The Coaching Effect – Creating Complexity for Growth with Sarah Wirth

Welcome to the Athletics of Business, a podcast about how the traits and behaviors of elite athletes and remarkable business leaders frequently intersect. The real stories and hard lessons to help you level up your leadership and performance. Now your host, Ed Molitor. Welcome back to another episode of the Athletics in Business podcast. I am your host and CEO of the Molotor Group. Ed now in all the work that we do in developing high impact coaching leaders in the business world, one of the pushbacks that people try to throw at us is well, you can't quantify the impact that coaching has on the performance of the teams, individually and collectively and how that impacts the bottom line. And my answer to that is, well, actually we can and it is amazing. And it is simply because of the work that we do at the Xcel Institute.

And today I could not be more excited to be joined by the one and only Sarah Worth, President of Excel Institute and the Amazon best selling author of the Coaching Effect, which is a book she co authored with Bill Ekstrom. As we talk about the book, we have talked about the book on previous episodes. It is just an incredible piece of work. Now, with over 20 years of experience in employee assessment, leadership development, executive coaching and customer service, Sarah has a proven track record of driving growth and excellence. And you'll hear this when she talks. She is so passionate about leadership and the impact that it has on team performance and she's passionate about bringing analytical approach to high performing sales leaders. She is an extremely sought after presenter for global executives from top companies like Mercedes Benz, Estee Lauder and Ritz Carlton.

Sarah began her career as a talent analysts coaching leaders in diverse organizations and later led a consulting firm to a 65% revenue increase. And as Vice President of Client Services at Excel, she boosted client retention to over 94% before becoming president in 2019. Inside of this conversation we're going to talk about Sarah's journey graduating from the University of Michigan with a law degree and how she decided on the career path that she has chosen and just mastered. We're going to talk about the impact of understanding improving leadership behavior, how Excel Institute's mission to measuring and improving leadership behaviors has drive some incredible performance increases over the years. We'll discuss the three performance drivers, relationship order and complexity and that last one, complexity. How it is through discomfort that people and organizations actually grow.

We're going to talk about the four coaching activities crucial for effective coaching and high impact coaching. And one of the other things that we touch on is why leaders should take time to understand their team members, career goals and personal interests. Remember, we'll connect this to the coaching performance equation we have talked about so many times on this podcast. And that is a relationship plus complexity plus order equals the experience which drives the performance of the individuals and the teams inside of your organization. Now, hope you enjoy this conversation half as much as I did recording it with Sarah Worth. Sarah, thank you so much for joining us today on the Athletics of Business podcast. I couldn't be more excited to have you here with us.

Thanks, Ed. I appreciate you asking me to join. How's. How's your day going so far?

It's fine. It's good. You know, it's funny because we've been talking about a lot of things and I remember we're sitting, we're coming home from New Jersey and we're sitting in the airport, and I said, you know, we really need to knock out this podcast and have a conversation wrapped around all the amazing work that you have done, that you continue to do, that we are doing together. So let's just jump into it. But first you have to fill a listener in on your journey. Of course, I, in the introduction, I filled them in on your background and all the amazing work you've done and continue to do. But I mean, you're an attorney. Like, you graduated from Michigan Law School. That's not like just some run of the mill, like buyer diploma, you know, degree. That's amazing.

How did you get to this point?

Yeah. Oh, well, thank you. Yeah, it was an interesting journey. I, you know, I decided I was going to be a lawyer when I was 12 years old and watched too many episodes of LAw. That just goes to show, you should not make.

There's a lot of layers to that, by the way, you're 12 years old watching LAw. But anyways, I digress. I always said you're ahead of your time.

Yeah, no, and you should not make career decisions based on, you know, TV shows that you like from your childhood. You should really, you know, think a little bit more. No, but really, I had a goal of being a lawyer for a long time simply because it appealed to a lot of different elements of things that I'm interested in. Research, writing, making an argument, you know, getting to a right answer. So I, I, you know, had that dream, pursued it, went to the University of Michigan, had an amazing experience in law school. And then I actually worked in law firms and I discovered studying law and the concepts of law is very different than practicing as an attorney. And so once I worked in a couple of law Firms. I said, you know what? This is not for me.

This is not the right fit for my future. And then I started exploring some different options after that.

What was it about going from law school to law firms and speaking, by the way, law. Let's go back for a second and let the listener. Like, it's funny you say you should not make career decisions based on childhood TV shows, Especially after we just got done talking about Gilligan's island and the Brain, right before we started recording. But anyways, so what was it? What was about the work that you were doing in the law firms? You're like, you know what? There. There has to be more. There has to be something different that's more rewarding.

Yeah, it's such a good question. You know, I think when I think about actually practicing law in a law firm, there's two types of people that tend to be good at it and really enjoy it. One is the group of people who really like the process. Like, they love sitting down and looking through a contract and the details of it to try to figure out what's that provision that can let my client cancel this contract or whatever it is. They love the process. And the really highly detailed work that most legal work is, that's one group. And then the other group of lawyers that I know, because I, of course, have a lot of friends from law school who really love what they do, are typically ones that are pursuing it from a broader sense of mission or purpose.

