Intro: The coach may not play the game, but the coach inspires and motivates the players to play the best game possible! Join our discussion with leadership coach and entrepeneur Garen Jemian on how to implement a successful coaching culture in your workplace to inspire your employees.  Stay in touch:  https://ca.linkedin.com/in/garenjemian   Website: https://www.inspireship.com/   Script: To put on the coach's mindset is to let the other person have the dopamine hit. You need to have more influence so you can share this with the world. It takes a lot of time and energy and prioritization to do something that's a long game rather than a short game. Coaching is where one person focuses their time and energy and presence on helping another one achieve their outcomes. Welcome to Weirdos in the Workplace, the podcast that celebrates authenticity, transparency, passion, and purpose. And I'm so happy right now to be joined by my very good friend, Garen Jemian, who I feel like I haven't seen your face for months because you've been MIA. You've been working. What's that about? Garen, continue. What were you going to say? Nothing. continue what were you gonna say nothing nothing um garen is a phenomenal leadership coach highly experienced working with all different sectors public and private sector he's a favorite in the public sector in the government of canada you know where he's doing some pretty amazing work uh that i wish you know we could we could talk about but apparently we're not allowed to talk about some things. So it's top secret. And what else do I need to say about you? You're the author of Happy People Work Harder. You are the founder of Inspireship, which is a coaching and consulting firm in Montreal. And you're just an awesome person. Hi, Garen.  I'm going to hire you for my intros forever. Okay, good. From now on. Consider it done. That's so amazing. And yet, you're the one wearing a shirt that actually is so inspiring that impacts society and people. We're trained to help. um i know we're going to talk about something today and i i kind of wish we were talking about your project instead but i'll pass that over to you well you're just going to have to start a podcast then so that i can come on your podcast and talk about it we have one it's called inspire talk it's an open podcast where we actually have um participants interacting with the dialogue. So it's kind of we'll definitely have you on board in the next couple of months. Oh, I am totally there. You know, I'm there with bells on. I will literally bring bells and a cowboy hat. So we are talking today about building a coaching culture. And I know in the last conversation that we had in the last season, because this is the second time now that you've been on the podcast, I know we touched on it just a little bit. But this is something that's so important to both of us.  So I think it's awesome that we're going to give it a lot of attention. I'd love to just start by like, what is your definition of a coaching culture and tell me about one or two of the challenges or the opportunities that you see here that you've worked within in terms of the businesses you've worked for can i start by telling you how i discovered the concept and and we just go there because as you were talking i'm like how did i get into this mess so i used to i used to uh own and operate a nightclub in downtown montreal and that's as far as i'll go in talking about that but um some peers in the industry and i would have this uh this competition of who could be the best boss ever and so we're a bunch of nightclub owners and we get together and we shoot the breeze and we're like, you know, who's more liked? Who's more effective and all that stuff. And we're just trying to be the best boss ever. And these are some pretty renowned business owners in Montreal. And so I went on this quest and I tried everything. And mostly I was trying to be the most liked, the nicest person, the most generous, the most flexible, the most understanding. the most generous, the most flexible, the most understanding. And the problem is we weren't getting out. My turnover was still high. My turnover was so high when I would just meet people. I wouldn't even want to get to know them because they'd be gone in less than a month. I'm like, what am I doing wrong? And of course, inherently the industry has high turnover, but it just wasn't good enough for me. So eventually, I went to university, studied coaching, came out, and I kind of saw something there that I didn't figure out as a leader. And so I kind of felt like I was always coaching, but I didn't know what I was doing or why. So I went to study the methodology and understanding what it actually meant so that's kind of what got me started and so i ended up selling my shares i i start getting into coaching and i start working with some organizations and every leader starts asking me the same question which is how do i motivate people yeah i was like how do you motivate people so then i go on this next quest of how you motivate people and and the book came out so very soon after I realized that we need to be teaching coaching competencies and coaching mindset to every leader in every organization in our country ASAP yes and I'd like to make a distinction there's a coaching mindset and there's coaching competencies. You don't need to be a coach to have a coach's mindset. Correct. Yes. Right. The being of the coach is completely different from, you know, getting two, three thousand hours and becoming a masterful coach. You can just have the coach's mindset. Yeah. And so that's tough enough, though. It's huge. That's pretty tough. It's a coach's mindset. There you go. Done. pretty tough. It's the coach's mindset. There you go. Done. It is. It is. And so I believe that if you can equip all your leaders with some of those competencies of getting out of the way, believing in the best of everyone within your team, understanding how people interact, how people behave, how the psychological impacts of humans in the workplace, understanding how you can set better objectives that intrinsically motivate employees to get them growing in a direction of desirability and truly understanding how to maximize your team's potential. Imagine what an impact that does.  