Episode 10: Leading with Presence: Ken Roseboom on Coaching, Dignity, and Business Growth

Join us for an inspiring episode of Mentor Conversations at Score Houston as we sit down with Ken Roseboom, owner of Thinking Partners and an executive leadership coach with decades of experience. Ken shares his journey from a 37-year career at Chevron to coaching business owners and leaders, offering practical wisdom on the emotional side of leadership. In this episode, Ken shares practical wisdom on leadership, overcoming imposter syndrome, and building high-performing teams. Learn how to lead with presence, foster accountability, and create a culture where people feel valued and engaged. Perfect for business owners and leaders looking for actionable strategies to grow and thrive.

Give your comments at https://scorehoustonpodcast.blogspot.com or write to pv.bala@scorevolunteer.org. Let us know what you like of this episode and suggest subjects on which you wish to know more. 

Transcript

Recording on zoom

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome to Mentor Conversations at Score Houston, where we bring you insights and stories from our mentors. You'll hear from senior executives, entrepreneurs, and professionals who volunteer their time to guide small businesses. SCORE is America's largest network of volunteer business mentors and is supported by the U.S. Small Business Administration. In Houston, we provide free, confidential mentoring and education to help entrepreneurs start, grow, and succeed. Now, let's dive into today's mentor conversation.

Outro

SPEAKER_01 0:43

Welcome to Score Houston Podcast. I am your mentor and host, Pi Bala. Today's guest brings a unique combination of deep corporate leadership experience and executive coaching expertise that's particularly relevant for our business owner community. Ken Rossboom is the owner of Thinking Partners, an executive leadership coaching firm, right here in Houston. Before becoming a coach, Ken spent 37 years at Chevron, where he held various leadership roles and learned firsthand the challenges of leading teams, managing through transitions, and developing people in high-stakes environments. After nearly four decades in the corporate world, Ken made a significant transition himself from leading in the Fortune 100 to coaching leaders in technical industries and small businesses. He is now a certified coach with International Coaching Federation and specializes in helping entrepreneurs and business owners navigate the emotional side of leadership, something that often gets overlooked when you are focused on strategy, operations, and growth. Ken and I had a pre-conversation earlier this week, and I had to tell you, he introduced me to concepts that I had never framed this way before. Things like dignity as an antidote imposter syndrome, the five emotional imperatives of leaders, and something called shua, which stands for seen, heard, understood, valued, and appreciated. These are not your typical business buzzwords, but they address the very real human challenges that business owners face every day. Today we are going to explore topics that many business owners struggle with but rarely talk about openly. Imposter syndrome, the transition from being a doer to being a leader, and how to hold your team accountable without burning them out. Ken has some powerful framework to share that can transform how you think about leadership. Ken, welcome to School Houston Podcast. We all are ready to learn from you.

SPEAKER_02 3:15

Wow, well, thank you. I've already mentioned it. Your ability to synthesize from a rambling conversation to something quite coherent, really nice. And thank you for that. Thank you. Glad to be here.

SPEAKER_01 3:28

Ken, you spent 37 years at Chevron moving from engineering into leadership roles before becoming an executive coach. What prompted the transition? When did you realize coaching was something that you wanted to pursue?

SPEAKER_02 3:44

Yeah, some way to concisely bring that down, how expose the coaches. Then my project management work came in when we wanted to, we needed help creating high-performance teams and delivering what we called incident and injury-free projects. So I know a little bit about the power. I knew a little bit about the power of coaching and uh and its ability to help leaders deliver on really bold promises. So I'd like to think I was known as a committed leader who led and managed projects well. And I worked hard at it. I did put in a lot of hours. And I don't want to say it was a direct cause and effect, but the truth is I had a heart attack when I was 54. And when you look back at that, I look at the gift, if you can find the gift, and it is a gift, is that my illusion of my immortality was shattered. And I knew I had to make some changes in my life. And I made a slow, unplanned, but a slow transformation to being a different man. And I'm just so thankful for that. And four years later, I got this opportunity to apply for severance. You get to apply to be laid off. And I chose to pursue the occupation of coaching because it was really more aligned with what gives me purpose and meaning, what brings me joy and what's fun for me. And specifically, that's helping leaders and their teams achieve shared visions.

SPEAKER_01 5:10

I like that purpose and meaning, that's what we all seek. You know, sometimes our biggest wake-up calls become our greatest gift, even when we don't feel it that way at that particular time. Yeah. In your engineering and corporate background, when did you first discover that leadership was more about emotions and people than systems and processes?

