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Transcript 

Speaker 1 0:05
Well, good day to everybody. It's a wonderful day here in Atlanta, Georgia at LeaderGov. My name is Bill Stark, and it's so nice to have you with us on our podcast yet again, and we are glad that you're here. We know that there are counties across the country listening to this and cities, different types of agencies, public safety agencies, we have taxing Commission's and all sorts of local government entities listening, and we're really glad you're here, whether you're a supervisor, manager or director, it doesn't matter. We love investing in your future your success as a leader, and we have a wonderful topic today that we're excited to share with you because it's something that we've had a lot of requests for. And people talk about a lot, but maybe not a lot of details. And there's this this idea of coaching, how do we coach, employees on our team, maybe people that are peers, even, maybe even our boss at times, we might have an opportunity to coach our boss, I don't know if that would work for for all of you. But sounds interesting. But this coaching idea is so important. You know, if you're a leader, we know that one of the great defining aspects of a leader is that you invest in the lives of other people. You want to work with them, help them, encourage them, inspire them to be their best and to grow. And so we have a wonderful guest with us today. We have Miss Catherine Crusade with us. We're excited that she's with us today. She is the Employee Engagement Manager at Monterey County, California. And in just a moment, if you can't see it, now you're gonna see her beautiful backdrop behind her image. Beautiful Images of Monterey County, California, northern California. Catherine is so nice to have you with us today. Thanks, Bill.

Speaker 2 2:06
It's great to be here. I want to say hi to the audience this morning. And I'm looking forward to talking about coaching. It's a passion of mine. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 2:15
Well, I wanted to give the audience just a little bit of background on your your career. I know that you've been providing, you know, career and outplacement type coaching for a long time to C level executives, fortune 50 fortune 500 executives, that you do a lot of one on one and team group coaching, which I'd love to hear about group coaching. That's kind of an interesting concept. And that you've also helped sort of develop and facilitate what we call this GROW Model of coaching GROW. So we're going to learn about that today. And kind of you know, your experiences in utilizing this model called grow there in Monterey County. And then we know also that you've got a great history and supporting leaders through through launching internal coaching programs at some of the organizations you've been with. Even the county of Sacramento understand so. We know also I wanted to share with the audience that you are have completed two comprehensive international coaching Federation accreditation programs through a coactive Training Institute and through the Newfield network, and you've got your Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Shippensburg University, and the first person to email me with where Shippensburg University is, is going to get $5. But we'll give them a hint. Right, Catherine? It's in the northeastern part of the United States. Yes, it is. It's in Pennsylvania, right. Well, again, yeah, it's great to, to have you be a part of this podcast and explore this topic of, of coaching. And I know this is a real passion of yours. And we often do see the need for this and the desire in local government. So would you mind just taking a moment and just just for a couple of minutes, sort of your your history around coaching and maybe a little bit about more about what you do there Monterey County?

Speaker 2 4:31
Sure. So, my history and coaching Well, boy, I've been coaching for over 20 years now. And as you mentioned, it started with career coaching and outplacement coaching. This was with an international HR consulting firm known as right management. There are now a division of manpower International and and then that morphed when I transition from private sector to sacrament Counting, I was there for quite some time. And I was able to do one on one coaching there with leaders. So I kind of transitioned from career and outplacement coaching, to leadership coaching. And that's also where I developed and facilitated group coaching sessions for managers. These were six month programs. And they were focused on helping managers or leaders to enhance their emotional intelligence, another topic that I'm really passionate about. And I also did team coaching at Sacramento County. And so another thing I did, as you mentioned, is I launched an internal coaching program there. So we had contracted with external coaches. And if we had a need if we needed, you know, more help with coaching, we had the the external coaches that were there to assist. And so with Monterey County, I've been here for a little over three years. And as you mentioned, on the Employee Engagement Manager, and brought that passion for coaching here. And so we've launched a coaching program. We are other, we're contracted with several coaching companies, we really, we really worked extensively with better up coaching. And we have a variety of our departments and leaders that are getting coaching through better up. So, yeah, a lot of my career has been spent in that coaching realm.

