L&D In Action: Winning Strategies from Learning Leaders - Becoming Coachable: How Great Leaders Develop Great Leaders by Embracing Continuous Learning

Episode Date: September 5, 2023

Leaders lead. But that doesn’t mean leaders stop learning, and only focus on guiding their teams to great outcomes and results, does it? While the obvious answer is ‘no, plenty of leaders still find themselves losing that enthusiastic habit of learning they had earlier in their careers. Remaining coachable is one of the quintessential traits of all successful leaders. This week’s guest, Kevin Wilde, has 30+ years leading leaders at world-renowned organizations to prove it. And, he’ll share his insights on how we can develop and become more coachable leaders.

You're listening to L&D in Action, winning strategies from learning leaders. This podcast, presented by Get Abstract, brings together the brightest minds in learning and development to discuss the best strategies for fostering employee engagement, maximizing potential, and building a culture of learning in your organization. Today, we speak with Kevin Wilde. Kevin has had an illustrious career in learning and development to say the least. He spent 17 years at General Electric, where he held various positions in leadership development and even spent time at the legendary Crotonville Management

Campus. His second 17 years were spent at General Mills, where he served as Chief Learning Officer and his work led to fortune, recognizing the company as one of the best in the world at leadership development. In 2007, Chief Learning Officer Magazine selected Kevin as CLO of the year for his work at General Mills. He now serves as an Executive Leadership Fellow at the Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota. He teaches leadership in the Executive MBA and Supply Chain Graduate Program. Let's dive in. Hello, and welcome to L&D in Action. I'm your host, Tyler Lay. And today I'm speaking with Kevin Wilde. Kevin, it's a pleasure to have you on. Thank you for joining me. Thanks. Looking forward to a discussion here.

Coachability. That is the word of the day today. It's the title of your book. And from your many years doing research and work developing leaders, what you have found is that the primary determinant of what makes a successful leader is their coachability. So that's what we're talking about, making and becoming coachable leaders. You have worked at some massive companies, some of the biggest in the world, in fact, and you've worked under some really legendary leaders, GE, General Mills, and you had some really important titles at those companies. You were actually leading more leaders, I think, than anybody I've spoken to, not just on my show, but in my companies. You were actually leading more leaders, I think,

than anybody I've spoken to, not just on my show, but in my life. You've really been a leader of leaders. So I'm very excited to jump into this. One thing that stuck out to me early on in the book is that you collected a ton of data about leaders and their success and the traits that make them successful, literally on hundreds, if not thousands of leaders. And one of the earliest things that you point out about the data that you collected, I think it was from the GE days, was that leaders showed fewer coachability traits, or they were less coachable the later in their career that they were, the more senior that they were. And we're going to dive in and talk about coachability, what it means, how to become coachable, especially as a leader. But this particular

fact perturbed me a little bit because we all see the pace at which technology is changing these days. A lot of big time changes are happening, especially with AI and automation and machine learning. But it seems to me, especially with things like social media, generational gaps are increasing. Workflows are changing. Communication styles are evolving. So it concerns me that if older leaders, if senior leaders are not as willing to be coached, I feel like there could be an increasing divide between leaders and the people that report to them. So do you agree with me that poor coachability and the results that has on leadership is as dangerous as ever right now? Completely agree that I think we're in the era of we're all trying to run to catch up with all the changes going on. So this notion about if you're not naturally in that open learning mode, at some point it could trip you up. Now, obviously, you know, the more you advance in a career, you've got accomplishments, you

know, you're busy, you've got things going on. So that's not to dismiss the effectiveness of leaders. But where I go back is actually as the chief learning officer of General Mills and having an annual succession review with the CEO and senior team with who's doing well, who do we need to promote. And I started noticing a few leaders would get into trouble. And one year they'd be on the high potential list. And the next year their name was not on the list at all. And I was like, I started like, what happened to so-and-so? And many cases like, yeah, they're kind of not here anymore.

And I started doing some investigation of why a great talented leader would derail. And again, this was the exception. We said a lot of great leaders, but I started noticing that. And as I was doing the diagnostic, one thing I found was they were rated very low on their own coachability, the derailed leaders. And they had lost that openness to curious, to learn, to be open and develop. And well, I think we all have days when, you know, we're not ready for feedback or whatnot, it got these people in trouble. And so that started the study. And then later on, I went to the research firm, Zenger Folkman. They do a lot of 360s. And to your point, they had a database at that point of 50,000 leaders as rated by others by 360s. They had a million data points. And so we created a coachability index, but then we cut it by level. And sure enough, to your point,

frontline supervisors, 71% positive is seen as coachable by others. You think about us early in our careers, we're hungry to learn, we're sponges. We know we're not a finished product yet and people treat us that way. They want to help us out, give us feedback. But as time goes on, something happens. And what we found at the senior level is that view of being coachable goes down to well under 50%. And that can be a problem. What is it? What is that something that you just mentioned that takes place over time? I think we all kind of know intuitively that as you age, things change, whether it's you've developed a family, you become entrenched in the things that you've learned, you just become less inclined to learn more because you're seeing progress. But what would you attribute that change to ultimately?