The outcome that they're trying to achieve is meaningful to them and is something that inspires them. And so they go through that tedious work of a legal contract or drafting a proposal in order to get to that outcome that they're trying to achieve. And for me, I just never found that right fit. That the tedious work I did not enjoy, and I never found a side of it that I was that passionate about in order to want to be in a law firm. And so it wasn't the right fit for me, ultimately.

What about the people you were surrounded by? Obviously, you enjoyed them. You like them. Was it hard for you to walk away and kind of start over? Especially after the bill you footed for, you know, university, after my student loans.

That I had racked up.

Yeah, I mean, that takes some. It takes some intestinal fortitude. It takes some courage.

Yeah. You know, it was hard to walk away from it, just feeling like I had spent that time, spent that money in order to get this law degree. But ultimately, what I decided in and what I've seen play out in My career is that the training that I actually got in law school is still relevant to me nowadays. I looked back when I was in my third year of law school and I was cleaning out my apartment because I was going to be moving out after I graduated and I came across a bunch of papers that I had written in college that for whatever reason I had packed up and brought to law school with me. And I just started reading them out of curiosity to see how I had maybe evolved in my writing from three years earlier as a senior in college.

And it was amazing in terms of how I was able to communicate so much more effectively, so much more cohesively, to make a more well rounded argument, to bring in facts and data more. And I learned that in law school A lot around. A lot of what you're learning in law school is how to do research, how to make an argument, how to position your argument effectively, how to understand somebody else's point of view and argument and be able to counteract that to convince them to come over to your side. You're learning skills like that are really still relevant to me and what I do right now in my career currently. And so I feel like ultimately it got me towards where I am now, even if I'm not a lawyer in terms of my day to day practice.

Speaking of research and arguments, you still do that day to day because we, you, us, right, make an argument that having the ability to measure the impact that the coaching relationship has on your people is so key to your success. And inside that argument, Excel Institute, you have the ability to quantifiably measure that impact. Can you talk about that?

Yeah, absolutely. That's really our goal at Excel Institute is to take something that was a concept like leadership and being a good leader and try to make it a lot more tangible. And we knew we could do this by understanding the behavior of really great leaders. Great leaders behave differently than leaders who are average or who are struggling. They do different things in their day to day interactions with their team members. And so that's ultimately really what we measure. We go to the team members of these leaders and say to them, okay, well, what are your leaders doing to help you be more effective? How are they motivating you? How are they inspiring you? How are they building trust with you? How are they communicating with you, holding you accountable, all these different things.

And over the 15 years or so that we've been refining what we measure around leadership, we've learned a ton from those team members around what they say the best leaders do differently than less effective leaders. And then ultimately we're able to assess other leaders according to those specific leadership behaviors so that then we can give feedback to them to let them know, here's what you're doing really well in the eyes of your team members and here's how you can grow and improve and get better. And I will say, Ed, it's that last part that probably gets me most excited because leadership is a concept that you can learn. Yes, some of us are probably better natural leaders. We tend to have those effective leadership behaviors in us more naturally than others.

But if you want to improve as a leader, you can learn these behaviors, you can get better at it, and you can improve over time. And the reason I know this is because we measure it. We go to leaders, we get feedback from their team members around how they're leading, what they're doing well, what they could improve. We share that with the leader, we educate them and then we measure them again and we see that improvement. We see leaders get better in the eyes of their team members, the people that matter most, the people that they're leading. And so it's something that you can improve upon if you understand where you're at right now and what you need to do differently or better.

So when you talk about in terms of a measure in research, how many years of research are we looking at here?

Yeah, yeah. So Excel Institute was founded about 16 years ago. We have started measuring leadership about 15 years ago. So about that, about after our first year. And then the current iteration of our coaching effect survey has been in development for about 12 years now. So it's gone through, it's a.

Lot of data points.

Yeah, yeah.

Is it safe to say though, and we're going to jump into the book that you co wrote with Bill Extrom here, but is it safe to say that high growth, high impact coaches do a few things very similar. So in other words, specific coaching activities and unique set of behaviors that are what allow empower, whatever your you want to ever word you want to use, allow them to be and have the impact that they have on their people.

Yes, 100%. They have specific behaviors that they're doing differently and they have specific coaching activities that doing differently with their team members. And again, we know that because we ask their team members, we ask the people actually impacted by these behaviors and activities, what are your leaders doing? And so yes, they have specific things they're doing differently.

So can you share with the listener the performance drivers as well as the coaching themes that are measured and that are so critical and key to the success of coaching leaders.

Yeah, absolutely. So there's three kind of broader categories of performance drivers that our research has identified over these past 12 years or so. The first is the ability to build good relationships. It's the foundation of any effective coaching is having a strong relationship. Because I can't push you, I can't challenge you, I can't hold you accountable, I can't help you grow as a team member if I don't know you and if you don't trust me. Everything that I do as a leader has to begin with that trust relationship. So that's the first foundational element. And we measure that in a couple different ways. We have themes of connection and psych safety. And quite simply, they just mean, am I connecting with you? Am I building a bond with you where I really know you as a person?