Speaker 1 6:36
Yeah, well, you know, I'm really impressed with the commitment that you all have made to investing in your employees with coaching. And I know, in your experience, and in my lit, more limited experience, the benefits of coaching are significant in terms of change. You know, it's hard to change people's approach behaviors and attitudes. And coaching is really a wonderful way to facilitate change admin.

Speaker 2 7:02
It certainly is, it's a more collaborative approach. And I also want to say that, you know, it's, it's situational. You know, I, I encourage leaders to use a coaching approach. But there may be times where another approach is as more appropriate. Sometimes, especially, depending on the culture of the department or the organization, or if it's an urgent situation, or life or death situation, it may be another approach that's called for. But if we can try to use coaching more often, again, it's more collaborative, and it can help with change, because you're checking in with that employee. And you're asking them for their insights for their perspective for their ideas. And when they're giving you ideas, and you're implementing those ideas, they're more likely to buy in and more likely to be on board.

Speaker 1 7:59
Yeah, yeah, that's so important. You know, I think, at the end, I remember early in my leadership career, I was really good at telling people what to do. And there wasn't a lot of buying in, there wasn't a lot of commitment and follow through and excitement. So I liked this idea of coaching, I wanted to before we actually got into a whole lot of questions, and I have three or four sort of key questions. I wanted to just ask you about this GROW Model that you mentioned. And we know there's no perfect way to do coaching, but but I would like to hear more about that GROW Model and have you kind of walk through it. Or maybe even tell us first like what might be a little more, maybe not as effective way to enter into coaching. So if I were your employee, struggling with, let's say, I'm just overwhelmed at work, Catherine, I'm just like, you know, snowed under, I'm getting depressed, I'm upset, I'm frazzled. And I come to you as my superior, my boss, supervisor. And you notice that I'm frustrated. And you asked me, Bill, how you doing? And I say, you know, Catherine, I tell you, I've really been struggling. I just feel so overwhelmed. I feel like I'm not really getting anything done. I don't feel like I'm being productive. You know, I'm really struggling Catherine.

Speaker 2 9:17
Yeah, I could say something like, I feel the same way. We're all feeling that way. Deal with it, right? Just do your best. Go on your merry way. Right? That's an option. But you want to be thinking about and I don't want to make things right or wrong here. So you just want to be thinking about, you know, in our interactions, our interactions are when I say our leaders interactions are either going to create a positive emotional state or a disruptive emotional state within that employee. And those interactions really drive engagement, which really drive retention. So how do we make the most of those interactions? And we are we're stressed out we're all busy. I hear that a lot from managers, I don't have time, right. And a lot of times we're task driven. So when we have these types of conversations with an employee saying, like what you shared bill, that may be our reaction or go to response, you know, we're all dealing with it, do your best, we don't really want to, we may not really want to engage, maybe we're feeling the same way, right as the manager, right. So I'm just, I'm just going to invite people that try this on. So this is the GROW Model. And again, if you look up, if you Google grow, it's been around for a long time. There's a lot of resources on the ground model. And the reason why I like to teach managers this model is because it's so simple. It's four easy steps. So let me just share what this acronym stands for. The G stands for what what is your stands for goal? So you'd ask somebody like, what is your goal here? Or what is your objective? The R stands for reality? What's your current reality? Or you could ask it as what's your current situation? The O stands for option and also obstacles. So the question would be, so what are some options that you can come up with that would help you reach your goal? And what are some obstacles that may get in your way as you go forward to achieve your goal? And then the W stands for what's next? And that what's next? Like? What's the next best step you can take? What's an action step you can take? And that's important, because coaching isn't just about talking. It's not just about the conversation. But we do want to see some action out of that conversation. So those are the four easy steps. And if you're open to it, Bill, we can do a little sample little roleplay for your audience.

Speaker 1 11:50
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So So Catherine, you know, I feel very frustrated, I'm overwhelmed. I'm frazzled. I go home every day. I'm not sure if I accomplished anything. And the main, I guess the main thing is I just I don't feel like I'm getting the important stuff done, you know?