Well, as I started studying both in terms of the academic literature and my own research, and then also just a lot of coaching over time, is identified what I consider these faulty assumptions. There's things that kind of sneak into our thinking that I think then gets in the way of learning. And by the way, there's been other good academic studies on coachability, interest in getting feedback, learning goes down by tenure. So how long you are in the role, and it was regardless of level by age, right? We get comfortable, we get our own routine, we get really, really busy, and we lose that learning instinct early on that open us. Among the assumptions that I'll just offer, and again, I've listed five in the book, I'm

going to give you a couple and then the new one, right, that I found since the book came out. You know, one is called a faulty assumption that we can get sometimes called I've arrived. I've arrived is that assumption that, okay, I'm now the leader, I've got accomplishments. You look at me to be in charge. I've arrived. So why would I ask people for feedback anymore? And it's a silly assumption, but a lot of us kind of get busy and get that. Now, we've been accomplished. We get things done. Certainly, you've earned the role, but we're never done. And you think about what you just gave us a litany about. Here's all the changes going on in our world. And the one that, as someone's listening to this recording, we didn't even know about then. So there's one around the corner about to hit us like, yeah, that's the way it's been lately. So the world doesn't change. The world doesn't stand still. Yet, if you've got the I've arrived syndrome, you kind of ease into, I don't need to be open to learn anymore. And that can be a problem. The flip of that was fascinating. I ran across some leaders that wanted feedback, wanted to be coachable, but because they're now the official

leader, they moved up to a more senior role. They felt that they can't ask anymore or they can't signal they're open. And I call that the superhuman stance. And as I had one senior director once told me that she felt that she's ahead of a technology division, that if I show more openness and interest in getting feedback and coaching, they might doubt me. They might doubt my skills and abilities, or if there's something particular I want to learn, I'm just reinforcing a weakness, I need to hide it. Might be the imposter syndrome, but I think that gets in the way. And there's a number of other faulty assumptions. We treat the boss with respect sometimes, we filter information. But the other one that I found in my research, this is a new one. I'll call it the empty gym.

And the empty gym is a picture of a gymnasium on January 2nd, right? January 1st, man, that place is busy. Everybody's in there. New Year's resolution or in my role, like, yeah, I want feedback. Come on, give it to me, right? And then on January 2nd, you wake up like, oh, man, I overdid it. I am sore. And I think part of this decline in coachability and feedback is we've lost the habit. We've lost that instinct at whatever

level to say, I want to learn what's going on. How am I doing? What could be better? And so it's in the book. I did a simple, really fun Google apps search. There's a tool on Google called Google Trends. And Google Trends, you can put in different trend terms and see the popularity. So one day I put in the term, how do I give feedback versus how do I receive feedback? And I just looked at the popularity of searches over a period of time on giving it versus getting it. What do you think the ratio was? Mostly giving, not as much getting. It was 10 to 1. For that one little innocent, hey, how do I take in feedback? There's 10, how do I give it? Now, Tyler, I think we'd all admit it's hard to give feedback. You don't want to damage your

relationship. You want to get the message across. We're not that practiced. We're nervous, right? I'd feel a lot better though, if I knew the other side was practicing getting it, knowing that I'm going to give you imperfect feedback and it's going to be missing, but you really want to learn and you value the relationship. So a lot of our L&D leaders do great training on how to give feedback. Rarely do we do the same masterful job on here's how to keep up your coachability and to overcome some of those faulty assumptions. By the way, can I give you just a perfect example, right? So here's professor feedback, right?

So I'm teaching a course last week. We just kicked off a 12-month program for graduates in supply chain leadership, supply chain management. And one thing we're going to do is I introduce the notion about, hey, in all these different classes, you're going to be giving presentations. So we're going to give you feedback on your executive style giving presentations throughout the 12 months. So I passed out the form. Here's how you're going to be rated. And again, it's all for your development. And then for fun, and also, I think for credibility, I said, you know what? I'm going to ask five of you in this class right now to fill out this form on me as I'm teaching tonight.

All right, give me some coaching, right? So end of the day, you know, class is over, they leave, I get the forms. And I got to admit, there was this moment about, I don't know if I want to look at this. And it was this little voice inside me to say, Kevin, are you ready to deal with this feedback? And of course, it was well-intending, it was benign. It was all that. But it's like, wow, even for someone who's studied this for over 10 years, I think we all have that hesitation on what does it mean when someone gives you feedback? So I had, okay, Kevin, talk myself down. Here's what you're doing. This is all good. Let's learn from it and move on. And I did. But it's not a practice unless you really get good at it.

