Welcome back. In your Leadership, I'm Chris and I'm Lorenzo. And Lorenzo. On today's discussion, we're going to be continuing what we started last Monday on the advice that coaches would give to their younger selves. Per this Forbes Leadership article written by the Forbes Coaches Council, where they were kind of listing pieces of advice they would give to their younger selves that would help them become
better coaches earlier in their career. This is rooted in the fact that a lot of organizations are starting to put a much higher level of importance on the idea that coaching is a very large part of leadership and leaders who coach well will tend to be more successful leaders. Last week we talked about listening. On today's episode, the first topic I want to talk about a piece of
advice is this idea of pacing yourself. One of the people in the Forbes Council of Coaches says that if you're a high performer, you can be ANXIO to you know, advance and to move forward in your career. They wish someone would have coached them to raise their hand to ask for additional assignments, and and it's it's an interesting thing because you know, I've always thought that, you know, do do the work, do it well, and people
will notice that. And once I started getting to a place where I'm leading teams, I'm starting to realize that, you know what, there's no way for me to notice every single thing that every team member is doing all the time unless they actually call it out. It's not it's not you know, a lack of humility. It's not an annoyance to raise your end and say this is what I've done. I want more, give me something else.
Additional, it will help a person move up in their career more if they are raising their hand, because quite honestly, the squeaky wheel gets degrees. Sometimes I'm constantly looking for those that raise their hands, and I think the first step is thanking them for doing it right. I think sometimes we forget that, Like, like you know, when people raise their hand for more, they raise their hand for an assignment, they raise their hand for interest
in a promotion. I think it's important that we say thank you because that's what we need. We need, we need people that are self motivated to want to take on more. Then the second conversation we have to have. It's okay, well, let's talk about it. Let's talk about the kind of readiness, like like, how are you currently doing in your role, what are the things that you're currently working on? How are you able to
free up you know, the bandwidth to do these types of things. And and I share that because sometimes as a leader, helping them to pace is critical. Helping yourself to pace is important. And I think to your point, like you learn these things over time. And but but I've always looked back on that and I've seen and I've had times when I've had great leaders that have told me like, hey, you're taking on too much right, like, like you keep on raising your hand for everything, You're gonna get
distracted. You're gonna kind of like you're gonna work to it. You're gonna get you know, burn yourself out. You're gonna have too many things going on. You can't possibly deliver at the expectation that you have if you have all of these things that you have going on. And I've you know,
taken that advice. That's been helpful, and sometimes it's been painful sometimes, like you don't want to hear that you're trying to get everything done right, You're you're you're motivated, you're driven, you want to get stuff done. But that that pace part is really really important. And I think it's hard for us to self regulate pace. I do believe it takes someone to help
us kind of point that out. Because if if you are able to self regulate, pay self regulate your pace, the question you might have to ask is like, am I going fast enough? Right? You know? So, I think sometimes like the best way to learn that, And I think the way that it's helped the most is to have someone who is a mentor, is a great leader, somebody that you do trust. That's helpful in saying like, hey, you have a lot going on, let's let's let's
at least talk about it. But I also think that we have to not limit people's ability to get things done. I think that great leaders and great people they'll let you know when maybe their plate is a little too full. They'll let you know, like when you have to when they have to pull back a little bit on something. So I think there there's a little bit
of a balance there that's needed. Like you don't want to limit people's opportunities, but you also need to make sure that they're moving at an appropriate pace based upon the goals that they have and the skills that they have. Quite
frankly, right right. I had an employee report to me a few years ago who applied for a promotion and was given the feedback that they weren't ready for that promotion yet, that they had been in their current role for only a few months, and that they couldn't possibly have amassed enough experience and information in their current role to allow them to move up effectively into the next role.
And the conversation I had with them seemed to go well, and then a month later, when another spot opened up for the same position, they applied again and I was surprised. I was like, wait, what was this a mistake? And I very quickly had to realize that, okay, the conversation that I thought I had with them was not the one that they took from it, and that they the timelines weren't clear, and quite honestly, there is no timeline you can set to say this is the right thing.
After this many months, you're going to be ready, because there are some people who won't be ready after won't ever be ready, and there will be people who'll be ready sooner rather than later. And so I had to revisit the conversation with that employee and go over a list of things that I wanted to make sure that they were confident in doing so. It didn't start
with me saying don't apply again. It was a conversation that said, Okay, if you're serious about this, I want to make sure you understand these are the things that you will have to do to hit the ground running on day one that shouldn't require any coaching or training. You have to be able
to do these right away. And then these are the things you'll have to get done that there will be some coaching and training involved, and that you're not expected to kind of know how to do them great right at the beginning.