And we tend to think that it's for the employees. It's not. I'm here to tell you my job is to help my clients and my clients are the leaders. When we teach this stuff, it's to help life better for the leaders. Imagine if you had to work less hard, you can empower people. They became more autonomous, more creative, more accountable. You'd have to put in probably a bit less work. You could delegate better. What else? Hang on. You can trust people more. Yeah. Imagine you could be less reactive and more strategic more often. Yeah. It sounds like a lot of promises, but I've been working in this space for almost 10 years now. And I can tell you, it's not. It's not magic, but it's also not like woo woo. It's not, you know, this is like real, real shit. It is, but it takes a lot of time and energy and prioritization to do something that's a long game rather than a short game. Yeah. And it's counterintuitive in a lot of ways. Yeah. Yeah. It's really hard to do that. Oh yeah. And you have to let go of game. Yeah. And it's counterintuitive in a lot of ways. Yeah. Yeah. It's really hard to do that. Oh yeah. And you have to let go of control. Well, I like that. I like being a little out of control. Yeah. Not, not when you have like really stringy, stingy KPIs and you gotta deliver results and you have to find the balance between delivering results and being hands off. Yeah, for sure. Yep. You have to find the balance between delivering results and being hands-off. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. But there's also like the middle path, which is the coaching. You know, it's not like it's those two. Those are the two spectrums, right? There's a third way, and that is the coaching culture. Yeah. Yeah. So how would you define the coaching culture then? Let's go there. Other than obviously the skills of the coach, how does that reflect amongst the team? I'm going to, I'm going to Kung Fu this one and ask you, how do we define the word culture? Oh yeah. How do I define the word culture? Well, I mean, it's, it's the sum of all of the artifacts, behaviors, you know, desires, motivations, skills, intentions, you know, of a group of people. And we're going to get into this later, though, and it doesn't have to be the whole organization. That. Yeah. I know I'm supposed to be doing a lot of the talking but i haven't with culture i have more questions than answers and the one thing i say is like whenever i hear people talking about how we change culture and it's like it's just like it's so methodical i call bs totally i call bs and i get paid for this stuff and i show up and the first thing i say is it it's it's so hyper complex at best we're trying to solve for this yeah and then hopefully if and the first thing i say is it it's it's so hyper complex at best we're trying to solve for this yeah and then hopefully if you solve for a lot of things you look at something as a whole consistency consistently and say i like this right yeah and i should have mentioned also like systems processes governance like that's all wrapped into it as well yeah of course and each one takes what an aeon to solve for so um so how do we define culture how we work and how we behave and interact with each other okay yeah if you want to keep it simple sure uh yeah i mean no no i mean definitely i i feel that it's something more than that though too right it's like the energy of a place um it's what it feels like how do you measure the energy um I mean you can only mention measure it through the feelings of the people that are on the team yeah and the problem is that people have lives so depending on what's going on in their lives you can have the best culture and if someone's just not feeling it because something really wrong happened at home that morning, that'll impact culture. So it's like it's the employees and their families and the environment and the country and the world all impacting this in this infinite matrix. Yeah. And so how do we define the coaching culture then? What is unique about something that we would call a coaching culture i would start by defining what coaching is okay and i and you know me erin i'm like i like things so simple so simple so if i were to like hyper simplify this and bring it down to the common denominator i'd say coaching is where one person focuses their time and energy and presence on helping another one achieve their outcomes okay yeah i like to simplify that way right um and so a coaching culture and i think achieving that person's outcomes needs to be like emphasized. So it's not like your agenda. It's their agenda. Ideally. Yeah. Ideally.  Organizations do set objectives and expectations. So sometimes the leaders have to set the objectives, but at least we give the leeway to the employee to select how. Exactly. If they can't choose the what, at least let them choose the how and give them the time and space to figure out what's best for them um so coaching for me is that coaching is also um it's about believing in other people's potentials it's about stepping out of the way it's about relinquishing your ego as a leader. It's about putting the spotlight on someone else. It's about trust. Yeah, all that stuff. So a coaching culture for me would be, what if all the leaders within an organization kind of ran with that MO? Yeah. We always talk about like putting the hat on right we have the coach hat as a manager you may have a coach hat you have a leader hat you have a boss hat sometimes right how does the coaching culture kind of integrate these different personas that you might have as a manager or a leader, do you think? Or can it? I would start with, yeah. So I'm just going to dig into some of my material in my brain.  