We always have these moments of hesitation. I had planned to ask this question a little bit later as we dove into some of your methodologies and some of the features that make a coachable leader. But I want to dive deeper into feedback right now because I've had a few episodes where we talked about this recently, 360 degree feedback in particular. And it's just, it's such a complicated thing. Like, let's be honest, feedback is very difficult for all the reasons that you've already described. But systematically, the ways that we are collecting and receiving and giving feedback is very advanced. Like there's a lot of software just dedicated to feedback and communication that

resembles feedback and things like timing, the nature of the feedback you're giving, the format and the style of the feedback.'re giving, the format and the style of the feedback. You know, if it's going into a piece of software, you're writing something, and maybe there's a character limit, or maybe the questions that are asking that thing are written by a third party. Like, there's just so many things that can really muddle feedback for me. And a lot of the things that you talk about in your book are, you know, direct conversations and that sort of thing, which at the end of the day, it's just like like that is obviously the number one thing we have to do. We have to have the frank conversations and we have to learn from those directly. But especially at larger organizations, there are so

many ways that feedback can get muddled. So how do you say we take care of this issue? How do we make feedback as honest and as accurate and as actionable as possible? Yeah, I think you've listed sort of the nirvana, but that's what we're shooting for. But I would say to all my friends in L&D, we're working too hard. We're working too hard on helping people learn new lessons. We've got great tools and systems, but we don't spend as much time asking people to bring their own learning motivation or ethic to whatever we're doing. So rather than imposing the system, I just say equally, spend time on, if you will, if you're serving the great meal, make sure they're hungry. And we can talk about the technicalities of timing and systems and what do you do in person, what not, but are they clear on two things? Do you help your learners and your leaders get very clear on what's their why? Why do I want to look at this thing? Why did Professor Rowley want to look at that feedback form? Not because the system imposed it, because I want it. And the reason I mentioned that is we just did a recent study. I do have a coachability self-assessment and we were doing a revalidation of it. And we found is there were just a few questions that predicted whether someone's going to be seeing as highly coachable

in the eyes of others. So we bumped a 360 up against their self-assessment. Five questions, two themes come out of the questions. Two of the questions that predicted a leader's coachability, high coachability, it was the why. Feedback is critical for me to achieve these goals and objectives. Feedback is critical for me to grow and develop in my job. Those two items talked about the why. And notice it wasn't nice to do, it was on the corporate values chart, or someone put it in the 360, and it was like, no, no, I need this. I need this. And I think back to our job in learning development is we've got the great material. We get so excited about the competency, the skills, and all of that. We don't keep firing up the individual motivation about why. So I think the one thing I found about highly coachable

leaders is they get very clear on, okay, why is this critical for me? And if it's not critical, okay, fine, we can deal with it. But whether it's a system or a conversation, Tyler, with a coach or a mentor, getting clear on, okay, why is this important to me? That was half of it. The other half of it were questions around relationships. And it surprised me. Of all the different items in a 360, the items that correlated highly with being high coachable

wasn't just the why, it was also the who. And that's surprising. I haven't found a lot of that in literature so far. So we might be into interesting territory here. But I think the second thing highly coachable and high learners do is if you're interested in feedback, you're not interested in what the form says or you're a 5.2 on a scale, et cetera. You're interested in the relationships, particularly diverse relationships. A lot of the items that correlated dealt with diversity. And I think my interpretation is that highly

coachable leaders not only value they want feedback, but they value different kinds of people. And they're going to learn by valuing those relationships. So I think back to the, what do you do about it? I think it starts with getting clear on your why you want to learn or helping learners get clear on their why. So they come to you hungry. And again, whether it's a group exercise in person, a team Zoom meeting, or again, some system giving you some scores and rating, regardless of all of that coming at you, highly coachable leaders start with their why, and they start with the who's behind giving me that feedback. And then we can talk about forms and timing and all that, but I think what we're missing there is it's not the sophistication of the tools, it's the mindset of the individuals going through the process. We're going to circle back around to some of these ideas as you put them in the book. There's sort of five features that make up the most coachable leaders. But to ground all of that, I would like to ask, is there any way that you can identify which of the five or I guess that's six faulty

assumptions are either most common, most prominent, most important to focus on, or in the case of that sort of cadre of senior leaders, which ones are just generally most common? Yeah. Well, I mean, one of the other ones, I call it the magic moment barrage. And it's a fun one because whenever I'm doing a webinar or a training session on coachability and leadership, I will have people come up afterwards and say, hey, Kevin, I really love this topic. And you're right. Absolutely. I want to get back to this. You gave me the motivation. There's some tactics I'm going to start using. So this is great. This is great, but I'm really busy right now. I'm going to start this next month or when things slow down. And it was both gratifying, but also humbling that, man, we are really busy. And I mean, most of the times I'm just surviving the day.

And so I think that notion about the magic moment mirage is I'll get better on coachability when things slow down. And that's a mirage. It's like, nope, not going to happen. Listen, Kevin, I just got back from vacation. Give me a week to figure all this out and then we'll get into it. Oh, yeah. Well, good for you. Good for you on vacation. But yeah, I can handle some things we want to get back to. But I think finding simple ways to build in the practice. I'll give you one example. We're going to get into some of the habits I saw of highly coachable leaders. One is they spend more time than their peers reflecting, stepping back, getting perspective. And we'd all say,