SPEAKER_02 5:35

Well, yeah, you're right. I didn't start out being about emotions and people. I was an engineer and I thought a pretty good one. And now when I introduce myself, if it's in the right environment, I introduced myself as a recovering engineer or recovering project manager. And that means that I was that kind of guy that was focused on doing stuff and manipulating things and delivering projects and all that. Now when I understood more about what leadership is, I'd like to think it's more about inspiring, it's more about building relationships, it's more about other aspects. So that was when I discovered, and that was kind of my slow transition. And let's talk about management and leadership for just a moment. And this might be something, if you're listening in, I invite you to take a sheet of paper, draw a line down the center of the paper, and on the right hand side of the line, put management, and on the left hand side of the line, put leadership. That's clear enough. And back to your question. All leaders, they manage and they lead. And all managers, they let they manage and they lead. What's important to me is know when you're doing which. So when you're managing, you're primarily engaged in work processes, management systems, even teams behavior. And you're looking at project controls and finance and KPIs and sales quotas and measurement systems and meetings and meetings and meetings, and you're observing the behavior of your teams. And so it's a lot of the doing of running a business. And the goal of managing is when you're managing well, you're delivering on control and predictability. You're delivering reliable results. Ain't bad. Managing is important. But let's talk about the other side of the paper, the left side of the paper, leadership. And so they work together in the sense that leadership, when you're leading, you're focused on people, you're focused on the organizational direction, the direction of the organization. I like to use this definition of leadership. It's defined as the art and science of inspiring committed and aligned action to achieve a clear vision. Very purposely chosen words. So the focus of leadership is on relationships and culture. Leaders create visions and strategy, and they work those with their teams. They engage with their teams so that it's a shared vision and strategy. They set the direction and they engage their people to gain and a sense of sense of shared values and a commitment to that shared vision. So this is done through building relationships. This is done through sharing shared values. This is done through working in that space. And what are your intentions and what's the culture here? Going back to my history, I formed my understanding of this because we were challenged to deliver projects where nobody got hurt and nothing got broken. We're talking about multi-year, multi-billion dollar projects around the world. Nobody gets hurt. These are difficult places, construction yards, offshore, places like that. And you just can't achieve that kind of goal by focusing on PPE and wearing hard hats and following procedures. You have to lead. You have to create the culture, you have to show the care and concern. And that was actually fantastically intoxicating and effective. We did that. We delivered. And it was probably some of the proudest moments of my career. So high-performing knee teams need both management and leadership.

SPEAKER_01 9:14

It is true. I also believe that leadership and management, these aren't competing approaches, but complementary skills every business owner needs. Let's start with a fundamental question. Many of us score clients ask what exactly is coaching? How is it different from mentoring or consulting?

SPEAKER_02 9:35

Yeah, there's a blurred line between coaching and mentoring. And I'm going to say that coaching, when we are coaching, we're focused more on that left-hand side of the paper. And this is this is my definition and how I distinguish between the two. Talk to somebody else, you'll get a different. But coaching is focused on that leadership side, the personal skills. You're coaching personal skills to build a desired culture to create better decision making. Because decision making is in the face of uncertainty. If the outcome is certain, it's no longer a decision. But decision making involves uncertainty. You don't know what the outcome will be. And that's leadership territory. It's about building relationships. You know, you can know technically how to make a sale, you can deliver a price, but someone's not going to buy if they don't have confidence in you, if they don't trust you, if they don't believe that you're going to deliver and you're going to solve the problem that they have. So running the business and engaging your team and the engagement part of accountability, the conversation part of accountability. So coaches help, you know, leaders discover their blind spots, help them discover and change parts of them. I like to say coaches help leaders get out of their own way. When everybody else is saying, I wish he he or she wasn't like that. Well, that's getting that's when you're in your own way. Yeah. Yeah. Now that mentoring, also very important. And it's focused on the skills and systems of management. So you might, and PV, you better way more better than I do what mentoring is about. But to me, it's it's very much about knowledge transfer. It's about skill transfer, the doings of all the systems it takes to run a business. And so it's how to, and so mentors, they work on setting up the organization, uh, the structure and the systems that it takes to do that, as well as just the actual execution of them. The blurring happens is that many times mentors are going to get into the personnel issues and they're going to be working in the coaching space. And coaches, if they're some coaches, truth be told, some coaches mentor and they give advice. They don't do it when they're trying to get certified, because they'll never get certified if they're given advice. It just doesn't, it's not in our stricting, coaching ethos.

SPEAKER_01 11:55

When does a business owner get to know that he needs a mentor versus when they need to have a coach?

SPEAKER_02 12:03

They're likely going to need both. But I know the business owners are stressed for time. So the question is, which one do I need now? So you might want to take a look, what do I need most? And may even be the thing that you're avoiding. And I quite often I see managers who try to solve a relationship problem or a cultural problem with a new system, with a new procedure, with a new, with an award checkage, with uh let's make a rule against that. And that may not be the best way. That may be more coaching space. Kind of how I see it. And I have to say, in terms of needing both, I'm gonna go back just for a second. There was a quarterback, the Green Bay quarterback, who I'm forgetting his name at this moment. I listened to his when he received the MVP trophy, and he gave the thank yous to all the people that helped him get there. It was a cast, a huge cast, Brett Farr, his coach, his trainer, his PT, his physical therapist, his wife, his family, his frontline for the fans, the whole thing. It does, you did need to assemble your cast of supporters as an owner.

SPEAKER_01 13:04

Yeah, very true. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:07

Many entrepreneurs start their business because they're good at something technical. You know, you have great engineers, chefs, designers, accountants. But what is the mind shift, mindset shift they need to make as they grow from doer to a leader?

