Human Wise

Ep55: Leading with Purpose – Building Human-Centred Cultures in a Commercial World with Dr. Corrie Block

• Helen Wada • Season 4 • Episode 55

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What does it truly mean to lead with purpose in a fast-paced, commercial world? In this compelling conversation, Helen Wada is joined by Dr. Corrie Block, award-winning business strategist, executive coach, and best-selling author of Love at Work and Spartan CEO. Together, they explore how leaders can balance profitability with humanity, and why authentic connection—not authority—is the true currency of leadership.

Dr. Block shares a fascinating perspective on what it means to be human at work, describing every employee as “the product of 10,000 successful iterations of survival and adaptation.” From redefining trust and vulnerability at the executive level to understanding the measurable ROI of coaching, this episode challenges leaders to think differently about performance, purpose, and the culture they create.

This is an inspiring conversation for anyone ready to lead with heart, build meaningful teams, and embrace the full human experience of work.

Topics Discussed

  • What it means to lead with purpose in a commercial world
  • Redefining human value and authenticity at work
  • The science and psychology behind trust and credibility
  • Coaching for performance and the ROI of executive growth
  • Why vulnerability changes as leadership responsibility grows
  • Building human-centred cultures through alignment and meaning

View extended shownotes here

Further links to follow:

Helen Wada: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/helen-wada

The Human Advantage: https://www.thehumanadvantage.co.uk/

Ep55: Leading with Purpose – Building Human-Centred Cultures in a Commercial World with Dr. Corrie Block

[00:00:00] Introduction to Human Wise Podcast

[00:00:00] Helen Wada: Welcome to Human Wise Podcast that explores the commercial advantage of being human at work, hosted by me, Helen Wader, executive coach and founder of The Human Advantage. I'm thrilled to be on this journey with you, learning what it really means to be human in business, one conversation at a time.

[00:00:29] Helen Wada: Welcome to another episode of Human Wise. 

[00:00:32] Meet Dr. Corey John Block

[00:00:32] Helen Wada: I am absolutely delighted to have Dr. Corey John Block with me this morning. Welcome, Cory, all the way from Dubai. 

[00:00:41] Corrie Block: Thank you, Helen. Thank you so much. It's really exciting to be here. I appreciate it. 

[00:00:45] Helen Wada: It was great to have you on the show. And having met Thinkers 50 at the back end of last year, we really connected over our love of coaching, but also our love of the commercial aspect of coaching and what it means to be coaching at [00:01:00] senior levels within organization and the different skill that you need and so forth.

[00:01:04] Helen Wada: And so just before we dive into what I'm sure is gonna be a rich conversation, I just thought I'd introduce you. To the listeners. So Cori has an internationally re recognized speaker, top tier executive coach, and has written a number of books, Cori, I admire having just about to publish human wise. The tenacity needed to do the research and bring the books into the world is a huge, so congratulations.

[00:01:31] Helen Wada: You are a professor of strategic management, a member of Forbes Cultural Council, and. Certified Master Neuroplastic. Maybe you can tell us a little bit more about that in a moment. Bestselling books and also a father of five children, nonetheless. Yes. So welcome to the show. Tell the listeners a little bit more about who you are.

[00:01:50] Helen Wada: Really, we're talking about being human, who is co. 

[00:01:53] Corrie Block: Yeah. Goodness. Okay. 

[00:01:54] The Journey of Writing Bestselling Books

[00:01:54] Corrie Block: So you mentioned the books. All of those things are true, right? It's not, and one of my mentors told me when, when I was in my twenties, I was like, oh, I'm shying away from some of my credential. He goes, no, no, no, you can't do that because it's not arrogant if it's true.

[00:02:06] Corrie Block: If it's true, it's just true. Right? So when somebody says something to you that's, there's something about you that's true, you say, yes, that's true. And I was like, and I, but I still struggle with that, right? I'm 50 now and my credentials list is like a week long. If you looked at my LinkedIn profile, it's, it's terrible.

[00:02:21] Corrie Block: But you know, like you mentioned the books, there's, yeah, I've written a couple of number one bestselling books, which I'm super happy about. Yes, I'm proud, but I'm disappointed that I had to write them. Like Love at work and Chief Executive Coach, I could name six or eight authors that would've done a better job of both of those books than I did.

[00:02:38] Corrie Block: But the reality is that. I read a lot of books and I reached for them and they weren't there. And that, and, and I felt really disappointed that the books didn't already exist. And then really disappointed again that I had to write them because it just felt like they should be there. You know, love at work should be there and Chief executive Coach shouldn't, should be there.

[00:02:56] Corrie Block: And even though I could name better authors, none of them had written [00:03:00] it, so, so it was up to me. 

[00:03:04] Helen Wada: The right author is the author that spends the time researching, pulling the ideas together, and that's 

[00:03:10] Corrie Block: a fair 

[00:03:10] Helen Wada: point. So, actually I'm gonna challenge that one back at you. There, there is no better author than the person that actually takes the time to put in the effort to write the words and put the book out there.

[00:03:21] Helen Wada: So still, congratulations. Thank you so 

[00:03:23] Corrie Block: much. 