And then am I building a psychologically safe environment, which means you feel like you can be open with me, you can say what you really think. You're not scared to give your real thoughts, feelings and opinions in a situation. And that is really crucial because that's what allows me to bring out the best in you, is if you're comfortable expressing your true thoughts and opinions with me. So that's the first element is relationship.

Second element, psych safety. I was just going to point out, because we talk about this, psychological safety doesn't mean soft. Right. It means this environment that you've created as a leader were just what you said. And also people are. They'll take risk, they'll fail, they'll learn from it, they'll be vulnerable. It's such a powerful piece of the puzzle. Do you see people gravitating more towards the power of psychological safety nowadays than they did, say, maybe 10 years ago?

Yeah, I think they do in part because we've realized that if we're going to bring out the best in each person, we have to have them say what they really think and express their true opinions. You know, it's easy to. To have safety in numbers, right? And psychological safety in numbers by just going along with the crowd and falling into that group thing. But when you have a team where people are just going along and not expressing their true opinions, what tends to happen is everybody falls in line with maybe that more loud, dominant voice on the team, and all of a sudden we're not getting Ed's thoughts. Ed's got really great creative thoughts, but he just doesn't feel comfortable expressing them to the team.

And therefore we lose out on that diversity of thought, diversity of opinion, because everybody feels like they have to fall in line versus a psychologically safe environment. It tends to have what we call healthy tension, where team members are comfortable saying, I don't agree. I think we should do this differently. Here's my idea. Here's my thought. And they have enough psychological safety between all of them and to help have that healthy tension or that healthy conflict, and to know that at the end of the day, they're all on the same side. They're all. They all care about each other. And I feel comfortable expressing my opinion to you, even when I disagree with you.

And then the second piece of that relationship driver is connection. Can you talk about that?

Yeah. Yeah. So connection just simply means, I care about you and I know you as a person. Leaders who build great connections with their team members really get to know their team members on an individual level. So they find out what makes them tick. They find out what they're passionate about. They find out who they are as a human being, not just as an employee. And they care about them that way. They have genuine concern for these people as individuals. And it just makes everything that those leaders do feel different. Because now I'm not just challenging or pushing you because I need you to hit a number. I'm challenging or pushing you because I want you to be successful. Because I know it's important to you, and I know what you're passionate about. I know what you're trying to achieve in your life.

And so when I drive you, I'm trying to help you accomplish your goals as much as help the organization accomplish what it needs to as well.

That's awesome. And then next we have order.

Yeah, order. So once we build a relationship of trust, then we can start to establish clarity and expectations. Order simply means that people know what they're supposed to be accomplishing in their work and that they have a clear, systematic way in order to accomplish it. When we think about work getting done, a lot of times we're thinking about things being in order. People are achieving what they're supposed to achieve. And there's two different themes of leadership that we look at to drive order, communication, and structure. So structure is exactly what you'd think it probably is. It's people knowing what they're supposed to be accomplishing. They know their goals, they're held accountable to their goals. And if there's systematic or consistent ways that they're supposed to achieve those, they know what those are.

And so leaders that are bringing structure to the work have team members that when you ask them, do you know where you're going and what you're supposed to be doing? They say, absolutely, I know exactly what I'm supposed to be achieving. I know my part that I'm playing.

Right. And you know what's really interesting in this is with the structure, the communication, and you start talking about now, you have this ability to. To coach people to get them outside their comfort zone, which means that third performance driver is complexity. What's that like?

Yeah. So I love how you talked about that. Once you've got the order, then you want to move past it. And that's 100% right. That's.

Why is that? Can you talk a little bit about why that is?

Yeah, absolutely. So if you think about a team operating just in order, this is a team that knows what they're supposed to be doing and they're executing consistently. But one of the things that we know about growth is that you can only have growth if people are in discomfort, if they're out of order. And think about your own growth experience. I've asked leaders this question probably a thousand times by now to think back in the points in their lives, in their careers where they grew the most individually. And what they always give me are answers of times of complexity. I got a new boss that really pushed me. I started a new job, I got promoted. My company decided to embark on rolling out this new product.

All of those new challenging things in their world is what caused them to go through a period of growth. Because in order to meet that new challenge, we've got to learn, we've got to get better, we've got to find different ways of working. If we just do the structured approach that we've always been doing, it's not going to meet the new challenge in front of us. So we've got to improve and we've got to get better. So structure and order and communication are great for execution. They're not necessarily that growth lever that really gets people organizations to take it to the next level.

Right. So talk a little bit or a lot of it about complexity, because here's the thing that I'm kind of getting at, and I think about, we've talked about this so much, is the great coaches have the ability to get that discretionary effort. Right. And to get this discretionary thinking and to find a way to get their people outside their comfort zone and teach them and equip them how to create the order themselves. Right. So how do we do that inside of complexity? What are the two themes that you look at there?

