Make the Most from an Executive Coach with Ethan Evans & Sue Bethanis

afternoon everyone my name is Ethan Evans many of you know me but in case you don't I am a retired Amazon executive I spent 15 years at Amazon at the end of a leadership career During that time, I built Amazon Prime Video, the Amazon App Store. I worked at Twitch TV, an Amazon subsidiary, and I built Prime Gaming. I left in the fall of 2020 to start writing online about leadership, coaching and teaching classes. You are free to follow me on LinkedIn or to visit my website, www.eco.org.

AnthonyEvans.com. Today, we're going to talk about how to get support for an executive coach and how to make the most of a coaching relationship. With that in mind, I'm joined by Sue Bethanis, who is CEO of Mariposa Leadership. She was my coach when I worked at Twitch and later at Amazon, and I'll allow her to give you... her full background, which spans decades of both athletic and professional executive coaching. Sue.

Well, Ethan, thank you for having me. It's always a pleasure. I think some of you know that Ethan and I also teach a class together on Maven called Cracking the C-Suite, and it's been just a joy to be able to work with you and Jason. So thank you for that. And thank you for having me here. So I am the CEO and founder of Merifless Leadership. We're in our 27th year and we've seen it all. You know, we've seen the dot bombs. We've seen the recession. We've seen COVID. We've seen now the tech.

whatever you call we're in right now. So mostly we work with executives. um in tech and uh both through a corporate uh situation and also individual pay so we're going to talk about all about all about that today um i i've also had a background in athletics so that ethan mentioned that And before I was a executive coach, I was an athletics coach and I was the division one coach of USF. That was my last job. So I really do come to this work as an athlete and as a athletics.

coach and i'm very excited i get to go to the olympics this year as a not as a participant of course or as a coach but as a fan so i'm very excited about that You can find us at, yes, I'm very excited. Thank you. You can find us at www.maripostalearship.com. And, but you're going to hear a lot about a lot of what we do today. So very excited. Ethan, thank you for having me. It's always my pleasure, Sue. So, yeah, I mean, it's a great example in a way. Our coaching relationship.

turned into a partnership and collaboration years after I left Amazon and Sue was no longer my coach. And I think that shows our shared interest in the topics. But Sue, let me start with a question for you. In all these years of executive coaching, why do executives seek coaches? Why are coaches a thing? Well, three words, and I hope that everybody gets this. It's up your game.

Simply. That's why people see coach execs are corporate athletes. And as we know, athletes want to improve their skills. They want to win. And executives are no different. They want to up level their leadership skills. They want to support their company. and they want to get promoted. And having a coach helps execs work on mostly strategic influence.

and executive presence. Those are the two areas where we probably focus the most. And there's other areas too, we'll get into you. But those are the primary areas that we work with, especially with our corporate clients. And what about you, Ethan, when you were working with me and the other coaches you've worked with, what did you do and what did you work on in terms of when you're rising to executive level? Yeah, so I think the thing.

To the first point about why does anyone get a coach? It's like an easy way actually to stand apart because look. The executive ranks are very competitive. They're competitive because it's a pyramid and it gets narrower at the top. And everyone climbing that pyramid at some point, they have. high quality education, right? They're from some good school. They usually have an advanced degree. They always work hard. And so how do you set yourself apart?

imagine i i like to you know you mentioned athletics i like to talk to people about imagine if you were playing against another sports team and that team didn't have a coach Well, now you're in a world where most people don't have coaches and you can get one. And so you can be like the one football team that has a coach. That's a tremendous advantage.

So that's how I think about it. Now, I had three coaches over my executive career. The first two were part of sort of short term programs through Amazon. One when I was promoted to director, one when I was promoted to vice president, we were paired with coaches and given some number of sessions. And I remember in at least one of those cases, I petitioned and got it extended some.

But no one told me how to take advantage of the coach. And so those coaches would do things I know you'll talk about. We'd go over a 360 that we had available.

um but those 360s weren't based on interviews they were based on just programmatic surveys send out and collect some written data um and then they would kind of ask me what i wanted to work on and you know i certainly grew through that process it was very different um the way sue and i began to work together uh you know uh sue may not love this characterization but i'm gonna own it because it's nothing to do with her my ceo at

Twitch, Emmett Shear, and maybe based on some input of one of his leadership team members that I didn't see eye to eye with. I think kind of said, well, let's get Ethan a coach. Maybe we can soften him just a little. So I was asked if I would be open to a coach. And I think they were maybe thinking I would push back on it because.

Sometimes people are asked about coaches in the context of implying like, yeah, you have some rough edges or you have some development areas. And that was certainly the implication here. The difference is I love coaching. I love the chance to improve. And so I'm not actually quite sure how they were connected to you, Sue, but I was introduced to Sue and we were off to the races.

I remember that vividly. I remember we got to start with, we started with the 360, which was, I think, I want to hear your impression of that, because I think... when i when i talk with the people we were with they think that's the best work we do and it's the best thing they get if you will best benefit because it's so rich it's so in depth i mean the way we do it it's not like online or anything it's it's interviews so they're getting

like six to 10 pages of notes that are thematized. So that's a way to understand more in depth, like what are the areas to work on? And so what are... we did that together and then we started we were off the races um after that so what were some of the things that you worked on as an executive well i think um

A hugely common topic is working with people with different personalities, different priorities, different work styles. And the Twitch executive team that I was a part of at that point was very... Made a very different work styles. The CEO Emmett was almost a full generation younger than I was. And of course, it founded the company. I was an experienced executive with.

experience running large organizations the size of Twitch. But frankly, I came with the suspicion that I was an Amazon corporate mole, like sent there to... undermine the leadership or change the culture. We hired in some other external leaders, and one of our other leaders had a very strong personality.

coming from a different corporate background and really a very different style. She came from a different overall culture, wasn't... um from the united states which is fine but we had to try to figure out how to work together across different corporate leadership styles different um trust levels and uh generation gaps it's a lot of navigation yeah and so now navigating those relationships um because Your perspective defines how you see a lot of things. How do you see?

a problem may begin with well are you taking for example in this case the subsidiary view of the problem or the amazon corporate view of the problem and just right there that framing can can The obvious answer to one person is the obvious wrong answer to another. And how do you reconcile that? In that case, there was a lot of power dynamics involved. And it was also just the way it's framed as a sightedness.

already an issue right that there's either it's either this way or it's either that way so yeah um so i remember there was a lot of navigation that we talked about and that's very much the theme that we hear from most of our executive clients and and i think that That's going to be the case across the board, like from manager to CEO. But it's especially the case as you go up the organization, the navigation gets harder and harder because people are less.

willing and able they're able not very great good at giving feedback and um you the game changes a little bit because you you the influencing changes a little bit and uh it's it becomes even more important although i say that and i still think that any good manager needs to be influencing and being and doing it in a strategic way as well yeah i think my experience right when you get

a room full of executives together. They're all hard-charging, successful people with high confidence in their own opinions and experiences. And you put... a room of half a dozen people all of whom are used to leading in the same room and all of whom may have different primary skills and you get uh you get a lot of essentially conflict. Yeah. So it's a huge, yeah, it's a huge skill to learn to navigate that, to reach across.

uh divides to educate to ask smart questions and i think that's a lot of the coaching i do is talking people through scenarios yes talking them through trying to understand where the other person is coming from, trying to understand what's critical to them that may be different than being critical to you. And that's a lot of what Sue helped me with in my situation as well.

Yeah. So what else besides relationships, Sue, what else do you see executives needing to work on? Besides relationships. Yeah, that's that's like the gist of it. Yeah, that's the gist of it. I think that people, I think that...

You know, there's four main things. We've already talked about strategic influencing and we'll spend more time on that. But I want to just highlight that because that's probably the number one thing. And that includes this navigation. You're constantly navigating. And it's not just about influencing because I purposely put strategic influencing together.

