Traci Scherck: Welcome to talent optimization today we are chatting about what is a coaching culture and what does coaching look like and I have with me a very dear friend, a fellow predictive index consultant, at least we went through a training together.

Traci Scherck: A fellow certified coach through ICF and so welcome Donna star to the show, and what I so love about Donna, is how she takes her 30 years of experience in corporate weaves it into.

Traci Scherck: What happens day to day to really elevate individuals and organizations in a way that everyone succeeds Donna welcome.

Donna Star: i’m so happy to be here, and you know you’re one of my favorite people that i’ve met on my coaching journey, because we met it what three years ago.

Traci Scherck: yeah yep.

Traci Scherck: yep we met at launch through predictive index both trying to figure out what are we doing and then covid hit and then we really said, what are we doing.

Donna Star: We met in a breakout room.

Traci Scherck: We did we.

Donna Star: got should that be the title of the book, we met in a breakout room.

Donna Star: Yes, talk about the coven culture we met.

Traci Scherck: We we met in a breakout room, but we didn’t break up, we got together.

Traci Scherck: To have a really great friendship.

Donna Star: Oh no it’s been great it’s been great.

Traci Scherck: And so, one of the things I love about you Donna, is, I will just send you a text and be like what do you think about this or hey this crazy thing just happened and you’ll do the same and it’s something that I absolutely love because we’ve created something that is both positive.

Traci Scherck: there’s a place in a space to be who we are, but also to elevate each other, and so, and I know you you coach on this all the time with individuals inside of organizations.

Traci Scherck: But this thing about a coaching culture it doesn’t happen overnight and it’s very intentional, so what is a coaching culture.

Donna Star: yeah I think it’s a good question and I really like the way that you, you and I communicate right because That to me is the basis of a coaching culture.

Donna Star: So when I think.

Traci Scherck: of how do we communicate.

Donna Star: it’s open it’s honest it’s authentic it’s um I don’t feel like I have to be a certain way for you and you don’t feel like you, you can just be yourself people always talk about psychological safety as the main way that employees are their most productive and safe and that makes.

Donna Star: sense to me, but I also think psychological safety is a buzzword that people like I might throw that out, I don’t even know what that means I mean of course people know what it means, but it just feels a little lock D to me.

Donna Star: And so i’m sorry for all the people that might be listening and may disagree with me but.

Donna Star: I worked in corporate for 30 years and I believe the coaching culture is one that is willing to take a hard look at themselves.

Donna Star: and realize that what they do, as a business doesn’t necessarily always support their employees and their personal growth their professional growth and personal growth when done correctly together, you get the best outcome.

Traci Scherck: mm hmm.

Donna Star: And I think professional development me know if i’m going on to one but professional development, making you better in your job, but not making you better as a human is never going to have the right, the best possible outcome.

Traci Scherck: Is the same pot of soup.

Traci Scherck: Right now, it really is, you know, because who you bring to work is the same pool that you bring home.

Traci Scherck: And that being this right like how we are being in every situation has a huge impact and actually before you and I kind of got on we we just had a quick chat about.

Traci Scherck: Both of us kind of feeling like at very, very short fuse because of a number of different things that are going on, both personally and professionally right.

Traci Scherck: And you know that you know when there was no fuse left it’s really easy to kind of go off on something that you wouldn’t normally do.

Traci Scherck: And there’s a number of different strains that are happening in all of our lives, right now, and if there’s a tremendous amount of stress at work and it doesn’t have to be negative stress right like stress is not necessarily a negative thing when it’s used in the right way.

Donna Star: Well, just to pull.

Traci Scherck: yeah, but when you have too much of it and that goes home with you, it has negative effects there, and vice versa.

Donna Star: And right now people’s work is home.

Donna Star: You know.

Donna Star: You know, so when we think about all the women that have left the workforce, all the people that have left the workforce.

Donna Star: The reason I think we’re talking about coaching cultures and we’re having more intense conversations about what employers need to do differently.

Donna Star: Is because that business as usual, is no longer business as usual because business on a face value has changed remote hybrid in what whatever.