Yeah, so the two themes that we're looking at are challenge and skill development. Challenge simply means that I am willing to push you outside that comfort zone. I am going to ask you sometimes to take on things that maybe you're not even comfortable trying that feel scary to you, that feel a little bit overwhelming. But when I push you to do that, you get better, you grow. And you probably look back on it a year later and say, wow, that was really great. Even though I was scared in the moment, it helped me. It helped get me to a new level of performance. And so the leaders that are great at challenge are really comfortable pushing others to go beyond what they see as their limitations.

And what do they. Based on what we've already talked about, what do they lean into to do that? What do they lean into to create that complexity? And what is that foundational piece? Of course I'm asking a question I already know the answer to, but I love you. Tell the listener, how did. How is it that they are able to do that?

Yeah, it's relationship. Right. If I'm going to challenge you outside your comfort zone, if I'm going to get you to grow and take on new things that you're scared there to take on, I better know you. I better understand what are your motivators. I better know what your fears are. I better understand what you want to achieve in this world, what your needs are. If I don't know you, number one, I'm not developing the trust with you that you would say to me, okay, I'll. I'll follow you into this scary endeavor. Right. You're probably not going to respond the same way. And I'm also not going to know you well enough to know when you do need that push.

I had a boss a number of years ago that came to my office one day and said to me, hey, I want you to work on this project with me. We're going to try to reformulate a report that we're doing with clients. It's going to be a big initiative that we're going to take on. It's going to take probably a number of weeks, and I want you to partner with me on it. And so we did this project, got it done, it was successful, rolled it out. Clients that we did it with really liked it. And I had this conversation with him afterwards where I asked him, why did you choose me to take on this project with you? And his answer was, so smart. He just said, oh, I saw that you Were bored. You needed something that would engage you.

You needed something to challenge you, needed something to push you. And so I saw that you were feeling bored, and so I thought that this would be a perfect way to get you out of that. And he was 100% right. But the only reason he knew that is because he knew me. He had taken the time to really get to know me. You know, he and his wife had my husband and I over for dinner. You know, he built a relationship with me where he really understood me as a person. And so that relationship was foundational to him knowing when to challenge me.

It's a great story. And there's so much there now, seeing the significance of the relationship piece. Right. I think we should actually reference the coaching performance equation here. R +O + C equals experience, which drives performance. Okay? So that's the relationship plus order plus complexity equals experience, which drives performance. If you are able to quantifiably show why relationships are so significant and yet we can all feel it, we all know it's true, why do leaders sometimes push back on that? Why do they have this lack of willingness to build deep relationships?

Yeah, I think it's a lot of things that go into it, but probably the biggest thing is, I think, a misnomer about what they've been taught around really driving a performance culture. There's an old belief that if you are going to be able to hold somebody accountable and to really deal with a lack of performance in them, you should have a bit of a distance from them, that professional distance. And that's a good thing to being able to deal with performance problems. But what I find in my own experience is that it's a lot easier, actually, to deal with performance problems in people that I've built a bond with because I've earned the right to talk with them about this kind of stuff.

I've invested in them, I've taught them, I've cared about them, I've built that bond with them that when I notice something that's not going well, number one, I notice it because I know them. But number two, I've earned that right to have that conversation because of how I've invested in them. And typically it goes differently too, because they know I care. So when I say to them, hey, this goal that we're supposed to be achieving, you're not where you need to be on it. Let's have a dialogue about it. They know that I'm approaching them because I want what's best for them. I want them to be successful. And I notice them doing things and taking actions that are not making them successful. And I want to help them get back on track.

And so the conversation just feels different to both of us as well. Because the underpinning of relationship means that there's deep trust there, you know, to.

Build on what you're saying. It's always amazed me. Like, we talk a lot here at the Molar Group about authenticity, right? We break it into honesty, integrity and vulnerability. And if I trust a leader, like I look back on the, you know, my business career, I look back on my playing days, my coaching days. If I trust you as a leader, I'm going to do anything for you. And if I know that you're invested in me, not just time wise, but emotionally and you truly care, there's nothing I'll stop at. I'll endure anything. I'll run through any wall. I just. And for some reason we created over time. And this is going to be an interesting twist to this we've created over time. Years ago, it was like that performance culture, right? Like dry performance, drive performance, dry performance, don't worry about it.

Don't get to know them, you're not friends, you're their boss. What is that? And we talk about this nowadays, we didn't back then. But what is that doing to the people that you lead away from the office? How is that impacting and affecting their family, their friends, their relationships, their social life, their hobbies, their career goals? Do you see that? You get to have those conversations with clients when all of a sudden you see the growth, you see their improvement year over year and all of a sudden they realize the role they really play in the people's lives that they lead.

Absolutely. Absolutely. And it's really cool to be able to show them that impact. And that's where, you know, showing them their coaching effect survey results is super meaningful because they can look and see, here's what I'm doing that my team members are finding value in, here's what I'm doing that is helping them perform at a higher level. And all of a sudden their work, they see the value of it in a whole different way when they're getting that feedback from their team members. So it's fun to be able to show a leader that. And then because they understand it on a deeper level of what they're doing that really matters, they can do more of what is effective.