Because you can't influence without having a strategic point of view. And in order to have a strategic point of view, you have to be able to understand the market. You have to understand the company's goals. You have to understand the ecosystem. You've got to know stuff.

And that takes a lot of reading. People are like, how am I going to have time to read? I said, you're going to have to have time to read because you have to have a strategic point of view in order to be as influential as you can. And in order to be able to navigate in a way. and to in a way that is most productive and the most effective so that's one second would be this idea of executive presence which is less about

the company and the role you have in influencing the company and more about your own executive presence, it's more personal. It's how are you forming these relationships? Who are you forming them with? how are you balancing grace with gravitas? So how are you able to hard charge, but also have the humble and grace to balance that?

As an example, what kind of humor do you have? I mean, you got to be funny. You got to put people at ease, especially as you grew up in the organization. Those are some examples. So that's executive president. I think the two other ones that are the most prevalent are what are you doing with your team?

How are you engaging your team? And that is really the case in the last four years with a COVID. Like, you know, what are we doing about hybrid? I get that. I mean, we get that a lot. And, you know, oh, well, we're in the office three days a week. But people were on Zoom. It's like, well, that doesn't really make a lot of sense. OK, so how do we.

How do we intentionally help people engage their teams? If you're completely remote, that's, I think, harder. And you've got to think about ways to be, again, intentional about bringing people together. And the last area that I think is, again.

all as ubiquitous as the other ones and that is stress like how can we as executives and i'm putting myself in the same category how do we lessen our stress and there's of course a host of things we do for that but um those are the four areas strategic influence executive presence engaging your team being less stressed for sure and i agree with the stress

because it influences how everything else goes. A stressed out person makes bad decisions, they're short-tempered, so they have trouble relating, they have trouble empathizing. They have trouble engaging their team because they're trying to get things off their plate and just assigning tasks. And so managing stress.

is a huge issue. And I remember meetings we had where I remember at least one meeting, I came in and I was just steaming mad about something. You know, we spent the whole meeting basically. Coaching is not legally therapy, nor can it be. But coaches... do provide a lot of non-medical therapeutic value, just talking through frustration. So that's a common one. For sure. So yeah, and anxiety goes with that. Like, you know, we're, how anxious are you?

are we and how do we um manage that so they really are two sides of the same coin you know stress can be uh a motivator i mean It's, it's, we need stress. I mean, we're, we stress on us is actually a way that we get shit done. That's right. A certain level of stress is performance. That's right. But when it becomes worry is when is the problem. Yeah. So just I think we've covered part of this, but what do you think makes a good coaching match or a good coaching process? You mentioned the 360.

i obviously know how you set up your coaching relationships but maybe just taking a slight step back what are the key elements for everyone here listening now and in the future Yeah, I mean, I think there's three elements to it. I think one is that the match, what all it goes into the match. And if you're in a corporate setting, you know, usually we're working with HR or leadership development or a boss, somebody is probably.

um suggesting that somebody else get coached in some way okay um sometimes the vice president comes directly to us and finds his or her own coach that does happen too um so So my job as account manager, let's say, of Amazon or whoever, is to find out, talk with a person and then decide who in my team.

me or someone else on my team is the best match and we we look at a lot of things i mean it's chemistry it's um it's experience it's uh product set so it's like if somebody's worked in finance for example within tech or if someone's in biotech. I mean, so we'll look at that experience. Although in our company, like most people can coach most people. Most of our coaches can coach most people because they have a lot of flexibility.

So that match and chemistry is really important. That's the first thing. The second thing is the 360. I think, as I mentioned before, that's really a key to setting the stage for... the rest of the coaching and making sure that the goals are clear. And those goals, again, if you're in a corporate setting, you're going to be making sure those goals are clear with HR or leadership development or both. And of course, with boss. And then the third element of course, is the coaching itself.

We do every other week as a minimum. We feel that we've done it in many different ways over 27 years, and we are still sticking with that. I think we do it. We still stick with 360.

uh there are definitely different ways in the in-between and bi-weekly so you have that in-between time uh that you can uh get support i mean there's ai things there's talking with your coach on text things there's email there's lots of things you can call i get calls and like hey i want to talk with you about a particular situation that happens um i think that people

know they can do it. Sometimes they don't call, but they figure it out themselves. They kind of pretend that the coach is on their shoulder and then they figure it out themselves, but they know they can. So it acts as a really nice support because they know that they can do it.

They know they can call if they want to. And I think that's important. When I coach people and when I've been coached, I find it's a blend of teaching me long-term skills that I can use long after the coaching relationship. draws to a close and helping me be higher performance in the moment. So often, I think at least, I end up using current problems as a lens.

to both let's work on your current problem but let's talk about what we're learning and how we're going to do it better next time also and that way you're getting both an immediate performance boost and a long term yeah skill increase yeah and that's what we do too so we really look at ourselves as sort of the

the shepherd of the six months. We are constantly thinking of the string of that long-term, those long-term goals that we get out of the 360. So, you know, if it's about influencing your peers, okay, so we're going to make sure we come back to that. But invariably...

uh when we come to a session it's like what what's up for you like what has happened in the last couple of weeks that you want to address so we want people to come with what we call real plays um because we pre-play things like if somebody knows they're going to be let's say

uh presenting to the board or presenting to their boss you know we can go over that with them so we're pre-playing that that issue but we also know that there's um there's the real play of like what's happened like what what happened And, and how do we fix it for the next time? Okay. You're contrasting.

real play with role play role play is we're pretending in some scenario that's not real real play is this is what actually happened at least from my perspective yes and so we want to pre-play what could happen and we want to like debrief what did happen and that is the bulk of coaching so it's our job to then all right well so this is what happened in that situation

And, oh, so you messed up in that in that presentation or it didn't go really well with your team. You know, it's like they were they were not inspired. OK, well, then. What do we need to fix for the next time? What do you need to fix for the next time? And then let's hear what happened. Let's hear what happened. And then, oh, by the way, here's an article you can read.

to help you for the next time. So we will intersperse mostly Harvard Business Review articles, many, and then also our own content. We'll intersperse that content so that they can have that as a part of what they can integrate.

So there's a constant interplay between the real play and then the skills, the content. Okay. So switching sides a little bit, how do you recommend... that an executive get the most out of their coach, because that's one of our topics is, okay, either my company is paying for a coach, but it's a big investment for them, or I'm paying for a coach myself. which, given the potential gains of income by moving up in the executive ranks, is an easy economic decision.

Even even though it may be a big investment, if you compare it to like college tuition, it's less and yet it's all tailored to you. That said. How do I then maximize that investment, whether it's the company's investment or mine or both? It's a great question. And, you know, we see the gamut. So some people just want to.

just want to talk they they don't have any preparation at all they come in and they just want to like just take a breath and just say all right so here's what happened to me yesterday i really want to i really want to talk about i really want to process it And that's fine. Most people don't do that. Most people have come in with a couple of issues that they want to talk about that are very specific that happened and or they want to work on a particular skill.

And so they have that, they maybe have it in their mind. It's more of something that they thought about. Okay, well, I know I'm talking to Sue in a couple of hours. I want to make sure I have a couple of items I want to talk about. Okay. Then the far end is people that are much more prepared.

And they have talked to me and emailed me things beforehand. Here's what I've been thinking about. This is where you're going to get the most out of coaching. Here's what I've been working on. This messed up. I want to figure out how I... can deepen the learning on this. And so they're the ones who get the most out of coaching. So I could have read that beforehand and hit the ground running.

and know that we will not lose any time at all. I mean, we check, obviously we check in. I mean, we want to check in and see how we're doing and how it's each other, how we're doing and gain some rapport clearly. But then we just jump right in. And, you know, I was talking to somebody today and he's got, he just got a new job. He's starting on, on Monday. And he's like, here are the three things I want to work on. And before that he had sent me.