yep, as soon as things slow down, I'll find time in my calendar to reflect. And the answer is no, not going to happen. You got to find the time. And one thing I encourage my students and people I coach is, yeah, at the very least, Friday morning, 15 minutes. And then what's that compelling question you want to ask? Or if someone asks you, that will get you in that reflective perspective mode. And again, it could be, I need to digest some feedback, or I need to figure out what I need to start learning next, or I need to get the bigger picture of things. But I think the common, to your question, the common denominator I see of people that struggle with coachability is they're waiting, as opposed to what's something simple I can start doing. Yeah. Little steps, of course. Reflectiveness and reflect is one of the five items that make a highly coachable leader in the book. Why don't we just go over those really quickly, if you don't mind? Sure. And by the way, for kind of the elderly people out there, the one thing that we found in our research is highly coachable leaders were also rated as great coaches. And the interesting thing is, you know, usually we jump into training managers to be coaches, right? Here's the methodology, here's your

toolkit of questions, et cetera. But we don't start with what's your own coachability. Why don't you go practice that first and then we'll work on your own coaching. So there's this connection about how could you build more coachability into what you're currently doing? And so as much as I'd love the world to stop and everyone takes a class on coachability, I think it's more of a, how do you work this into what you're currently doing? How could you put a little module in? How do you nudge a little more on the why and the who? But back to what we found in the research is the good news, as much as there was a general

decline in coachability with level and age, we found exceptions. We found people that stayed highly coachable, whether they were the CEO, senior leader, extra busy, middle manager. And so we said, let's study those people and see what they do. And what came out was one, a mindset. And I just want to go back to that for a second. Piece of research that we did, we looked at 200 leaders. We had their coachability scores, but then we had a personality instrument on confidence. And it's a fascinating little model that came out. So what is the correlation between coachability and self-confidence? And we found it's not linear. It's not a straight line up. It's not a straight line down. It's a curve. So if you think about the lower starting point,

low confidence, low coachability, and I call it the I can't zone, right? And it could be I can't because I feel threatened or I can't because I'm really tired or I can't because whatever, like, and I've been there myself, like not. Not now. Then the opposite extreme is the really high confidence or let's say too much confidence, not enough humility. And I call it the I don't care zone. I don't care if you give me feedback. I don't care what that 360 says. I don't care if I have to go to this class. And I've been there too. And there are some topics like, I just don't want to learn that. Fine. I don't care. But then the sweet spot was the middle. Enough confidence to be open to learn and enough humility to want to. And I think back to the, what does it take to be a highly

coachable leader or get your learners into that coachable mode for whatever your development, it's how do you get them into that learning zone? One thing I do in my courses is I could, let's talk about what pulls you in and out of that learning zone. But point number one, highly coachable leaders are aware of their learning zone and can get them in that sweet spot of, I have enough confidence that I can be open and vulnerable to learn and enough humility to care to get better. And that's the why. So that was point number one. And it's kind of the mindset of self-improvement. I'm not a finished product. I've got to keep learning. What's the world going to teach me today? And I think that's a great mindset. And even really busy, high-powered executives, the best ones that are coachable, have that mindset. I'm going to learn something today. I'm going to be open for something. I took the feedback from the students on my presentation like, oh, that's a good point. I've got to start doing more of that.

But it's with getting me in my own coaching zone, learning zone. So that was one. And then there are four very specific tactics and practices we saw. And highly coachable leaders were good at them, and they had specific routines. It matters by context. It matters by level. How a CEO does it's going to be different than an early career leader. But here are the four things we found. So you've got a mindset of self-improvement. Number two, then, they have ways of seeking input from others. Feedback, observations, I like calling them notes. And we can talk about whether it's a trusted advisor, truth teller, whether it's a systematic 360, or just my favorite is the two question technique. I know we're going to talk about that in a minute. seek input. Number three, they responded well when it showed up. So mindset of self-improvement,

I'm seeking input from others to keep learning. And when it shows up, I'm acting in the best way to listen and be responsive and reflect. And then the next one is then they step back and they reflect. And I always coach people like, you know, you really should be open to listen. And whether it's someone who's not qualified or someone that you're not sure if it's good feedback, if you're a leader, you cast a large shadow. You've got to show coachability and you've got to show respect and thank the person so that they'll be open for giving you feedback in the future and that carries in the organization. But then the reflection part is you can critically analyze the feedback. You can decide, is this valuable or not? So coachable leaders will take time to think about what they heard,

connect the dots and all that. And then finally, highly coachable leaders, if they decide, yeah, that's good input, I've got to get better, they will act. Because ultimately, no one's going to see you as a coachable leader if they keep giving you feedback, you listen well, you reflect, but we never see a change. So you got to follow through. So those are things. So again, simply mindset self-improvement and learning zone, seeking it consistently, responding well when it shows up, reflecting enough on it, and then if it's important to you, taking action. Again, we found lots of techniques that they use for each of those. A lot of them are in the book, but happy to share tips on any or all of those if you'd like. Yeah, yeah. I do want to talk about the seek part in particular, because that again is about

feedback. And like you said, it's mostly the relationships that these things come down to. If you want legitimate, accurate, honest feedback, you probably have to have strong enough relationships to get that from anybody, really. And I think you actually have like seven different methods for getting some feedback, having those conversations. And I would like to talk about a few. The truth teller is one that I like reading about. That's where you kind of have like a trusted advisor of some sort who gives it to you straight. And that's somebody who is probably very friendly with you at the company. I feel like that in some cases can be more or less up to chance. If you, you know, have somebody that you're that friendly with, who can be that honest with you, it can be sometimes hard, especially if you're working in a very decentralized