Speaker 2 12:06
Okay. Okay. So I hear I hear this, I sense this kind of frustration or overwhelm. So tell me, though, what, what's your what's your objective here?

Speaker 1 12:19
Yeah, well, what's really got me frustrated is I've got two big projects that I've got to complete in the next three weeks, and the bosses on me about it, and, and I just need to focus on those. But I keep getting all these interruptions, people keep piling stuff on my desk. And so my goal is really just to get these two projects to the point where I need to get them by the end of the month.

Speaker 2 12:42
Okay, so you've got two projects. And they're due at the end of the month. And then I heard you touch a little bit on your current reality. That interruptions, what else tell me what else is going on in this situation?

Speaker 1 12:55
Well, people, people constantly come into my office, I try to find a quiet place, I can't get away. The phone's ringing a lot, I get a lot of emails from the customer service team, as you may know. So I get interrupted with all those customer service overflow emails. And all of that stuff just kind of takes over my day. And I ended up I look up, it's five o'clock, and I haven't really done anything.

Speaker 2 13:19
Okay. So I hear like, you're really bombarded with different different calls and emails, and maybe not feeling like you're having a sense of accomplishment at the end of the day.

Speaker 1 13:29
Yeah, that's right. That's, yeah. Okay.

Speaker 2 13:33
So um, let me just ask you, what are some options Bill can kind of pull you out of this current reality that would help you with meeting your deadline with these two projects?

Speaker 1 13:46
Wow, that's a good question. I'm off to think about that. But you know, off the top of my head, I'm thinking, well, maybe I could talk to the customer service department and see if they could hold all the customer service emails until the afternoon, if they could give me some some emails that aren't quite time sensitive. That way I could kind of deal with them in the afternoon. And, you know, I'm not used to shutting my door, maybe I need to shut my door for a couple hours in the morning. I never have really blocked off my calendar because people see that my calendar is open, but it really isn't open. And so maybe I need to block my calendar. And you know, I just get in such a habit of answering every phone call because I want to help people. So maybe I just need to turn off my phone, you know, for a couple hours in the morning for these next few days to really focus, you know, on this project.

Speaker 2 14:34
And what else are there? I mean, it may be really shared some good options there. Anything else?

Speaker 1 14:41
Well, yeah, I think I need to talk to the team, my peers in our department, and I need to probably talk to my boss, because I really need them to know what I'm struggling with so they won't add to the mix, particularly in the morning. I think what I'd like to do is take the morning and make that my project time and So I guess I probably just ought to let them know that that's, you know, that's kind of what I'm trying to accomplish, would they? Would they help me out? You know?

Speaker 2 15:08
And what, what potential obstacles because you came up with some great options? Are there any potential obstacles you can think of that would get in your way of implementing any of these options?

Speaker 1 15:21
Yeah, I guess it's probably just me slipping back into my old habits, you know, because I like to respond to everybody in a timely way. And I check my email every 10 minutes. And so you know, kind of, it's almost like, I need an accountability person, but I'm just going to shut off my email, honestly, I'm just going to get out of it. And kind of power off everything. But but that would definitely be an obstacle as me kind of, sort of slipping back into my old ways of, of, you know, staying busy and responding to everybody. I guess I'm my own worst enemy.

Speaker 2 15:58
So I heard you say something about the accountability. So

Speaker 1 16:02
can I take you up on that? Yeah. Oh, that would be awesome.

Unknown Speaker 16:05
Okay, so what would that look like for you? How could I support you with that?

Speaker 1 16:09
Wow, these are good questions. Well, it would be helpful if maybe once a week, we just chatted on the phone, and you asked me how it's going. Because I I kind of know what I want to do. I kind of know what I need to do. I just need a little, you know, kick in the rear to get it going. Don't we all? Yeah. Okay. If we could just talk, you know, maybe even in the hallway, if you see me or give me a phone call. That would be that would mean so much to me.

Speaker 2 16:34
Okay, I can certainly do that. So we'll do a once a week check in. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So with these options that you came up with in terms of like, what's next for you? What's your next best step?