He was working on his leadership principles, which he wants to make sure he has for when he gets there. So he had already sent them to me. We had already sent a questionnaire to him. So we had that information too. So I had like, you know, two hours worth of information that he had put together. that I looked at. And so we got right into it. That's the best way to do it. And I agree strongly. I have all my clients send me some sort of agenda. Some people send me a couple of lines.

Some people send me a couple of paragraphs and the occasional person shares, you know, a multi-page Google doc. Right. And what it does, though. is I ask to have them at least 24 hours in advance and it gives my brain time to process, time to, time to, because I honestly. Don't necessarily go super deep, but I read them and then my brain is like, oh, well, what do I tell someone who, you know, whatever situation they're struggling with, how to give an employee a tough message or.

how to negotiate, you know, for a new role with their manager or any number of situations. And definitely sometimes. I still get curve balls that I have to think about more. And I'm like, oh, that is going to be interesting. I don't know what you do there, which is great. That keeps it exciting. They stumped you, Ethan, really? I didn't say stump. I say new. No one stumps you. I won't say that. The most stumping questions are the people who want

immediate fixes for systematic problems. They ask me something like, Our company has very few female executives. What can I do to fix that? And, you know, there are things that can be done, but they aren't going to work out in the next two weeks. Usually. Or the next two years, probably. Right. And those are the ones where I'm like, well, okay, I have answers for you, but you're not going to like them. Yeah, it's going to take longer than you think. Yeah.

Which is OK. I mean, that's you can make you can certainly get some some movement towards a solution on that. So there's I agree. There's there's always answers. I think that. that one of the things that's important here is that coaches aren't, this is not prescriptive. Like there's not going to be, here's the answer. Now, will I give an answer because someone asked me straight out? Sure.

Sure, I know you will too. My first question after they asked me a question is like, well, what have you tried so far on that? So I mean, usually the way coaching goes is there's an issue of some sort, like today.

this guy was talking about, you know, he said, I want to talk about my 90 day plan. I want to talk about transitioning my family. He's going from Seattle to the, to this, to the East coast. So it's a, you know, it's a big change for him and his family. So he wanted to talk about that. So. um you know usually there's a particular issue and um you know then then you've gotta uh ask okay so here's the issue what have you what have you tried so far

And figuring out, in this case, what's on your 90-day plan? Okay, so what are the principles? We started with those. And then last, it's like, then what do you want to try next? It's like, that is coaching. What's the issue? What have you tried so far? What do you want to try next? Now, if I have a nice gem that I can add in, hey, in his case, I said, you know, I've got a 90 day plan that I work that a guy that I work with at another company.

has and he has the outline i'm just gonna send that right to you like i don't we don't need to make up a new 90-day plan you know he has the framework so i'm just gonna send that right over to you right so um but that's coaching what's the issue What have you tried so far? What can you try next? And if we repeat that as coaches, professional coaches, and also as coaches of our teams, we will do great.

It's all we need to do. And that's not that it's like that easy, but it's not easier than you think. You just ask those three questions. Yeah, and I think something bonus people can take away from this discussion is all managers, all leaders. whether you're a personnel leader or just a senior IC need to be coaching. others around you coaching less experienced individual contributors coaching your team members and so some of what we're talking about about how we coach can be very helpful now i

looked at a professional coach training program once. And one reason I didn't engage with them is their model of coaching was different than what you and I do, Sue. Their model of coaching said a coach should never. give an answer. They should only ask more and more leading questions. And I realized that people are coming to me because of my background at Amazon. The reason to ask questions is then you own your answer. I may give you the most brilliant advice ever.

But it's my advice. Whereas if you work your way through prompted by some questions, your own conclusions, then they're your conclusions. That said, at some point. It is helpful for me to share, and I know you do this too, to say, this is what I've done, or this is what I've seen others do, or this is what other clients have been successful with, because that external validation is valuable. And that's why I didn't go down the sort of...

put the client on a couch and just keep asking questions until an epiphany occurs. The Socratic method doesn't work all the time. Of course, I believe in the Socratic method. I believe in the power of questions, but not exclusively.

yeah and that's and that's a very important distinction in coaching so i wanna i want us to shift a bit i'm gonna go to question seven here um where you know we've most of what we've been talking about is what we would consider corporate coaching and what you can do We will talk about how you can get a coach within the corporate ranks, but we also want to address this idea that there are people who want to hire coaches to get a new job.

or to specifically get promoted so it's a very specific ask or they're starting out in a new job and like this guy i've been talking about today and so those are three very distinct asks and needs and so I kind of put all this in sort of the bucket of transition coaching or career, even career coaching. And you and I both do this, you probably more than I, but I want you to describe.

What you're doing in this realm, like how you see the career coaching realm, because most of your folks you coach are individual pay. That's right. And that's a difference that we'll talk about more, but the models are the vast majority of my clients pay me through a credit card. They pull money out of their own pocket virtually. They hire me. I coach them.

over a period of time. And they've chosen to invest in coaching because they feel stuck in their careers, which is kind of where I specialize. And I try and get them unstuck. Sue has built a long-term business working with corporate clients where the corporation is most often. paying we both handle a mix of clients i have corporate clients she has direct pay clients but our mix is kind of opposite um a lot of what i do

is of course I'm helping people get where they wish to in their career, but I also tend to ask people why they're going there. I tend to... Try to look bigger than the short-term goal. Okay, you'd like to be a director. You'd like to be a vice president. You'd like to make this much money. Great. To what end?

Okay, you say financial independence or to take care of your family, but how much is enough? And when will you be done? And what will you do then? And that's partly because I walked that path. I walked that path of...

working to be a higher level and a stronger executive. But then actually, as you know, Sue, by the time you and I met, I had decided I was good on climbing the corporate ladder and I was working on simply improving my performance to be better and more skilled and then also contemplating what did I want to do next. And so someone in chat says, oh, and then I achieved my number. Well, yes, I had a financial goal, but it was far away. And so I had to decide, how am I going to spend that time?

And what do I want to get out of it if I'm no longer seeking classic corporate advancement? And you were at that point when we were working together, it's really more about being mission driven and how to give back and which is was parlayed very nicely into you being a coach. So it all worked out great. Yeah. Yeah, and that was, our relationship, as I shared, was about helping me be a more effective member of the executive team.

And it morphed over time to helping explore some of my long-term direction. And then the way we ended up collaborating was, of course, I ended up... wanting to do something very similar to what Sue does, which made an easy collaboration. So did I answer your question? Yes.

Yes, I think that we want to talk, maybe just give me, I'll talk a little bit about the difference between career coaching and executive coaching, because I know that the pay structure, people need to understand the pay structure is different. And then we'll go into more deeply how to get a coach. I know that's the big mystery. How the heck do we get one? How do we get one? How do we hopefully get someone else to help with the bills if we need to? That's right.

So the biggest difference between in the pay structure is that, let me actually step back a second. It's not so much the pay structure, it's the actual value, what you're getting. And what you're getting is that... When you're, when you're working in a corporate situation, it's really important to have the 360. And so that's costly. It is, it's, it's going to be almost a third of the costs. And so, and, and, and coaching runs anywhere from.

15,000 to 40,000, depending on the level, depending on how long, as I said, it's usually six months, 12 sessions. If you're in more of a group situation of coaching where you have like four or five or 10 people working together toward a goal.

So in more of a cadre situation, then it's going to be more in the 15,000 level, even even lower sometimes if there's more people. But if you're working one-on-one with a CEO, svp i mean that could run you know 30 35 40 45 i mean it depends on on a lot substantial investment that's right um and what what are you paying for there what you're paying for is you're paying for the coach As you work with higher level people, you've got to know more about the business. It's more strategic.