They can spend more time building relationships, they can do a better job of challenging, or sometimes they can look at something that they struggle with and say, yeah, I can. I see that I'm not doing that with my team and I need to change my behavior. We actually use the coaching effect survey within our own organization, and I'm a leader within our company, and I've gotten feedback at times on things that I'm not doing consistently, behaviors that I'm not exhibiting that I know is a behavior of top performing leaders. And the feedback from my team members helps me recognize that and see that, yeah, you know what? They're right. I'm not doing that consistently and I got to get better at that.

And so for me personally, it's been helpful in pointing out what I'm doing well and understanding of what I could improve upon overall.

And we're painting a very broad picture with this question. But in the beginning, is it generally hard, challenging for leaders to see the results, whether they're positive or negative, to actually process the fact that these are accurate results from real people that you have real relationships with?

Yes.

Long question, short answer.

Yes, it is. It's just.

I like the way you operate, Sarah.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. I'll be really succinct. It's hard because, you know, we want to be good at what we're doing, and that doesn't mean that we're perfect. And for most of us, we're going to get back our survey results and we're going to see some things that we could do more effectively. And that's hard to hear sometimes because of course we want to be great. But when you take the feedback with the spirit in which is. It is intended, which is for the leader's development and growth, you see that I can work on this, I can do some things differently to become more effective.

And then all of a sudden, you take that survey, you have your team members take that survey, you know, a few months down the road, and they're saying to you're better at this, you've improved, you're a more effective leader for me, because of the work that you put in to get better here, that's really meaningful. It lets you know that the effort that you're putting into training and improving and developing is paying off because the people are feeling the more effective leadership coming from you.

So with that being said, how do you coach the folks that you work with to being able to do that dance between the areas they're strong in and the areas where there's opportunities for significant growth? Right. Because you don't want to spend so much time on what maybe you're. You're not so great at and just neglect the things that you are really good at. Can you talk into that a little bit?

Yeah, absolutely. Whenever we share survey results back with leaders, at the end of their report, there's an action plan page. And what I always encourage leaders to do is pick one or two things that they felt really good about in their results that they saw that they're doing well and that their team members value and that they want to keep doing and maybe even do more of. Pick one or two things and then write what you're going to do as far as a behavior and next step coming out of that to continue those behaviors or to get or to use them even more effectively. And then on the flip side, pick one or two things that you want to do a little bit differently, a little bit better in terms of the leadership behaviors.

So that way we get kind of an equal balance on leveraging strengths as well as improvement. And we really try to limit it to one or two for each, because people can't change that many things at one time. Changing a behavior that maybe you've been doing consistently for a number of years is a hard thing to do. And so, yeah, my report might say, here's 10 things that you could do better, but I want you to pick one or two so that you can actually make a change in those areas. So we really try to get in the focus on the positive as well as just one or two things to work on.

So when you bring on a client and we're talking about growth and we're talking about Runway and how long it takes, what is the average timeframe that you work with clients? Is it a year? Is it two years, three years?

Yeah. Great question. Believe it or not, we've had some clients that we worked with for a decade because.

So cool. That's great.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, for. Because there's always more to learn, right? There's always more to understand about great leadership. Sometimes it's reinforcing stuff that. Oh, yeah, I know that. And I got. I got away from that. I used to do that. I hear that a lot from leaders. Yeah, I used to do that, and I stopped doing it, and I don't really know why. Because it was effective, you know? So sometimes it's just reinforcing a behavior that they need to get back to. But most clients that we work with, the first year is pretty intensive, where we're doing a lot of education on leadership, best practices, leadership activities that work well.

And then from there, it's kind of Going into a mode of just checking in on the survey results to make sure that they're continuing to maintain those behaviors and then doing a little bit less education, but still some regular education on an ongoing basis. And for our long term clients, like I said, we can do that for five, seven, ten years to help them continue to embed those leadership behaviors in their culture.

Have you ever had a client leave, let's just say Company abc, Right. And go over to Company Def, and they convince upper management, upper leadership, to bring Excel and institute the Coaching Effects Survey?

Yeah.

And you get their test scores back and all of a sudden it's like what they were really good at here at abc. For some reason, they're scoring a little bit lower here. And surprisingly, that's one area they're constantly struggling with. Now. It's off the charts.

Yeah.

Have you, have you ever had something like that happen?

Yeah, absolutely. Because people are impacted by their environment. And when you look at a coaching relationship, it is a relationship, which means that if I'm your coach, if I'm your leader, how I coach, how I lead is going to be impacted by you. And there's going to be some people, some cultures where it's easier for me to use my best strengths as a leader in order to coach in that culture or to coach that person. There's going to be some where it's more difficult. And so it's not a static thing. When you move as a leader to a new organization, you're going to have different types of coaching relationships because you're in a different culture and you're coaching different people. And so absolutely, that's going to change based on those relationships.

Now I got to shift gears here a little bit because I have toot your horn big time. Okay. And I've talked about the relationship I have with Excel Institute, how it came about a few years ago. And the very first thing is like, I fell in love with the book that you co authored with Bill Extrom. Okay. The Coaching Effect. Can you talk about the journey of writing this book? I mean, everybody I give this book to, and it is a lot of people, right? Previous podcast guests, clients, friends. This happens to be my wife's copy and they love it and they want a piece of that. They want it. They want that in their world and they want to share it with their leaders. Can you talk about the journey of writing this book?