[00:03:23] Helen Wada: You are talking so eloquently about something that actually is quite difficult and can be, you know, in, in simple terms. I, I'm here and I want to be here, so let me just do it. You know, I'm scared of heights, so I train myself to this kind of. Amazing. But I know there's a lot of people that will be listening to this going, that feels like a really big leap right now.

[00:03:42] Helen Wada: And so tapping into, and maybe we'll come back to that towards the end of the conversation, just some top tips for people thinking, yeah, I get it. I've got things that I'm fearful of. How do I start to shift the dial? Because I think it's so interesting. But I always start these conversations with a question.

[00:03:58] Helen Wada: I talk about being [00:04:00] human at work. You, your books, love at work. What does being human at work mean to you? 

[00:04:05] Balancing AI and Authentic Intimacy at Work

[00:04:05] Corrie Block: For me, it's that, it it's balancing out the artificial intelligence with the least artificial intelligence, right? We do have some intelligence that's not artificial, and for me, that's authentic intimacy, right?

[00:04:16] Corrie Block: Which is something that is very difficult for, for a machine to replicate. So we've got artificial intelligence on one end of the spectrum. Authentic intimacy is on the other end, and I think any leader who pushes both of those buttons really hard in the next three years is gonna win no matter what their position is, no matter what.

[00:04:31] Corrie Block: Game they're playing what their industry is. You push hard on both ais, probably you're gonna do better, but that's what it means for me is being human at work is just recognizing that each employee in an organization is the product of 10,000 iterations of a successfully improving survival and adaptation machine.

[00:04:47] Corrie Block: All of them, all of them independently are apex predators, and they're the most intelligent, most clever, most dangerous animals on the planet. And so what do, what is an apex predator gonna do during the 98% of the workday [00:05:00] when they're not being managed? Whatever they want. Right? They're apex predators, right?

[00:05:03] Corrie Block: So yeah. If they don't, if they have access to your network, your client list, your products, your services, and, and they're not aligned with you and your vision, and they're not certain about how. Working with you is going to help them to achieve their personal goals for their personal life, well then you're just, you're, you're not, not only are you not gonna get their best out of them, but they may be passively or actively sabotaging you in the background.

[00:05:27] Helen Wada: Interesting. 

[00:05:28] The Importance of Purpose and Alignment

[00:05:28] Helen Wada: The way you talk about that, coming into that purpose point in terms of why does it make to me what I'm doing on a day-to-day basis? Yeah. And how aligned is that with. What the organization is doing. Yeah. You know, I'm a believer that sometimes that can align. Sometimes that always doesn't align in a straight line.

[00:05:47] Helen Wada: And work is one aspect of your life, and therefore do you need your purpose to fully align with everything at work? Not always, because you can have, I was working with somebody last week. It's like, actually, if work [00:06:00] is. 60% of your life, how else do you fulfill those areas of, you know, your purpose that you want to, when you have the space, it work starts to encroach to 85, 90 plus percent of your life and you have no time left to fulfill those passions that you really want to pursue.

[00:06:19] Helen Wada: That's when things start to become challenging. 

[00:06:21] Corrie Block: I think the majority of people, we don't care what we do for work. We're humans in general are very happy to collect garbage as a a, as long as we understand why we're doing it and we like the people that we're doing it with. I think Simon got one part of the puzzle, right?

[00:06:34] Corrie Block: He got the the why, right? The part that I'm getting right is who. Because honestly, it doesn't matter what you do for work. You can do something as silly as kick a ball around on grass for work, and if you like the game that you're in, the people you're playing with and you know the reasons why you're playing, then yeah, football becomes a career for you.

[00:06:51] Corrie Block: What I found super interesting from a sociological perspective is that the game of football even exists. Because it doesn't actually do anything. It doesn't produce [00:07:00] anything. There's no manufacturing. There's no value added service, nothing. And yet, even though there's only 11 players on a football pitch, right on in, on either team, there's about 2000 players on the economic team in a Premier league, right?

[00:07:13] Corrie Block: So the average Premier League team might have 2000 employees, and that's 2000 families that are getting fed with their children, getting educated and their dreams getting built all at the same time by kicking a ball around our grass. But the wider, the wider conversation about that is from a human meaning perspective, how many families are being fed every year because the game of football exists.

[00:07:34] Corrie Block: That to me is a compelling question, and that to me is, is a massive. Highlight on human innovation. We figured out a way as apex predators to feed millions and millions of families, put gas in the car, food on the plate, build their vacations, build their, their retirement plans all together, all at the same time by kicking a ball back and forth on grass like we a bunch of grownups, [00:08:00] kick it in this direction while a bunch of like mature adults.

[00:08:03] Corrie Block: Kick it in that direction and it feeds millions of families. And that's the actual purpose, and that's where I wanted to get to is it actually doesn't matter to most humans what we do for work. What matters a lot is why we're there and who we're with. And if, if we love who we're with and we, and we know why we're there, then the what kind of disappears it can be.

[00:08:24] Corrie Block: It can be as. But now as kicking a ball around on grass or balancing spreadsheets or building logos for new companies, like most people, most of the time the what of what we do for work might be interesting, but it doesn't have to be. What's interesting is the part that it plays in our lives. And you, you hit it rightly that you know your work isn't all of your life, but it's not other than your life either.

[00:08:47] Corrie Block: And we know the work life balance is a myth, right? That we can throw that one out. Okay? There's no such thing as work life balance because psychologically speaking, there is no such thing as anything other than life with which to balance your [00:09:00] work. Your work is not other than your life, it's just part of it.