So we'll do two things. One, we'll start with, we'll do three things. One, start defining what leadership is and building some self-awareness. Then we'll dig into the hats. So then you've got the manager the leader the mentor yeah the coach and most people think that if you'll ask you you leaders out there you're listening to this and i want you to think on a scale of one to ten how much of a coach are you and you're going to give yourself a score but what i've learned is most leaders who think that they've got a coaching stall or actually have a mentoring style yes and there's a distinction there mentoring versus coaching i don't know if we should dig into this now but once you've got that aside then you can dig into something else like leadership styles yeah and if if you if you subscribe to goldman six coaching is one of the leadership styles which whatever um so you've got what you've got the visionary the pace setter you've got the affiliative democratic um you've got the this is from daniel gulman interesting you've got the coaching so it's innovative in there command and control okay so the boss interesting yeah so something happens is by creating the distinctions of, you know, what style of leadership comes out with you by default and then which hats you're putting on and when and why. Now the leaders are starting to understand what coaching is and isn't and what everything else is. And they start seeing the distribution or at least the, you know, how often they choose what style and why. Right. often they choose what style and why. Right. And then we'll go into realizing that a lot of people in stressful situations will tend to gravitate towards the command and control style. And then I'll ask them, why do you think that is? And it turns out that command and control is so effective that when it's time and you pull out, you know, your biceps and say, do as I tell you because I said so, and you really pull out your authority, it's very effective, especially during times of crisis. And then as the leader, you're like, that worked. And it was really easy. And so it's easy to fall into the trap of going into command and control because of how effective it was the first time and the second time. It's just eventually that edge blunts and you start losing your people. And so we need to get them to realize that command and control is good during certain times of crisis when time crunch is happening. But you got to kind of spread it out. You can use it perhaps maybe 5, 10% of the time, but then the rest of the time you might want to lay off, lay off the trigger a little bit. Well, and it strikes me that if your people are constantly coming to you for guidance and they can't make their own decisions and they don't know, you know, how to influence upward, right? Like how to help you make decisions. And you have to, you feel like you have to use that command and control. You might just be living in survival mode a little too much as a company. If it's the situation, that's just a downward spiral to burnout. I mean, go down that path. So if your employees keep coming to you for, with their questions, why are they, why is this happening? Why do you have to be the number one decision maker in the company? Have you set it up like that? Maybe that, and, and, and someone gave it away to me. Uh, recently we were talking about, um, just coaching in my own personal coaching development. We were trying to figure out the posture of the coach. What's our role, you know, and why a coach shouldn't give the answer, but always struggles not to write. Like you want to give the answer to something. And it turns out that he or she who finds the answer first gets the dopamine hit. Oh, interesting. You feel good about yourself because you solve the problem. Oh, interesting. You feel good about yourself because you solved the problem. And to put on the coach's mindset is to let the other person have the dopamine hit. Yeah. You don't need to be the hero. I actually, when I did my coaching program, I think that was the most transformative thing for me. And I know we, you and I have talked about this once or twice before. But it was knowing that I didn't have to be that person anymore. I didn't have to shoulder that load because for me it was, it's exhausting, right? It's exhausting having to make the decisions. It's exhausting having to be the one who, you know, has to know the answers to everything. Like, yes, maybe there is a dopamine hit, but it's countered by that the energy expenditure how much energy it takes so um for me the most transformative thing was knowing that i didn't have to have all the answers all i had to do is ask the right questions and and it was the word have to yeah as a coach and but if if you're a manager do you feel like you have to or there's a part of you that feels validated when you when you can and so you want to because if you don't have the answer man let me check it out and leaders define their value yeah by their by their expertise so you'll get promoted to team lead why because you're the best at what you do and the team gets promoted to manager why usually because of their competence their their hard skills not because of their leadership competencies not because of their soft skills but because of their hard skills so they're graded by how good they are at their job and now all of a sudden you're