And not just that, but what happened to your world and those folks that you worked with after it was published?

Yeah. Oh, no. I appreciate that question really. We decided to write the book quite simply because were discovering a lot about leadership, a lot about great coaching relationships that we felt like others may not know. And so we felt like our research could turn into best practices that other leaders could learn from and not have to reinvent the wheel around what great leadership looks like. So we wanted to share our research around it. And we also knew that there was a lot of leadership books out there that were from one person's experience or one person's opinion around what great leaders do, but not really based in studying leadership from the through the eyes of the team members that were actually being led. And so we felt like we could bring a unique, more research based perspective to a leadership book.

And so we spent a number of years writing the book, taking in the research that we would need to support the different ideas that were suggesting, making sure that everything that were suggesting as great leadership principles or behaviors was really based in the data and then putting it together in a way that somebody could hopefully pick up the book and if they were to implement a lot of the ideas and suggestions in it, would be able to make themselves a more effective leader. We wanted it to be a very practical how to guide that anybody could pick up and apply to their leadership. And the reception has been really fun. In the years since we've written the book. I've actually run into people on planes who I've seen carrying the book.

Like I look over and like, hey, you know, you're reading the Coaching Effect. And they'll be like, yeah, you know, I'm enjoying it. I'm like, that's interesting. I'm that Sarah, not Bill.

I'm Sarah. Yes.

And so that's been fun. We've had people reach out and let us know how the book has impacted their world, their coaching, their sometimes their personal lives as well. Because great leadership, a lot of the principles of it apply, whether we're talking about in a business setting or at home. And so it's been really fun just to hear how people have taken the work that we have done and the research we've done and applied it to their work to become more effective.

And we will put a link to the coaching effective book to purchase the book in the show notes. Okay. And of course it'll be out on social and things like that. I can't speak more highly of the book and the work that Bill and you and the team have done. Now here's a question. Were there any surprises? You have all this research, all this Experience. And we don't think. We. We know we don't have all the answers. We know there's more out there. That's what we love to. Why we love to do this. But was there anything that you were so sure of was significant? And all of a sudden you get the research back and you're like, no way, that can't be true, or vice versa or something. You're like, that's kind of. That plays a role.

But actually it ends up turning out to be something very significant.

Yeah, absolutely. We, over the years that we've done the research through the coaching effect, I've had a number of surprises. One of the ones that jumps out to me on team meetings, because one of the things that you'll hear from, you know, different leadership organizations is you got to do really regular team meetings. And yes, you want to do some level of team meetings and communication. But one of the first discoveries that we had is that actually a lot of really highly rated leaders are doing their team meetings monthly rather than weekly. And that was shocking to me because I figured all the best ones are doing them weekly. More communication is always better.

And what we found is that, yes, they were doing a lot of communication, especially one to one, but they really only felt like they needed to bring the team together on a monthly basis to get the benefit of the learning, the communication, the collaboration. And sometimes what we assume is the right thing to do as a leader, the research actually says, you know what, you don't have to do it that way. There's actually a different approach to it. So that was. That was one of the AHAs that we had around team meetings. Another aha that I had that I thought was really interesting is on the importance of just really understanding your team members as individuals. We knew going into our research is that relationships mattered.

We, I don't think, realized to what degree they matter until we really started doing more research on it. If you simply care about your team members as an individual, not just as a cog in the wheel to get stuff done. The ability to motivate them more effectively, the ability to retain them, and the ability to get them to perform at a higher level goes way up. I think we underestimated, even as much as we valued relationships, I think we underestimated the impact until we started really running the numbers of just getting to know your team members, getting to care about them as individuals.

And when you really stop to think about it makes total sense. Yeah, right. At the end of the day, like I Want to know that you know me, you care about me, that the work we're doing is meaningful and important and that we're valued. And what is it that you have seen show up time and again about the leaders that have the ability to form the strongest, deepest, most meaningful relationships?

Yeah. Ultimately what they do is they take a strong interest in the other person and they're getting to know them on a deeper level. They're taking the time to ask the questions. They have a genuine interest in this human being and wanting to understand them. And what's interesting is it is again, like I said earlier, it's a trait, it's a skill that you can actually learn. I've heard from leaders at times, you know, I'm not a people person. Like that's not me, you know, I'm not as comfortable with that. And I'll share with them just a few techniques of, you know, start off your one to ones by checking in for a few minutes. How was your weekend, Ed? Right, how are the kids doing? Jot down their kids names on a notepad.

So yeah, you may not remember them naturally, but you can look at that notepad before they walk into your office or you get on the phone with them and remember their kids names. Like some little easy techniques that you can use to become better. And what's interesting is as leaders start to focus in on that, they start to realize this is kind of fun, I'm interested in this person. Like they start to become more genuine in it because they see I can build connections and I see the impact on the other person of building that connection with them.