You're not being Bain or Deloitte. I mean, but you need to understand the business. You need to understand what they're up against. And so there's a lot more to it, a lot more. It's a lot more technical, I think. So, you know, that's part of what you're paying for in terms of the value. So that's what it looks like on a corporate structure. When you're talking about...

working individual pay, you and I are very similar in how we charge. And it's basically per session. I tend to say, OK, we want to get you a package so that you can look at this long term. And so, you know, it's, there's no 360 because we're not working with the company. I find it to be really a much different experience because there's not a pressure. It's actually.

it's kind of nice in some respects because it's not a pressure that the company is putting on even though you're you're trying to um certainly improve but you don't have like this your boss and your um hr person like you know hovering around you it's not the same feeling i guess um even though the goals may be the same So that can run anywhere from 10 to 15,000, depending on how many sessions, how many months, those kinds of things for a package. And so it's quite less.

um but you're not there's not a lot of like rigmarole around uh you know certainly the 360 but also there's not there's not like talking to hr and talking with um having a progress report things like that this is just between you and me and you know what your progress is and we talk about that all the time like what's how do you think this is going what's the feedback i don't need to write a progress report or anything to anybody else

So that's the difference. Yeah, and I think for a lot of people listening both now and to this on YouTube or somewhere later, they may still think, quite reasonably wow ten thousand dollars that's an immense amount of money um and it is i'm not gonna i'm not gonna bs anyone at the same time If you look, many of the people both of us coach are either in pretty high leadership or they're in a tech company or both. And each.

level that they're able to grow or even a good seasonal raise is more money than that. And so I've often thought, just to be clear, I would love to find a way. to be paid instead 5% of your pay increase in the next two years. Like that would be a way better deal for me, actually. No, it would, right? You're right. It's like getting stock. It's like getting stock. Same idea. I would be, if I could take stock options in my clients rather than money, that would actually.

Be like a lot of people would feel like, oh, that feels very safe to me. You only benefit when I benefit. Our interests are aligned and I would actually do better. But the key, I think, because coaching is expensive, most people don't get coaching. So everybody laughed. I was watching the faces. Everybody laughed earlier when I described, wouldn't you want to be the only football team with a coach if nobody else was? Well, now here's where the rubber hits the road.

You can be the only football team with a coach, but you may need to spin to do that. And you have to have the faith that that will turn into a winning record. Now, something I didn't mention earlier. For both Sue and myself, Sue has a podcast called Wise Talk. Of course, most of you here, many of you might be listening to this later, know me through LinkedIn or through my newsletter or both.

The key is you don't have to make this decision cold. You can listen to what we say. You can look at what we write. You can look at our history. decide, does this person's philosophy align with mine? Does the advice they provide admittedly in a mini to one, it's not tailored to me, but does that advice resonate? Is it helping me? If you take one of our classes.

whether it's my class or something Sue does independently or our joint class, those classes give you a chance to experience several to many hours of our teaching. for much less than the cost of coaching per hour. And so there are these ways to test drive a coach. And I think that most people who... I would say at this point, almost all, almost all people who end up working with me as a coach know me very well. It's actually a little spooky because they know me and I don't know them yet.

And so it can be a little weird because I'm like, oh, yeah, I remember what you said about your last vacation and about your kids. And I'm like, it's all good. You're getting too famous. Ah, no. I have had a few unusual, you know, people coming up to me in public places. Not very often, but it has happened. People introduce themselves. I'm like, you're Ethan. It's a little bit weird.

So let's talk about how to get a coach. It's a mystery for some people. Yeah. Well, I would say, you know, I guess you have more experience inside an organization. Right. If I want my coaching to be sponsored, I want to coach. I decide I want one. I decide I would benefit, but I work for a medium or large size company. How do I how do I get.

corporate sponsorship to hire Mariposa leadership. Right. And I want to also say that I appreciate you saying Mariposa leadership, but you know, I'm, I'm all about just people learning. However you get a coach and whoever you get is great. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I think the main thing that we need to start out with first is that you've got to have sponsorship. So you've got to...

You've got to make sure that your relationship with whoever it's going to be, if it's going to be your boss or if it's going to be HR, if it's going to be both or your boss's boss or some budget. You've got to have people helping you and you've got to understand the budget situation too. You've got to have both. And you've got to make a business case for it. So therefore, you need to be really clear on your goals. Like, what do I want?

What do I want to work on? And then therefore, how is what I'm going to work on going to help the company? So when we think of this as a steward of the organization, I keep going back to this. I'm going to go back to this word four or five more times today. If you think of yourself as a steward of the organization, it's really much easier to get a coach because you're working for the organization. You're trying to make the organization better.

you're trying to come up with new ideas and innovations based on the market based on what you know about the goals of the company to be a better a better executive and so if you're if you're thinking about the the company in mind that's going to be extremely important this is not necessarily you sh you shouldn't start with i want to get promoted that's why i want to coach i don't i think that i think that that's fine and it's laudable

But that would not be a way to go – that would not be a way to go to your boss or your boss's boss or HR to get the money because they're more interested in what you're doing for the company. So both are important though. but i think that it's um it's important that that you look at what what you're doing for the company so one get a sponsor to make a business case uh

What do you want to work on and what results will that get the company? If you're coming into a company new and you haven't negotiated the contract, your contract yet, you can ask for... coaching as part of your benefits so that's another way to get sponsorship you're doing it before you even set foot in the company so so a lot of company a lot of people do that too so that's another this is still we're still on the you know how do you get a coach in a corporate setting

And I think I love your detailed answer. I think a huge simplification in part is ask. Many, many people don't realize they can ask. And asking with a little bit of a pitch can work super strongly. You know, it can be very effective. to just ask. And, you know, I have I have clients at relatively small companies, even startups that have.

just gone in and asked their CEO or their C-suite, you know, they're reporting into the C-suite because it's a small company. And they just go and ask and say, you know, I have a coach I like to work with. You know, this is what it's going to cost. And, you know, some people get yeses, some people get no's. But asking is free. Yes.

almost never taken negatively in the sense that in the worst someone says oh we don't budget for that or whatever but like you asking for help improving yourself um if you had a leader that didn't support that you have a bigger problem that's right that's right and maybe they can't and also and so we talked about like individually what you could do and so that's that is one part of it the other part of it is

that very often and especially in bigger companies there's programs and so there's programs you could take advantage of and some of them are individual coaching some of them are group coaching and so you want to find out from hr like what are those programs hopefully hr knows or they'll they'll know who to point you to. There may be more of an learning and development angle to it, depending on how big the company is. I mean, some of these companies have very specific...

programs for different levels. They have certain amount of money you can spend. I mean, it gets very specific, especially the bigger you go, the bigger companies that you go. So you want to investigate all this. And you want HR to be your friend in this, for sure. And you want HR involved. And someone asked a question, and again, I'm not really looking at chat too much, but I'm sort of seeing as they flash by, like, what's the confidentiality issue? That's a super important issue here.

And know that your goals that you set at the beginning, the three or four goals that you set, HR will know those and your boss will know those. They're paying for this. So they should know what your goals are. And at the end of the time, actually mid and at the end, we're going to talk about the progress you're making toward those goals. We call them progress reports. Okay. Well, everything else that we're talking about is confidential. So how you're getting there.

the trials and tribulations all that stuff's confidential so you can be assured of that i mean obviously unless there's something like you know egregious or something's you know unsafe or something like that but which has never happened but but um i think that that's important i think that uh i think that asking is important and i think that uh finding out what how the company looks at development as a general rule is important here too. Absolutely. And, you know, but I want to, I want to say.

My experience at Amazon is that Amazon often left employees to grow on their own. Right. However, they were reasonably supportive of coaching. You know, I had three coaches over my time. We hired coaches for other people. It was something. And I honestly think in part that's because maybe some of the executives had had coaching. and could see the value in it. But in any case, I'm looking at some of the stories in chat, not everything.