[00:09:03] Corrie Block: And it's at least 50% of it, right? Maybe more in, in most cases. 

[00:09:08] Helen Wada: Absolutely. And it, it's interesting 'cause in, in human wise I talk about, you know, it is a simpler form of that sort of sociological piece, but it's about, 

[00:09:16] Corrie Block: yeah, 

[00:09:16] Helen Wada: your holistic purpose, so, so what is it that's important to you? Big picture. Yeah.

[00:09:21] Helen Wada: And then there's the work purpose, then there's the career purpose. But does actually, you said, does it matter what we're doing? As long as you're working with great people, you're being challenged, you are learning, you're stretching, and then you break down into what? What do you do? What's your role? And then what do you do on a day to day?

[00:09:35] Helen Wada: And I think sometimes we can all get caught up in this bigger purpose question. Mm-hmm. But actually, if we just break it down and say, what's important to you right now and why, then it becomes a simple form. And so coming back to that question of what does it mean to be human at work, then how would you.

[00:09:53] Helen Wada: Articulate that in the context of what you've just said there. 

[00:09:56] The Role of Work in Our Identity

[00:09:56] Corrie Block: Let's, let's start out with greetings, right? Like when I, when I meet somebody for the [00:10:00] first time, I always ask them two questions. First of all, what is your name? 'cause I need to know what to call you, okay? Secondly, the second question, what do you do?

[00:10:09] Corrie Block: Not, what are your core values? How many kids do you have? What was the best place you went to for vacation? What was your favorite meal? Are your grandparents still alive? We don't ask. We don't ask any of those things, okay? It's, what's your name and what do you do? Because. For the last million years of evolutionary psychological history, what you do for work, Helen is who you are.

[00:10:29] Corrie Block: To me, that is the value that you're adding to the society that I'm participating in, in exchange for share of the resources. So back when they were tribal, right? When we were tribal, we had, we had, people still had functions within the tribe, right? There was hunters and gatherers and agriculturalists and, and shepherds and.

[00:10:47] Corrie Block: Taylors and Smiths and Cartwrights, you know, so there's, so we would know you, not just by your character, but by by your function. Your function in society is your identity, and that that started to shift only [00:11:00] about three old people ago, right on the tail end of the industrial revolution, where now we can add value to.

[00:11:06] Corrie Block: Any economic community in the world, we could play on any economic game in any position that we want to. We don't, we're not stuck playing for the team that our grandparents were born into in the language that we were taught as children or, or, or, or dying. And in the house where we were born, we're not stuck doing those things.

[00:11:25] Corrie Block: We, we can play for any team in any game, but the psychology behind the fact that our in role identity is very much a part of our identity, that's still true. E evolution, evolutionary psychology is, it develops slowly, even though technology develops exponentially. You know, evolution is incremental and it's really slow.

[00:11:45] Corrie Block: And that was like three old people ago. So that's why work is so much a part of our identity is because, well, for the last million years of history, work was who you are. 

[00:11:55] Helen Wada: The word that I, I wanted to pick up on there that you shared was the value. Yeah. What is your [00:12:00] value to me? Yeah. And I think when we are talking commercial situations, that's.

[00:12:04] Helen Wada: It's super important when we are building relationships internally, when we're building relationships externally. I talk about it in the human, the H is how you show up, and that's 

[00:12:16] Corrie Block: exactly right. 

[00:12:16] Helen Wada: A big part of that is knowing yourself and knowing your value. Yes, what is it that you do? But I still believe from a human perspective that a lot of who you are, your values, your beliefs, your limiting beliefs, all those things make up who you are and are part of what you do.

[00:12:35] Helen Wada: And so for me, it is what you do, but also. The way in which you come across with what you say, how you say it, the curiosity that you show towards others. 

[00:12:47] Corrie Block: Yeah. 

[00:12:48] Helen Wada: Comes back to your authentic identity and that piece about being human. If we're talking about, you know, if we've got artificial intelligence on one side are authentic identity on the [00:13:00] other.

[00:13:00] Helen Wada: Comes back to who we really are to bring forward what we do. And I, yeah, the people that I work with, we're gonna come onto coaching in a moment, but when I ask them, you know, why do you do what you do? Who are you? It's a really challenging question often. 'cause most of us don't take time to really think about who we are, the value that we bring before we go into some really big, important conversations.

[00:13:29] Corrie Block: Yeah, yeah, it's true. And, and we look, there's, there's a benefit to that and there's a danger in that, right? The danger we all know is the commodification of people. We commoditize each other, and especially in an organization, it's easy for us to look at each other as a set of roles and responsibilities.

[00:13:43] Corrie Block: And these are, these are your inputs, these are your outputs. These are the services that you provide for me, and these are the products that I provide for you. So we have that kind of like. Commoditization wheel. But on the other side of that, it, there's, there's the cooperation, the collaboration that comes from knowing, hey, this is your economic tribe.

[00:13:59] Corrie Block: [00:14:00] Right. And then if we belong to each other in the way that our ancestors actually gave us the tools for it, they didn't give us tools for convenience or comfort or complexity. Okay? So in that sense, we're, we're definitely aliens in this modern world we created for ourselves. But the tools we do have are belonging, authenticity, shared values, trust, discretionary efforts.