SPEAKER_02 13:25

Yeah, that's that's a tough question. It's like it's kind of like everything all at once again, huh?

SPEAKER_01 13:31

I thought I'd ask you that.

SPEAKER_02 13:33

Yeah, yeah. So let me take my shot at it here. It is my experience that entrepreneurs and business owners they have a they have to have incredible energy, and they really they they do need to know their business. And they probably could do everything, but that would no longer be a company if they do everything. You just you wouldn't be successful. So I think the fundamental, the big one that everything else falls underneath is the shifting from stop leading with your expertise and start leading with your presence. Yes, your leadership presence. Yeah. And if you're leading with that, if when you're jumping to your expertise, then you're kind of like many times doing it for the team, or you're imposing on their creativity. So it's not as much about what you can do, it's what others can do well. So that means shifting from, you know, when you're leading from presence, you're shifting from control to trust, from having all the answers to asking better questions, and from effort to impact. Where can you make the greatest impact, not what you're comfortable with doing the effort on? So this is at its core. It's this is an identity, this is a mindset shift. This is not just I'll wake up and do it differently. This is, I have to think about myself as a different person now. Part of that sounds like no longer be the hero, you know, as a leader. I can no longer be the hero. I'm I'm in the business of making heroes. My Es, my clients, my customers.

SPEAKER_01 15:07

That's important, yeah, too.

unknown 15:09

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 15:10

Yeah, so it's uh requires a bit of the emotion of humility to say, yeah, I I you know, I need other people to shine.

SPEAKER_01 15:18

Yes, that's that's the real shift in mindset that you need to have. I agree with you.

SPEAKER_02 15:24

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_01 15:25

Let's talk about something many entrepreneurs struggle with, but rarely discuss openly. And I got to know, I'm able to coin the word for it after talking to you, imposter syndrome. You have a framework for addressing this. What is imposter syndrome and why is it so common among business owners?

SPEAKER_02 15:46

Yeah, well, you're you're doing something new.

SPEAKER_01 15:50

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm doing something new, and I need to learn from you now.

SPEAKER_02 15:54

Yeah, yeah. And and imposter syndrome, I I used to have a rather narrow definition of imposter syndrome. You walk into a room and you're a new leader, or you're a new leader in a new place, or you're an old leader in a new place, and you kind of get this feeling I don't belong here. I don't have the credentials, the experience, or the confidence to be successful here. And I got to be careful, I'm gonna be found out, I'm gonna fail miserably. It's gonna be just kind of go downhill. And that's tough enough, and I think that's kind of a classic thought about what is imposter syndrome. Now it's bigger for me. It includes uh nearly all those times when I've got this inner critic inside me that the person telling me I'm an imposter, and it's saying, I'm not enough. I'm unworthy. I had as a at the very core of things, at my human nature, I'm I'm unworthy. And I think everybody has some of this. And here's some examples that fall on this much broader definition of imposter syndrome. You can have deep self-doubt. I've got quite a list here. I won't hit them all, but you are questioning your self-worth. There's some constant self-criticism. Just never really feel like you're you're you're good enough or you did a bad thing. You're you're feeling inadequate, you're comparing yourself to others frequently. There's this anxiety about being found out that, oh my gosh, he's not, he doesn't have the credentials to do this. And it it there's also kind of a I'm striving to achieve, I may be even overachieving, with the hoping that that's gonna cause me to feel better about myself. And it kind of seems like the goal line keeps shifting out, and I never feel better about myself. Yeah, and in believing others have more value than me, taking on extra worth just to prove I can do it. People don't accept compliments when they feel unworthy of accepting compliments.

unknown 17:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:50

And and there's kind of an aggressive side of this also is a challenge. I may get defensive, I may challenge back, shift the subject, get defensive about it. And I might even puff up and look overconfident. Usually people can smell through that. Yep, but I may puff up and appear to be overconfident or arrogant or some other aggressive way to compensate. But when I get in the car on the way home, I just deflate and just go, oh damn, I don't know how I survived another day. This is all pretty human. I hopefully, if you were counting some of those, if you're human, you probably got have experienced several. Yeah. It's we could call it a syndrome if it's really pervasive, if it truly sticks with you, if it becomes a theme for you. In that case, it's getting in the way of your fulfillment, your happiness, and your performance. That's when you want to work on it.

SPEAKER_01 18:42

Yeah, that list is exhaustive. I think every listener just recognizes themselves in at least one of those behaviors. And I do, of course. We all go through that. You also introduced me to the concept of dignity as an antidote to imposter syndrome. That's not a word we usually associate with business. Can you explain what dignity means in a leadership context?