People have managed to get coaches if they advocate and they're persistent. But if you're wondering how to get a coach, I agree with Sue. Make a business case. Learn, of course, what is already supported. Learn what others are doing. Ask around maybe to peers or one level up. If they were going to get a coach. If they've had a coach or if they're going to get support from your boss. And it's very possible. And, you know, I never had a problem getting coaching once I learned to ask for it.

That's right. And then some companies have exclusive coaching firms. We have one company we work with where we're one of three coaching firms that everybody has to go through us. So that doesn't happen very often, but it does happen with some of the bigger companies. Because again, something else you should know is that the companies are vetting the coaching companies. There's a lot of coaching that is individual. And so it's harder to get vetted.

on the call that our coaches it's harder to get vetted in these bigger companies if you're individual it's easier if you're in a bigger firm and so um because because the bigger companies don't want to let every single person every single coach come in and be coaching their folks

want to be able to vet them more so there's that it's somewhat political but it's more like more administrative as we know at some of the companies we work at um and so there's that level as well to understand about the situation But I think that, again, going back to asking, making sure that if you're new to the company and see if you can get it as part of your package, there is a difference between what.

VPs get in terms of the amount of money for coaching versus what directors get and what senior managers get. There's not as much money obviously for senior managers to get one-on-one coaching.

with a top level coach that this doesn't happen as much they're getting maybe um the better ups or the smaller companies i mean the smaller um like maybe you'll get eight sessions even online i mean like you're gonna you're not gonna necessarily get a in in real life coach so there's variations of this i mean as you know this could be a whole other topic about all the different coaching going on that's not

in real life or on zoom that is ai coaching online coaching email coaching i mean you name it coaching there's all these things and nothing wrong with that and in the in the absence of nothing versus that i would take that But there's a big difference between that, AI coaching, online coaching, and a real coach, a real life coach, either on Zoom or in person, because of the discernment factor. It's like, I'm listening to your situation, Ethan.

Your trials and tribulations and an AI coach isn't necessarily going to be able to discern what to do or what are the choices. You can get an answer, but it may not be applicable specifically to that situation, your situation. You're paying a coach to have discernment about your situation and to have had the experience from all the other people. So that's the great thing about coaches is that they're not just in one company. They've been all around.

You know, we've, we've had, you know, five to six, I've probably coached five to 600 people over my course of my career. Well, there's a lot of different companies and a lot of different interesting situations that we. get they get us themselves there's themselves into and so i get to bring all that knowledge and most of what i'll say is like well i understand your situation and so when i was coaching this person over here at a similar company here's what they did and that works great

That works great. Yeah, there's coaches have inside knowledge. You know, it's probably no surprise. I have clients at all of the big tech companies. So I'm familiar with coaching people and some of the details of how NVIDIA, Google, Apple, Microsoft, of course, Amazon operate. And I have that context, but then I also have it for many other businesses as well. I coach someone at a major automaker.

you know some some places that you wouldn't expect and it is very useful to be able to pull in that context um and i actually enjoy very much my uh the the coaching relationships that broaden my experience i think um though uh let's keep moving just to make sure people have asked a few good questions in chat i want to make sure we have time for at the end

for sure let's um go ahead let me ask you the question that number 11 about what are the important factors to consider if you decide to go through the company or pay on your own why don't you answer that question i think that's a good one yeah um so I think the reason to pay on your own is you don't need anybody's approval and you can largely do it right now. It's very in your control.

And while most people, while many people, I won't say most, while many people can get corporate coaching approved, it will probably be a slow and bureaucratic process to some degree because a lot of people want to have a voice in it. And there may be a lot of direction as to who you can work with or how you can work with them or how long you can work with them. Now, the advantage of going through your company is.

It's not your direct cash being spent. And so that is a huge advantage. You know, and I'm not going to, you know, that that could be. There could be 10,000 good reasons, so to speak, to go through your company or 15,000 good reasons. And, you know, for a lot of people, that's a barrier. They would love to have a coach, but they're not going to pay themselves. I find it very interesting because I've had a lot of clients, not nearly as many as you, Sue. I've only had one.

who when her corporate coaching ran out, didn't want to continue on her own. and that's fine uh it's funny though she still calls me in a crisis so clearly she's still like there's still values it yeah uh so i kind of laugh at that um but anyway uh Those are my main reasons. I think speed and control, it's like a lot of things in business. If you're doing it yourself and you're your own boss in the thing, you have speed and control.

And if you're going through someone else, you're giving up some speed and control, in this case, to try to get funded. Right. There's another reason to pay on your own, and that is that if you are considering leaving the company.

and that you want to transition to another job, then it might feel a little bit of cognitive dissonance to have the company pay for it. So that might be where you take the bull by its horn and say like, look, I really want to transition or I might want to transition. I've had I've actually had.

People pay on their own, then they stay at the company. Fine. But they're definitely in a transition. I had somebody start maybe five months ago and they were like, okay, I'm either going to get promoted or I'm going to leave.

okay that was their thing so either way they wanted to pay on their own and so we're we're working on the promotion we're doing it in parallel processes is what you can do it's like yes we're going to work on the promotion all the sponsorships there uh you're going to need to get and also

What networking do you need to do to get out? And so we're doing both and it's working. And so that would be another reason why people decide that they want to pay on their own. So I mean, mainly people want to get promoted. find a new job or get a job. You know, those are the main reasons why people want to, because they're not, they don't have a job now. So they're needing to transition quickly. And then the third reason is that.

They I have a couple of people now who are starting a new job. They don't want to ask for they didn't ask for the coaching or they did and they didn't get it. because they don't offer it that happened and they wanted to just they wanted to hit their round running they wanted to coach to really help them with their 90-day plan i've got about five of those right now where there's like 90-day plan 90-day plan all over the place principles start with your principles so

I think we should get to the questions, yes? Anything else you want to say? There's a way to tie into one of the questions, which is the last thing you were going to talk about. is how does someone decide on which coach and which firm? And in chat, one of the questions that was asked, and then we'll go to live questions. But in chat, one of the questions that was asked was, how do you know if the coaching relationship is working? How do you know when you should pull the ripcord?

kind of is an extension, I think, of how do you know who to choose? And so why don't you take the who to choose and then we can quickly extend into and what would lead you to know it's not working? So the who to choose, what a great. you know um gift that is to be able to have a couple of choices or three choices um i will say that when we do do it through corporate um and people want choices i would say no more than three and probably if you want uh to do two that's fine

If you're going through a company like ours and a lot of other companies that do this, they do the matching. And so, you know, we're trained to match. So once I'll talk to somebody and I know my coaches and I know this person, I'm going to like, here's who I think is the best and go ahead and meet with that person.

If you think it's a match and you're ready to go, then great. And if you feel the chemistry, because you feel like one, they're going to push you in a warm way. So this is not your best friend, but they're also not drill sergeant.

So they need to push you. You need to feel like you're going to be challenged, but they're doing it with empathy. So that's the kind of chemistry you should feel when you bring a coach on. So if you feel that because the first match, then take it, do it. If you feel like you want to have two choices. Okay.

No problem. Then the, then the firm will give you two choices or even three, if you'd like, that's the problem with three is that it takes like, it might take a month to get everybody on the schedule. And then you're not going to remember like who was that first coach. And so it's really best if you can do one or two within a period of a week. So that's basically the way to choose, I would say. And I'll have you add to this. The question was asked in chat.

What if, how do you know it's working? So different coaches, you can ask them to explain their coaching model. You know, how do they approach coaching? Do they use a 360? Do they use personality assessments? are they going to give you homework you can ask a lot of questions ask them to explain their model um you know i i um sue and i are very different this way she's developed we come from different backgrounds and she's developed

a pretty good structured approach, a very structured approach. When I say pretty good, pretty thorough. I am frankly much more of a consultant, right? I give... You know, just contrasting it, I would more or less tell people, honestly, well, I have expertise in these spaces and I share it and I.

go off your questions and problems and give you a combination of things to think about plus my personal experience. And if what you really want is a version of my personal experience tailored to your situations, I'm your coach. And if not, If you're looking for like a big theoretical structure, I'm not the big theoretical, you know, skill development person. I don't choose to coach in that way. So, but to see if something I have had.