[00:14:21] Corrie Block: We have all of that because all of our ancestors, they survived the world by knowing who to trust. Who it was that was gonna provide for them and protect them when they're not looking. Okay. So, and that happened in families and tribes and, you know, cities, nations, sometimes empires, but more often than not, like your ancestors earned you the right to be born by trusting the right people.

[00:14:39] Corrie Block: Because we can't survive the world by ourselves. It individualism, strictly speaking among humans is fatal. We have to work together and so we learn like. I dunno, half a million years ago that not, okay. So yes, everybody's selfish. We're all kind of in it for ourselves. We all want a nice car and a, and a decent retirement package.

[00:14:57] Corrie Block: But the most effective form of [00:15:00] selfishness is together on teams. The fact is I make more money for me and my family if I work with people, not work people, but work with people. And so like. It. There's that, that shift from knowing that nobody, no employee has ever worked for you, ever, right? Nobody works for you.

[00:15:22] Corrie Block: They're all working for themselves and at best, they're working with you. Those are apex predators. So I think we run into trouble when we take the game too seriously and we don't take the players seriously enough, but we don't recognize that the games are all made up, right? Aviation luxury shoes, FMCG, oil and gas, it's all just made up.

[00:15:41] Corrie Block: We made up the games. Most of the games within the last. A hundred years and most of the rules within the last 15. Okay. But the, the players, the players are apex predators with a million years of wisdom in their heads and they've got access to your resources. So I think, I think we're gonna make more money if we don't take the game too [00:16:00] seriously and we start taking the players very seriously.

[00:16:03] Corrie Block: These are sacred. This is made up. 

[00:16:06] Helen Wada: But that comes right back to that human piece, right? Because what we have doing, 

[00:16:09] Corrie Block: absolutely. Yes. 

[00:16:10] Helen Wada: The importance of looking at each and every individual and what's important to them. Why? How do we build trust? You're talking a lot about trust there. Yeah. And I talk about trust.

[00:16:23] Helen Wada: It's, for me, the intimacy piece of that connection is super important to build that trust. 

[00:16:30] Building Trust and Transparency

[00:16:30] Helen Wada: From your perspective, what do you see? How. Because trust is one of these words that's banded about. But actually what does it mean? Why do you build trust with one person and not with another? 

[00:16:42] Corrie Block: So trust and transparency are on a flywheel.

[00:16:45] Helen Wada: Mm-hmm. 

[00:16:46] Corrie Block: Okay. So the easiest way for a human to build trust is to offer a little bit of transparency. This is who I am. Okay. And then if you receive it, you don't react badly to it. And then that builds a little bit of trust. Then you offer a little bit of something about who you are. [00:17:00] Mm-hmm. And then I offer something about who I am.

[00:17:02] Corrie Block: Then you offer something about who you are, and as trust and transparency grow, there's fewer and fewer boundaries, and that eventually we fall in love and get married. Right? So transparency builds trust to that place where we can have the most authentic intimacy, whether it's with partners or kids or neighbors or friends or lovers or whatever.

[00:17:21] Corrie Block: Okay, so we have. We have all of the tools for building that. That's number one. I think the closest they ever got to in research was the leadership challenge by K and Posner, where in their study of 75,000 leaders, they, they did a survey all around the world to try to figure out what are the most critical components in leadership, right?

[00:17:41] Corrie Block: And, and number one and by a mile was credibility. I, I think credibility and trust are pretty close to the same concept, but COOs and Poner figured out that, okay, so not only is credibility the number one quality among leaders, but what's the most missing quality [00:18:00] in leadership Today is also credibility, right?

[00:18:02] Corrie Block: It's just that ability to trust somebody and credibility is the, the ability to do what you say. And that's it. That's, that's what it all boiled down to. It's 450 pages of. Research boiled down to one word, right? Do what you say you will do. That's it. Like that's all you have to do. So if you wanna build trust, do what you say you're gonna do.

[00:18:22] Corrie Block: And really cool hack for managers is if you know you're gonna do something, don't surprise them. Tell them, and then do it, because that builds credibility, that builds that level of trust. 

[00:18:32] Helen Wada: Absolutely, and I think the people certainly that I work with, I think that the credibility piece is almost easier, particularly if you're working with an organization that's got a brand name above you.

[00:18:41] Helen Wada: It gives you a layer. Yeah, I mean, the thing that I've found since setting up the Human advantage is you're going from scratch to build up your credibility in your field and things like that, which is really hard. Your piece about transparency though. Again, I talk about in human wise, I talk about a window, you know, a window with curtains and to say for different [00:19:00] people, you may open these curtains up in different ways, right?

[00:19:03] Helen Wada: For when you're starting off, you might be a little bit open. But as you get to know people, and the thing that you said that I think is really important when people are trying to establish new relationships is that they are transparent first. Yeah. And you talked about that. You know, you have to let in before others will share with you.

[00:19:23] Corrie Block: Yes. 

[00:19:23] Helen Wada: And for me, yeah, that's right. That's a critical point. And when we look about what you can control and what you can't control, if people are struggling with relationships, I will say actually, how much of yourself do you show? 

[00:19:37] Corrie Block: Yep. 