Speaker 1 16:47
Well, I need to talk to the team. I think I'll do that today. I'll talk to the customer service group and see if they can start flowing the email stuff to me in the afternoon. And I'm gonna go ahead and update my calendar today and let it know that put a time block on my calendar for for the morning.

Speaker 2 17:07
Okay, great. So you're off and running now? Yeah. Okay. Well, thank you. Thanks. That was great. Bill, by the way. You're easy to do a roleplay. With

Unknown Speaker 17:18
it felt good. It felt cathartic?

Speaker 2 17:20
Well, let me let me share with you, if you would share with us. What was your experience? Like, as you were? I was, as I was asking those questions. Well, you know,

Speaker 1 17:32
I liked the fact that you didn't tell me what to do. I mean, you really forced me to think about the reality. And to come up with responses. And I know, that's helpful for me personally. So that was, that was really cool. I think it would be helpful for other people that my tendency as a leader is to fix your problem for you. And you basically just helped me fix my own problem. So I guess, you know, the main thing is, you made me feel like I kind of worked for it. You made me work a little bit, you know?

Speaker 2 18:11
Well, yeah, I appreciate that. Because this is an opportunity, right in a coaching conversation, to help the employee build their their ability to self reflect, problem solving skills, generate ideas, that innovation and creativity, coming up with options, right, and then move to the next step. So you bring up a really good point, we're not trying to fix the employee or tell them what to do. And I'll talk to managers, and they'll tell me, I coach, I coach, my, my, my team members, and then when I start, if they come to like a training that I'm doing, and they we make the distinction between coaching and mentoring, training, and they'll say, Oh, I really haven't been coaching, I've been telling them what to do. I've been more of a mentor, you know, so, yeah, it's a different, it's a different style. Yeah. But

Speaker 1 19:06
yeah, in our, in one of our workshops on developing others, we, we have a coaching section, and we actually give them a list of questions to ask. They're, you know, they're the person they're coaching, maybe 10 or 15 questions, and because we're so I think, particularly leaders, you know, we're used to performing and getting things done and taking the fastest path, right. I'll just tell you,

Speaker 2 19:32
yeah, exactly. Right. Before very task oriented, it's, it takes less time to say, just do it this way.

Speaker 1 19:40
Yeah. Yeah. I wanted to ask you, you mentioned the word mentoring, and I wanted to ask your opinion. Again, for our listeners out there. We got folks that are supervisors supervising Public Works crews and got city managers listening county managers. What is the difference between mentoring and coaching Music. Can you summarize that for us? There?

Speaker 2 20:02
Yeah, I'm happy to make the distinction. And when one example I like to use to kind of get this across is, pretend pretend Sam, Sam is a 40 year old adult male. And Sam wants to learn how to ride a bike, he's never learned how to ride a bike. So he brings five people together in the park with his bike one. One is a mentor. One is a counselor, one is a trainer, one is a consultant, and one is a coach. And so Sam turns to the mentor and says, Okay, mentor, how do I ride a bike? And the mentor says, Well, based on my experience, I want to give you some advice, this is what I think you should do. And the trainer says, whoa, whoa, hold up their mentor. Sam, I've created for you a 20, slide PowerPoint on how to ride a bike, I want to show you this PowerPoint. And the counselor says, wait, wait, wait, we have to delve into Sam's childhood, we have to figure out why Sam didn't learn how to ride a bike when he was grammar school age, Sam, tell me about your childhood. And the consultant stops, stops the counselor from going any further and says, Wait, I have 30 years of cycling experience. Sam, I want to do a comprehensive needs assessment. And then I want to give you a 5050 page proposal. And I want to share all my recommendations based on my 30 years of cycling experience. And then finally, Sam turns to the coach and says, Okay, Coach, you know, how do I ride a bike and the coach says, Sam, get on the bike, start pedaling, and I'll be running by your side to catch you if you fall. So I think this is a very simple example. But the coach does not mentor does not give advice does not give opinion, the coach doesn't delve into the past, the coach stays in the present or moving forward. The coach doesn't train or teach and isn't a consultant the coach isn't the guru. And as a matter of fact, there are executive coaches that will coach a leader. And that executive coach has no experience in that leaders industry. Right. But they do have a lot of experience in coaching and getting the best out of the leader. So yeah, I again, a simple example. But does that kind of make sense? Film?