Let's mention actually the four activities because I have a question about career discussions. Yeah, I think it would be safe to say what I have to ask is underneath career discussions, let's talk about the four activities that are measured.

Yeah. So the four activities that we've identified over time that lead to better results. Regular one to one meetings, regular team meetings and effective team meetings. Doing good feedback and then having career conversations with team members. So those are the four coaching activities that we teach.

So here we go. Okay. The career discussions, we talk about it, about process. Right. Lead measures, lag measures the behaviors that we need to drive so we get the results that we desire. We talk about goals. But inside of that career discussion, like that's the short term, that's the focus. Right. Those are the sprints of the world that we live in. But inside those career discussions, how significant is it for a leader to take the time to genuinely ask about that person's hope and dreams and not just their business career, but their personal life as well, Whether it be with their family, whether it be with something that they want to accomplish, somewhere they want to visit. How significant is that?

Yeah, it's hugely significant. And it's the one coaching activity that we teach that's done least consistently. So we're much more likely to do a regular one to one. We're much more likely to have a regular team meeting. We're much more likely to even give feedback to our team members. But sitting down, finding out their career goals, finding out their hopes, their dreams, where they see themselves down the road personally as well as professionally, that's the coaching activity that's done the least consistently. And it's really unfortunate because it's one of the coaching activities that correlates the most to increased retention. If I am finding out where you see yourself long term with this organization, how do you want to grow what you're interested in personally and professionally?

I'm much more likely to actually be able to retain you on my team because I'm helping you take steps towards where you ultimately want to be. And so it's. It's a coaching activity that's vastly underutilized and hugely important, especially when we think about retention.

And I would have to think it plays a significant role in raising the level of performance as well.

It does.

Discretionary effort, all that.

When people feel like they're growing in their careers, they're actually more motivated in their current position as well. So it's not. You're not just building for the future, you're actually tapping into what drives them right now. Because now they feel like they're being invested in now. They feel like they're learning now they feel like this is a place where I could make my mark long term. And like you said, that increases the motivation, the discretionary effort that I want to give because this is the place where now I want to build my career.

And along those lines, you can't check boxes in leadership, right? So let's say you think you've done a good job with career discussion. You think you have an idea of what that person really wants, but they're a little bit more experienced, they're up there in the years that they've been in the workforce. They might not have that next level up, like maybe a leadership role desire in your eyes. Yet they do. Like, how do you continue to have those career discussions as you evolve as a leader, as folks evolve in the role? And I don't think I'm articulating this quite right.

But if I'm committed to knowing you, it's really easy for me to get complacent, if you will, thinking I know you, and to stop asking the right questions to get the information that I need to have to truly understand what makes you tick at this time.

Yeah, you're absolutely right. And you've got to make it a habit. Our recommendation is you sit down with each of your team members. Doesn't matter how long you've coached them, led them, how long you've known them, sit down with them once a year and talk about their career goals, because they do change. I do this with my own team members, and I am constantly surprised by some of the things that they say in this year's career discussion that is really different from previous career discussions that we've had. They've evolved, they have different goals, they've learned different things during the last year. They've had different experiences, and so that's impacted where they see themselves in the future.

And so if you're not sitting down at least once a year and having that dialogue, you're probably missing out on some of those opportunities for development and where they are right at the moment.

How important is vulnerability to increasing your coaching effect survey score? How important is vulnerability into really getting to the core of who your people are?

Yeah, what we see vulnerability showing up in is in the psych safety theme under the relationship area. It's huge. In building psych safety, If I'm asking you as a team member to feel comfortable with me expressing your true ideas and opinions, to feel comfortable maybe taking a risk and trying something new and different, or sharing a point of view that's unique, and I'm not willing myself to be open and vulnerable to you. I'm creating a really big imbalance in our relationship where I'm asking you to trust me and I'm not willing to extend that same trust to you. And that's ultimately what we're doing when we make ourselves vulnerable. We're saying to the other person, I'm sharing something with you that you could laugh at or roll your eyes at or, you know, use against me.

And I'm trusting that you're not going to do that. I'm trusting that you will use it with my best interests at heart. And so when we make ourselves vulnerable, we're extending trust, which means we're more likely to be trusted in return.

You know, they say we learn by teaching, Right? And you've been doing this For a few years now. How much have you learned about yourself as a leader that has allowed you to increase your level of self awareness, but also to grow, to become more effective, maybe more empathetic, maybe whatever it is. But how much of that has happened?

Oh, my gosh, I feel, I mean, I teach this stuff for a living, like you said, Ed, and I learn stuff about myself as a leader every single day. I will be giving workshops sometimes, you know, I just gave one right before we jumped on this call today. Leading a team through a workshop on motivation. And as I'm espousing different best practices, different ideas to increase motivation, I'm making a mental note to myself, okay, I need to do that with this person on my team. I haven't done that for a while with them. I've got to, I've got to practice what I preach. And that's where I say leadership is a constant journey. There's things that, new ideas that you're going to learn, new ways of doing things that work with one team member that doesn't work with somebody else.

The best leaders that I know are constantly learning. It's. You're never a finished product in terms of becoming a good leader. And if you think that you are, you might as well just hang up, you know, the, the boots and retire because it means that you're probably done growing and you're not going to have your best impact anymore.