[00:19:38] Helen Wada: How much of you, yeah, absolutely. Do they really see. Now because if they don't feel they can trust you, then how on earth are they going to share what's on their mind and particularly their deepest challenges and thoughts when you are looking at building, establishing client relationships, 

[00:19:53] Corrie Block: you're absolutely right.

[00:19:54] Corrie Block: You're absolutely right. 

[00:19:55] The Caveat of Vulnerability in Leadership

[00:19:55] Corrie Block: And there's a caveat about that, that I want to raise. Like, look, I'm a huge Simon Sinek fan. I think he's probably my guru on both empathy and vulnerability and leadership. But he's, he's wrong about this. He's wrong about vulnerability and transparency. There's, there's a, there's an inverse correlation as you rise up in larger organizations, especially of 10,000 and more employees, that where the authenticity and the vulnerability and the transparency actually start to work against you and against the interests of the organization.

[00:20:24] Corrie Block: It's no, imagine that it's no longer good. For the tribe that the chief is super transparent about everything. Right. So keep in mind now, the economy is changing all the time. So you're playing an economic game where the rules are always changing. The size of the field is changing. The material the ball is made out of change is changing.

[00:20:41] Corrie Block: The number of teams on the field, the number of players on the team, the referees and their credentials, everything is changing, right All the time. 

[00:20:47] Navigating Imposter Syndrome as a CEO

[00:20:47] Corrie Block: So when a CEO of a major organization wakes up in the morning with a bit of imposter syndrome. Give that a little bit of grace, right? Like the rules changed overnight and nobody asked your permission.

[00:20:56] Corrie Block: So yeah, stepping into your role every day with a bit of, Hey, I'm not [00:21:00] quite sure what I'm doing all the time, that's fine, but don't say it out loud. You can't say that out loud. You can't tell the board of directors you've got imposter syndrome because that undermines the level of trust that they need in your leadership to delegate authority from the shareholders.

[00:21:15] Corrie Block: And you can't tell your executive committee that you're a little bit insecure about the three month outlook because that undermines the trust that they need to have in your leadership to get stuff done. So. What is a CEO to do of a major company with all of this natural, very natural, very rational imposter syndrome and absolutely no one to talk to about it.

[00:21:35] Corrie Block: Because the authenticity that would require that disclosure or that transparency would undermine the, the effectiveness of the organization. If they just go out onto LinkedIn or or Instagram and say, Hey guys, feeling a little insecure about our three month outlook, the stock price falls 7%. You've got.

[00:21:53] Corrie Block: Two and a half million angry investors like you, you can't do that. Okay. 

[00:21:56] The Role of Executive Coaching

[00:21:56] Corrie Block: So there's a kind of transparency that actually hurts the organization when you get up into those higher levels. And that's, I think, where executive coaching is, is really of huge value. 

[00:22:05] Helen Wada: Yeah, absolutely. And I know we had a great conversation on the podcast last week and we were talking about sometimes there are things that you need to do within organizations that maybe aren't that transparent.

[00:22:16] Helen Wada: You know, we were talking about situations where maybe, you know, there's gonna be a restructure. You can't make announcements, you are doing things that potentially cross your values and your intuition. Mm-hmm. Yeah. But there are certain boundaries and you know, again, we'll talk about coaching a little bit.

[00:22:31] Helen Wada: More in a moment, but that's where coaching is incredibly powerful 'cause it helps individuals to think about what's the right situation? How do I balance this with my internal narrative to get comfortable with something that's quite uncomfortable? Because often the higher up you go that those situations happen more and more.

[00:22:50] Helen Wada: You've got a really interesting view on coaching Co and I'd love for you to share a little bit more. 'cause this is what sort of connected us in the first place. 

[00:22:59] Balancing Transparency and Organizational Interests

[00:22:59] Helen Wada: Yeah. So if you go back to the traditional view of coaching, what is coaching? It's about asking questions. It's about curiosity. It's about not advising, it's about stepping back.

[00:23:11] Helen Wada: It's, um, yeah, I'm a, I'm a. Firm believer in coaching. You know, I did my advanced development transformational coaching. That has truly changed the way in which I lead and manage and now coach with senior leaders. But there is another aspect when you're working in the commercial world, particularly at the senior levels, you do, and it's, I'm just curious about that commerciality point that you bring in to your work.

[00:23:33] Corrie Block: Yeah, absolutely. 

[00:23:34] The Commercial Aspect of Executive Coaching

[00:23:34] Corrie Block: It starts with understanding that executive coaching is different than just coaching, and that pure coaching doesn't exist in any other human domain except business. Okay, so what we call pure coaching is actually Socratic coaching. It's Socratic or non advisory coaching, but it doesn't exist outside of business.

[00:23:52] Corrie Block: You will never, ever find an Olympic athlete without a coach, and you will never find an Olympic coach asking the athlete. [00:24:00] What exercises do you think you should try today? Try to lead them to a level of insight where they can fix their backstroke. You know, like mm-hmm. That's just insane. And you'll, you'll find every first chair violin player in the world has a coach.

[00:24:13] Corrie Block: None of their coaches can play violin as well as they can. Okay. So the coach's job isn't mentoring the coach's job is to study the athlete's level of play or the player's level of play, or the executive's level of play. My job as an executive coach is to help an executive play better. As an executive, right, be in the same way that a violin coach helps a violin player play better violin.