SPEAKER_02 19:09

Yeah. I think dignity is very much in the leaders as humans contest. Let's kind of start this by think of somebody that you think of as having dignity, a lot of dignity. And it looks like somebody assured with who they are. They have some humility about them. They take a stand and they know where they stand. They're able to be authentic from a very personal place. And they carry themselves with a presence. So it's easy to think of royalty for Elizabeth, Nelson Mandela, they took a stand for something far bigger than themselves, and they carried themselves in a way that was that had dignity. And you don't have to be born into royalty. As a matter of fact, dignity is a human birthright. We all have, I believe, we all have human rights and human dignity. So you can think of Mother Teresa. She took a stand, she believed in what she did, and she showed up with that all the time. She embodied dignity to me. So you could think about people in your life that you would say have dignity, who embodied that and think about as a model. What does it look like? And we've talked about presence over expertise. That presence has it's just this internal in my bones knowing that I'm enough, I'm worthy, I'm okay, I'm complete the way I am, and I decide. It's also a matter of making choices. I decide for me.

SPEAKER_01 20:42

Yeah, true. You know, well, you said the idea that dignity is a birthright, not something we earn. That's pretty profound. A good statement. Can you also share a real example of keeping confidentiality of how dignity helped someone overcome feeling like they didn't belong in their role?

SPEAKER_02 21:07

Yeah. One of the first it was two years ago I had a a client and she believed she was in a dead end role. And she, I'd have to agree with her. And the circumstances of it, the context was that her boss disapproved of her the professional society work that she wanted to do as an officer in her professional society in her town and the work she was doing outside the company. And and she wanted to gain her supervisory skills, and they needed people, but they never gave her funding to hire people to do it. So she was always kind of under that thumb. And the boss just wasn't responsive to her needs. But on the other hand, she felt an obligation, which is also an emotion, an obligation, that she had high impact deliverables. She was important to the company and she didn't want to let anybody down. And she had true friendships at the company, and she cared for them, and she didn't want. Let them down. She didn't want to leave. So she felt stuck. She was unappreciated, unhappy, and didn't know a way out. And in our first conversation, it became clear that she was keen for the validation of others. She really kind of wondered that. And anything about dignity, I'm kind of self-validating, right? And so she uh she didn't want to disappoint anybody. So we worked on developing that deep sense of inner worth, which is dignity, as we talked about. And coaches do this in many ways. I happen to believe that body, emotions, and language all run together.

SPEAKER_01 22:36

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 22:37

So she liked to walk, so we turned those into dignity walks. Where when she went for walks, it might have been less about exercise, but she slowed down and walked the way a very dignified person might walk.

SPEAKER_01 22:51

I see.

SPEAKER_02 22:52

And she embodied that and took up space on the sidewalk and owned, owned what she could see. She had her eyes on the horizon and became relaxed and chose some words that went with that to erase that those energetic words that you're stuck, you're in trouble, and you're you'll never get out of here. You have to wait till they fire you. But she repeated words that that were more like validated her self-worth, and she gets to decide. Yeah, a couple more months, a couple more coaching sessions, and she had a new job.

SPEAKER_01 23:26

Excellent.

SPEAKER_02 23:27

Yeah, 30% raise, and she's still there and darn happy. And so it's yeah, that's so nice to hear those things. Now, I don't want to leave anybody with the impression that if you gain your dignity that you're gonna move jobs and get a pay raise. But I think but I do think it is a path to a lot more happiness and fulfillment and the ability to see things more clearly.

SPEAKER_01 23:48

Yeah, yeah. Well, that's a good example of how changing our physical presence can actually change our internal experience and ultimately our external circumstances too. Okay, for a school client who has just stepped into a CEO role for the first time, or hired their first employee, or landed their first major client, and then they are thinking, who am I to do this? Am I capable of doing this? What would you say to them? How will you encourage them?

SPEAKER_02 24:28

Well, before we started talking dignity, I'm sure I'd say congratulations. And just remind them it's likely that several people trusted them enough. They earned the CEO job or if they became a business owner. There's a whole bunch of people that that trusted them enough and to give them the keys and make them think they can run to have the keys. So the keys to the company. So congratulations. You're you're there, and it's a hell of a challenge. And I think they might feel like the dog that caught the bus. When we get to that point, I would help them claim that ownership of their position. And kind of it's kind of a provocative question, but if not now, then when? If not who, if not you, then who? And you know, you look left, you look right, and say, well, heck yeah, I can I was qualified as anybody else or lean into this. And a lot of times it's a confidence thing, and we talked about this a little bit. A lot of people have this mindset or this unwritten belief that I have to be competent to feel confidence.

SPEAKER_01 25:38

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 25:39

And uh if I was a new CEO, I if I was a coach, I might, and they were struggling with this, I might say, Tell me about all the challenges you've overcome in your life to get to this point.

SPEAKER_01 25:51

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 25:52

And did you have a plan when you started? Were you in over your head? Were you and they played? I was I did it. And what makes you think that you can't be confident that you'll overcome the challenges ahead of you?

SPEAKER_01 26:06

Correct.

SPEAKER_02 26:07

And we're not asking for somebody to be puffed up or overconfident or anything there, but just you could just come into that quiet confidence that says, it's tough, but here I am.