Recently were in New Jersey working with an amazing client. And I was sitting back watching you do your thing. And as I started doing the math, how many years you've been doing this, how many of these workshops you must have conducted, how many of these conversations, excuse me, that you must have had? And yet that fire is there, that passion, that enthusiasm. How do you do it? How do you constantly stay on top of your game when it's a cycle, Right? It's a cycle.

Yeah. You know, there's two reasons I would say that I'm super passionate about what I do. And that energy for me is not something I'm faking. It's how I really feel about it. Number one, I'm just very genuinely interested in what creates great leaders. I love learning something new that I can share with somebody like you or, you know, somebody like our client out in New Jersey to be able to help them get better. I just, I love learning new things. And then I love. The second thing is I love being able to teach it to a new leader. And every leader is different, you know, walking through a situation I was talking with one of the leaders that I coached this morning, and she was talking about a team member that she was feeling challenged by.

And I'm listening to her and asking her questions. And together we're figuring out how she might want to coach this person differently and that every conversation is unique based on the leader and their team members. And so it's just, it's constantly an interesting discovery on my part, on their part, and that makes it fun. Even though the concepts around leadership might be things that you can teach and teach consistently, the ways that you apply them are always new and different based on the leader and their team. And that, and that makes it really interesting.

Now, before I ask you the last question, time always flies when you and I are having a conversation, Sarah. But before I ask you the last question, where can folks find out more about Excel Institute? And obviously, like I said, I will have the link to the Coaching Effect book on the show notes. We'll also put the link that you're about to talk about. But can you go ahead and share that?

Yeah, absolutely. So the best place to learn more about us is to go to excel institute.com. It's ecscl institute.com and you can learn about a lot of around what we do, as well as our research into coaching. And then another great thing to do is, like you said, Ed, pick up the book, pick up the Coaching Effect. You can get it. Barnes and Noble, Amazon. It'll give you hopefully a lot of practical ideas that you can apply right away to your leadership.

Now, I, I fibbed. Okay. Because I said there's one last question. I do this all the time, but I just thought of something on your website I love. Do you call it something you didn't know about Sarah or there's something you put in your bio. What. What is it called again?

Yeah, we have on our leadership team, we have a little bit of on our bio around everybody and we just, we tried to do some fun facts, not just, you know, the standard stuff.

So, so do please tell yours.

I, I've got a few of them on there. My favorite emoji is one that's is one of the questions and that's the unicorn emoji. So that's one of my fun facts. Another fun fact is a song that I can sing every word to. And for that there's a million of them that I can name.

I thought there was it not the Beastie Boys.

So that's what I was gonna say. And then there was my favorite band which is the Beastie Boys, which is not one that people would typically associate.

Oh, getting to know you, I absolutely would. But we. We have not had this discussion. My very first concert as a high school student was Aragon Ballroom, downtown Chicago. It was Fishbone, Murphy's Law, and Beastie Boys before License to Ill came out. I absolutely should not have been there. Okay. But I was. And damn it was a great concert. But what. What was a song that you said, you know every word to the Beastie Boy song.

Oh, shake your rump.

Thank you very much. I just wanted. I wanted to hear you say that. Okay. And then now. But I love that. Okay. And you are right. People would not guess that, right? I mean, people would not guess that. I remember we're down in Austin for the event last year. I was sitting there watching you talk, and I'm like, I bet they don't know this about Sarah. And I feel like I should intervene here. Anyways, back to the subject. Yeah, back to the subject at hand. If you were to look at a leader, right, and say, here is my wish for you. Like, you are going out like you're an emerging leader or you're a new leader and you have many years ahead of you're going to have some really hard time. You're going to do hard things, you're learn new things.

But this is my knowing everything that I know. This is my wish for you. What would that be?

Oh, that's such a great question. What I would say to a new leader, more than anything, what I would wish for them is just to really get to know their team members. If the number one thing that I think will make their work more meaningful, will make their work more effective, and that will make them a better leader, is take the time to really get to know these people, invest in them the same way that you would invest in anybody else. That's really important in your life because they are these. These are the folks that are going to be responsible for whether or not you succeed or fail. As leaders, we cannot do it ourselves. We have to rely on our team members to be able to execute the work.

And if we haven't developed and invested in them with that level of relationship, they're not people that we can count on to the degree that we need to. So that's the number one thing I would say is really get to know your team members because they are extremely important people in your world.

Sarah, thank you so much. I cannot say thank you enough. I appreciate you. You know, and most importantly, thanks for doing the work that you do and being who you are. And I look forward to many more exciting conversations with the Beastie Boys quietly playing in the background.

I'll wrap it all for you one night.

I do. Oh, yes, you will. Yeah. Yes, you will. Yeah. Sarah, thank you so much.

I appreciate you having me. Thanks, Ed.

Thank you for listening to the athletics of business. Be sure to give us a rating and review so we know how we're doing. For more information about the show, visit theathletics of business.com now get out there. Think, act and execute at the highest level to unleash your greatness.