[00:24:35] The Reality of High-Level Executive Coaching

[00:24:35] Corrie Block: Now, if my job is to help an executive perform better as an executive because I'm an executive coach, well, executive performance can be measured, and if it can be measured, then it can be quantified. We know the impact. Of better performance at the executive level. So if they're coaching with me results in better executive performance, then that executive performance has a knock on effects to profit to [00:25:00] profitability.

[00:25:00] Corrie Block: So productivity goes up, performance goes up, collaboration, trust, information sharing, empathy, discretionary effort, all those things go up as a result. Well, yeah, there's a monetary value to that impact and we know how to calculate that now. So I'm a firm believer that executive coaching is for performance.

[00:25:19] Corrie Block: And it is for executive performance and therefore it must by nature be completely free of cost to the organization. If the performance of the executive isn't improving, then it's not executive coaching. Okay. And if the executive refuses coaching, then you have the wrong executive. That's, that's just, that's where we need to start.

[00:25:39] Corrie Block: So then if you have a good relationship with a good executive coach and a good executive, then the, their performance is improving. There's a, there's a ROI impact of that. We can calculate that. I've got at least half a dozen different models for calculating ROI and executive coaching 

[00:25:53] Helen Wada: when it links back to these.

[00:25:55] Helen Wada: You're coming back to the numbers, but ultimately mm-hmm. We are working in a [00:26:00] world where businesses is driven by the numbers. You know, we can't get away from that. That is what we are. Yes, we've got human beings that have been here for generations and, but ultimately, the capitalist society that we live and work in is driven by shareholders of our owners.

[00:26:16] Helen Wada: You know what we need to do from a financial perspective to look after our families and live the lives that we want to lead. We have to have that commercial focus. 

[00:26:27] Corrie Block: Yeah. 

[00:26:27] Helen Wada: With what we do. And it's part of the DNA of the human and the way in which we work, you know, at. All varieties of organiza levels of organizations, because it's, on the one hand, yes, you can take a coaching approach to curiosity to having these questions, but actually on the other hand, you really do have to have that commercial focus being clear about who you are, what's your purpose, why you doing it, you know?

[00:26:54] Helen Wada: Yeah. And prioritizing accordingly, because if you are looking to grow your [00:27:00] business and you pull these two skill sets together. Then that for me is where the power is. It is not just thinking about coaching, you know, and there is a place for coaching in the world, and there's a place for coaching in business.

[00:27:12] Helen Wada: Absolutely. But for me, these skills that you and I use on a daily basis from a coaching perspective, absolutely have greater power from leading teams, building relationships, winning work, and ultimately you are then demonstrating that commercial line between top and bottom line growth. 

[00:27:32] Corrie Block: Yeah. And look, I'm, I'm associated with the number of the largest coaching organizations in the world.

[00:27:37] Corrie Block: I'm a coach with Coach Source. I am part of the faculty at CMI Merrick. I, I'm very good President Marshall Goldsmith, and I know Jacqueline and, and Scott from hundred coaches, and I know I'm a number of the a hundred coaches, including Mark Thompson. Like every single one of them is an advisory coach. 

[00:27:53] The Misconception of Socratic Coaching

[00:27:53] Corrie Block: The fact is that even though.

[00:27:56] Corrie Block: We have some organizations promoting the idea that [00:28:00] Socratic coaching is the definition of co coaching. The reality is that at, at the executive leadership level, nobody who's really good does it that way. That is, it's not practical. We don't just sit there and ask questions because it, it's silly. You don't, and an Olympic athlete isn't gonna der.

[00:28:16] Corrie Block: Value from a coach just sitting there asking questions, hoping they reach a, a new level of insight for how to throw a javelin. That's, it's ridiculous. We, we studied the game, we studied the player, and then we used SI applied science to try to figure out how to help the player play the game better. And that's true of all of us at the highest level of executive coaching.

[00:28:35] Corrie Block: We just, that's just the way we actually do it. I think, I think there's a, there's a certain level of reality that we need to check ourselves with. Recognizing that ICF has hijacked the definition of coaching in a way that's very unhelpful. Especially for executives that's at the top level. If, if an, if the CEO of a company of a hundred thousand employees thinks that Socratic coaching is executive coaching, within 30 minutes they will find out that they're not deriving value from [00:29:00] it.

[00:29:00] Corrie Block: The most extensive part of that coaching engagement is not the coach's fees, but the executive's time. And they'll be inoculated, they'll be immunized against executive coaching for the remainder of their career because, well, they tried it one time and really wasn't for them, didn't add value, and that's because they're not.

[00:29:15] Corrie Block: They don't have access to the kind of coaching that they actually need at their level of play, 

[00:29:21] Helen Wada: you think is the challenge with word coaching In the world that we're in at the moment, 

[00:29:26] Corrie Block: marketing. I think marketing. I think, honestly, I think the International Coaching Federation was absolutely genius. They were brilliant.

[00:29:32] Corrie Block: They convinced the world that anyone can coach anyone else in anything. They developed a, a certification around that idea and then they sold it. And what it means is that the, especially during COVID, they just completely exploded because if, if you have a credential that says that anyone can coach anyone else in anything, then the whole world is your market.