And I'm sure Sue has as well. I've had a couple of clients who didn't feel our coaching relationship was working. Now, one of my favorite stories there that you'll know in a second why it's one of my favorite. I had a client. who went three or four meetings and said, you know, I'm not sure there's a fit. Could we end early, you know, et cetera. And I want to be.

you know, good at customer service. I said, absolutely happy to let you out of your deal, you know, go your own way in peace. And about a year later, he wrote me back and said, I've been thinking about all the things you said to me and I'd like to hire you again as a coach. And so of course I love that story that like what I imparted to him was like an earworm that kept replaying. But.

What means, you know, in the end, if after the meetings you aren't able to implement anything the coach says, it's a disconnect for your reality. You don't feel you're learning things. You don't feel you're being pushed or the engagement's not there, the follow-up's not there, the chemistry's not there. It is too much money to spend on something that is not working for you, whether you're spending the company's money or your own. Yeah, either way.

right uh so sue anything briefly you would add to that and then we'll roll into live questions and then we it's sort of a requisite question but it's happened twice in 28 years so it's hard for me to say that it's like I mean, it just doesn't happen that much because we're really good with a match at the beginning. And we value that. It's like, we want to make sure that person's good with it. And we also are asking feedback. I asked for feedback.

I basically say at the end of every session, was this good for you? Did it work out for you? Is there anything else you want to do differently? I mean, not in so many, I don't see it like that every time, but I mean, I'm asking constantly and I'm also discerning constantly. I can tell if something's hitting home. And if people are happy and they're getting something out of it.

And so I think that that's a really important aspect of this is that we need to be like very conscious of it because we expect them to be conscious of it with their folks. We need to be conscious of how things are working. If we sense that something's not.

then we need to like inquire on it. Like, okay, is it, is it something going on with you or is it, you know, but we, people, people love getting coached because it's like, so it's rare that people will find it's a bad fit because they love the experience of being having attention and getting to work on something they get to do this an hour every other week for gosh sakes it's not that much

So it's really a gift. And so I don't mean to be evasive of the question, but it doesn't really happen very often. And certainly if it does. Well, I think that is part of the answer, though. People are more afraid of it. I would say a little bit. If you've ever had an athletic coach, maybe not in like a high school team sense, but if you've ever hired a golf pro or a tennis coach or a skiing coach, generally you're going to be individual. Yeah. Yeah. Individual one-on-one instruction.

yeah generally like the golf pro i don't golf but my wife recently had a golf coach and so i'll make the point the golf pro knows so much more or i've gotten ski coaches they know so much more Honestly, they could often be sort of snoozing their way through instructing and you'd still be getting a ton out of it because the level is just so different. Yeah. You know, a week ago, about 10 days ago, I actually hired a swim coach for one session. And, you know, what I was asking him to do.

was something he normally teaches in the first day or two of teaching someone how to swim. But I had sort of learned to swim on my own. you know he was able to say things that are like yeah you do this this this and i'm pretty sure he was like And yet I was getting better very, very rapidly. And in 45 minutes, I became a way better swimmer at that stroke. And, you know, I didn't even stretch him. He wasn't even in the very like he wasn't even out of his introduction.

So is it always that way? No. The problems happen. Sure. But this is not a major issue. No. So, all right. Let's do this. What we would like to do is we've got about 20 minutes and we can go a little longer if it makes sense. But what we normally do is we just have people raise their hands in Zoom. Zoom will automatically sort who raises their hand first. We would ask you to ask a brief kind of concise question.

And what we'll do is I'll call on each person if you raise your hand in Zoom if you want to ask a question. If you put yours in chat and didn't get it answered, you can raise your hand in the Zoom, you know, with the... uh raise hand function and um we'll ask you to come off mute and give your question so normally align forms no one has signed up yet which is surprising to me. Sue and I have other things we can talk about. There we go. I knew it wouldn't take long of a prompt.

So Anne-Marie, you're first. Come off Zoom and tell us what you'd like to know. Sure. So thanks again for having this for all of us to better figure out how we can get coaching, whether we pay for it ourselves or can get a corporate sponsorship.

I'm all for it. And I actually had a weird situation where I hired a coach for a quick... in the moment kind of a situation because i was trying to get promoted so i'm talking about something that already happened but overall and again i'm not asking for coaching but i had a situation where um On paper, my direct boss, who's very new to her level, was supportive of me hiring my own coach, but did everything to undermine me.

from actually making progress with the coach in a way that would help me to get promoted so what am I really asking So it really more is a power imbalance issue. And so in that case, there's no win. Is that... Maybe I'm not making sense there, but there are some situations where it's not about getting coaching, but it's more about it's just a bad situation. Yeah.

I would say, and I'll have Sue chime in, of course, we'll probably both speak to all questions for a little bit, unless it's obviously me or her that is relevant. Coaching is not... is very powerful, but is not a miracle cure for all problems. And you're really describing a situation where the manager had some sort of issue. where she was willing in your words at least to undermine you um that just isn't a healthy like for any regular leader any decent leader

They want their team members to be as strong as possible because that's better for them. The more you can do, the less I have to do. The more you can do, the less I'm overworked, the more I can take on myself. A situation where a leader is truly undermining you is kind of a disaster. Now, I'm assuming since you had a coach, you know, coaches can help you figure out.

Is there a reason, is there a rational reason for this disconnect? Is there a misalignment you can work around with the manager, et cetera? If there is, maybe the coach can help you fix it. But if it is one of those cases, and look, there are plenty of insecure and bad managers in the world. I would say, you know, Sue and I are slightly different in our blend on this. I'm somewhat quicker to tell people about the great future I see for them elsewhere. Sue is a little more...

helping people succeed where they are. And it's good to have both perspectives. But in a case like yours, at least for my point, I'd say, yeah, there's no coaching solution for that. Sue, anything you would add? Nothing really. This is about... undermining your learning, not undermining the coach. She's just undermining your learning. So I think that it's probably one of the situations where you've got to probably move on.

And I hired two. So I actually hired two just to make sure I was getting the right help. That's a tough one. We could take it offline too, because I know that it's a little complicated and we're not going to solve it here, that's for sure. But I think it's important that there's an undermining there that's going on. It's not just about the coaching.

That needs to be talked about. Yeah. Thank you for sharing and for being open. So is there anyone else with a question? Otherwise, I have a couple of questions I can prompt Sue with. um i said jason can there's some questions in chat i think that we could probably go to jason probably talk about but um

You can just go through the Zoom Q&A chat. One of the questions that's in chat, while I see if anybody else wants to raise their hand, is for someone working in the U.S. big tech, and I think we can generalize this. Should there be a strong preference for someone who's worked in those industries before? And so, Sue, this is a great question. I can have a great I'd like you to answer this because you've seen so many circumstances. And then, Andy, I see you raise your hand. We'll come to you next.

So, coaches, generally there's two types of coaches. There are coaches who have been executives and now are like Ethan and are not coaching. We have many people like that on our team. and then there's people who have been in education or a psychologist or they're they have a degree or in my case i have a degree in organization development i have a phd edd doctorate so we come in more of an academic perspective

And along with that, some people that kind of bridge both are maybe HR, they're an HR executive, and they probably have both of those. So I don't believe that... somebody needs to, I mean, obviously, because I'm one of them, somebody needs to have been an executive to be an executive coach. I believe that you need to have experience coaching executives to be an executive coach.