SPEAKER_01 26:20

I think we all tend to underestimate our own competence and talent. We all have much more than what we are using. In fact, I was also learning in one of the magazines that the brain power that we have and what we use is really a minuscule of the potential that we could tap into. But we're not even aware of that. You know, we don't do it, fortunately.

SPEAKER_02 26:45

A lot of that brain powers, you think about it, start rehearsing the stories that you tell yourself. Behind that competence, confidence thing might be the story of well, if I've had this job for a year and a half, that's long enough. I'll be confident then. I'll be kind, I'll be up the learning curve. I can be confident then.

SPEAKER_01 27:02

I think we just need to have a conviction that you're competent to gain the confidence later, anyway. The business, most of the business owners nowadays can quite exhausted. They work this log 60 or 80 hours weeks. And what what are your thoughts on how a burning out exhausted owner can be resilient and sustain themselves for the long haul? It's a long haul indeed, and you're starting business.

SPEAKER_02 27:32

Yeah, so resilience is needed as well as the ability to give yourself a break, both real and imagined. And it's all there. And I think this is there's several reasons why I think burnout is so tough. And one quick way of visualizing it, remember that piece of paper, there's structural things that are set up for particularly new business owners that in the management side that just says, I'm also the procurement department, I'm also the compliance department, I'm also the and so all those things that they just you can't escape. And so you do have that management challenge, and particularly as you grow and you slowly add people to that, if that's your business model. And then there's the leadership side, which is the mindset part of this, and the mindset that says, I gotta do it all, or it all has to be done. So you think about this in terms of delegation, that the leader may say, Hey, I got to delegate this, but the management side says, Well, you don't have anybody to delegate to, so you don't get to delegate. It's a kind of a they're hand in hand. So there are management things you can do to give you the structure to get your time back. And these are kind of these feel like hacks, but they're real. You can work on scheduling meetings with 10-minute breaks. You can work on being real clear about what meetings are for and how what you're doing with your meetings. You can do time blocking, you can do all those mechanical and structural things, which I would fall into the management side. And then there's also the leadership side, which is the mindset part and your belief about yourself and belief about, remember that part about providing impact, just not effort. So, what am I going to work on today, you know, and how am I going to do that? So that involves change. And what I Lakonic propose here is a change model that I believe deals with unpleasant. At some point, it's really fulfilling. Sometimes you feel really satisfied after an 80-hour week by six, 70. And I had a lot of 70, 80 hour weeks. It was really satisfying, but is it sustainable? And when you take a step back, is it really how you want to be in your life? So, a stepwise model here, that first step is, and this is probably the most uncomfortable part, is you got to develop a keen sense of dissatisfaction. You got to decide that what you've been tolerating is no longer tolerable. And you've likely been placing the blame on the situation or on other people or someplace like that. But you're gonna have to own some of that. You got to own some parts that are blaming and say, what can I do about it? So one of the first steps to change is to decide that the current situation is just no longer tolerable. I can't continue like this. And then the next thing is we get clear, we've gotten clear about what we don't want, but now the next question is, what do we want? And that's actually a tough question. And in coaching, that might take some time to figure out. Rarely is the first answer to that question, it's not inspiring. So someone might say, I want to move from 70 hours to 50 hours. You know, I want to leave the office by six, I want to leave the office by five, I want to do that. And those are good targets, those are management targets. But the leadership target that's something that inspires is I want to be home with my family. I want to take care of my fitness so I can grow to be old and enjoy my family and enjoy my life. I want to have clarity of thought. I need some sleep. So it's things that become inspiring, things to be that when I look back on my life, I want to say I had that too in my life. So now we get a real core want out of this. And the next question is what's possible? Smart people were really good at talking about the barriers to what's possible. But I'm at the coach is gonna, I'm gonna ask you to expand. No barriers here. Let's play a little world to make believe. Because if you keep doing what you have been doing, you're gonna get the same results you've been getting. What's possible? And you might look for different perspectives. What would your spouse say? What would what what would your kids say? What are your what do your co-workers say? What do they think is the perspective if this is what you want more of? I love the perspective of move yourself to five years from now, look back at this, and you you actually accomplished and got what you want. What did you do? What made it possible? Ask yourself this. And at that point, you can bring in some barriers, but these are the things that you need to work on to remove the barriers as well as you create the possibilities. And the final question is that point of commitment. What will you do? This is an even what's the first step? We're gonna talk about emotions a little bit. The emotions that you walked into this with were blame and resignation, resentment, when you're back up thinking about, hey, I don't want to work 80-hour weeks anymore. But the and dissatisfaction, but when you move to commitment, particularly on something that you don't know if it's gonna work or not, the emotions that you need to access are courage, trust, faith, hope.

SPEAKER_01 32:51

I think I'll move to a different scenario now. This is also something our clients face constantly. A business owner is dealing with a crisis, customer complaint, a cash flow issue, employee problem, and they need to act urgently. And but you had also said that leaders need to slow down in urgent situations. That sounds kind of counterintuitive. What did you mean by that?