Donna Star: Work from home, how do you create teams and collegiality you’re on zoom so a coaching culture is just as important as just a company culture you can’t have a coaching culture if it fights with a company culture, it has to be entered into the culture.

Donna Star: Apps and that has to be.

Donna Star: You know, a manufacturing environments and i’ve never thought about this till this moment is just in time, you know manufacturing or quality whatever whatever you want to say that’s the same with coaching cultures in the moment how are we supporting our employees.

Donna Star: No blame game lack of judgment.

Donna Star: yeah so hard to do when you’re stressed right.

Traci Scherck: yeah absolutely and what’s so interesting as I just spent the last three days doing an onsite with an amazing client of mine.

Traci Scherck: And we went through if you’re familiar with predictive index to drive results with talent, which is a two day course and really the this personal and professional development, training.

Traci Scherck: of understanding yourself and MPs if you’re interested in what is your profile, you know it’s in the show notes, you can go ahead and get it there.

Traci Scherck: And we can have another conversation about it because it’s fun, but with that, so we had this entire three day training of Who are they as a team who are they as an individual, and this is a startup organization that is just launching a manufacturing environment.

Traci Scherck: And so much of what came out of that is.

Traci Scherck: HR is so refreshing here than what we’ve seen previously in our other organizations, because you truly care about the people.

Traci Scherck: That were in the right seat and that we’re getting the business results.

Traci Scherck: And that was something where you know we’re not talking about culture and culture there, but we just embedded it same as what you talked about earlier with psychological safety right it’s like.

Traci Scherck: there’s all these things we’re talking about now that we never had a talk about 20 years ago, because it was just it was just there.

Traci Scherck: And now it’s like.

Traci Scherck: Oh geez you know we have this coaching culture, and we have the psychological safety and I get a gold star for it it’s like well.

Traci Scherck: Why isn’t it they’re like, why is this even a question.

Donna Star: I mean we asked that a lot right, I mean.

Donna Star: I have so much to say about this topic and I want to start with staffing like just of staffing.

Donna Star: Most of my background was at recruiting advertising software.

Donna Star: And so I was always working with companies on hiring strategies.

Donna Star: yeah and I think the whole idea of stack ranking and just the way we look at employees as A player’s B players C players.

Donna Star: I think we have to re evaluate that if we brought on an employee, that there is some responsibility to the company to ensure success, at least in the first six to 12 months right.

Donna Star: And maybe during covid even a little bit longer since the connection isn’t there.

Traci Scherck: Right.

Donna Star: And then I think we look at retaining employees onboarding employees, they are touch points at every single.

Donna Star: phase of the candidates life that we need to be eyes on not just when they’re leaving not just when they’re coming, but like mid like they are there should, I think a coaching culture needs to look at every point of intersection of an of a candidate and an employee.

Donna Star: yeah and I think.

Donna Star: yeah and I don’t I think the tension points we spend too much time on the wrong tension points.

Traci Scherck: Right and guess what we will find what we’re looking for we’re looking for those positive things we’re going to find it when we’re looking for those negative things we’re going to find it right.

Traci Scherck: And I think that that goes into as you create a coaching culture so much of it comes down to are you creating the space for the individual.

Traci Scherck: You know, to really be successful, but some of that comes down to the questions that you asked so you know.

Traci Scherck: I know you can’t see this because we’re on a podcast, but I have a plate that sits on a desk behind me that says, I wonder what’s on their plate that I don’t yet know about.

Traci Scherck: And that’s really looking at, you know that curiosity to say you know what if something’s not going right there’s probably a reason for it and am I curious enough to get to know that and slow down enough to figure that out, so that I can really support them to be their best.

Donna Star: yeah i’d like I love that question, I think a coaching culture is also, I want to slow it down and just talk about the difference between mentoring and coaching a little bit.

Donna Star: A lot of companies think they have a coaching culture of this is okay, just to bring up because.

Donna Star: My mentors.

Donna Star: I mentioned once yeah go ahead, sorry.

Traci Scherck: yeah and what’s interesting So if you for podcast listeners, you will know that the whole month of January we focused on mentoring and I actually did.

Traci Scherck: A mentoring podcast on you know high potential mentoring programs and our thoughts on that, and what that potentially means we put people into boxes and that one actually dropped on January 20.

Traci Scherck: And then we actually brought on an employment law attorney about the mentoring programs, and what that looks like and that one dropped on January 27.

Traci Scherck: So you know I love to hear your take on that distinction between coaching and mentoring so For those of you that have been listening, or if you haven’t if you want to go back this is such a fun touch point because we’ve been weaving this needle all throughout 2022.

Donna Star: Because I do hear people say using the term alternate i’ll.

Donna Star: You know, alternating between terms and when, in fact, when I went to my coaching program and I know you did too.

Donna Star: I was like oh have been coaching people for 30 years nope I wasn’t In fact I was mentoring them.

Traci Scherck: yeah.

Donna Star: I was supporting them, but I was not in fact coaching them so mentoring is I have more expertise in a certain topic or i’m a company expert and I, you are assigned to me and i’m going to help you navigate the world of work or your position or your.

Donna Star: future developments so just to make it real.

Donna Star: coaching is i’m invested in you outside of your professional development, and that may be part of it, and your personal development.

Donna Star: I am coaching what is going on with you at the moment, now we can set up goals, but that is not mentoring, because in mentoring, I have the answers as a mentor in coaching the person on coaching has the answers.

Donna Star: My job is to help facilitate so to get back to your amazing question.

Donna Star: A great coach asked the right questions, a great coaching culture, asked the right questions.

Donna Star: Then I get the answers.

Traci Scherck: Correct they don’t give the answers, but they also do not embed negativity into the question, so let me give you an example.

Donna Star: Yes.

Traci Scherck: He Donna, how are you holding up today.

Donna Star: yeah.

Donna Star: So that has every person that has an implicit like something’s wrong.

Traci Scherck: yeah exactly versus hey Donna, you know how are things going.

Donna Star: Right yeah hey why don’t we just rough you know.

Donna Star: yeah well I think people are really looking at from the managers and leadership and their co workers is caring.

Donna Star: I am more than just the person behind the screen, so I agree that the questions you asked you have to be really careful and in coaching we call those open ended questions right.

Donna Star: And we also have to watch out for our tone and make sure that we’re not leading.

Traci Scherck: Yes, absolutely.

Donna Star: yeah so I you’re right questions are the heart of coaching.

Donna Star: curiosity curiosity actually is the heart of coaching.

Traci Scherck: yeah and in a way we’ve just tiptoed into how to implement a coaching culture so So how do you implement that and I know you work with individuals on this, you know, on a daily basis.

Donna Star: I do, and you know I also work for coaching companies and so come some companies just in.

Donna Star: They believe in a coaching culture, they bring coaches in for their exact they bring coaches in for high potential people you know, for, and so that to me, is a coaching culture that believes in embedding coaches into the into the.

Donna Star: Environment but short of a company making that sort of investment to bring in coaches at every stage, because that is costly is train your managers.

Donna Star: To ask empowering questions like the questions that you asked it doesn’t mean you have to bring in a coach to have a coaching culture, it means that you have to have a transparent, open.

Donna Star: Culture where you’re asking your employees open ended curious questions and that there is no backlash for that you know I mean.

Donna Star: People talk about bringing their whole self to work is that really true can they really bring their whole selves to work.

Donna Star: Can they tell you that you know their two year old has covid and there’s some you know what where is your line of empathy because really a great coaching culture is empathetic right.

Traci Scherck: Right, and you know there’s some circumstances where it’s like it doesn’t matter when you do your work and what we also know is if there’s something going on at home.

Traci Scherck: You are not really going to be able to be focused at work, and you know, one of the podcasts that we’ve had.

Traci Scherck: Is Jason lawrenson on the show and I don’t remember what number that was but we’ll link to it in the show notes, but one of the key things we talked about there is.

Traci Scherck: If there really is something going on at home going through divorce there’s whatever happening at home Colvin or whatever right there’s nothing to optimize about that person, because their tank is empty.

Traci Scherck: And, and you can really find that through that coaching culture and create some different opportunities of.

Traci Scherck: How do we support, because sometimes it is that that psychological and mental support to say look go take the afternoon don’t go do whatever those meetings are that you need to do.

Traci Scherck: And so that the mind is off of that sometimes it takes here’s three resources to call so that they don’t have to go ahead and and add that on to the list of the 772 things that are already there.

Donna Star: yeah so I have one just real live example my daughter happens to work in an amazing company and she you know you and I talked about some of our difficulties personally that we were having why our tanks are a little bit empty and.

Donna Star: my daughter flew home and she works for literally an amazing company their name is called, can I say the name of their company on purpose.

Donna Star: So favorite social impact.

Traci Scherck: I love it yeah.

Donna Star: And they live their mission, and you can tell that so she had found out both of her parents grandparents had cancer, the same day.

Donna Star: Very close to them.

Donna Star: And she has to have her wisdom teeth out and she doesn’t live here, and she was in pain.

Donna Star: So she just was triple whammy.

Donna Star: Right she just could not function to your point about work.

Donna Star: And so her boss, they finally did a catch up on Friday.

Donna Star: And she’s know sometimes Hannah there are just days when your personal life just has to trump.

Donna Star: Your actual and we believe in that fully and just just take the time off yeah just take the time you need and then today they sent yesterday they sent her flowers, no, no company send flowers, but they wrote her the most beautiful heartfelt note.

Donna Star: And you know the company with a name purpose social impact they live their values, so I would.

Donna Star: challenge any company that’s listening.

Donna Star: Some people just say oh yeah we were we do that.

Donna Star: Right, you really do not like ask yourself, some of the tough questions.

Traci Scherck: Right, you really do that.

Donna Star: To really do that because, in order to have a coaching culture you just have to be real with yourself.

Traci Scherck: Right.

Donna Star: You have to be real with you how you implement your policies and your strategies.

Traci Scherck: yeah you know, one of the participants in my workshop yesterday, she said she goes, you know and i’m not mentioning their name just because I.

Donna Star: wasn’t sure if I should um yeah, no, no, I just don’t have their permission yet.

Traci Scherck: But they will be on the podcast at some point in time.

Traci Scherck: But one of the participants gabby said yesterday, she was you know here’s what we need to ensure we have the best culture here at xyz company in it, is that we have to have empathy and we just have to be nice to each other if we do that.

Everything the rest.

Donna Star: Of the rest takes care of itself.

Donna Star: I think we overcomplicate things it’s not, this was not implementing software.

Donna Star: that everybody has to be trained on this is a total trickle down trickle across effect.

Donna Star: yeah kindness matters I talked about it in almost all my coaching sessions yeah fight fire with kindness yeah.

Donna Star: For sure, a lot of when I went to my coach training program and I found out about i’m a core energy coach so we talked about levels of energy Level two is.

Donna Star: very common in corporate America, which is, I when you lose.

Donna Star: You know it’s like.

Donna Star: us against them.

Donna Star: And I felt that you know between departments, you know creative doesn’t always get along with account service and.

Donna Star: But I never looked at another well, I may have, but when I heard that language I was like Okay, there are always these dynamics.

Donna Star: Do we ever look at them and say how do we look at the situation differently.

Donna Star: And I think that is the heart of a coaching culture is that you’re willing to.

Donna Star: look at things differently you’re not looking at the status quo, I don’t know if you agree with that, but that feels.

Traci Scherck: Right and I do agree with that, because there’s a number of different ways to look at things and, at the end of the day, it’s like there’s two key things that matter, and that is, you know, did we follow through to do what we said we were going to do.

Traci Scherck: You know and have we left both ourselves and the individuals we came in contact with whole and complete.

Donna Star: You know, once you put that out there that’s simply no I mean if if companies have scorecards and a lot to if you just measure yourself on those two pieces you’ll know whether you have a coaching culture right.

Traci Scherck: Because the you know all through proper filter for me, one of the lines that I heard over and over and over again, is so and so’s leaving people in their wake so and so’s leaving people in their way like that means you’re not leaving people whole and complete.

Traci Scherck: culture.

Donna Star: yeah I one of my things when I worked in corporate was when people left, and I know we harder to do now not really is, let them leave with as much kindness as possible, let them this whole idea of walking employees out I get that right, with competitive nature.

Donna Star: Right I get some companies do that.

Donna Star: But if they are going to stay.

Donna Star: make them feel welcome make them feel like your support their decision to leave the company and leave the door open.

Donna Star: Employees I happen to believe fully in boomerang employees.

Traci Scherck: Now, and it’s huge and it’s like, how do we create happy alumni.

Traci Scherck: You know in in the conversation I was having with this company as we’re sitting around the table and chatting and there’s I don’t know how many of us, there were 1213 um.

Traci Scherck: You know, and I said, what is the highlight of your career and the CEO looks at me and said, you know highlight of my career is that I can.

Traci Scherck: run across individuals that I mentored 40 years ago and see them running you know multi million billion dollar companies and know that I mentored them up.

Traci Scherck: And you know more than half the people around the room were individuals that he’s worked with two or three times over the course of his career and that was the same for destroy every single director around that table.

Traci Scherck: And that idea of creating happy alumni in the organization and what are those core values that are the personal core values that truly align with organizational core values, you know and predictive index feat, we call that words the heart, you know do.

Traci Scherck: We have alignment between the individual and organizational core values or you have a heart now true.

Donna Star: yeah and we talked a lot about coaching alignment all the time right your cultures are you hiring people that match your yeah your values or actually what I say to my clients who are generally trying to decide where they want to do next, you get to choose where you work next yeah.

Traci Scherck: And it is always a choice.

Donna Star: It is always a choice, but some people don’t look at it that way you have a choice to stay at your company, by the way.

Donna Star: Notwithstanding that people have financial hardship out there, I don’t want to sound very privileged here, but there are always choices and the decision that we make.

Donna Star: So I don’t want to sound privilege, but I, I do think there’s a lot more choice than people realize out there absolutely absolutely.

Traci Scherck: So how do you measure the coaching culture.

Donna Star: Well, I think it would be difficult right now to measure it based on retention right because we’re in the middle of great resignation.

Donna Star: Maybe, hopefully, towards the end but I don’t know where we are exactly in this great resignation, but I do think retention in general is a good barometer.

Donna Star: Performance improvement, so what I do with my clients and my corporate clients is we set our goals in advance so much like a client has a company might have a scorecard let’s have a scorecard for our coaching culture, what are we measuring ourselves on.

Donna Star: And if retention is one of them or improved production or happier clients with pulse surveys, do we feel an increase in being in a supportive environment that’s a great way to measure response and I think pulse surveys are so easy to do.

Donna Star: This to one question you know one or two questions every quarter every month, however else you want to do it, but people, you will feel the more positive energy and coaching culture, you will feel that tension.

Donna Star: And people don’t understand coaching until they actually experienced it I don’t know how you feel about that, but a lot of my clients that I coach to like I didn’t really understand what coaching was.

Traci Scherck: And it’s interesting because the podcasts that will drop next week after this one drops.

Traci Scherck: Really, or maybe it was one before I don’t know, but one of them really talks about the importance of experiencing that coaching culture, and what that really means.

Donna Star: Right and so that’s why I think if you put some benchmarks out there, because we are companies, and we do want some benchmarking.

Donna Star: I think you can very easily assess what a coaching culture success is because you’re generally going to have happier more supported.

Donna Star: Employees who feel that they are able to use their voice I find a lot of employees and I just was on the phone with one earlier today a client.

Donna Star: Who really didn’t feel comfortable speaking up now that’s much more about.

Donna Star: The way that person shows up and there’s some work for us to do there, but if you see an employee who generally is not very vocal and you see them starting to speak up more you’ll see a difference, so it will manifest in many different ways.

Traci Scherck: Right and if you use people data tools so, for example, predictive index is a great people that a tool and.

Traci Scherck: there’s two key tools within that and one is there’s in the behavioral assessment there’s The self which is who you are in the concept which is.

Traci Scherck: Essentially, how have I been structured poll to behave.

Traci Scherck: Based on my environment in the last 30 60 90 days and there’s a drive this really the communication drive so For those of you familiar with PI it’s the the drive, but this communication drive.

Traci Scherck: That, if it is naturally high and that communication drive all the sudden goes down significantly um.

Traci Scherck: You know guess what that means there’s probably an environment where that individual feels like they can no longer talk in name things that are important, meaning they’re not contributing, and that was some of the biggest highs and you know.

Traci Scherck: I love about our that I did this week is you know when when those you know very active vocal communicators stop talking.

Traci Scherck: You know you’ve got big problems in your organization and the other way that we look at that is through our.

Traci Scherck: Our climate survey is i’m getting ready to send out another one to an almost thousand person employer today.

Traci Scherck: And you know those climate surveys, we can look at them over time, like we’ve been doing this for this organization we’re going on our fourth year.

Traci Scherck: And every semester we do this, you know, and we can really see where the trends are where the trends with managers, where the trends, you know, in the different locations and so Those are some really good way is to see how are we doing, and not just in coaching culture, but in a number of.

Donna Star: You know yeah number I love that because the self concept is probably.

Donna Star: I really liked that idea, because I know like I saw my self concept stretched and now I know it’s much more condensed because.

Donna Star: i’m much more aligned now.

Donna Star: So I love that idea, regardless of those surveys, which I think are amazing you still there is some amount of training that I think would have to go on with.

Donna Star: Managers just to what do you think about yeah I mean this doesn’t happen, I mean there has to be some I think some discussion and.

Traci Scherck: Unfortunately there’s no magic wand poof.

Traci Scherck: it’s done over.

Donna Star: You know magical and.

Donna Star: Like We know from our corporate lives Tracy that it can be done.

Traci Scherck: Absolutely, and it can be done incredibly incredibly effectively.

Traci Scherck: So Donna i’m super curious.

Traci Scherck: What is one key takeaway from our conversation today about a coaching culture that you think is important for our executives and CEOs listening.

Donna Star: I think a key takeaway from me is Do you understand what a coaching culture is, and I think you know and are you asking yourself the right questions and how committed, are you to making this happen.

For your company.

Traci Scherck: Absolutely and what’s the takeaway for our human resources practitioners and listeners.

Donna Star: I think that HR people are stretched more than they ever have been before, so I want to acknowledge that we are living in an unprecedented times so.

Donna Star: I would like to say that I support HR more than I ever have.

Donna Star: Especially if you’re a generalist and you’re asked to do more, that this doesn’t rest on HR shoulders this rest on the whole company shoulders.

Donna Star: So that is one thing, maybe that’s not what you expected, but I think that.

Traci Scherck: yeah I think that’s great and you actually just did something that I think is really important, in a coaching culture, and that is showing gratitude.

Donna Star: yeah and gratitude is I just.

Donna Star: I do character strengths, with a lot of my clients it’s you know you know it’s just a fun thing to do, and their data behind.

Donna Star: character strengths and it’s free on the be a strength Finder is and you might want to put that in the notes even yeah.

Donna Star: yeah it’s not ti so it doesn’t just a fun thing or new personalities is gratitude as high level of gratitude has.

Donna Star: It almost the highest benefit to any of the other personality traits so i’m glad you brought that up.

Donna Star: Back to HR I think HR his role at the table is to call things out that they believe you know that is hrs role is the professional and personal development of the workforce.

Donna Star: So while it isn’t their responsibility to execute and implement and be responsible for every facet, it is, I feel partially they’re responsible to bring up when they see the gaps yeah.

Traci Scherck: Absolutely well Donna Thank you so much for being on the podcast today and we will link the via strength finders because that is an amazing it’s not via strength finders I said that wrong so.

Donna Star: What is it to be a strength Finder and there is a freestyle very right on the homepage and I.

Donna Star: See, I just want to thank you and tell you that I.

Donna Star: have seen known you for three years now, and I admire you inspire me and you are continuous learning and you’re wanting to always move the ball forward always inspires me and how fair and authentic you are so I appreciate you and what you do for so many.

Traci Scherck: Oh Thank you so much Donna, and we will also have donna’s information in the show notes, if you want to follow her join her coaching programs because they’re phenomenal.

Traci Scherck: So with that Thank you so much for joining us come back next week because we’re talking all month about coaching and we’ll see you then have a great one.