at management level or director level and honestly, sometimes at VP level and sometimes at C-suite level where they're still measuring their worth by their competence. Yeah. And it's not. Goldsmith's book, What Got You Here Won't Get You There. Very similar. You got to level up. You got to let go of the fact that you have to be great at something, especially in tech, when you always have to be up to speed with the newest tech that's coming out. And oftentimes I'll get leaders being promoted to the director level and beyond in tech. And they're told to let go of the continuous learning and focus more on leadership and management. And they're saying, well, once I stop learning, I become irrelevant. Right. So your identity, actually, your whole identity has to change. Right. So if I'm, yeah, if I'm like, you know, my entire career to date, I have been validated, I've been promoted, and I've been, you know, I've been, I've been given accolades for being a technical expert. Now, you're telling me that I'm going to be measured by a whole different set of criteria. Like, that's crazy to me. That's such a crazy shift. Can you tell me about one of the companies that you work with, obviously don't mention any names necessarily, but that you've supported through this transition? Yeah. And that's what I love and hate about what it is that we do. I'm like the most private public figure as in the work I do is, um, I get to work with so many people, but I can't really announce any of the things that I do. So there's not, there's very little documentation. Uh, so listeners and watchers out there, you're just going to have to trust me, but don't whatever. so having said that, I know all the details. Yeah. So, so, so repeat that question with regards to one of my clients. We're talking about the coaching culture. Yeah. How did you help them navigate or, you know, maybe they're navigating because this is not like a one-time deal, right? This is the process between, you know, that technical mindset to that leader mindset that we're talking about and creating the coaching culture through the process. Tell me a story. Once upon a time. Yeah. So I'll preface it with this. Sometimes we build a coaching culture intentionally, transparently, and very tactically. And sometimes I do it inconspicuously. As in, on this side of the spectrum, you've got full buy-in from the CEO all the way down. And the entire organization is going to get a crash course. Like we're talking like super crash course, like nine hours, maybe 12 of like coaching, training and, and, and workshopping over, let's say a two month period. And everyone's kind of speaking the same language. And then from there we'll, we'll use the 70, 20, 10 models. So training workshops.  And then after that, we go to level two, which is group coaching, right? Having mastermind chats of challenges that they might be having. And lastly, individual support. So how do we make sure each person gets to where they need to be? That's on the super fun, amazing side of what we do because you can create an entire program and bring in experienced coaches and mentors guiding these leaders through the process okay but you don't have to be that intentional and invest that much i mean you should but whatever i think you should yeah of course you should uh but you don't have to to still get some of the benefits for instance let's see you're a small company you've got 20 leaders and you decide to provide leadership coaching to each of the 20 leaders without even having the training and the development stuff but they're just going through individual coaching well to be coached is a huge transformational experience yes and as you're being coached, you sort of, it kind of, you, you sponge up some of what's going on. You start not, I won't say imitating, but emulating what the coach is doing with you to then using those same questioning and presence and active listening and all that stuff. You automatically start doing it with someone else without knowing it. Yeah, that's true. all that stuff, you automatically start doing it with someone else without knowing it. Yeah, that's true. So that's kind of where I say it's like, however you want to attack the coaching culture piece, as soon as you start introducing external resources, coaches or facilitators or both, you start having those positive impacts. Yeah. And I would caveat that these are ICF certified coaches or coaches following ICF competencies, the International Coach Federation competencies, because there's lots of people who call themselves coaches out there that don't really follow the same methodology or frameworks. So I think it's, you know, it's not the same kind of leadership that you're going to get from other types of coaches in terms of leading by example. That's the sad thing. Yeah. I believe in coaching so much. I mean, it's what I do. Yeah. But even calling myself a coach, I will do it so sparingly. Yeah, me too. It's kind of like rather than saying I am a coach, I'll say I use coaching as one of my skill sets to achieve the outcome. 100%. Yes. Right. Yeah. And I use that to help differentiate myself just a little bit, just to say that it's not my only focus. Yeah. It's kind of the mindset is there for sure. Yep. But that coaching, when you wear that coaching hat, you know that you're following those ICF competencies. A hundred percent. Yes. A hundred percent. The client doesn't know it, you know that you're following those ICF competencies. A hundred percent. Yes. A hundred percent. The client doesn't know it, you know it. Well, and you can sometimes, if, you know, sometimes I will say, I'm going to put my coaching hat on here, you know, it depends on what they've come to me for. Sometimes they come to me for coaching. So they're expecting more coaching than anything else. Other times they're, you know, they're going to come to me for advisory services, um, or mentorship. And then, you know, sometimes I will just throw on my couching hat every now and then, you know, um, so ICF quiz for you there, which one of the competencies do we need to, to introduce right off the get go to make sure that we're all on the same page? Uh, building a contract. Yeah yeah so setting clear agreements yeah let's coaching what it isn't which hats i can use how these sessions are gonna go um way to go garen what yeah quiz being icf you know absolutely so so if they don't know what coaching is how do you how do you it's like kind of like giving them a card telling them how everything works totally yeah and sometimes my client will come and be like i don't need coach garren today i was like okay yeah i'm like okay which which coach do you know which which version of me do you need they're like i need mentor friend and uh and boss i need the boss sometimes they're just like i just need you to listen to me because i just i just need to let something off my chest today. Totally. Yeah. And that's the agreement. I'm like, fine. So for that moment, I'll just use some of the ICF competencies, which is intimacy, trust, full presence, caring and scrap everything else. And I'll just be there. And if there's an opportunity to coach, I will. And if, and if the person doesn't want or need to be coached that day, then I'll always serve my client before I serve anything else. Yeah. And that's what being a coach really is. That's what following the ICF coaching competencies and the coaching philosophy really is, you know? So at the end of the day, it's extremely client focused or customer focused or, you know, whatever you want to call it. It's like leadership 101. Person focused. Give a give a hoot give a hoot we can say shit on this podcast can we but nothing worse than that when i'm when i meet with people and i'm like it's like a leadership um intro class i'll be like, hmm. Just like the first slide will just be like, give a shit. Yeah. If you don't care about people, just be a manager and just try not to manage people. Just be like a one-person manager managing processes and systems. Okay, yes. Okay, yes, exactly. Don't be a people manager. I was going to say, if you're managing people, you have to care. You have to care about them. I'm sorry. Okay. Yes, exactly.  Don't be a people manager. I was going to say like, if you're managing people, you have to care. Like you have to care about them. I'm sorry. Okay. And do you think we live in a society where a hundred percent of managers care about people? No, I mean, no, but they ought to. Yeah, they ought to. That's why it's the public service announcement. If you don't care, leave. Well, it was, I think it was Margaret Van Amelsvoort, who's a, one of the, one of our amazing coaches and mentors who I worked with in a previous role. And she's from the government of Canada, or was before she retired. And she's the one who told me that people managers should be spending 50% of their time managing people. And I was like, okay. And I, you know what, I started using that in conversations because I was in business development. And I thought this was like, you know, management slash leadership 101, that you should be spending a lot of time, the majority of, or at least half of your time, actually actively managing, supporting, serving, guiding, teaching, mentoring your people, right? Directing sometimes, whatever, all of those things. And I was shocked to hear that that was actually like almost universally untrue in the people that I spoke with. Right. And what do we call those? I call them, I'm so mean. I do it with a smile. So I'll talk to leaders who are just like very hands-on. Yeah. And, you know, they're having like a bilat, like one-on-one, like once a month or every two months. And I said, yeah, yeah.  Oh, yeah. There are some that have like four know or one-on-ones a year anyway i say and then i i talked to him about how they got promoted and how competency becomes key and how trust and all that stuff happens yada yada but i say is it not possible that you're just a truly high functioning individual contributor that has more responsibilities than others totally and they're like fuck i think that's it yeah and it happens a lot so building a coaching culture is getting them to think differently it's the horizontal versus vertical development isn't it so what you know versus how you think so context versus skill yeah for sure yeah context and that's the thing it's like context the vertical development can only be achieved through um through gaining knowledge and in the systems like so the system systemic knowledge and your systemic knowledge can only be gained really through people you know um It's the best way to learn. It's the best way to learn, build context within an organization. I know there are certain companies now, it's kind of a movement, I think, out of the IT sector in the United States, where they're starting to build talent management ecosystems where the specialist can make as much money as a manager, like a technical expert can make as much money as a manager without having to be a manager. So it used to be like, if you wanted to break the glass ceiling or whatever, in terms of, you know, your, your compensation, you would have to become a manager. That's starting to no longer be the case now, which is really smart. Do you feel that there's going to be um a decline in people wanting to go into management i would assume so yeah i think there are a lot of people that just don't want to be managers but they want to make more money for sure and you and you ask those people like why are you doing this and if you dig enough money money money's there, but you're like, okay, so you've gone into a leadership role. You, you don't feel like you have natural leadership competencies. You don't feel like you have natural leadership traits, skills, and all of those characteristics, but it comes with the money. from the very core into becoming a leader, the organizations kind of like, you know, sponsoring this, like we believe in this person. I'm like, dude, you're so far from where you want to be. Why do you want to do this? And eventually they're like, I just wish I can just focus on like, and they're very like technically skilled people. Like, why are you doing this? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So can we, can we even, is it, is it worthless to try to create a coaching culture or to transform someone from a technical expert to like a real leader without desire? Is that even remotely possible without desire, without desire? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. So a little plug here. So my A7 model. Right. So I follow literally seven words with that start with the letter A. And it used to be A5 for the record, right? Oh yeah, it's A7. I had to add the seventh one, the seven, because I had, I'll get to it. So the first one was awareness, which, and they're all interchangeable, of course, but awareness, I now know. But attitude, that's the second piece. And attitude could be like our positioning our posture but also our desire so if if you learn something like aka 99.99 percent of horrible bosses don't know it zero percent of people come to me like garen help i suck said no one right and those who need it the most want it the least. I'll say that again. If anyone's listening, those who need coaching the most want it the least. For sure. If you want to know who needs coaching, watch anyone who's resisting or turning their backs to it. Almost every leader who comes to me to get coaching for their team. And I'm like, are you taking coaching? No, I don't need it right i'll bet you what your red flag which percentage of your clients that like keep wanting more and more and more and you're like dude i wish you were my leader like like you don't need more coaching they're like i want to be better i was like i love you no we need to get you a more important job then you need to have more influence so you can share this with the world yeah exactly that yeah yeah i lost your first question hang on i think my question that you didn't answer from like 30 minutes ago was to give me an example of a company that you worked with okay so um the best example that i'll tell you is you go into an organization and from the very top, you get the buy-in. From the very top, you've got, and this happened more than once, in different sectors where, you know, one or more member of the C-suite shows up before I talk and they do the intro.  And they tell you why coaching is so important and they tell you how coaching changed their lives and they tell you how coaching helped them get to the c-suite and then they're like and ladies and gentlemen garen i was like sweet that's the best intro ever and we're talking like sometimes multinationals sometimes you know billion dollar corporations and that guy's introducing coaching and you're like, maybe I shouldn't have worn the Hawaiian shirt today. But that's the idea. So you get the full buy in. And just with that, you ask me the sorry and the part I'm going to connect it with. You ask me if if there's no desire, can you get it? Oh, yeah. And the second in a7 is the attitude well when you get your bosses bosses bosses bosses boss who runs the company come up and telling you who you know your manager and the c-suites coming up to you and saying this is important how do you think that impacts your awareness and your attitude oh yeah you sit up you look around you pay attention and yeah their endorsements everything yeah so the ceo or the c-suite showed up and and told you this is important yeah they literally start sitting more straight in their chairs their computers get closed their phones are tucked away they grab their pens they take the caps off their body language changes for the duration of the program so you know it's like it's not even just building a coaching culture i think you're talking about culture period when it's endorsed from the very top yeah everyone follows but if it's a do as i say not as i do as i yeah do as i say not as i do, as I, yeah, do as I say, not as I do, all of a sudden our message becomes not as important because the big boss ain't doing it. Yeah. So what do we do in a case where the boss kind of sucks and won't endorse, you know, they won't endorse it. The CEO, the top person won't endorse something that you believe is really important in culture changing. Yeah. Are you asking me how my sales pitches go i mean if you want to go there i i i'm i'm so brutal like i wouldn't hire me but they weren't going to hire me anyways so i'll just call out what i see in the moment right yeah i'll literally call them out i'll say you're a do as i say not as i do kind of guy you don't want this for yourself you're asking me what i can do for your organization i kind of feel like it's like going to a dentist and saying what can you do for me like you don't do that right and i'll never go into a meeting selling code you've seen me aaron i don't sell you don't want it i don't care why would i want to sell something to. You don't want it. I don't care. Why would I want to sell something to someone who doesn't want it? Yeah. Why? Trust me. It ain't for the money. There's nothing worse than showing up and having to earn your keep for something someone doesn't want. So even if you're charging almost nothing, they still won't see the value in it. Of course. Yeah.  So so so that's how my sales pitches go what if you were talking to like a director who really wanted it you know so they really want it they have a budget but they know that their ceo is never gonna come down and talk you know like you know they're they know that the ceo won't endorse it or whatever um but they will. And they're passionate about it. How do you feel about that? That happens at least, I want to say 50% of the time. Yeah. And what I say to that is, it's the ripple effect. If you can infiltrate an organization with one department, that's the subculture piece. What if we can make this department kick ass so much that the entire organization looks and says, what are they doing? Right. So I, I like that one. It's kind of like, um, like, like infiltrating. It's very tactical. I'm like, watch us transform this department. Watch us transform this team. Watch us transform the leadership within this team and If you can if you can get enough of buying and the results that you're looking for there You know within the organization. It's kind of like a vaccine and you know Any anti-vaxxers there, you know, it's like it's like the the the coaching the the coaching vaccine how's that yeah but that's the idea it's yes yes so what do you do with that you let them know that you can impact an organization as high as the glass ceiling is and that often happens um i work with many organizations where you know the slt the senior leadership will okay a budget for this kind of stuff yeah and then you'll have one or two leaders will opt for it and they make it very like it's not for everyone very small budgets huge companies tiny budgets and you can only work with like senior directors or vps of like this massive organization like seriously that's your budget you have a three thousand dollar budget for this year to help leaders grow sure um so you help this one leader and your job as a coach is to help this leader so much Your job as a coach is to help this leader so much that it transforms the reality. Yes. Your job is to just be the best darn coach you can be. And I'll tell you what happens is that that one leader goes back and tells their friends of what coaching did. And then a few months later, I'll get a call back from HR saying, we got another one and another one and another one. And so that first leader grows to three, four, five, six leaders within an organization working with. It takes time.  Like there are some organizations I've been with for several years and you know, words getting around and it takes super long, but I, I like to believe that over time with small incremental, you know, impacts, you're going to get to a point where you'll be like, why aren't we doing this for everyone? There absolutely will be a time. How do you, um, how do you influence the, you know, your, you know, your primary contact in terms of like how um how they can or how you could potentially support them in building a coaching culture not just coaching individuals um i think there are opportunities and conversations to talk about there are opportunities and conversations to talk about like sparks moments of magic where you can be like see what we did here what if we had more of that and and you know it rarely has to come from me it's usually them saying i wish we can just do this with the whole organization. I'll get the HR. I've had more than one HR director come to me and be like, please talk to my CEO. He's a monster.  And I'll say he because they were all he's. But they're like, please help. Please come and speak your truth. And honestly, I've had 0% success when the HR rep is calling SOS and I got to come in and do a sales pitch for that. It won't work. But what it means is that those who have the awareness and the desire, you don't need to sell to them. You're already, it's kind of like saying I have a cavity. It's like the dentist hasn't, doesn't have to sell you his services or their services. It just seems like, would you like me to solve your toothache?  Um, and so I rarely go in and say, uh, in saying that these might be some pain points and these are some things I can solve for you. I feel like the awareness is already there societally. I feel like coaching has exploded since 2018, 2019. And if you're great at what you do in the organizations, awake enough and internally value it enough to allocate some money to it and time and energy and advocate um become ambassadors of that positive change then okay i don't really have to do more than that so the grassroots culture change it sounds like is probably the most effective then yeah yeah yeah grassroots ideas especially if you have that glass ceiling that you're talking about yeah yeah yes yeah it may have to be but correct me if i'm wrong i feel like there's been such a huge burst with regards to culture in organizations with regards to toxic management with regards to coaching and its positive impacts the human side of of business and how it impacts the results positively i like to believe that most ce CEOs are well aware of coaching and it's possible and it's positive outcomes. I just don't know if I remember the part where I said those who wanted, wanted the least needed the most. Yeah. It's about the, it's the self-awareness piece. I think CEOs, if you're listening, I don't think you understand yourself and your organization well enough. Sometimes, especially when what you think, but what other people say are two different things. Yeah. So I'll, I'll talk to the CEO and the, and it's, it's about external self-awareness. So internal self-awareness, how well I understand myself external, how well I understand how other people perceive me. Right. So both awarenesses I think might be off so the ceo might think we don't have a problem or at least not not a deeply rooted one and so we might think it might have to be topical it might be an ego thing it might be the survival i think in a lot of cases was that i think it's i think it's survival in a lot of cases you know survival of the ego survival of the company um you know a lot of people especially ceos don't really want to admit what's really going on under the hood because that means that they have to acknowledge it um and then probably take some kind of action towards it so yeah aren't we now coming close to um we've had this chat about umism, validation, I'm good enough. But if I'm a CEO, and I have to admit that I'm flawed, or I'm not perfect, what happened? Yeah. It's like, it's coming really close to imposter syndrome. But this is exactly what a coaching culture helps deconstruct, right? It helps us feel safe to learn, my God, like we are whole people. We are each perfectly imperfect, right? And, you know, I think having a coaching culture just helps us really understand that like, I'm whole, or I could be, you are too, right? And what are we going to do together now, now that we've established that we're both imperfect, you know, how do we move forward? Uh, I, I saw, I saw a celebrity wear a t-shirt. I like, I just said flawed human. Right. And, um, I had told you, I went through like two years of rehab of, uh, like I was like, I was a perfectionist and it was ruining my life. And, um, I'm not, I'm not cured, but, uh, I'm, I'm now accepting and being very okay with the fact that not only am I not perfect, but I'm now accepting and being very okay with the fact that not only am I not perfect but I'm like extremely flawed and it's liberating so it's like I teach public speaking right and they're like how do you do how do you prep for like an eight hour monologue you know right I'm like you can't really you can't so so how do you do it and I get on stage and whether I say it or not, I think my opening line is and always will be, I stand before you a flawed human being. I'm imperfect and hopefully perfectly imperfect. And I hope that that gives you the permission to allow yourself to be imperfect with me. Yeah. Now we begin. i don't you know there's there's there's two foundational pieces that helped me through that i know we're going i swear we're not going too off off road here one um the more i learned the more i realized i don't know much i know nothing at all i believe is your quote yeah and what's the second one realize I don't know much. I know nothing at all, I believe is your quote. Yeah. And what's the second one? It's don't believe everything you think. Oh, 100%. Right. Which is great, because now my brain's not always my friend. Sometimes it's my foe. So even when I'm on stage and I'm the subject matter expert, I'll literally show up and be like, whatever's on my slides, it's what I know now. I might be wrong tomorrow. So challenge me. If you find a hole in it, let's talk about it. And I'm not going to say I'm right. I'm just going to be, maybe. And the word maybe has gone, it's just so liberating so imagine if you're a ceo and you're saying this is what i know now what don't i know the awareness the first a it's what don't i know and accepting the reality that there's a lot of stuff you don't know there's a lot of stuff you probably suck at and just by admitting to it is very liberating and the world is have a work transforming so quickly that it's impossible anyway. So stop trying. I can't keep up. No, it's like I make myself every time I, I'm like, this is how it is. The next day I'm a liar. I swear to God. Exactly. So I'm right until I'm wrong. Yeah.  So coming back to the CEO, imposter syndrome, insecurity might come in. Ego might comeoster syndrome uh insecurity might come in ego might come in survival might come in um perfectionism might come in results over people might come in um it's rarely a money thing when you when you look at the investment for establishing a coaching culture if i mean i don't want to throw numbers but it's really not that expensive. If your company is generating $100 million and all you have to do is invest $100,000 for like a year worth of training for like, I don't know, 100 people. Yeah. Right. What's the price per head? A thousand bucks. Try going to university and studying. Try going anywhere to study. It's like every certificate is like five to 10 grand now. Totally. Well, and what this does, yeah. And what this does, like creating this coach mindset is creating, really is creating that beginner mindset, that growth mindset that you're looking for. So that people will learn how to learn faster, you know? Anyways, I think this has been a phenomenal conversation uh thank you very much sir for joining me uh us perfectly imperfect beings uh and i was thinking about when you said um imperfect human on a t-shirt i was like can't we just sum that up to like human we can just simplify that to human yeah yes yes uh the the misconception is that humans can be perfect which is quite egotistical i like to do a quick plug though yeah there's a movie okay i love because you said beginner's mindset yes and the movie is about getting to like black belt or perceived mastery. Okay. Realizing that true mastery, you need to that whole unlearning thing and coming back to white belt, that beginner's mindset. And the movie is Jet Li's fearless. Okay. So well done. I need to watch it. Watch what happens when Jet Li becomes the master, but then when he falls to true mastery, it's, it's amazing. And honestly, I like to, I base a lot of what I do, hoping to get to that tabula rasa, the blank sleep. Beautiful. I'm not there yet. Maybe someday. Thanks Erin. Thanks Garen. maybe someday Thanks Erin Thanks Garen Don't forget to stay weird stay wonderful and don't stay out of trouble!

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