A Coach Can Come from Anywhere (1-2-19)

I hope everyone had wonderful holidays. One of my goals every year is to continue to be a positive influence on people around me. With that in mind, I’d like to kick off this year with a series about coaching and feedback. Now many of you might say, “Wait a minute. Andrew doesn’t have an official team does he?” That’s a good question. Besides the time I spent as the CEO’s Swagger Coach and coaching a summer intern, I’ve never had an official team or anything. I’ve still coached people though, because a coach can come from anywhere.

Often when we think of a coach we think of a formal relationship. For example, we say, “This person is my boss, so they are my coach.” This might be true, but it might not be. It’s not a title that makes someone a coach. It’s the relationship you have with a person and your ability to learn from them. Throughout my eleven year career I’ve had a lot of different people who have coached me. Some were officially my boss and some weren’t. Different people have coached me on different things ranging from market understanding to how to think about my career to how to be a better leader and person, and the majority of these people weren’t ever my supervisor.

Embry story. I took my first internal role about six years ago. When I first came inside I was lost (literally and figuratively) and had a lot to learn. One of my most obvious gaps is that I didn’t have good project management skills. I wasn’t used to running projects, so I had no idea how to define problems and get things moving. I sucked at that stuff and to be entirely honest my creative brain didn’t like thinking about project management because it was afraid the structure would choke out the creativity. There were a few people who played a big role in changing this. One of them was a guy named Harold Mendoza, a peer of mine in the training department. Harold had a knack for the project management stuff, so I followed him around for a period of time. I’d attend his meetings just to learn how he ran them. He was methodical about always having clear objectives, defining what was in scope and out of scope, and always highlighting next steps. I never reported to Harold, but he was a coach for me just the same and one of the more influential coaches I’ve had. The things I picked up from him allow me to keep things on track and get things done. I owe a lot to him.

Further reflections. Take a moment and think about the people who have had a big impact on you. Who were they? Were they always your official supervisor? How did they help? Think about yourself in your current role. Who could you lean on in order to learn and grow and become even better than you are. On the flip side, is there anyone you are coaching? A better set of questions to ask might be, is there anyone who is learning from you or could benefit from learning from you? Is there any situation you can think of where you could say, “I know that Susie is going through X right now. Maybe I could reach out to Susie to see if I can share some of my experiences so she can learn from my mistakes and things”?

The challenge: Are you appreciating the fact that a coach can come from anywhere? Are you reaching out to potential coaches to learn? Are you offering your own time to coach and develop others? Bonus: Reach out to one of your coaches and tell them thanks.

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Coach Yourself as You would Coach Others (1-30-19)

Last week was about giving meaningful feedback. This week is about showing yourself the same level of coaching compassion as you do others. What you are about ready to read is a true story. The names have been changed to protect the innocent.

A few months ago, Bob and I were talking. Bob is brand new to his role and feeling overwhelmed. He’s used to being in a role where he was competent and knew what he was doing, and now he’s playing an entirely different ball game. Bob is concerned, anxious, excited, feeling incompetent, full of doubt, etc. When I talk to Bob, I listen to him, try to understand him, and show empathy. Then, I say something along the lines of, “I have a lot of love for you Bob. You’re brand new. Everything you’re feeling is exactly what you should be feeling right now. You’re not going to get good overnight. It’s going to take a few months. In fact, I’m proud of you, because I’ve seen that you have already started to pick up on a few things. You’re making great progress and are already starting to make an impact. If you want to continue to grow, here are a few things to think about. In the meantime, keep being you and adding value where you can, because that’s what this team needs you to do right now.” From there I share a few other thoughts and considerations with Bob, and I can tell that he appreciates the conversation.

A few weeks ago, Joe and I were talking. Joe is brand new to his role, and was in a very similar situation to Bob with similar feelings and everything. I didn’t really make an effort to understand Joe or empathize with him. Instead, when I talked to Joe I said something along the lines of, “You’re kind of behind aren’t you? Shouldn’t you have started picking up on this stuff by now? What value are you even bringing to the team? Are you sure you can do this stuff? People told you that you’d be good at this role, so shouldn’t you be good by now?” This conversation doesn’t help Joe much.

At this point you’re probably saying, “Why were you so good to Bob and so bad to Joe?” It’s quite simple. Joe’s real name is Andrew Embry and Bob isn’t Andrew Embry. I’ve found throughout my career that when it comes to helping others I’m filled with patience, compassion, and a willingness to help. When it comes to helping others, I usually find some kind of perspective that is valuable to the person I’m assisting. I’ve found when it comes to myself, I lose this perspective and fall down the rabbit hole of self-doubt and having ridiculously high expectations. Do any of you do the same thing? Do any of you treat Bob better than “Joe” (aka yourself)?

With all that said, I’m making a concentrated effort to approach myself differently, by approaching myself like I would approach any other person. When I start to find myself stuck, frustrated, frozen, and filled with self-doubt, I ask myself, “What would I tell someone else who came to me with that problem? If ‘Pat’ came to me, what would I say? What would I ask? How would I empathize with them?” It’s amazing how much better perspective and how much more grace I give myself if I pretend I’m talking to someone else. As a result of all of this, I’m trying to take the advice I’m giving to other people. If I’m being entirely honest with myself, I’m not entirely competent right now in my newer role, and that’s okay. It’s okay for me to admit this and own this, because this is where I am right now. At the same time, while I may not be entirely competent in all of the technical ways I will need to be, there are still ways for me to add value, and that’s what I need to focus on while I continue to settle in and find where I belong on this team.

The challenge: Treat yourself as well as you’d treat others.

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Holding up a Mirror (4-8-15)

Last week was about sharing your reflection. This week is about holding up a mirror to help people reflect. Overall, it’s a story about a mistake I made and how someone coached me to think about why I do what I do.

Imagine that we are working together and I’m doing pretty good work. Then, one day I send you something and say, “This is rough, but give me your thoughts.” You quickly see that it is complete garbage. You ask yourself, “How could he be so far off? I’ve never seen him do stuff that is so bad.” You give me a suggestion to go in another direction. Then I come back to you with something that’s really good. You’re left wondering, “Why did he go from sending me crap to sending me something really good? How does he miss so badly and then turn around and get it right?”

Fast forward. I’m sitting down with a co-worker and asking for some feedback. She highlights a few good things and then tells me the above story. Her fear is that I might do this with other folks, and they’ll be left asking themselves the same questions. A lesser coach would have just pointed it out and told me to fix it. Instead, she holds up a mirror to me and says, “Can you help me understand why you do this?”

I think and realize that I’m not communicating my intent well. What is happening in these situations is that I’m trying to figure out which of two problems I need to address. Problem 1 is that it is a good idea, but I’m having problems executing it. Problem 2 is that the idea isn’t good, so I need to change course altogether. The way I move forward really depends on what the problem is. Our email exchange told me I was dealing with Problem 2, so I switched to a different idea and that’s why the work was better. Now she knows my thought process and why I did what I did. She says that this makes sense, but without this rationale it just looks like I missed the boat by a mile and half.

Here’s the thing. I’ve made this mistake before. I’ve made it with peers and higher up folks including VPs. If she would have just pointed this out and told me to fix it, then nothing would have changed. I would have fixed it once, but probably made the same mistake over and over again. However, since she asked the question and held the mirror up to help me reflect, I am more cognizant of what I’m doing, why I’m doing it, and how I can be better in the future.

Are you holding up a mirror to help others reflect or are you just pointing everything out?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry