E070_How do we measure the ROI of Coaching for Safety & Leadership?

Today, we have the pleasure of conversing with Alexsandro Siedschlag (Alex), a safety leadership coach, human factors specialist, safety differently enthusiast, and friend of Safety Collaborations.

In this episode, we continue our exploration of the Return on Investment (ROI) of leadership and safety coaching, examining the lenses we should use to measure its effectiveness, the lagging indicators to avoid, and the overall impact of coaching interventions.

Throughout the conversation, we uncover the unique nuances of coaching in high-risk industries and explore strategies for achieving meaningful and sustainable improvements.

Highlights:

📌  Gain insights from Alexsandro Siedschlag, a highly respected professional in safety leadership and human factors.

📌 Discover effective strategies for measuring the ROI of coaching in leadership and safety contexts.

📌 Learn to identify key indicators for success and understand common pitfalls to avoid during the coaching process.

📌 Hear real-world examples showcasing the transformative impact of coaching on organisational culture and safety outcomes.

📌 Get practical tips on cultivating a culture of continuous improvement and excellence in high-risk environments.

Take advantage of this opportunity to learn from a leading expert and gain practical strategies to apply in your organisation. Listen now and transform your approach to leadership and safety.

Thanks for listening!

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This episode was produced under Safety Collaborations Limited and now continues as part of Karin Ovari Limited. While we are not currently releasing new episodes, the entire library remains active, and the topics covered are just as relevant today as when they were first recorded.

To learn more about my current work in leadership and communication, visit karinovari.com and the leadership community, The Supervisors Hub.

Connect with us on LinkedIn:  Karin Ovari, Nuala Gage,

If you enjoyed this episode, please help us spread the word and leave a review on your preferred podcast player. 
 
 Stay Safe, Stay Well
The Safety Collaborators

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:09

Welcome to. In Conversation with the Safety Collaborators, I am Karen and I am Nuala.

Speaker 1 0:16

Whether you're a safety professional, a leader or an individual committed to making a difference we invite you to join the discussion on creating a culture of safety and care, enabling your team and leaders to design a safer and more productive and collaborative world. Today we are joined by Alex Schadeschlag, a safety leadership coach, human factors specialist luck. A safety leadership coach, human factors, specialist safety, differently enthusiast and friend of safety collaborations. Alex is from a small coastal city in the south of Brazil and has enjoyed working internationally in shipping, oil and gas and mining. We are going to continue our exploration on the return of investment of leadership and safety coaching, the lenses we should use to measure what lagging indicators to avoid, and a whole lot more.

Speaker 2 1:11

I am delighted to finally be having this conversation with you, alex. It has been a long time in the making and it has been such a joy. We were trying to figure out when we actually met, and it was through LinkedIn that we have started having numerous conversations about safety, safety culture and everything in between. So, before we dive into the return of investment on all of this, who is Alex and what makes you you? Alex Giala?

Speaker 3 1:40

Hello Nuala, hello Karin, thanks for having me Indeed. You know it has been a while until we first started drafting on having this conversation, so I appreciate you taking this time as well. Karin, thanks for welcoming me here. Yeah, what makes Alex, I would say, a lot of fun? A lot of family time, a lot of interesting and reading and learning, and a lifelong learning, I would say I really like to discuss ideas.

Speaker 3 2:08

I'm a kind of a quiet guy, you know, an introvert, I would say, if you would describe me using profiles, but at the same time, I like to talk. So I don't know how this paradox works, but once I'm comfortable with people like I'm here, I like to talk. So, yeah, I like to surf. That's my hobby. I just did that this morning. It was amazing, refreshed my mind, refreshed my soul. So just be outside, doing outside, sporting, yeah, so I have two kids, sophie and Ravi, four and ten, my wife Rachel, and living in a small place here in brazil, south brazil, and going around the world, traveling and work. So lovely that's me sounds blissful it does, I'm going.

Speaker 2 2:55

When can I come and visit?

Speaker 3 2:57

yeah, your mother. Welcome in the summer summer sounds amazing, absolutely.

Speaker 2 3:04

Yeah, I loved what you were saying about if we had to describe you with profiles that you may be introverted and that might be where you get your energy from. You know out on the surf, on your own, being able to absorb nature, but when you're comfortable, you're happy to talk. As we go into this conversation around coaching and around safety leadership, it's, I think, one of those wonderful things that it's not just that it's a paradox, but it's the value in learning to understand yourself so that you can then understand those who are around you. If you have to think about before we dive into the ROI and I promise you we will get there but the time even that you've spent on site, with all the learning you've done and the reading and the exploration of knowing who you are and what makes you you, how, has that helped you when you are out on site and working with teams?

Speaker 3 4:01

That's a good question. I think that kind of emotional intelligence if you want to use a fancy word or fancy description for that you know, getting to know yourself better and understanding your emotions and reactions and thinking I think that calibrates you very much. You understand where your headspace is before you enter in a conversation and that doesn't mean you might not get hijacked during the conversation, but it means that you know where you are when it starts and by experiencing that, you have pretty much knowledge and hands-on experience to tell other people that it works and it helps. You know what I mean Like when you go with a profile assessment to a leader and helps him to understand himself better by your own experience how that kind of aha moment looks like and then you're just sharing your real person, your real you, and encouraging him as well to get to know his real person and real yourself or himself get to know his real person and real yourself or himself, yeah, and bringing in that authentic this is, this is who I am and I'm okay with who I am.

Speaker 2 5:11

But I also realize that I sometimes need to adjust or tweak to be able to get the best out of other people around me. Yeah, karen and I were actually on a session this morning that was really diving into personality, diversity and how we all tick and that whole thing around we used to go we need to treat others as we want to be treated and how. Actually, no, because I'm me, no one else is me. What I need to do is to learn, as a leader or as a human being, to treat others as they need to be treated, and I think that's such a shift.

Speaker 3 5:48

Yeah, while you were talking, it just came to my mind a senior executive in one of the sites I worked on who was very vocal, extroverted, liked to express his ideas, talk freely with no scripts or prompts, but as a senior leader, whenever he shared his opinions, that kind of becomes a rule because everyone listened to him and follows him.

Speaker 3 6:12

And I remember we were having a kind of a conversation that he was keen to hear more from his crew than he was, and then I shared back or I gave him some feedback, said how much of your time are you talking or are you listening? You know, like I know, you like to talk, I know you do very well, but once you are talking, people are listening to you, so they won't talk over you. You know what I mean. You can talk, but in the end you know over their opinions or after they share what they think. And he was like I never thought about that. I thought that me talking would encourage them to talk. I said, yeah, if you are a peer, that's a shot of friends, but if you are a senior executive, they barely will confront your ideas or challenge your ideas, and that's getting to know yourself.

Speaker 2 6:58

So yeah, Did he embrace that feedback? Did he actually start listening more?

Speaker 3 7:04

Yeah, no, that was a kind of aha moment. A few moments after that conversation he came to me you see how much percent I'm talking to Like he was joking but grabbing that learning or that discussion. So, yeah, I think he did. Hopefully he kept that after I left and I think that's one of the points on our talk today. You know, like the return on investment, the sustainability of any coaching process and how much does that help?

Speaker 1 7:30

yeah, I think one of my favorite things to share with a leader or anybody actually is one of the most powerful tools you have is silence.

Measuring Return on Investment in Coaching

Speaker 2 7:40

So true, Alex. I love the way that you can read my mind, because exactly that was going into you. Just think of that one small intervention. It might not seem like something great, but it can have such an incredibly profound impact on the team, on the way of working, the ability for people to speak up, the ability for people to challenge, just by shifting from talking to listening. I think when we talk about return of investment on coaching, and especially in the safety and the leadership environment, it's difficult to quantify. How do you actually quantify that? Because it was maybe a five-minute conversation that has possibly impacted this leader for the rest of their life. That will create better teams, better ways of working and safer working environments. When you think about where do you even start? Where do you start trying to measure the return of investment on something like this?

Speaker 3 8:37

Yeah, it's kind of an elephant in the room where most people might not want to talk about it, but I got obsessed about it once we. We discussed that rough idea in the past, nula. I went to research, I went to understand what other people were thinking and or doing about this. I found some interesting stuff, but I found also some crap. So as usual. So in my opinion, of course. But I think one of the quotes that struck me was coaching and return of investment. Over coaching, it's usually about soft skills that provide soft data. It's soft skills and soft data. So that's why I think it's so hard to measure Because, as you mentioned, a small intervention, a small conversation will lead to a very slight different approach in the future. That might not be even possible to measure. But there are other points of the business, of other aspects of the business, that will be influenced by the coaching process and the leadership process, that can be looked at and measured somehow.

Speaker 2 9:46

I think that is just so profound, what you said about soft skills and soft data, because it answers such a huge frustration that I have because I was sitting with a sales team this week and that was part of the conversation as well how do you measure what you do? What are you going to be able to say to people? This is the result of this fantastic intervention that I've had, because we're generally going in to speak to, not the people we're going to be coaching. We're going into speaking to the finance team or the HR team or somewhere along those lines, and they need hard stuff. They need to know okay.

Speaker 2 10:26

So this project that you worked on you managed to escalate, that that project was finished on time, on budget, with no accidents or incidents, in comparison to the three projects the company had done before or over the intervention that you worked with them, you watched the incident rate decrease from X percentage per month down to whatever it was by the time you left. And the soft data is hard. So I don't think we can try and miraculously figure out how to measure the soft data, but maybe there are other things that can show up that can help us. And, karen, I can see your brain working over time there I was just saying there is some.

Speaker 1 11:08

I did some work with a I can't think of the name at the moment and it was about this very subject how do we determine return on investment? Investment, actually, in this case, on the time that we, as coaches, spend with senior leader or whoever it is that we're coaching, and particularly in the more senior roles, I think. And then I'm actually and Nuala remind me, because I have an entire spreadsheet and all sorts of things that we can use for this. So, exactly, well, if you're into spreadsheets, but, yep, you can look at the time if you start off thinking about, well, what is the problem we're trying to solve with this coaching engagement? You know, is it because they feel like they don't have enough time, for example? Well, how do we dive into that?

Speaker 1 11:52

If you don't have a lot of time, let's have a look at where your time is being spent, because that time does equate to money, because we get paid. So we then look at well, if we reduce it here because we've reduced conversational challenges or reduced conversational waste, meaning, is what I'm asking for, or is the work being done because we all understood each other from the beginning, or that my message was getting across or is that person having to repeat themselves regularly Because that all takes time and money. Money maybe at an individual level might be a way of looking at how do we measure that, and that can be okay. So you've got eight hours a day and two hours of that is resending and re-communicating. Let's have a look at our conversational levels, our conversational patterns. Is there a way of reducing that time that then you can turn that into dollars and cents type of measure?

Speaker 3 12:47

Yeah, interesting, you brought, like what are the pain points from that company or that department or that leader, and I think that's a really good way to start, but not accepting that first pain point as a true you know, challenging with a few questions like what makes this hard to you or how do you think that it's coming from, or where do you think that's coming from.

Speaker 3 13:12

Break down a little bit that initial pain point, because they might be some general statements, you know, like our safety performance is not where we want them to be, something like this, and then you break down a little bit to see what actually are the pain points and and then you do that kind of a checking. Your first impression, your first measurement or your first understanding of that pain point, is crucial. I'm saying that you probably have seen that in the past as well. When people try to measure benefits or improvements or return of investment just afterwards and they haven't taken you know the benchmark in the beginning, like where they were and what was the problem when they started. So once you're there, there's no way back. So it's really important for whoever is starting any coaching development program to think up in the front, like I need to do the check-in phase make sure I have the information I will need in the end to compare.

Navigating Coaching Relationships Within Organizations

Speaker 2 14:11

Definitely that's a great one. You know it's. Where are you at today and what are, as you said, your pain points? What are the things that are keeping you awake at night or making your world difficult and then, through that coaching process, doing almost regular check-ins? So if you were, let's say, on a scale of 1 to 10, if, when you came in here, we said 1 is you're most frustrated, 10 is you're happiest, you're flowing in the world of work, where are you now? If you came in at a 3 during the coaching process, where does that elevate to? Because if it's going backwards, it might do that sometimes, because change is difficult and it's uncomfortable. But by the end of the coaching process you want to have seen that progress, that people are feeling, that they have improved, that work is easier, that the pain points have reduced Right.

Speaker 3 15:02

Yeah, yeah, and establishing and making that agreement in the first hand. You know like, listen, our time together, our project will be six months or 12 months or whatever is the length. How often do you think we should check in and ask that question to the company, to the person leading the project, a quarterly review or anything like that? But just making that pre-agreement also helps to hold them accountable, because they know there will be conversations around it in the near future and that's one of the external motivators to some people.

Speaker 2 15:43

In your experience of the coaching programs you've done, are there any formal assessments or things that you will formally look at before you start into a coaching process to say this is going to be our benchmark?

Speaker 3 15:57

Since coach essentially and fundamentally involves people. No other way to do coaching without people right, we're going to be looking at personal behaviors and skills or gaps that they want to fill. So that would be the formal way I guess you know, like listing and naming it and putting that in a paper. What are the things that to solve that pain point or to solve that problem that you think you need to improve or any of your management reviews have revealed it to you that you need to improve or any of your management reviews have revealed to you that you need to improve? You know that can be an external source as well, because I think there is a fancy name on psychology from it. When we rate ourselves higher than we actually are, there is an effect on it.

Speaker 3 16:41

I can't remember right now. That's very natural. I can say I'm speaking very well and I'm doing my job very well, but actually you are not, so that happens to everyone. So what I'm trying to say is also encourage that person or that group or that company to look at external data that can show them where they are not there yet. It can be related to regulators. It can be related to regulators, can be related to performance review and be related to past events. Analysis or investigations can be source of daily problems that they are struggling. So I think that is one of the ways to get input for the skills gaps or behaviors gaps and list of things that they need to work on as a way of doing that formal assessment, and then you go on the scale, as you said, one to ten or one to five bad, good or excellent, whatever we we scale it, that's a.

Speaker 1 17:36

That's a starting point I was just thinking like sometimes any one of us can put into projects where, right, you're going to coach these people. Now, those people, or those leaders or individuals, let me say, weren't necessarily the ones saying, oh, I want coaching, I need coaching, right, true, so generally they've kind of voluntold yeah.

Speaker 3 18:16

So in your experience, how do you overcome that barrier, I suppose, so that we can actually then create better environments for growth? Yeah, you know, you just helped me to reflect, karim like that on the safety business. It's something like that as well. You are selling something for good with no price, and sometimes people don't want it. You know what I mean? Hey, I'm selling safety, I want to help you, I want to help. That's for your good, no thanks, how so? You know what I mean? It's free. I'm not charging you as an internal.

Speaker 2 18:41

I didn't ask you.

Speaker 3 18:46

Yeah, it's as an internal member of the organization you are given them that service for free, right and coaching, somehow like this as well. I'm here to help and him to support. You Company has provided you this resource and here I am, and the person no thanks, come later. Or something like this. It happens very often and usually with safety and coaching.

Speaker 3 19:07

I had an experience where I was I can't remember if I was introducing myself or someone had briefly introduced me to in one of the sites which I was working on, very first time meeting them. They haven't seen me before and then so peter's a, he's going to be our safety performance coach and alex, it's all yours, something like this, just hand over to me and said and everyone was looking to me, and they came straight away without me saying any word and saying I have never met a coach before, what do you do? So I kind of noticed that there was a barrier, as you mentioned, like what, what are you gonna? And then actually the second person said what are you going to teach me? A group of very experienced workers, much senior than me, me, coming from another country, with a different accent and language, coming from a different industry as well, totally different industry and I said well, first of all, I'm not here to teach you anything, it's actually the other. First of all, I'm not here to teach you anything, it's actually the other way around. I'm here to learn from you what's going on and how can we jointly have a conversation about the issues that are going on. So that's the way I try to break that initial conflict or hard moment, I would say. And they immediately stopped doing those quick and hard questions. So they say all right, so have a seat, man, and then we can talk later. And that's it. I don't have a script or a prompt to tell you my whole history or the history of coaching and safety and all this. I just want you to get to know my name first and who I am and what kind of a role I'm playing here while I am around One-on-one conversations.

Speaker 3 20:50

Afterwards, to explain what I'm doing would work much better than a group presenting, because then it becomes more a training and a teaching if I'm going in a group setting and trying to explain what coaching is and how do I work and all this stuff. So I tried the two ways. Group settings doesn't help. People will kind of think you are there to teach them and one-on-ones afterwards, after you just have said your role or kind of a brief of who you are, and then you go one-on-ones and explain them better what's the coaching about and how could we potentially partner together.

Speaker 3 21:29

There were people like you said there who said I understand your role, man, you sounds like a very nice guy, but uh, I don't think that's for me. I'm pretty well, I'm doing well, I know my business. Just come around if you need something and we are fine. Don't push hard. I don't think that imposing people will help. I I kind of go in the flow. Yeah, I know I come later to have a shot and then go slowly and steady, developing the relationship, first see if they can trust me.

Speaker 3 21:56

There is a lot of questions and barriers around external coaches. Are they there to report and tell management about my work, or are they there to just help me and have a conversation? So usually it takes a couple of interactions until people really let that barrier off and say all right. So here's the things I'm facing, or here are my pain points how can you help me? And as time goes by you can kind of measure yourself on how much people are coming to you to ask for something you're taught to you rather than you are sticking to them. As I said in the beginning, you need to be present, visible, interacting, relentless, trying to engage. But once you you did your part of the deal and then they are coming to you. That's a really positive sign of a relationship and trust and engagement in coaching, you know absolutely.

Speaker 1 22:53

I guess the trick is how do we then translate that for the people that are actually paying us to be there? So how do we then translate that? Because it's absolutely a wonderful measure when people start coming to us or coming to you.

Speaker 3 23:07

Yeah, so yeah yeah, and that's why I'm thinking that it's fighting involved people up in the front as well asking the management who are the people that they think they should be coached, perhaps asking them as well have them been experienced coaching before?

Speaker 3 23:25

have you asked them if they think there is a valuable and perhaps that gonna bring you some insights on that? You need first a coaching education which is someone? Even? Then a 20 minutes explanation of what is coaching, before those external coaches coming in and say here's me and that's what I'm doing. So, yeah, some learnings from this small talk just before Coaching education. I love it, yeah.

Speaker 1 23:52

Well, the contracting piece is such an important piece, yeah, and sometimes it's easy to just let that slide, and actually we never should do that.

Speaker 3 24:02

Yeah.

Speaker 1 24:03

And just the word of who takes responsibility for all of this as well.

Speaker 3 24:10

What do you mean, Karin?

Speaker 1 24:11

Well. So what I'm thinking? You know there's this well, how do we prove return on investment or engagement is another nice word, right, and I guess it depends on where does the accountability lie for that return on engagement? We have to, obviously, as the external coaches, definitely provide information and some sort of feedback mechanism, and I think that's really important in that contracting piece as well. What do you want, you customer, or the senior leader, or the person that's bringing us on board, what is it that you're looking for? What will the success look like for you? And then we can go into. So how do we prove that along the way? What are the steps? And I think it might've been you, Nola, who said what are the checking points, when are the gates along the way, so that there's also responsibility from the people that we're contracting to. Not so easy.

Speaker 2 25:08

Yeah, no, it's not easy at all and it's one of those where I think that benchmarking in the beginning will actually be a good foundation and something that can probably be improved upon. Let's go back and have a look at, you know, what have we done in the past that maybe hasn't actually given enough robustness to that initial benchmarking, enough robustness to that initial benchmarking, and then doing that check-in with the project manager or the contracting party and going. This is the level where we're starting at and, realistically, what would a good outcome look like after three, six months? Because they might say, oh well, if people are saying they're on a two or three at the moment, we want them on a 10. You have to then manage that process as well, because where is the realism in all of this?

Speaker 2 25:56

Karen, what you were saying there, I think is quite right, that sometimes you almost let that slide because you go well, I've got my benchmark. But actually going and having that check-in with the project manager or going, what will success look like after a process? Here is stepping out of a comfort zone and going well, we know we're going to make a difference, we know that this is going to improve, but the degree of improvement might not be meeting their expectations. So manage the expectation right up front, so that by the end of it you haven't disappointed, but you've actually either met or exceeded.

Speaker 3 26:33

Yeah, yeah, and you mentioned two things Nuala and Karim started that as well is benchmarking. I always say be careful with benchmarking. It can be helpful, it can be interesting, but can be dangerous as well, because even though companies in the same industry, they have totally different scenarios and things affecting their performances. So, yes, benchmark is just a reference, but some sometimes people got so addicted or so convincing that that benchmark is a true you know like and should be the same for them. So that's one you know like. Just be careful with benchmarking.

Speaker 3 27:14

And the second one is on embracing the learnings. When we said who takes the accountability or who is going to take that bad news back to the management, it can happen. You know, like a coach is not a silver bullet that will solve all the problems. There is like a formula and just go, go, go and they'll just butterflies and rainbows. It can go to zero, can go to negative results in terms of development, and I think that embracing the learning and knowing or getting the understanding what has impacted your coaching program Was that internal or external has impacted your coaching program.

Speaker 3 27:53

Was that internal or external? You know quality of the coaches, quality of the program, was that leadership, involvement and responsibility? You know engagement was it any external factor? You know, like an industry downsizing, like a commodity price, whatever is the factor that has affected any crisis or disaster, just knowing that it can happen and be prepared to map that. What has detracted or enhanced your coaching experience as well. I think that's a learning by itself to both sides to the coaching company will reveal the process, program, people and the contractor or client who will look okay, next time I develop any leadership or safety leadership program, I need to be careful of this, this and that. So I think at the end of the day it's a win-win in terms of learning. But yeah, it can be negative or zero.

Speaker 1 28:45

I think you just raised something really important for us. I suppose, as we're going into that is what are the potential moments that could shift even what we can even do. If something within the organization changes, that does impact what we can do or achieve yeah so interesting. I wonder if there is a way that we can actually, almost in that contracting piece, the the piece up front, especially if we're going to be there somewhere for, you know, six to 12 months. Things change Life, humanity right.

Speaker 2 29:19

Leadership.

Speaker 1 29:20

Leadership. What would be the impact on this scenario or this type of scenario or this type of scenario?

Speaker 2 29:26

I mean, you can't know what's going to happen, but we've been around enough to know that things happen and I think that's probably showing a little bit of respect also into the whole process for everybody involved yeah, yeah, very much, and being able to then actually have those conversations because there's already a foundation of expectation yeah, especially when you there are potential for negative or zero results, when that isn't an expectation or a potential or it hasn't even come into the consideration that we're doing this coaching program.

Speaker 2 30:03

But actually it could turn out that there's some quite fundamental stuff we need to change in our organization and it's scary and it's not what we were expecting to come out of this. Having that expectations and contracting session right up front would possibly open the door to far more inclusive, open relationships and conversations and ability to deal with some of those potential things when they go wrong, but also the ability to celebrate when they go right and say it has been achieved or this has been an over and above. We planted a little acorn and we were expecting it to take five years to come to fruition, but you know what, in 12 months, look at the amazing results that you've already got yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 30:47

and that brought me a question that usually clients, when they are contracting, when they are hiring, even on tender process, they usually ask the contractor will you be able to attend or meet such and such requirement? It can be experienced people, it can be manpower, whatever. And that question also could work on the other way around and that question also could work on the other way around Would you be open to change fundamentals stuff on your organization in order to make the progress that you need? It's a helpful and a very healthy discussion to have as well. I will give my best to you as well to agree and put your best on changing whatever needs to be changed or adjusted for the sake of this program success.

Speaker 2 31:35

so, yeah, interesting question yeah, love that it is yeah and when we're looking at that, there's stuff that's visible, it's you can almost like touch and feel it, and there's stuff that there aren't. So one of the things we spoke about, alex, was around the different lenses that we need to use when we're actually looking at measuring return on investment yeah and I'm going to ask you what are your thoughts around those, those lenses, when we wanting to have a look at, well, what, what are the measures, what are the benefits?

Measuring Tangible and Intangible Benefits

Speaker 3 32:10

I think we can name it. Tangible and non-tangible things like a pollution rate is something we can touch. We can see oil coming out of the rig. We can see coal coming out of the face. Whatever is that increase of that we are helping to achieve? We can consider some tangible stuff as well, some numbers that company has, not only in production or operation, but safety as well, and that usually linked to some leading indicators the amount of conversations that leadership is having, not only amount but quality. How much people are engaging on formal training sessions. What is the feedback quality that's coming out of those interactions? How much debriefings are happening as we are talking to people about the importance of learning from everyday operations, investigations or learning from incidents. What is the outcome of those reports and discussions? Are we improving something or are we just doing reports by the sake of reports? So if those pain points that we started back in the beginning are related to some of those existing leading indicators, that's a great way to measure and that's another thing that we need to think of. That's a great way to measure and that's another thing that we need to think of.

Speaker 3 33:35

It's very, very hard to put data running and being available. Sometimes we need to create things process procedures, systems monitoring. Sometimes we need people with paper clips looking at the numbers and reporting back to the management. Whatever we create as an indicator, it needs to first try to use the ones available. Don't create more stuff to other people. It requires a lot of efforts to put some data available, you know. So I think that's working with your pain points. Cross-checking then with the existing indicators that company has. How do they relate? How reliable are they as well? You need to challenge those correlations and use it then as a reference. That might be a way of looking at the tangible things that you have.

Speaker 2 34:22

And then the non-tangible is often so much the harder thing. That's the, I think, what you were saying about the soft skills, soft data earlier, alex.

Speaker 2 34:30

Yeah, I think what you were saying about the soft skills, soft data, earlier, alex, is that when you can see teams' relationships improving, the way of being together as a team, it's visible. But it's one of those things like how do you kind of measure that? Or the flow on from creating better conversations means you're creating a better work environment, a safer work environment. Your quality improves means you're creating a better work environment, a safer work environment, your quality improves. It's not specifically related to the coaching process, but it's almost a byproduct, that is. I suppose some of it is tangible, but a lot of it is a non-tangible benefit because it's happening regardless. It's just an add-on or a ripple effect from the positive impact of having the coaching process.

Speaker 2 35:13

I had a conversation a while ago and it was with a client I hadn't seen in probably 80 years and I called her to ask her advice on something else and it was one of those benefits of where she said you know, I still go back to what we did eight years ago and I cannot tell you how it has changed the trajectory of my working career, my teams, the way that I interact with people and just how much better we are and have continued to be from that engagement that we had eight years ago and for me that was such an amazing compliment to the work that Karen and I did with that team. But eight years later, this is a non-tangible. It's a non-visible. We don't even know that it's happening. I just came up in a conversation that the impact is still going on and I don't think you can actually put a price to something like that.

Speaker 3 36:04

Exactly Fabulous, fabulous, well done.

Speaker 1 36:07

Yeah, you know, we often talk about legacy and we don't know often, in the roles that we have, we don't always know, and very, actually very rarely know until somebody approaches us sometime later what the legacy is of those conversations that we have in the wee hours of the morning, of the smoke shack or wherever it might be, and it's delightful.

Speaker 3 36:36

It's. It is, yeah, it reminds me one of the ways of getting to know what, what impact on business we have through others. You know, like a, like, a, an experience I had recently was going at the end of a project and doing some summary or debriefing conversations with the leaders who I engaged for a certain amount of time and asking then a few informational or basic questions. But at the end as well, I was asking, like, what have you noticed changing on this space in this such period? Like and like, what have you noticed that has changed? And then they could say whatever they noticed, like, oh, I'm seeing people are more collaborative, or I can see people are bringing more ideas during the daily meetings, and that's good, but that does not mean much for me in terms of the business, right, so I know what's happening, I know what they are telling me in terms of concept, but then the next question I asked was what impact does that have on your business, on your department, on your? You know what happens when this happens. And then you can slightly change in that non-tangible to tangible things. Oh, I can see that our reports are expediting more because people are helping each other by Friday 5 pm to get that done because there is no one on weekends here so I can come on Monday and say everything was done and then you start changing that soft data or soft skills improvement into a tangible business impact.

Speaker 3 38:06

So that was one of the ways to transform. But you can only have that on conversation. You cannot transform that in a lead indicator or a monitoring point or whatever. It's just having the conversation and translating that to something meaningful. And actually that became a learning to them as well to do with their teams. One of the leaders said oh, this, those are really good ways of getting feedback from what we are doing. You know I might get some of those questions. I said it's all yours, they are not mine. It came on the conversation, they are not my questions, but I remember that clearly. You know, like translating or transforming that good communication or collaboration into a business stuff that only they can correlate. By the end of the day I couldn't even think of how that collaboration could help a technical report to come out by the end of the Friday 5 pm.

Speaker 2 39:02

And it goes back to that beauty of asking open questions and having the skill to ask that open question without the expectation of hoping that they're going to say this it's just what is there. Because when you have that exactly your experience it was a surprise of wow, that's something really tangible. It's something that we are absolutely having an impact on, and it might be we've noticed we have less rework because we're not having to repeat processes. Might be we've noticed we have less rework because we're not having to repeat processes. People are actually doing things the right way the first time round, rather than having to go back and correct and rework or reissue.

Speaker 2 39:38

So what I'm loving through this conversation is that there's probably, as coaches, more data available to us than we've actually considered and the question is what do we do with this data and how do we turn it into something that goes? Here is an amazing overview of what we have done that has had a real business impact. That is tangible, that when you look at those overall tangible benefits and you kind of work a formula to say, well, these are the tangible benefits, this was the cost of the program. Actually, you know what it was pocket change in comparison to what it's actually given the business in result of having a process like this happen.

Speaker 3 40:23

Yeah, beautiful, yeah yeah.

Speaker 1 40:25

I think that's a nice kind of summary of where we're going to go to start wrapping up here. So a little miracle question. So a miracle has just occurred and you are able to create the coaching environment, that safety coaching environment that you always wanted.

Speaker 3 40:54

What does that miracle?

Speaker 1 40:55

look like or feel like.

Speaker 3 40:56

That sounds exciting yeah, I think a beautiful or a awesome coaching environment would start with people sharing their weaknesses and their weak points or areas where they would like to improve, having that growth mindset. So, whatever they are ranking in the company or the organization, they say, listen, I'm the ceo or I'm the senior leader, or I'm the manager, or I'm the supervisor on the field, whatever, and there's something that it's annoying me or it's boring me. I need to get better at this. So that's that's a beautiful way to start. So, and I want you to help me carrying nula or alex or whoever is the coach. I want you to work with me. So that's a halfway of the job done. So there is a self-awareness, there is a, a willingness to improve.

Speaker 3 41:48

That does not mean that we won't challenge that statement. Like I said in the beginning, that pain point may be just a symptom of other problems, so we can go and further investigate that. I would be invited to majority of the interactions, even though they are not related to safety or leadership, so people would be willing to have me there. Alex, can you come to our budget meeting and have a seat, even though, if I have no say or no words, I'll just be there and watch what happens. Alex, can you go for a drive around and have a shot with my team workers? So that would be a beautiful way to have a coaching program or development happening. With that, I would be more and more comfortable to provide feedback to people and invite them to a feedback conversation, and they would be taking that on their inner game, you know, like absorbing and taking what makes sense for them. And then I would be debriefing and summarizing the end and asking them those same questions and like what has changed and what does that mean to your business?

Speaker 1 42:54

thank you so much for all of that.

Speaker 3 42:56

That's wonderful, yeah and let's have a beer. Thanks for your service fantastic.

Speaker 1 43:07

well, I that was an amazing conversation and I really hope that people who are listening to this conversation really get an essence and a sense of what is actually contributing to successful coaching interventions I'm not sure I like that word so much, but conversations for change. So thank you so much from my side.

Speaker 2 43:29

I know, alex, it's been absolutely divine. I love our conversations and I'm so grateful that we get to have them, but I'm even more grateful that today we got to record it and then you get to listen to it out there, which will just be absolutely wonderful. We will share, in the show notes and on the summary, your contact details as well, so your LinkedIn profile and where people can connect with you, because it's always good to have conversations that matter. So thank you so much for joining us today.

Speaker 3 44:00

Absolutely. I'm delighted and I hope there are some feedbacks and people reverting back to the episode as well and sharing their own experience. You know, like what has worked, what has not worked, does what we discussed here make sense to them or not? So I'm keen to get some feedback as well. So I appreciate you both having me, as I said, wonderful conversation, learned a lot, took some notes here. So every day a different learning.

Speaker 2 44:27

Thank you for joining us today. It is always lovely to have conversations that matter To learn more about creating a culture of safety and care. Please visit our website safetycollaborationscom to access our show notes, resources and guides. Leave us a message via the message us section on the show notes page and we'll get back to you.

Speaker 1 44:49

You can also join our community on social media by following us on our LinkedIn pages Safety Collaborations Karen Avari and Noorla Gage and on our new Safety Collaborations social channels YouTube, facebook and Instagram. Our handle Safety Collaborations is much the same. Sharing is caring. Follow us on your favourite podcast platform. Leave us a five-star review would be awesome. Doing these things helps us to grow and share our collective conversations.

Speaker 2 45:20

Till next time stay safe and stay well.