SPEAKER_02 33:20

There's that famous quote that's out there. Maybe you've heard it. Between stimulus and response, there's a space. And in that space is the power to choose our response. So the difference between reaction and response. The deal is that when we're moving in urgency, we're right, we're likely in reaction mode. And it's intoxicating. It feels good because we're so used to moving like that. And sometimes for me, I've noticed that when I'm being urgent, when I'm being impatient, that night the emotion I feel is regret. I damaged a relationship, I made a decision I wished I hadn't made, things like that. So the point is, how can I get that pause? And again, there's hacks. There's breathe for 10, count to 10, defer for a little bit, think about it from different ways. Those are great ways to do that. A lot of coaches are going to support with a mindfulness practice. If you have a point every day that you slow down intentionally, five minutes, then that becomes a bit more comfortable. And then when that moment comes when you need to take a pause, you think, Oh, yeah, I do that every morning. And that's right. It does 30 seconds. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 34:36

And if it blares your mind for that matter.

SPEAKER_02 34:39

So the key word here is practice. When you talk about mindfulness, it's a mindfulness practice. Coaches, and when you're in sports, coaches show up practice. And a lot of people, it just feels uncomfortable. It feels like I can't waste five minutes. And the recovery community, they call it fake it till you make it. I like the term practice it until you become it. That's how to me that helps with that business of being urgent. So I'm applying that over the past few months myself, and it's worldly difference. It's been really nice.

SPEAKER_01 35:09

Another challenge, let me put it forward, is the accountability. How do you hold your team accountable without overwhelming them or micromanaging them? Also a challenge. From a doer to a leader, you want to become this is something that you need to learn.

SPEAKER_02 35:29

It is. And man, we're hitting all the favored topics today, man. This is yeah, this is this is all of it. Yeah, and you can go to that business bookshelf, and I'll bet you can find accountability on some book spines, you know. And uh, I'm just gonna leave with uh with a key part to accountability. And to me, it is making agreements, making clear agreements. Agreements require that you and I made an agreement on whatever the action is gonna be. What's the results? How are you gonna get there? When's it gonna happen? And just to be clear, an expectation is not an agreement. Masterful leaders create great agreements, clear agreements from expectations. If you get if you have a clear agreement, then accountability just begin it begins to flow. It happens. It's a bit painful sometimes to get the clarity of an agreement. Now I've got tools around that, but clear up the agreement. And if time you say, well, that's not what I expected him to do. Well, there's a clue there. Maybe next time let's form an agreement.

SPEAKER_01 36:37

No, no, which is on a day-to-day basis, the distinction between expectation and agreement is quite huge. So many workplace conflicts probably stem from treating one as the other.

SPEAKER_02 36:48

Yeah, they're not the same.

SPEAKER_01 36:50

They are not the same. But we talked about earlier this week, we talked about the importance of relationship building. And you talked about the acronym Shuva. Seen, heard, understood, valued, and appreciated. Can you say something more about that?

SPEAKER_02 37:10

Yeah, let's add employee engagement to that as well.

SPEAKER_01 37:13

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 37:14

Yeah, I mean, there's been some recent studies, I mean, current studies about how discontentment is running pretty rampant. I don't know how it is in the small companies you're with.

SPEAKER_01 37:24

I think a lot of people I'd like to think people are highly engaged, but that's the reason they're not able to retain their stuff, see. That's the challenge most of them have.

SPEAKER_02 37:32

Yeah, so retention, this gets back to it. So to me, the important goal here is that sense of belonging. Belong here, that I that I'm appreciated here. And so let me unpack shuva. Uh I've you've you've heard all these words before. I don't know if you've ever heard all five words at the same time. Seen, heard, understood, valued, and appreciated. And these are these are basic fundamental human needs. And when people do feel that they have shiva, I'm gonna use the word shuva for brevity here, that they do feel that they're seen, then they feel like they're connected and they're able to align with the organization of the other humans there. Just to make sure what I mean when I say seeing, hurts, understood, valued, and appreciated. When someone is seen, it's just it's not that they're seeing you see that it's a much deeper seeing what their gifts and talents are. You know what they want, you know what struggles they have. You can you read their body as much as their words and say, I'm looking mad today. I wonder what that is. And then listen, when someone feels heard, that means the most important part of all those listening skills we hear about, the first question is, or the first decision is making the decision to really listen, share airtime, don't interrupt, get curious and really try to understand what they're saying, which is the next one. Understood. Make sure that they know that you got them, that you got they were heard. Did you ask some clarifying questions? Did you mirror back what they said? If you didn't get what they had to say, do you make clear? Understanding does not mean agreement, by the way. Understanding just means, okay, I think we understand each other now. Now what's possible, or whatever goes from there. You you want to get it in a deep way. And then valued, and I like the notion to me, one of the deepest senses of being valued is that I listen to you with a possibility of being changed. I respect what you had to say with enough gravitas that, you know, I'm gonna change what I was thinking because of what you said. To me, that's a huge value. That requires that I suspend my judgment and I really try to value someone's contribution and appreciation. Did you just say thank you? That's and did you say thankful in a meaningful way that they understood and they felt appreciated. We use the term shuva. And if you go through a SUVA work five workshop, you're now Shuva certified. And if you don't believe it works, I challenge you to this, the Shuva challenge. Take a week, name one, two, three people that you want to identify as your shuva targets, and build relationship with them and go through the steps in your mind when you're talking to them, see, hear, understand, value, and appreciate. And make sure they get a dose of shuva, dose of sugar every day, dose of shuva every day for a week, and then just I challenge you to sit back, observe, and see what happens.