Speaker 1 22:23
Yeah, it does. Because again, in our in our business, we're in the professional development business. You know, we encourage mentoring relationships. And of course, in the right context, mentoring is just wonderful, right? I get to share with you, the the mentor, kind of where I'm struggling, and you can share with me what you did five years ago, 10 years ago, your perspective, and it's really helpful. But it helps me in a different way, versus coaching. And so we like both, I just definitely wanted to distinguish for our audience, you know, what, what is the difference? To me, mentoring ends up, me kind of telling, in a way telling you what to do based on how I've done it, right?

Speaker 2 23:14
Yes, which can be very helpful. And I want to, I just want to say that as a leader, you wear different hats, there may be a time a situation where coaching is appropriate, or in another situation where mentoring is or another situation, we're educating and training the employee. So you're wearing different hats. Coaching is just another tool in your toolkit. Yeah,

Speaker 1 23:37
as you think about local government, and you're obviously with a local government today, several 1000 employees. I know there's probably not a hard and fast rule for this, but how often should a leader let's say, a manager of accounts payable? You know, or maybe it's a city manager with 10, direct reports. small city? How often should they be ideally kind of connecting with their direct reports in this sort of coaching? effort that we're talking about?

Speaker 2 24:18
Yeah, that's a great question. And I think part of the answer is, you know, what's the purpose of the conversation? So for example, if it's a career development conversation, right, and you want to use coaching to help somebody develop themselves personally, professionally, that could actually be a collaborative conversation, asking the employee how often they would want to have coaching around their career development. Some may say I want to check in once a week, some may say once a month, once a quarter, so you can leave it up to the employee. Another, you know, thought around this is similar to the roleplay We just did. If an employee's coming to the leader with an issue, concern or problem, that may be an opportunity to coach. So in terms of frequency, you know, I'm trying to think of some other reasons what oh, here's Okay, a couple of other, you can use the GROW Model to acknowledge employees. And there's a there was a study done. This was through a quantum workplace, and it was 9000 organizations, over a million survey respondents. And one of the top reasons this is like the primary reasons why people leave jobs. One of the top five was people feeling under appreciated and not feeling valued. So when you think about it, having the type of conversation like we had in our roleplay, where the leader is taking time and asking questions, and is really sincerely curious about the employee and the responses, that in itself can help an employee feel valued. And you can use like, as I mentioned, you can use the Grow coaching model to acknowledge. So how would you do that? You could say you're reflecting now on an employee's accomplishment. So you could ask them, so what was your goal initially, and they would share? And what was your current reality at that time? And they would share and what were the what were the options that you exercised? And they could say, well, I took a training, or I learned how to use Excel, okay, and you're acknowledging them for the for what they did to actually achieve a goal. And there's research out of Harvard, on what's called celebrating the small wins, which, when a leader can help a team member, identify the small wins along the way, and celebrate those small wins to, to work towards that bigger goal. It can help the employee feel that their work is has more meaning and has purpose. So it's not just about celebrating those big achievements, right? We're trying to help the employee tune in to those small wins. So you can use the GROW Model, as a form of acknowledgement, you can also use it as a form to redirect and give feedback. So it comes in handy. So, you know, it's a roundabout way of answering your questions, but it's a tool that you can use at different times.

Speaker 1 27:23
Yeah, completely. You know, we encourage local government leaders to have regular check ins with their people as they can some folks work out in the field and so forth. But, you know, every week, every couple of weeks, a focused 510 15 minute, sit down, warm up the chair to check in. And it seems to me that this GROW Model might fit very well. And that check in period as well. Yeah, I did want to ask you one last question related to group coaching. And I recognize that from some of your background, can you kind of tell us? What is the benefit of group coaching? And how do you do that without, I guess, embarrassing people or putting them on the spot? Or can you talk to that just for a moment?