company to have a sort of relationship with somebody like that, who also kind of has their, you know, finger on the pulse, but that's one worth talking about for sure. And then the two question method, as you already mentioned, that's a really interesting one, but there are seven of these. If you want to discuss those for a little bit, I think they're very important. Yeah. And the one I'd start with is sort of the game plan that oftentimes as leaders, we put things in writing. We figured, okay, here's my goal for the month. Here's, I'm going to break it down. I don't think being coachable is random. And so I always start with what I call sort of the seek map. And the seek map is basically a worksheet where you've got

three columns, left-hand column. What do I want to learn? What am I curious about? Could be my presentation skills, could be how am I seen in this team, could be any number. But like, what are you curious about the next 90 days you'd like to learn on? And I think that puts you in your learning zone, right? The second column is who. Who would I go for to learn this? Sometimes it's the boss, sometimes it's peers, sometimes again, it's a trusted advisor or mentor, and you might line that up. And sometimes you start with the who and then you go to the what. But being proactive at what is it I want to learn? What am I curious about?

How do I get into that learning zone? And then the final column is how do I approach it? How do I have the conversation? How do I start it up? So I just encourage people, hey, every couple of months, at least twice a year, you should do a seek map. To be coachable, you've got to be proactive. What do you want to learn? What should you be open for. To be coachable, you got to be proactive. What do

you want to learn? What should you be open for? Who do you want to connect with to learn it from? How do you want to get the conversation started? In the book, I think I list about seven different situations that, okay, here's how you start the conversation with this situation, that situation. And then I want to go into, let's talk about truth tellers. And I've got this story in the book. It's kind of embarrassing, but it's kind of a fun one. So here we go. Early in my career, I was a manufacturing supervisor way back in the day. This is probably pre-Tyler days, but in any case, we didn't have direct deposit. And so my job as a supervisor every other week was to go out, pass out paychecks to my workforce. I was in GE's MR business. We were making MR machines. I had 34 technicians, two shifts,

subsystems assembly. And I remember the first Friday, I was really kind of full of myself. So I had this stack of envelopes and I'm going from workstation to workstation, giving every employer the paycheck. And rather than making it boring, I thought, oh, I'll just crack a little joke. So I'd give someone a paycheck. I'd say, hey, Tyler, big money, here you go. Move over to the next person and say, hey, Joe, got your check here. Don't spend it in one place. You know, on and on. Or I'd say, hey, Susan, did you earn it this week? And I'd move on, right? So I thought I was the comedy supervisor of the plant, right? I go back to my little supervisor cubicle and there sitting in my chair is my lead supervisor, Jim. And Jim says, Kevin,

sit down. I'm like, okay. So I sit down in the other chair. I'll never forget this. A little smile on his face. You know, we've been talking. We think you're going to be fine as our new boss. But I got to tell you, when you pass out paychecks, shut up. I was like, shut up. I'm sorry. I didn't know. I mean, I apologize. And I was embarrassed. And I went out on the shop floor and I say, I'm sorry. I'm not going to do that again. All that. But as I thought about it, if Tim wouldn't have told me that, I would have been doing that stupid act every other week. In the background, my workforce would be grumbling. And I think for all of us, we have these blind spots. So having relationships with Jim, who is my truth teller, and trust me, for the whole assignment, I was checking with Jim. How am I doing? What's going on? Great question. I would ask,

what am I missing? What am I doing right now? what am I missing, Jim? And Jim was one of a few people that I just engendered these relationships where they could coach me. And as much as, yeah, sometimes it's random, and I'm very fortunate that Jim chose to tell me the truth that first week, I think coachable leaders take it in their own hands to build those relationships and to check in. And maybe the first conversation or two isn't as rich or as fruitful, but trust me, if you show up as a curious person wanting to get better, people are going to help you. And as I found as you get to be a more senior leader, relationships get complex, there's more demands on your time. The best ones I know may not have had big systematic feedback loops, but they didn't have people that would tell them the truth. And whether it was someone inside the company or an old boss or an outside group, I know if you know the Bill George story from Medtronics,

he had a group that they had breakfast every month for over 30 years. And they did life together and they told each other the truth. And I think one of the other faulty assumptions I cover in the book is lonely leader lament. As you become a leader, you get isolated and you don't hear the truth as much. So I think getting those relationships, now finding the right people, that takes time and effort, but trust me, it pays off. And so my gym story lives on as that example. But the thing of it is, I tell my people in class, I say, write down a piece of paper, who are your three trusted advisors right now? Who are your three truth tellers? And are they the same as you? Because the other thing is, great truth tellers are different than you, see things different, have diversity in so many

