've done on, you know, as I'm now in my 50s, I kind of just look back all the time to connect the dots but also look forward to the future and visualize what those future dots could be as well.

I love it. And to me that's the gift in a book is the model and the steps because it gives something that people can wrap their heads around. But Ken, do you want to take us to the next level of the model?

Yeah, so. So for the benefit of our listeners, can you walk through the seven steps at a high level? Just for the record, we are a little bit behind on our questioning, so we might have to skip a place or two here. But can you walk us through the seven steps at a high level?

High level. So step one, visualise. So you know who is visualizing what the culture even needs to be. And that doesn't always happen. So not everybody visualizes and thinks about the culture. So visualize step one, the culture. Number two, right? We know where we're going, we know where we're heading. Let's put our plan in place. So step two is strategize. Let's put the plan, the resources, how we're going to get there and let's get our roadmap together. Step three is, well, we can't just go and tell people what to do because people don't change when you tell them to. We need to engage the population. We need to go out and state what we're doing, where we're going and get people to feedback, get people's input, engage. So win hearts and minds. Step four is then we're going grow, grow capability, grow confidence. We need to give people the coaching skills and we need to decide which pockets of the population are. We want to make sure they've got the right skills to be able to build a coaching culture. Then we go on to step five which is grow, thrive. Which is okay, we're now building our coaching conversations. We now need to start building our feedback muscles because coaching and feedback go together so actually real great conversations that help people to thrive. And that's where feedback is coming in, where people are really raising their self awareness, team awareness and the organization is starting to build this sort of trust conversations. Step six is perform. So perform is where we're now ripping up our performance management and appraisals and we're having everyday coaching conversations. We're now really motoring, we're really performing, performing now everyday coaching conversations. We're not just waiting to give feedback once a year and trying to remember what was going on 11 months ago. This is in the moment. Now we're doing it. And then the last step. Step is sustain we got to keep this going. We can't just go, right, we've done it now, we've ticked the box because we've got new people coming into the organization. We've got to keep this going and alive and we've got to keep going around the loop all the time. And that's when we sustain the culture. So the seven steps right there, oh.

It'S music to my ears. I, I have to say that the engineering organizations that I've been in, every last one of them, everybody says, oh, the problem is communication. We're not talking, we're not listening, we're not this, that, the other. But then nothing is ever done to fix it. So, God, I'd love for them to get your seven step model in there.

One thing that somebody said to me is, and this is probably the best feedback I've had about the book, ahead of People and culture, perfect target market for this book. Said to me, I know about leadership development, I know about management development. I also know about coaching. This book connects the dots. And I was like, thank you. This book has brought it all together for me. And I was just like, job done. Thank you. That, that is if everybody could read it and then look at it and go, can I take snippets from this and bring this to life in my organization, you know, the better. And we would start making a difference to the world of work.

I'd vote for you.

One more quick question about the model. Is it linear? So do you go from 1 to 2 to 3? Do you change back and forth? How do you suggest people use your model?

So great question. I always suggest people work with your strategy, work with your organization. So if I force on you step one, you, you might not be ready for step one. So some organizations, I've seen people start at different points. They often start at step four. We know we need to invest in coaching skills. Let's go there. Then they start seeing positive results. Then they go back to step one because then they go to the board, look, can we have, you know, we need to get a coaching culture. This is really working now. And they go back, but that can take time. That isn't overnight, that's not just over two or three months. You know, some of these things are taking organization years. But we've been working with organizations for years now and can see the difference it makes. So I always say to people, you got to, it's not linear. It looks linear, but it's absolutely not. You've got to work with this model where you feel it's right for your business where you, you know, where the appetite is. And I often say, go where the sunshine is, so, you know, you're going to get the resistors, go where the sunshine is, drop a pebble into the pond, and then start seeing the ripples of positive change.

So what other changes need to happen in an organization for this to actually work?

Oh, I. It depends where the organization, the specific organization. I think for me, a great organization would have leaders at the very, very top acknowledging that this is a great way forward and they need to start thinking, they need to have a cultural strategy, not just the strategy of the business, of what are we going to do when and how. And, you know, actually what culture do we want to experience? And it's not just, let's have a values workshop and stick them on the wall. This is culture. This is deeper. This is how do we want people to turn up and show up every day? And what happens if they're not doing that? What, you know, what conversations are we going to have? So I'd love more people at the top going, actually, we really need to think about culture. That's a great first step. But I also say to people, you don't have to ask the board's permission to have a great conversation. So don't wait for the board to tell you, we're going to go and build a coaching culture. Go and have your own conversation. Go and learn about what a great conversation could look like. There's so many resources, free resources out there now. People can. And books as well. People can go and learn how to have better conversations without waiting for them to be sent on a training course.

I'm just going to add on to what you say because I did a talk the other day and someone said something about how we don't have the right culture at our company. What should I do? And sometimes you can't even wait for your company to do it. Sometimes as a leader, you just need to own it. Same thing about coaching. Just because everyone else in your company is not doing culture doesn't mean that you cannot own it and drive it and make a difference. Because all these little ripples going back to your ripples is going to make.

A huge difference, 100%. And people, you know, let's stop moaning about the culture. Let's stop moaning. Let's stop. Let's do something about it and make our little bit of the. Let's water our own little garden and see what difference that makes.

And, you know, it's much more effective if it starts at the top, done in layers in the middle.

It is, absolutely, yeah.

So we're gonna have to wrap up. So if you had. This is the hardest question I find when people ask me, if you had to give people one tip, you've got seven steps, you've got this amazing book. One thing, they get off this call and they do, what would it be that could make a huge difference?

I think it's actually, it's connected, but slightly different from what we've been talking about. I think it's actually about raising their own self awareness, starting with themselves. So self coaching, learning about themselves first becoming the best version of themselves and then going out to help others be the best version of themselves. So actually start with number one, because I think it was only when I really raised my own self awareness about the power of coaching could I then go on and really, truly help others brilliantly.

And I love it. That's where we've got such alignment, Jo, because we talk about the three A's of being a great boss and the first one is awareness. So absolutely, absolutely agree with that. Yep.

So finally, Joe, where can people connect with you and learn more about your. The work that you do?

So you often find me hanging out on LinkedIn, so I'm under there as Joe Wright, coach. I'm also@jowright.com and also@coachingculture.com so I'm kind of here, there and everywhere, but LinkedIn is definitely where I get a lot of my conversation starters.

Fantastic. Thank you very much. And once again, thank you for being on our inaugural episode of Curiosity. Thank you so much.

And coaching us on how to do a podcast. There you go. You're even bringing coaching into the podcast.

Thank you both. It's been brilliant. Thank you. I feel really, really privileged. Thank you.

And that's, that's a wrap on this episode of Curiosity Unleashed. Huge thanks to our amazing guest and of course to you for tuning in.

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