So therefore, you've got to get started. If you've not been an executive, you got to get started somewhere. So you've got to like pay your dues kind of thing. I do believe that coaching in tech is harder. I do. We believe that everybody we bring on in our company are all able to coach in tech. We have all of experience in coaching people in tech for most of us a long time, between 15 and 25 to 30 years.

because the navigation is different. It's much more quick. The expectations are higher. And I'm not saying that it's a demanding industry. There are other demanding industries too. But like when you think about biotech, for example, you know, the product that biotech... puts out may take 20 years. The products that tech put out, you know, in the case of Zynga took a day.

You know, they're making a new Zynga game and a Zynga character. I mean, the product is a day. So we've got two different things going on here and they require a... certain sense of urgency. So I'm more concerned about a coach that can, that can meet people where they're at because their sense of urgency more than anything else. That is the number one thing I look for. Can somebody pace with an executive and at all types.

So can they go quickly for the people who go quickly? Can they slow down for the people that aren't so quick? Okay, fine. And this is not quick in mind. This is quick in speech. Okay. You're mirroring there. One of the skills. So you taught me is mirroring the body language of the person you're coaching. So what we're going to do is we're going to take Andy's question and then we're going to use 10 people have entered questions in Zoom Q&A.

You can all go there and vote on which questions you'd like us to answer. And what we'll do next after we take Andy is I'll run through the we'll do sort of a speed run to finish up on some of the top voted questions in the Zoom Q&A tool. So, Andy, have at it. Thanks. Thanks a lot, Ethan, for having this session. The question that I have is, as a person of color, doing excellent in an IC capacity.

I find it difficult to break through into leadership roles. And part of it is maybe we don't have, like I don't have the level of executive presence that I need to have. When I talk to my manager, he's more like, he will give me a newer role, but it would still be an IC. I'm not getting that leadership or management kind of a role. So I'm kind of stuck there. So I don't know if obviously I'm doing something wrong.

But I wanted to see if you had any thoughts on that. Go ahead, Ethan. So it's tough, of course, to diagnose so quickly. what might be going on for you. But it is true that there are things that all companies look for in managers, in leaders. They generally look for strong IC performance. You said you had that. So strong skill in the function you're about to manage. And then they sometimes or often look for.

influence and communication skills. And so for people who aren't from, you know, for whom English, assuming you're working in an English language firm, for whom English is not your primary language. There can be struggles communicating verbally, communicating in writing, things like that. There can be cultural disconnects where people I see from different cultures, they are hesitant to assert a perspective.

I know of one situation, for example, where a gentleman was having tremendous trouble. He was getting the feedback, you never look me in the eye when you talk to me. And he was from an East Asian culture. where that was a sign of disrespect. To look at a superior in the eye, the sign of respect was to look down. And he had been raised with the idea that he should have downcast eyes to show humility, but that was being taken.

like he was suspicious or slippery and wouldn't in western sense look people in the eye so it could be any blend of those factors um what i would say is uh number one maybe a coach can help you with that well probably a coach could but in addition um many people make their way into their first leadership role by mentoring younger employees earlier in career when i say younger

I mean, less experience in their career. And so you start through a mentorship and then become sort of a team lead and work your way in that way. And that's a way to gain the skills and practice the skills. Sue, anything you want to add to that? get a mentor to help with executive, with your, with feedback on your executive presence, obviously a coach as well.

um and uh get on video i mean i don't know i'm not gonna put pressure on you for but practicing getting on video right now would be good and um i think that the more practice the better uh Gravitas and grace, we have to have a point of view. We need to be declarative. That is what number one reason that people are shown to have executive presence is because you have a way of being declarative.

and a way of having gravitas and people believe you. That is the number one reason why people think people have executive presence. However, if you can also have grace and being humble and being warm. In addition to that, then it's gold. So having both of those and balancing those is what's going to elucidate that. All right. Thank you, Andy. Thank you, Andy. We're going to jump into the question list.

Are there specific books or reading materials, this one from Lisa, specific books or reading materials that you recommend people read before coaching starts in order to have a good baseline and make the coaching as effective as possible? I guess go-to recommendation here would be Marshall Goldsmith, What Got You Here Won't Get You There. It's sort of the super classic book about being stuck. It covers basically the concept that

The skills that made you successful as an individual contributor are not the same skills you need as a leader and particularly an executive leader. Sue, do you agree with that or are there other books? Sue has a book also. Yeah. Leadership Chronicles of a Corporate Sage is my book written 20 years ago. It's still. I think that.

The one article that we give to every single person we coach is Harnessing the Science of Persuasion by Cialdini. And I would say that that would be the one. If you're going to choose one, that would be the one. Yeah. So I don't know if Jason can grab that. It's harnessing the power of persuasion. The science of persuasion. Yeah. Yeah. It's an HBR article and it is public. So thank you, Jason.

We'll jump on then to Kelly's question. How does the support differ for an executive who's in transition versus upping their game in their current role in organization? Transition is two things. Number one, if you're starting the transition, it's support for that whole process. So it may be helping with a resume. It may be helping with who to target, how to network.

how to consider offers, how to negotiate. So this is the whole process of deciding to move and where are you going to move? And is that move a good one? And then there's a second process that Sue talked about. which is starting strongly. And why a 90-day plan and starting strongly really matters is first impressions are sticky. And I give this quick story.

If you think of someone you like and they're someone you know and trust and they've done well and they do something either boneheaded or even kind of downright evil, you don't normally immediately flip the switch and say, oh. All these years I've misjudged Ethan. I thought he was a great guy, but it turns out he's awful. Instead, what you say is. Wow, that is so unlike Ethan. I wonder if I'm getting the whole story. I wonder what was going wrong for him that day. You start making excuses for me.

Now you turn that around to someone that you have a poor impression of, that you've never really cared for, that isn't your favorite person. No benefit of the doubt. They do something good. And what do you think? You end up thinking, huh, I wonder what they're up to. That is so not like them. I wonder what their agenda is. And so it can be very hard. Let's say you're that person who gets off on the wrong foot in a new company.

But people have already sort of flipped the bozo bit, as we call it. It can be very hard to unflip it. And so starting off well really matters. I think that's the other part of transitional support. Now, in a company, and, you know, again, Sue can add a lot to this. There's kind of two cases. There's the star performer you're trying to polish up rough edges.

help them be even more of a star. And there's the performer that's really struggling with something and you're trying, frankly, you've been hired to try or you're trying to stop a weakness before it becomes fatal. Before the company, I didn't end up taking this client. It didn't work out. But I had a company come to me and basically say, we have a CTO. The CTO has ABC flaws. we'd like to try a coach before we have to replace them. And that's the other level up is something's not working.

Right. Sue, anything you would add? It just happened. I mean, like we, this, the guy I talked to today, he said, I want to talk about my first suppressions when I go into this new job. I want to talk about my 90 day plan. And I want to talk about.

my transition with my family there so those are the three things he was very clear what he wanted to talk about so the first thing with the first impressions i said what do you what do you want to start with how do you want to look at this like well i need to listen really well i said yes you do so i said

The quality of your listening is going to be, it's not just listening. It's the quality of your listening. What kind of questions do you have? So I asked him to go, his next assignment, if you will, is to go and find five. questions he's going to um his sort of signature questions he's going to be asking people his team his peers his boss his boss's peers in terms of when he's learning about the company um i also said that i said you've got to

Your first impression of making people feel at ease and your warmth, he's very warm person. So you have to, your warmth has to come out. So that needs to come out in your listening, in your listening tour. And so that's what I added. So he said listening. I said, okay, the quality of your listening and the warmth that you have in that first impression. That is the case whether you're in transition.

whether you are trying to level up, whether you're trying to get a promotion. I mean, these things about how you listen and how you make people feel at ease and the common ground that you establish are the most important thing, bar none. than anything else you can do. And I feel very strongly about that because it works in every single case. You have to have good relationships and you can't just say that. You have to actually practice it. And I just gave you some ideas about what to do.