different ways. And then what was the last time you had the conversation? If it's been a while, trust me, they're waiting outside your door. You just have to ask. So that's the truth teller thing. I mean, ultimately, final thing I did a blog on this about is I studied what makes a great relationship with a truth teller and great feedback. There were three things in common, and these are my three Cs. Number one, someone gives you feedback or truth teller. They're competent. They know what they're talking about. So do they have that expertise in the thing they're commenting on? But also number two, do they have context? Do they know your world? Do they know what's going on? And if they got those two, could be good feedback. But then the difference is the third C. And to me, it's caring. Do they care about you? Do you have those relationships that, yeah, they got my back,

they don't have an agenda, they're here to help. And I think building relationships with people that are competent in the things you want to learn about, do they have context so they can give you the good observations that make sense? But then, do they care about you? And I think having those people that have your back make it much easier to seek feedback. I got to say, if you're handing me potentially thousands of dollars twice a week and you're cracking a little joke, I'm probably going to laugh at the joke. It sounds like there was something else going on on that floor. Those people just weren't in the best mood. Well, some of them, some of them not, but you had to know my team. Yeah, I guess so. Anyway, you bring up some interesting follow-up points here that I want

to address. So how did you put it exactly? You said that the real goal of leaders should be to build other leaders. What were your exact words? Other leaders, yeah. I think the normal job of a leader is to, you know, you're going to get the job done, right? But it's to build other leaders, not just followers, leaders. Well, this makes me think about the different kinds of companies, the different sizes of companies in particular, because our listeners probably come from a large variety of organizations. You, like I said at the top, were a leader of many leaders. You're actually, you know, the leadership development lead of hundreds of leaders. So you are quite literally leading people who are already in some ways entitled leaders. Then there are folks who, you know, they have teams and they want to make those people leaders. But I think that there's got to be a really radical difference

in how you actually deliver coachability to people, how you make people more coachable, how you work with them to be better. So my primary question is, from a systematic level, how do you work with a giant team like you were doing with all those leaders at GE or General Mills? How do you just disseminate these things successfully? What did you have to do? Yeah, and there may be some common with any size. I mean, just know that I've been working in big places, but I also have been advising startups lately. And so I've seen kind of the differences in size and if you will, what the job is like very different, still learning about that. You know, a couple of themes I would offer about if you want to build in more coachability is number one, I would raise the visibility on the topic. I'd bring it up. I'd bring it up in training.

You know, is that part of your leadership model and really truly mean it. So kind of the define, here's what it is and here's what we aspire to. And then secondly, find the champions that are doing it and give them visibility. So whether that's you're bringing in guest speakers in classes or you're cutting videos of them, finding the credible leaders that are role modeling the thing you'd like to see more of in the company. Those are some simple things to do. And by the way, I think ourselves, are we the role model of feedback and coachability? So I think there's some simple things regardless of size.

I would put it into training. I would systematically say, you know, if you're going to be a first-time manager, one of the competencies that you're going to learn is how to be coachable or how to maintain whatever coachability you've got so you don't lose it with all these faulty assumptions. You know, you've arrived at an important point in your career, but the learning does not stop. How one seeks feedback is different than now that you're the boss, but let's talk about that ethic and let's talk about those practices. So I would insert in training. And what's funny is at the university, there's a couple other graduate level leadership courses and they all give a 360. They bring me in as a guest speaker before people crack open their feedback instruments.

And it's really interesting. Like, hey, Kevin's got to come and talk about this leadership thing. It's called coachability. And then what happens is they're more receptive to the feedback they're about to receive because they don't see it as a final word. It's just a data point on the practice about how do I take it feedback? How do I get coachable? How do I continue that? So finding spots to put training in or support tools that again, goes back to the hunger of learning and the confidence to be in the learning zone. I think there's some important things on psychological safety that you need to build in to any sort of feedback system. There's amazing systems out there. You can get spot feedback. You can slam a 360 together, all of that. I think it's the support tools and the processes that make a difference. At the time I had at General Mills,

we had a team that wanted leaders to get better. And so we would systematically for our top 500, all officers, all directors, they would get a company 360 every two years. Who do you think the first person was that would get the 360 every time it was time to get it done? The CEO? Yes. Got it. Most companies, the CEO like, yeah, I'm too busy. The board gives me feedback.

Go ahead. They're for other people, not me. And then we would cascade it down. CEO, senior team, you go through the feedback process first. Then we turn it around for the next level and the next level. And I think that notion of, if you're really going to make a difference, as opposed to being superficial on this stuff, you've got to have champions and role models. You've got to get them excited. So I'll give you a little case in point. So just combine some ideas. So one thing we did that was really effective is I would bring in the CEO to kick off one of

my leadership courses. And at the time, Steve Sager, great CEO at the time, he surprised us. He would start a session and said, hey, you know, this class is important. You're going to be great leaders and we need that for the company and we have new things and blah, blah, blah. But then he'd stop and he'd say, yeah, and you're going to get a 360 in this class, aren't you? Yeah. And then he said, oh, I don't like those. And I'm in the back of the room just shrinking like, oh my gosh, this is not good. So I don't like them. But then he said, but they're important. They're important. Let me show you mine.