[00:29:52] Corrie Block: The rest of the world is your client's market. Like, it's brilliant from a business perspective. It's absolute genius, but it's, it doesn't work in the [00:30:00] C-suite and it really, really doesn't work for either the shareholders or the employees of those, those C-suite leaders in large organizations. And you think about the, the, the risk profile attached to.

[00:30:11] Corrie Block: An Olympic athlete, for example, they underperform. What happens? You miss the gold. Your whole nation is disappointed for like eight seconds, okay? But a CEO of a large company has a hundred thousand families, primary livelihoods on one hand, and let's say four and a half billion dollars of shareholder wealth.

[00:30:29] Corrie Block: Generational wealth, on the other hand, that's a pretty big risk profile, okay? And they have to be on the field of play, performing at their highest level all the time. Athletes train 90% of the time, so that, that when it, when it comes down to that 10%, they can really hit it hard. They can, they can break a world record.

[00:30:47] Corrie Block: But executives who are breaking world records all the time, how often are they train? Are they training for that, for that 95% of the time when they're on the field at the highest level of competition every single day? [00:31:00] And you keep that in mind and you understand actually coaching is much bigger, much bigger than a pure Socratic definition.

[00:31:08] Corrie Block: We need something stronger. 

[00:31:10] Helen Wada: Absolutely. And I, you know, again, it comes back to the core of where, why, why have I focused on coaching? Why is human wise relevant right now? Yeah. 'cause when people said to me, why are you good at winning work? Why are you good at building relationships? Why are you good at creating those teams that you do?

[00:31:27] Helen Wada: Actually, it was the skills of coaching. That I used alongside my commercial acumen, and that's when I talk about that DNA of commercial coaching. Right. It's for me exactly right. Me, you talk about the coaching spectrum. It's really funny when I got your, when I saw your book, I'm like, oh my god, that's like the ladder that I talk about.

[00:31:47] Helen Wada: But it's true. You know, one end is absolutely the, I talk about the bottom end. I think yours is the opposite way around in your book, but it's the curiosity the. You know, getting under the skin of things, the questions right at the [00:32:00] bottom too. 

[00:32:00] Corrie Block: Absolutely. Yeah. 

[00:32:01] Helen Wada: What's your insight? What is your challenge?

[00:32:05] Helen Wada: What does that mean? What might you have seen before that could be relevant? Mm-hmm. But then for me, where coaching comes back into play is I talk about coming back down that ladder and, you know, people are listening to this, but I'm kind of, I'm doing it with my fingers as we speak, but you come back down.

[00:32:20] Helen Wada: So what does that mean for you? Because I think for me, what coaching is absolutely is putting the client at the heart of the conversation and what is right for them. I am not as a coach telling anybody what to do. None of us like really being told what to do, but we're creating a space. Where the insight and challenge that you offer together with the coaching skills helps them to navigate the situation that they have in front of them.

[00:32:46] Helen Wada: And that for me, absolutely is how that blend of commercial focus and commo coaching approach really come together. 

[00:32:53] Corrie Block: Yeah, you're absolutely right. You're absolutely right. And we have so much more to offer than just asking questions, [00:33:00] right? If we, if we work ourselves properly and we behave like Olympic level coaches for Olympic level executive athletes, then we should expect Olympic level responses.

[00:33:07] Corrie Block: Most of my clients, I wanna say, I was gonna say 99, 90% of my clients right now are at an Olympic level, and that by that I means that there'd be like 50 players in, uh, in their economic game in the world that can do what they do 50 or less. So I consider that an Olympic level. Player. Right. I'm not asking them questions.

[00:33:25] Corrie Block: I'm not asking them what I give them access to and, and they don't need mentoring. They can't get mentoring from me. Nobody can mentor them because they're at the top level of their game. 

[00:33:33] Helen Wada: Yeah. 

[00:33:33] Corrie Block: And right. Who's gonna mentor an athlete into. Breaking a world record, you can't, because the definition of a world record is you've done something that no human has ever done before.

[00:33:43] Corrie Block: There's no mentoring for that. You have to create something new in order to do that. And that's, that's my level of coaching and that's my executives, my client's level of play. So I'm not claiming to be able to mentor them. No one can mentor them. What I'm claiming is they're, they don't need any more access to specialization.[00:34:00]

[00:34:00] The Importance of Range in Executive Coaching

[00:34:00] Corrie Block: Okay? They're at the top level, so within their industry, within their niche, within their, there's nobody better. That's it. So having more access to something, somebody that's been in healthcare, somebody that's been in aviation, somebody that's been in oil and gas or luxury shoes, that's not gonna be helpful for them.

[00:34:14] Corrie Block: They're already at the top level of play in that game. What's gonna be helpful is not specialization and internal authority, but external objectivity and range. I have been in luxury shoes and oil and gas and aviation and telco and banking, and I have done all of that. So I've seen athletes win at the highest level in so many different games.

[00:34:39] Corrie Block: That's the application advantage that I have. So when we're looking for insight, it's not just my client's insight, it's my insight too, like, Hey. I've seen this before. There's a pattern we can pick up from this decline of this industry or this pickup of this company that we can grab onto. There's a pattern here that you would've never seen as a CEO because of your [00:35:00] niche, because of what makes you special, because of what makes you amazing.