And that conversation was a lot more eye opening for that person. So it's not just a you know, you're not ready yet, or this vague kind of like there's a there's a timeline associated with it, because it's not a timeline, it's a it's a list of things that they should be able to get done in order to make sure they will be successful in a role
and that they don't burn out. I think when employees do this, it's because they believe that nothing will ever happen unless they make it happen for themselves, and so they use every opportunity to try to make things happen for themselves. And that type of mindset should not be kind of tamped down in a person. It should just be tempered with the knowledge of what it takes to
move forward. But it will only work if that employee has confidence in you as a leader, that you are looking out for them, that you're not trying to just tell them to not speak up anymore because you're tired of it, that you that you want them to be successful. You're committed to helping
them get to that place if that's where they want to be. But that will take regular conversation and check ins and and and a forward looking mindset to where they want to go as a as a long term and short term goal, and then what you can do to help them get there. Because once they understand that you will do that as a leader, and they see that happening in action, they're a lot less likely to try to jump the gun and potentially find themselves in a role that they really weren't prepared for Yeah,
it's great. I think that one of the things I discuss a lot is not confusing milestones and mile markers. And what I mean by that is like it's it's all a journey, Like there is no true finish line when you think about career progression until you're done with your career, right, Like you know, like everything else is a journey, and it should be some type of movement, you know, from a progress standpoint, and and so you know, taking the time to learn, take time to grow, taking the
time to have enough skill to be successful at the next level. And we've talked about this before on the show, but like kind of Malcolm Gladwell's ten thousand Hours and like the Art of Mastery and that type of thing where it's like in a full time job, that's five years, forty hours a week over the course of five years, Like that's ten thousand hours in that job. Now, I'm not saying that you have to do the same job for
ten years or for five years. What I'm saying is that you need to take the time in a role to see the vast majority of what you're going
to see in that role at that level of responsibility. That's going to help you be prepared for the next level of responsibility and so that you're not You're not you know, coming across these things for the first time that you should already know that you'd already had some exposure to And that type of pacing is it means that, like I don't have a timeline for each individual person. One of the things that you know that that bugs me with sometimes how companies,
organizations, leaders do things like talent planning that type stuff. They try to put timelines on things. Right, Chris, Chris is going to be ready for the next job, and in six to twelve months, Chris is gonna be ready for the next job, and one to two app Chris can be ready for the next job next week. You know what I'm saying, Like not in twelve months? Yeah, yeah, yeah, Like what the job is, what the responsibilities are, what we need, what the talent
pop plan looks like, what he's capable of. Now. I understand that, like we need to be able to assess like what people need skill wise, but the fact that we think we can tie time to skill building and refinement, that to me doesn't add up. It just it doesn't make sense to me. Because people learn differently, they absorb differently, they apply things
differently. People come in already with a basket full of experience, background and capability, and sometimes that goes dormant when you put them into roles where they don't have to use certain things. But by by by you know, giving them expanded responsibilities or assignments or a different leader, all of a sudden,
this person can really show up in these spaces. So anyway, I just I think that pace for me really does come down to the individual and and requires a lot of actual dialogue, conversation coaching in this kind of context, like like knowing that that that there's there's skills that people have, skills that people have to refine, skills that people have to build, and that that's actually going to help us to better understand the pace, but that there has
to be a pace there there's there should be you know, there should be always movements and and that should be adjusted based upon what the next goal is and kind of the current state of you know, where you're at from a from a development standpoint. Yeah, you're you're spot on with that. I want to go over the next piece of advice in this episode because I think
it ties in very heavily with this idea of pacing yourself. And then the next piece of advice that that coaches wish they had had as as younger people
in their careers is this idea of following your dreams. I think it relates to pacing yourself because it's when when a person is doing something that isn't necessarily in line with what their their ultimate goals or dreams are, they can oftentimes try to substitute that with very quick or fast movement within a career path that they don't want because they they're they're they're a trying to run away from something. They're trying to want to run away from whatever the current role there is
that they're doing in order to get into something else. That could be a sign of that, or it could be that they don't know them articulate or even know what their dreams are what they want to do, and so they they're they're trying to figure out a way to measure a forward movement. And if you know what your dreams are and you can articulate them, and I'm not meaning dreams in a cliche term, I mean like short term and long
term goals, what do you actually want to do and articulate that. If a person can do that, they're far less likely to to, you know, run full speed ahead into career path that is not for them, unless they are you know, afraid or they you know, have this you know, kind of the the imposter syndrome or way something they don't deserve, whatever,
those those dreams are. So as a leader, when you're talking to your people about pacing themselves, one of the things that you can do is talking to them about what their long term goals are and what you can do
as leader to help them get there. If a person is earlier in their career, they are far more likely to be able to find the courage to take steps towards following their dreams than when they're later on in their career and they have responsibilities they have to consider they may not have had when they were
when they were younger or earlier on in their career. And so the people who can articulate that sooner, and and I'm not talking about how you know, when you meet with your guidance counselor in eighth grade, you're supposed say
what you want to do for a living. That's ridiculous. I'm talking about a person being able to articulate, who is an adult, who is in something that could be a career path, to be able to articulate where they see themselves in five years, both within this career as well as if they were doing something totally different. What would they do if it wasn't here? And is that something that appeals to them? How can you as a leader
help them get there? The conversations around one will help strengthen the relationship with the person that will help move forward on the conversation about the other, and they work together, I think in that regard. Yeah, I like the fact that they use the term kind of dreams because I think it's something that I like how you talked through it, like the dreams and in goals.