And he puts up on the screen the results of his recent 360. And he said, yeah, you know, I got good scores on this, this, this. And I'm the CEO, of course. And he said, you know, I didn't get a good score here. And I think as a CEO, I have to get better at this one thing. In his case, it was actually coaching and giving feedback to his team. He had low scores. And Tyler, you could just see the shoulders relax in the class. Like, okay, the CEO's not perfect.

Even though it's uncomfortable, he knows he needs that feedback and he's serious about getting better. And that notion about big company, small company, you know, talk about the value of doing this, find psychologically safe places people can learn, get feedback, peer networking, all that. But then the role models have to talk about it. And it's got to be a natural part of their game. Asking the two questions at the end of a meeting, talking about feedback. The funny punchline on the Steve thing, by the way, the next time he got his 360 a couple of years later, he came into class, he said, hey, you know what? I got really good scores on the thing I was getting bad scores on. But now my team has said, no more feedback. I'm fine. You're fine, Steve.

You're good. Let's move on to something else. So, I mean, there's a couple of highlights. And again, whether it's a formal 360, informal mentoring groups, putting into training, obviously, the other thing, I'll just give you one more is, if you want to populate your leadership team with high learners, highly coachable leaders, who do you let into the company? Do you have an assessment of someone's coachability as a candidate? Or if you've got three people and one's going to get the promotion inside the company, is one of the critical factors, how coachable are they? How do they take feedback? Do they ask for it? Do they do well when it's uncomfortable feedback? Have we seen them improve? Is that a major factor? So again, I mean, let's get real here. I mean, if everyone gets promoted that's not coachable, but they do great work, like, yeah, you're not going to work well

on this one. So the reward system, the promotion system, you know, sometimes in training, I'll say, hey, you know, put together an interview protocol for me that judges someone's coachability. Now, how would you know? And just as an interviewer, you're getting trained by your assessing those questions. So I'm hitting a lot of different areas here, but that notion about whether it's a systematic tool, whether it's in training, that unit of one about, are you curious about getting better? Do you have a role model you respect that's coachable? And I think that helps. I would like to circle back around to the other points, the other features of the most coachable leaders. So we've spent some time on seek, but also reflect, respond, and act are all in there. What about determining what kind of response certain feedback deserves? Do you have some

basic points for determining whether action is actually warranted or maybe a response in a conversation is warranted? Can we go there? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, back to how do you really deal with it when it shows up, right? And I gave you my little example earlier, but I even had to coach myself, right? I would say, and it's in the book, I make fun of the word feedback. We have to use it because it's a common word. I'd rather use a different word. I think there's a lot of baggage, there's a lot of defensiveness. And some of the other authors on the topic here that I've studied, you know, one said that, you know, we all have these little defensive voices in our heads. So anytime we're hearing feedback, observations or whatnot, there's always these little voices. And one little voice

that I hear is the, you don't understand, right? Hey, Kevin, you could be better here. You don't understand, you know, I did it right before and you missed it this time. You didn't see the whole thing, right? And then the other one that shows up in my head is like, oh, who are you to give me feedback? Who are you? Right? So are you worthy or not? And again, it's just this dumb little voice that gets in the way of hearing the message, gets in the way of honoring the relationship of someone who's taking a risk of giving you something that may be helpful or may not. So I separate the response to feedback from the reflection on what does it really mean? And I just encourage leaders that you just have a trigger phrase that puts you into a listening mode. You're there to listen. You're not there

to debate. And again, you ask for clarification questions. And the one thing that I got in the book, I was talking to a friend of mine, Scott Act, who's a professional actor in New York, and I was going through this whole coachability thing and receiving feedback. And he said, oh, you know, in professional acting, that's called taking a note. And what happens is we learn about acting and there's other performance professions. That notion about we're in rehearsal, you stay on stage, director gives every actor a note, right? A note, basically feedback. Here's how you did. Here's how your lines came across. Here's your body language. Here's, you know, et cetera. And Scott told me that you learn as a professional actor to take a note well. You learn to take it well because,

in his case, like, you know, it helps me improve my performance. There's things the director sees that I don't see, and I have a chance to bring the character to life more. I have a chance to try new things. So he was really in that learning zone. And you think about, if you will, and this is not Scott, but others like, yeah, egos exist a lot in professional sports and professional acting, but they learn how to take a note. So I like that as a phrase. I've used that, that, hey, I'm getting feedback. I want to get myself in that receptive mode. The little negative voices are starting to pipe up. And so I just tell myself, I'm taking a note. And that gets me that I want to listen. I want to take it in. I want to honor what someone's telling me. I might ask for an example. Hey, tell me a little more about this. What do you see going

on? What would you rather see instead? And then, you know, say, I want to think about this. Thank you. So you don't have to agree at the moment. It's just, hey, thank you for the input. Tell me more. I want to think about it. Or in some cases, don't have to agree at the moment. It's just, thank you for the input. Tell me more. I want to think about it. Or in some cases, I'll get back to you. But I think separate the intake from the judgment. So I think back to the muscle. The muscle is asking and the muscle is responding. Well, it's just a natural course of event. I'm getting some input. I'm getting a note. Or the other thing I do around the house is when I'm getting feedback around the house, it's here comes my tip of the day. And that just puts me in that receptive mode. So I think in training, in front of being highly coachable, what's the trigger phrase that makes you receptive? So that's the muscle memory to