SPEAKER_01 40:33

You also shared the story of a plant manager.

SPEAKER_02 40:36

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:38

Under su uh using shuva. Maybe you can brief us on that, and that'll explain.

SPEAKER_02 40:43

So let's give a little context. I was coaching a plant manager. He's the next Navy SEAL, he's near the end of his retirement. He was brought in to uh get this plant running better. And he's a can-do leader, and he was delivering, it was doing pretty good. And then they did the employee survey, and it was not shining. It was it it went down a few points. And it was just clear that he didn't have that he didn't have confidence in many of his employees. Uh in some of his employees at least. And that lack of trust, that low regard and their capabilities, it just couldn't be hidden. They knew. And it was showed up as favoritism, just maybe not in promotions and pay, but just in who you listen to, things like that. So we embarked on that mindset shift for him, because he he didn't want this. And that first step of those questions I asked earlier, he this was intolerable for him. He he wanted to leave a bigger legacy for this company that he left behind leaders that could do it. And he he identified the emotions of arrogance and doubt and wanted to move those to respect, curiosity, compassion, even love. To really respect his people, cherish his people. And so part of that was that he went out to the plant more frequently and he went on walks that weren't about maintenance or problem of the day, but they were like shuva walks. And he learned about the people how's your tomato garden today? How's your mom? How's your how's your this? And he developed relationships with them and just not just thank you for the value and the transactional value here, but thank you for being here as a person. And and lo and behold, things got better. And he shared with me at the next Christmas party when they had and they they were known for having pretty good Christmas parties, but it was kind of fun, but it was also had a wonderful deeper meaning. He was given a trophy for most improved. Whoa lovely. Yeah, to be res to be appreciated like that by your team. It's just just way cool. So yeah, it was a nice win.

SPEAKER_01 42:51

You know, you believe, and you also mentioned that leaders should have a wide range of emotions they can access. Why is that important? Isn't it better to stay professional, even keeled, and then act professionally, objectively?

SPEAKER_02 43:08

Yeah, yeah. We we have that vision of executive presence of only tall guys get to have that. You know, they're and they're kind of stoic. And and I would call that the emotion. Well, always in an emotion, I would call that the emotion of dispassion. Dispassion means I've removed my judgments, and it enables them, it enables me to look at the data and act with intellectual acuity, even when stressful times. This is valuable, this is good stuff, but it allows the leader to be balanced, present, relaxed, and and make a call in a difficult emotional situation sometimes. But is this one dimensional leader really the person you want to work for? Is that is that really who you wanna who you want to be at the coffee cooler with in the morning or something at the water cooler or a coffee? Area in the morning or wherever. So I believe that flexibility and the ability to choose is what is presence. When we talked about moving to presence from expertise. So wouldn't you like to work for a leader who inspires with enthusiasm, who acknowledges that their own anger and frustration, anxiety, and then they acknowledge anger, but maybe they'll act with curiosity or respect or compassion. And they would let the importance of an issue they have gravitas that says this is important. This is a deal. And they allow focus for that. And they can have ease and faith and trust and optimism when the going gets tough. They can channel those energies as opposed to just frustration. And they're grounded. They have humility, they have gratitude, they trust themselves. So all these are emotions. And they're all the ways that somebody can be and have presence that works. They're able to interact with stakeholders and customers. They build trust, they're sincere, they care, they're loyal. Those are emotions. There's an emotional intelligence that comes with this. And when someone's emotional regulator, they understand that and they're literate in their emotions. They know that the emotions have logic and they influence your decisions. And decisions are not just in the intellectual, they're all up in your head.

SPEAKER_01 45:30

Let's move forward. You also talked about the Enigram personality assessment in your coaching when we talked earlier also. And for those unfamiliar with it, what is Ennegram and how does it help business owners?

SPEAKER_02 45:46

Yeah, Enigram, like any assessment, it gives you a window. It gives you a new perspective. The Enigram is windows is fundamentally based on a person's motivations. I, as an Ennegram 9, I'm motivated to have peace in my life and harmony in my life. But it's a it sort of provides me with that clarity. I didn't know that so well. And I've got blind spots and strengths and triggers that assessment that that assessment will give me and other assessments too. But it provokes that insight. I had to learn that to have peace, I got to have conflict. I can't have peace without conflict. I had to go learn that, P. That's how it is for me. And assessments, I think they have value that they're, if you think of them as a box, I think that's a mistake. Someone says, Oh, I've been personality, I'm an introvert, so therefore I don't have to go to parties. Well, that's a box. An assessment is a platform, gives you knowledge and gives you something to grow from. And I'm a practitioner for a brand new assessment. It's an emotional regulation dashboard. And so it compares your personality to your emotional, your ability to be to regulate your emotions. So I'm really excited to be working with that assessment.