And then because when I hear the term dreams, I think of that like like these are things that we want, but we maybe lack the courage to go work towards right, right, Like that's that's kind of what I hear in dreams is kind of like I really want to do that, but I don't know if I can. I don't know if I'm capable, I don't know if I'm good enough, Like I don't know if I'm willing to,
you know, push out of whatever. Maybe you know, expectations that that are there for me, myself, for my parents, my significant others, my friends, all that type of things. So, but I think it's important to understand what they are, like, like, you know, you can, you should, and you should be thinking about what are you working towards. And that's kind of what I hear in dreams, and you'll have
goals on the way there. But if there's something that you really want to to involve yourself in when it comes to how you spend time in a career and how you spend time like creating income for yourself, the closer you get to knowing what that is, and the more that you can spend time talking about it and discussing it and then like taking things on to learn about how you can make those dreams come become a reality. I think that's super important.
And I think that allows you to have an intrinsic motivation that will push you through the harder times. Right. So, in one regard, you could say that the difference between a dream and a goal is a dream is potentially vague and and inarticulate, right, So it's just kind of like this throwing something out there into the universe, this is what I would do.
Once you start to put structure to that, it becomes a goal. You can turn a dream into a goal by by being able to figure out the steps that it will take to get there and not just kind of like, oh, my my dream one day is to visit ten countries. Right,
it's like, okay, so what does it take to get there? Well, it costs this much money, and it costs this much time, and you have to get a passport, and you have to like there are things you have to do, and that can be scary to articulate the things that are needed, because now it becomes something that is not just kind of you know, you know, arthereal, it is it is something that is that can be real if you make it real and make helping employees make their dreams
something that is that is real to them. Again, that could be scary, but it can also be very freeing and it can help really focus an employee on whether or not what they're doing right now now is the right thing they should be doing to get them closer to that because the moment you start to think about something as being just a dream, which is like a oh, if the univers aligns, then it will happen to Oh, no, this is something that I can actually make happen if I do the right things
and take the right steps in the right order over the right timeline. Once they start to consider that, it will become much harder to discard those things because now it becomes something that is attainable. It's something you can actually make happen, not just something that might happen to you one day. Absolutely, and with that it brings us to this episode's one minute hack. But first a few words from our sponsors. All right, for this episode is ad
minute hack. Here's I want you to do. Think about this concept of pacing yourself with the concept of following your dreams and incorporate them together when you have conversations with your employees and with yourself. The two things need to work
together. So when you're talking to employees, talk to them about short term and long term goals and goals that they would do both within the confines of the tradition career path that you could help them with in the role they're currently in, as well as what they would do if I had nothing to do with this job. What would they do if they had to work, but they, you know, had they were independently wealthy and they could do whatever they wanted to, but they still had to work. What would they do?
Help them? Figure out how you can help them in their day to day work that what that aligns that with what their long term dreams are. Even if there's not much that can be done, things can be done that have nothing to do with work too, things like helping them, you know, align their schedule with something else they want to do that might get them
closer to it. So if they're doing something for you that has nothing to do with their long term their long term dreams, this doesn't mean that you can't help them or or engage them in the process of articulating them and making sure they understand that there is a process and that there is no end to this. It's just what steps am I taking. There's a there's an old adage I love It says I'm not there yet, but I'm closer than I was yesterday. If you can get your employees to believe that, it is
that they are closer today than they were yesterday. It mitigates a lot of the potential unease and unrest that employees can feel, like when they start to feel stagnated and and they're they're not moving up fast enough. It's possible that they are moving up at just the right speed. They just don't look at the things they do each day as stepping stones to getting there. They're looking at the next promotion as a stepping stone and there's nothing before that that that's
the wrong mindset, and you help your employees get there. Yeah, that's kind of what I was going to share a little bit as well as I think that the ability to help connect dots, the ability to help people, you know, feel and understand uh, what pace is and why it's important and and when you're gonna move fast and you're gonna slow down a little bit,
and why those things happen and where those things happen. The more time that you can spend with with those that are that are motivated, that that are that are you know, kind of raising their hands, that are motivated, they want to go, they want to grow, and spending the time with them to help them understand some of these concepts I think is super helpful and healthy and allows them to know that the work they're doing every day is
getting them where they want to go, both professionally and personally. When you think about dreams right right, and I'll say this one last time, it's very important that in the process of doing this, you don't cause an employee who is always raising their hands trying to tick on more things that you don't cause them to lose that thing that made them want to do that. That mindset is the type of mindset that allows people to move forward in their career.
The goal is not to stop that from happening. The goal is to make sure they understand what the process is so that when they continue to raise their hand for more tasks and to take on more things, that the conversations you have with them around that process don't end with them thinking, oh, you know, this is my leader shutting me down again, this is my
telling me not to do something. It's like, no, there's there's a there's a right way, and there's a treading waterway, you know, and and taking on more things simply for the take of taking them on that won't help them move towards their goals. That's the wrong thing they should be focusing their energy on things that will move them forward. And it's your job as a leader to help them, you know, figure out which ones fall into which category. Absolutely, and with that brings us to the end of this
episode. This is hacking your leadership. I'm Lorenzo and I'm Chris, and we'll talk to you all next time.