respond well, either because you asked for feedback or in my paycheck story, someone's sitting at your desk and they're about to tell you something. How do you get into the learning zone? I want to hear this. And then separated from, okay, this is not judging me as a person. As one coach told me once, you know, you always have to see feedback as it's not about me, it's for me. It's not about me, it's for me. And I think about me means, you know, is it criticizing me as a human being? Like, no, no, it's for you. It's for your effectiveness. It's for your learning. And I think that also puts me in that learning mode. But again, Tyler, then that second thing is then you've got to sit back and think about it. What did I hear? Does this connect with anything else? Again, is this credible? Should I check with my truth teller on the feedback? Do I dismiss it outright? Have I heard this before? Does this connect? Is this a blind spot for me? Highly effective leaders will take the time to reflect, to bounce it off of someone, close the loop if you need to, but then decide, is this important to act on or not? So the trigger concept of putting yourself into learning mode, that reminds me of at the end of

the book, toward the very end, you talk about habit formation and the sort of psychological system that represents habits, whether it's creating a new habit, such as, you know, putting yourself into learning mode and becoming more coachable, or getting rid of older habits that are negative. So can we go over that really quickly, if you don't mind just kind of giving a little primer on the psychological nature of habit formation and why that's relevant here? There's a great literature out there, certainly the books on atomic habits, et cetera. If you want to dive deep, and I think many of your listeners are there, I think that notion about how do I transfer an intent to get better or to change with something that both starts and then how do you sustain it?

And in my book, I kind of break it down. I did kind of a deep dive. What's the current thinking on personal change? And I ended up with, there are things that push us not to change and things that can help us. How do you remove the negatives and put in the positives? One of them in the short run is that mindset of curiosity. I'm like, I'm going to experiment. I'm going to try this new way, right? So back to a little habit here, and then we'll talk about the bigger ones. So in my class, oftentimes, I've got high potential mid-career people trying to become an executive, and they're in study teams. And for some of them, their goal is to act, to practice taking more initiative and being more assertive in those study groups, right? And there are people

that are very smart that, you know what, I'm sitting back, someone else is taking over at the beginning of the meeting. And I said, no, no, no, no. Your job is to start talking in the first two minutes. And your job is to go up to the whiteboard and volunteer to take notes, right? You wouldn't actually do that. That is your stretch because you've gotten feedback. You've got to be more assertive, take initiative. And the habit there is, I need to do this. Here's what it looks like. I'm jumping in, but it's the spirit of experimentation. It's a small step. How do I get started? So that small step spirit of experimentation, by the way, there are people in class that say, your job is to not talk in the first two minutes. I know it's hard, but set the watch, two minutes, no talking,

but back to the little things you can practice. And then to sustain it over time, I think that body of knowledge on habit building is great. This is the habit I want to build in, understanding what's the cue that either gets me into the positive habit or if I'm trying to eliminate a negative habit, what's that cue that I need to manage? What's the about, I want to build in the muscle memory over time. I need to be more aware of what's my natural response. What's my tendency? How do I build in the positive? Or when a cue happens, what's my natural response? What's the replacement behavior I want instead? You know, for example, we're talking about receiving feedback, you know, natural cue. Someone's giving me feedback response. I'm defensive. I want to replace that. What's the response that's different? It's like mindset. I'm going to tell myself I'm defensive. I want to replace that. What's the response that's different? It's like mindset. I'm going to tell myself I'm taking a note. I'm going to look at them. I'm going to listen. I may write something down. That is the habit trigger. And then over time, how am I rewarded for that behavior?

So those are some of the things. Again, many of your listeners are probably steeped in habit building, but I do think that's important. It's not just taking in feedback, but if you want to get better, you got to be an athlete, work in your game and building in the habits you need. Yeah. No, I think you're absolutely right that people are pretty steeped in this. And as you point out in your book, there are many very high level, very famous books on this topic, but hey, it's a part of the habit. Reminding you that you got to build your habits is a part of building those habits as far as I'm concerned. So I think that's a pretty good place for us to wrap actually. Before I let you go, Kevin, could you just let our audience

know where they can learn more about you and the work that you're currently doing? Sure. The current stuff you could always find on my website, thecoachableleader.com. Yeah, I got free resources, blogs, et cetera. The book, whether it's audio, Kindle or whatnot, is on Amazon and a couple other platforms. It's really intended for people that don't read a lot of leadership books. So as you found Tyler, you can get through it in a short period of time. It's a great handout to use in coaching or training, and that's how people are using it. So I think the website for the current thinking and research, and then the book is a support. Wonderful. All right. Well, Kevin, thank you so much for joining me today. It was a great

conversation. And for all of our listeners at home, thank you for joining us. We will catch you on the next episode. Cheers. Great, thank you. You've been listening to L&D in Action, a show from Get Abstract. Subscribe to the show and your favorite podcast player to make sure you never miss an episode. And don't forget to give us a rating, leave a comment and share the episodes you love.

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