Sue and I don't, you know, on our daily basis, we don't overlap that much. She's running her company and I'm writing online. We, of course, see what each other thinks, but this is a place where separately we're completely aligned. What I remind people is a lot of us have this deep-seated injustice feeling that like, why do relationships matter?

Shouldn't it all be my performance? And we're kind of trained into that from birth in that we go to school and at school, there are right answers and wrong answers. And if you mark enough of the right answers, you get an A. And if you don't, you get a lower grade. And at least in math and science and whatever, there's no sort of teacher's opinion involved. It's just what's your score, that's your grade. And so we get conditioned of like, my work is my grade.

Well, unfortunately, this all goes out the window in the corporate world. But by that point, if we've, say, gone through a master's degree, which a lot of people have, we're like 20-something, you know, whatever. We started school at five and we're finishing at 22 or 23 or earlier or later. But you've got like 15, 16 years of conditioning and we bring all that with us. And then we find actually.

What people really do is remember that example I gave of people I like, people I don't like, and I make excuses for either their good behavior or their bad behavior. When I form an opinion of you. Even though I don't intend to, even if I'm telling myself, I believe in merit, I'm going to promote the best person, my definition of best gets warped by who I enjoy spending time with.

Because if you come to my door and I'm like, oh, God, Sue. Hi, Sue. Like that conversation isn't going to go that well, even though I have the best intentions. Meanwhile, if it really is like, oh, Sue, come on in. I'd love to talk to you. Who am I going to end up thinking is the better performer? And that's where relationship, even if it's unintentional, let alone if it is intention.

Executives are selfish, not on purpose all the time, but they're selfish in the sense I have heard an executive recently be very honest and say, well, part of my factor of who to promote on my team is who do I want to spend more time with? Likeability, common ground. Yep. So we'll do one more question here, wrap it up. My company's feedback mechanism in my position.

in my opinion is flawed because it's peer-based and most people select friends who generally don't provide constructive criticism or will strategically only provide positive feedback. So there were a couple of questions in here actually about how to get good feedback, how to get feedback in this situation or others. Valuable feedback. Valuable feedback. Yeah.

Well, I mean, it depends on if you're choosing the people that are giving your feedback, then give people that are going to be more realistic. I mean, I don't know the exact mechanism by which if you're looking at the feedback to get. a promotion or to get um a merit increase then you know you that's a little different situation than making sure you're getting feedback for any purposes yeah yeah yeah um let's let's step back though

The basic fundamental way that people get performance reviews is flawed. Out the door, it's flawed. because it doesn't make any sense to only get feedback twice a year or once a year or once every other year or whatever it is. You should be getting feedback from your boss and your peers all the time. oh you just did a presentation how did that go do you think what do you think worked well what do you think what could work better and you should be giving feedback to your folks

that you coach, if you're a manager, is after every single thing they do, you should be saying, hey, that worked really great. This is what I liked and this is what could have worked better. Next, it doesn't take very long. So there shouldn't be any surprises when you have your performance review.

at all it should just be a fait accompli and that's just a mechanism you have to you have to do to get your promotion or to well in this case probably get your merit raise so i think that it's um i think that You've got to be asking for feedback and you don't have to say, I'd like some feedback, please, because that's like awkward. You could say, hey, what do you think worked well in that?

in that situation. We just met with the customer. What do you think worked well in that? Okay, what could we have done better? That's it. It takes three minutes and then move on. A less loaded word, someone recently. You know, words cycle in and out of what they mean, but a less loaded word currently, I think, is advice. You know, I'm working to make sure I tell people, you know, I'm working to make sure our group is as effective as possible.

Do you have any advice for what else we might do? Don't forget to ask for the positive side. Do you have any input on what we're doing or what I'm doing well? we should do more of is another good way to get feedback. The other thing, there's a lot of tricks to asking for advice or feedback. If you want to do this in an advanced way,

You want to ask people, number one, give them a heads up. Don't catch them cold because they may not have thought about it. So email a peer or whatever and say, I'd like to get some advice on how you see. me and my group's performance i want to give you a little while to reflect on that can we set up a one-on-one for a week or two from now because if i catch you cold people do this to me all the time when i was leading they would come to me and um they would say oh

it's the end of our one-on-one. Can you give me some feedback? And I wouldn't have necessarily been thinking about it. So I have to roll my eyes up in my head and quickly try and say something, you know, insightful to them. That's a little bit hit or miss. Well, actually maybe a lot hit or miss. So the second thing is you do want to make people comfortable and give them permission.

What I mean by that is tell them, hey, I promise I'm looking for this only for my own development. I really want the truth. You know, I assure you that I'm not going to get upset with anything you tell me. um i had a peer i tell this story i had a peer once we sat down next to each other on an airplane and she asked me for feedback and so i gave her some

And she immediately started to argue with me. And so what I did was clam up. OK, step one, this isn't working. Stop. But ironically, you know, she didn't.

convinced me what she convinced me of was oh not only do you have the problem i was telling you you also have the problem that you don't take feedback very well um so she you know by asking for feedback she managed to uh degrade her standing so how do you get around that you don't just uh let's say i i say to sue something she really doesn't agree with i offer sue some feedback and she's like i don't think so

Well, number one, you still say thank you. Totally. Thanks for the feedback. But the second thing you can do is you can try to clarify. Without arguing, you can say, could you share an example of that? I'm not following. Could you take me through an example and tell me more about tell me more about that. Tell me how that's, you know, and then you may reach a point. I do get feedback occasionally that.

I end up recognizing is valid. It's the other person projecting onto me what they would like. And, you know, that may or may not be my responsibility. The case where I get a lot of it. Just to give you an example you can take away, I will get people occasionally come after me online with their personal issue. You're not doing enough. for filling their platform, enough for diversity, enough for Palestine, enough for Israel, right? Both sides, enough for this cause, that cause. That is feedback.

i thank them for their input but i don't necessarily well a i couldn't possibly adopt all those platforms some of which contradict but b i'm not required to take on your agenda Now, in a workplace, this is less common, but sometimes the real point is not all feedback is actionable. The thing is, if three people give you the same feedback, it's probably very valuable. Right.

And so it is. Anything you want to add, Sue? Then we'll wrap up. No, I was just going to say, should we take more questions and let people go if they want to go? I don't know when to honor the time. I think we're good. Okay. We've spent a lot of time with people. I know there will always be more questions, so if we didn't get to your question, apologies. For all listeners here, thank you for being here.

I would certainly say, Sue, if they want to find you, what's the best way to follow up with you? My email would be sueb at mariposaleadership.com. That would be the fastest way. Yep. And so the fastest way to find me is through my website. There's a contact form or through LinkedIn. I'm on LinkedIn constantly all day. I'm Ethan Evans VP there. My website is ethanevans.com. um i do less i have less availability you know sue has a whole set of coaches

She has more availability. I have somewhat less availability as a coach because I'm putting more effort into classes and scaled many to one mechanisms. And I'm one person, which is why Sue and I partner. And I often. if i can't take someone i send them to sue and i've gotten some great testimonials back even just today of the impact uh sue and her team have had so

Yeah, that's true, by the way, Sue. I haven't shared that with you, but there's someone I won't name live here who's texted me a couple of times. I have a feeling I know who it is. You probably know. I just finished with them. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, yeah, that's so good. Thank you, Ethan, very much for having me. And, and, and I'm really, I really mean it if people if you want, if people want to get ahold of me, just just write me directly and

And I'm happy to answer any questions, happy to help you figure out your coaching needs and whatever they may be and, and go from there. So our website is mariposaleadership.com. uh as well and you can get a lot of content we you know we have a ton of content too so there's there's that too and we have we also have wise space i'm sorry sorry wise talk um and uh so again thank you so much mahalo My pleasure. Alright, so with that, I'll stop the recording.