Speaker 2 28:15
Sir, I think one of the benefits and why I love it, even more than one on one coaching at times is the synergy of the group, excuse me, that you're drawing on different people's input and perspective. And with the group coaching, it's not just about coaching the participants, but it's teaching them teaching them the GROW Model. And so there is a learning component to it. And then you give them and doing this, the program that I had in Sacramento County was over six months. So and we met like every other week, so they have time between sessions to practice what they're learning, like the Grow coaching model to practice it in the workplace, even practice it at home. I've had managers come back and say I practice the GROW Model with my teenager. And the one said, My daughter had the deer in the headlights look. And she said, because I usually tell my daughter what to do. But now I was asking her, you know, asking her questions, so you can practice this at home as well. So going back to the GROW Model of the group coaching model, there was a component of learning a component of practicing, and they would the members would practice with each other. And then we set up one lesson I want to share is in that initial session, I designed the working relationship with the participants so that we're all on the same page and we're getting agreement that we're going to be sharing with the group and it's confidential. So we're, we're we're designing an agreement, a working relationship agreement together to create a safe space cuz that's what coaching should be a safe, confidential space.

Speaker 1 30:03
And people come into that group environment, knowing that they may need to bring up some challenge or some goal. They know that that's what's going to be discussed.

Speaker 2 30:14
Yes, yes, I wouldn't even. I'd have one on one conversations before the group session started. So that I'm setting the expectations, and that there's not no surprises, you know, when they actually start the sessions.

Speaker 1 30:29
Yeah, yeah. Well, I just want to recap for everybody, again, as we finish here, this role model, and just sort of remind everybody again, I'm going to try to do it. And you got to correct me Okay, Catherine. Okay. So G is for what is your goal? So I'm going to ask the employee, what's your current goal? Are is what is your current reality? Your current situation? What's the environment like, around this goal? Oh, is options or obstacles? So what options do you think you have? Or what obstacles do you think might get in the way? And then L is a forget what it stands for. But it's your next action. Right?

Speaker 2 31:15
Okay. Well, it's it's W. W. W. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So it's, it's simply what's next? What do W just think of like, what's next? What else? What are we going to do next?

Speaker 1 31:29
Yeah, I got I got the word goal in there for some reason. So yeah,

Speaker 2 31:32
that's close enough. They're good, too. So grow.

Speaker 1 31:36
I love that grow. I hope everybody that's listening today can just take away this one word, from this podcast grow? What are your goals? What's your reality? What are your obstacles or options? And W what's next? Yeah, so

Unknown Speaker 31:56
we can

Speaker 1 31:58
if we can just remember that? And then, you know, Catherine, I know this does take time, right? It takes time out of my day as a leader, but leaders invest in their team members. Right.

Speaker 2 32:07
So true, right. And I see it as a leaders job to grow their people. Right. That's part of succession planning and growing our leaders growing with, you know, from from within the organization. I had a former manager, just very quick, a former manager, and he would say my job is to hold out my hand to you, and pull you up and over, you know, to get you to the next level. And he said, I may be working for you someday. And he saw that as his main responsibility. And he demonstrated that. Well,

Speaker 1 32:41
what a great store, what a great way to end. Thank you so much for participating today and being with us. My pleasure, Bill. Thanks. Yeah, if folks want to get a hold of you or want to get some information about coaching, I know that you may have some things you could send me but is there any other resource where people you think could reach out and get some? Get some good tips on coaching?

Speaker 2 33:05
Yeah, well, there's the the International Coach Federation, which is the professional organization of coaching, they have a website with various resources and coaching has become so mainstream. You know, you can, you can go on does Google at a YouTube TED talks, articles, books, podcasts on leadership, coaching, career coaching, executive coaching, there's so much out there.

Speaker 1 33:32
Awesome. Well, that's good. That's a great encouragement for our listeners. We thank you all for being with us today, again, and investing a few minutes in your career development, to help you be a better leader. And we really want to encourage you to take what you've heard today and start coaching those around you and helping them get to that next level, and not telling them what to do all the time. Let's try this coaching idea for a while. But anyway, thank you for being with us. And we hope you have a great day. And we'll see you back next time.