[00:35:04] Corrie Block: I can't add value to what makes you amazing, but I sure can't add range. 

[00:35:08] Helen Wada: Mm-hmm. And it reminds me of a conversa, a brilliant conversation on the pod a few months ago now with Hamish Taylor. And he was the CEO of U star and s blank. And one of the conversations we talked about it and excited in the book actually, is about when you are looking to get ideas, you don't go to somebody in your own industry actually look outside the industry.

[00:35:30] Helen Wada: He talked about queuing systems in the aviation world and we're looking at Disney. Yes. We all know they're brilliant at queuing, right? Yeah, 

[00:35:36] Corrie Block: exactly. Yeah. 

[00:35:36] Helen Wada: And I, I think for me, in this ever complex uncertain world that we are in. Having the confidence to explore beyond your own comfort zone, not just through with executive coaches, but looking outside.

[00:35:51] Helen Wada: If you're looking for a new role, it's like, well, I've worked in this industry, how about you go and work in a new industry because all of these are [00:36:00] building blocks and I work with people throughout their cover is and journeying up to those C-suite. Roles and they're all building blocks. Would I be here running my own business right now if I hadn't had all the experiences that I'd had over the last 30 years?

[00:36:15] Helen Wada: Absolutely not. Right? You never quite know what they're gonna take you, but you know that you will be able to take something from something. So in this, you know, grand scheme of conversation, it's like. Take that next step. What's the one next step that you can make that shows, you know, coming right back to where we started, your purpose, your interests, us as, you know, apex predators, as you described as human beings.

[00:36:37] Corrie Block: Yep. 

[00:36:38] Helen Wada: Is it of interest? Will you enjoy it? Do you like the people? Is it gonna stretch you? Are you gonna learn and grow in a different way? Is so give it a go, right? 

[00:36:47] Corrie Block: Yeah, right. Exactly. Right. Well, I think and look and recognizing that not only are you an apex predator with a million years of wisdom stuck in your head, okay?

[00:36:56] Corrie Block: Because that's one part of the puzzle. One part of the puzzle is yes, you are the [00:37:00] product of 10,000 iterations of a successfully improving survival and adaptation machine. Good for you. Congratulations on being born. The second part is recognizing that you were born into the most abundant time in all of human history.

[00:37:12] Corrie Block: We've never had access to this level of technology and communications and healthcare and opportunity like. This, this is what our ancestors could not have possibly prepared us for this. They could not have understood this. Our, our tools in our heads, they're, they're designed to help us to survive in a world of scarcity and violence as a world that, that generally speaking, no longer exists and, and present news.

[00:37:36] Corrie Block: Not withstanding, this is still the most peaceful time in all of human history. So recognize that not only are you the latest version of an iterative, improving million year old design, but you've got it the easiest of all of your ancestors. 

[00:37:49] Final Thoughts and Reflections

[00:37:49] Helen Wada: On that note, I'm very conscious of time. We could keep talking all afternoon.

[00:37:53] Helen Wada: I know you've got a busy afternoon ahead of you. I've got a busy week. I always ask the guests, so yeah. Can we leave the listeners with [00:38:00] one top tip and one question to reflect on the conversation we've just had? So what would those be from you, Gary? 

[00:38:09] Corrie Block: Okay. So one top tip is recognize that everybody is selfish, but the most effective self form of selfishness is together on teams, build your team.

[00:38:19] Corrie Block: You are limited by the people that are closest to you. And the second one is, if you wanna know where your priorities are, look at your bank account, your calendar. That's what your priorities actually are. 

[00:38:32] Helen Wada: And what about a question? 

[00:38:33] Corrie Block: Ah, question. Um, that's really good. How many people are you lying to today?

[00:38:39] Corrie Block: And what are you lying about? 

[00:38:40] Helen Wada: Ooh, that's an interesting one. 

[00:38:43] Corrie Block: Yeah. Yeah, because it forces you to be authentic with yourself first, and you can't be authentic with anyone else unless you're willing to do that. 

[00:38:49] Helen Wada: One to ponder. Wonder to ponder. 

[00:38:52] Corrie Block: Yeah. 

[00:38:52] Helen Wada: Thank you Chloe. It's been an absolute pleasure to have a real debate around the values of coaching, why [00:39:00] we are here, what we're doing, the commerciality of it all, and 

[00:39:03] Corrie Block: yeah, 

[00:39:03] Helen Wada: keeping going for ourselves and our families and loved ones.

[00:39:06] Helen Wada: And yeah, ultimately it is about being human. So thank you for coming on the show. My 

[00:39:11] Corrie Block: pleasure. I look forward to to see you. Pleasure 

[00:39:12] Helen Wada: you again soon. 

[00:39:13] Corrie Block: Likewise. Thank you, Howard. 

[00:39:15] Helen Wada: Cheers. Great.

[00:39:19] Helen Wada: Thank you for listening to the Human Wise Podcast. Don't forget to check out the show notes below. And if you enjoyed this episode, please consider sharing it with your network. To get in touch, you can find me, Helen Water, or the Human Advantage on LinkedIn, or visit www.thehumanadvantage.co.uk. I'd love to hear from you if any of the topics discussed, resonated or struck inspiration.

[00:39:45] Helen Wada: Let's keep this conversation going and build better business together. See you next [00:40:00] time.

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Helen Wada

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