SPEAKER_01 47:04

Okay. Score mentors bring decades of business experience. They're naturally inclined to share advice and solutions. My question is when should a mentor resist giving advice and instead ask coaching questions? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:24

Remember when we're back to that sheet of paper, mentors were brought on board to give advice. And that advice is best in their areas of expertise. And I do have this rule about advice that the quality of advice is directly proportional to the number of questions before you got the advice. Yeah, so if you get advice after no questions, then it's likely then they're just saying what worked for them ten years ago. But I don't think that's what your mentors are doing. I don't I think they're much more engaged than that. And so that so advice giving when it comes to relationships and culture, I might be a little bit more concerned about that. I think that's something that the business owner needs to figure out.

SPEAKER_01 48:12

How can mentors recognize that readiness in their clients?

SPEAKER_02 48:17

Yeah, there's a remember that first stage of that process I talked about, when you just decide that what I've been tolerating, I'm no longer going to tolerate. And so in the recovery communities, they'll they say, I finally decided to change when I got sick and tired of being sick and tired. So there's a there's a fundamental motivation to change. But when you really get into the change part, someone that we the coaches and I'm sure mentors love to work with is that when they take responsibility for themselves, they're not in the blame game.

SPEAKER_01 48:50

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 48:50

And they're willing to practice, they're willing to try something new and see what it does for them. And they have a passion for learning. So I I'm looking for those aspects. And when I see that, I'm just like, I love working with you.

SPEAKER_01 49:06

If you could leave a business owner with one piece of a wisdom about leadership that would make an immediate difference, what would it be?

SPEAKER_02 49:16

Yeah, I I think people want to work and they will work with incredible commitment for a leader who loves.

SPEAKER_01 49:25

Very true.

SPEAKER_02 49:27

And it's not love in the romantic sense, it's that they it's it's that they love what they're doing, they cherish what they're doing. They love themselves. They practice some self-love. Yeah. That's a guy I want to work for.

SPEAKER_01 49:39

And for someone who thinks I could benefit from coaching, what should they look for in a coach? How do they know if it is a good fit? I would well don't overthink it.

SPEAKER_02 49:51

If you think you want to coach, you think it might help? Well, go find out. Don't overthink that. If you if you think that, then you probably do would benefit. And but to prepare yourself, do the work of coming up with three outcomes you'd like to get out of coaching. If you know that, and then when you start going to Google or or talking to friends, who's your coach or whatever, kind of test that coach against those three outcomes. Do they have relevant experience? Does this sound like something that they're all about? I think that's a good place to start. And then interview, go have some conversations. I can't believe it. A coach wouldn't want to have a what we call a chemistry conversation that says, hey, yeah, and you decide if if this guy or this this gal, this coach is is somebody that you could trust and you would try out whatever they suggested.

SPEAKER_01 50:47

And what if a score client is interested in coaching but is concerned about the cost? What would you recommend they do? Obviously, that's the issue.

SPEAKER_02 50:58

I'd I'd still do a free session. I'd go find out. I I think uh go find out, have some of those preliminary conversations and and see if there is value for you and and maybe and be upfront about what you have or don't have that you'd be willing to to part with and do that. If you had zero funds, I'd say give me a call. In the sense that uh, you know that that that woman that got the new job with a 30% raise. I'm doing a little a test thing. I was learning something new about emotions. Right now I'm learning how to do uh this this assessment, the new assessment. So I'm dying to have some people to work with that on. And entry cost may be quite low. So go find out what emerges at chemistry if that works for you or not.

SPEAKER_01 51:45

That's true. Find out. And you'll be offering school clients a free session. How do they reach out to you?

SPEAKER_02 51:57

Well, the first answer to that is heck yes. And uh check my website, www.thinkingpartners.com, or give me an email, can at thinkingpartners.com. And call, I'll have a little chemistry call. Encourage you to come. We do three things you want to get out of coaching for assisting. Yeah, you could talk about what this might look like for you. I'm moving to a model where I'd like to make a shorter term impact. Some coaches will say, Oh, I uh I only take people on for a year. I don't want it, and that's trusting if you don't know the person.

SPEAKER_01 52:37

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 52:38

Yeah. It might be a shorter term way to get started and you make a huge impact.

SPEAKER_01 52:44

That's good. Ken, well, lovely talking to you. I really enjoy both the previous conversation and this conversation. And I'm sure the listeners and score clients, they would also enjoy. And uh they would benefit by this podcast. Thanks to you. Thanks for coming on our podcast.

SPEAKER_02 53:04

Oh, and thank you so much. I've really enjoyed doing this. I've really enjoyed your organization. I've really enjoyed preparing for this. It was a great chance for me to articulate things that have been rambling in my head before I went to sleep. So it's a great way for me to do that. I'm just very appreciative of the opportunity. So thank you very much.

SPEAKER_01 53:21

Personally, you also gained a lot in the introduction. So that'll be very useful to me, too.

SPEAKER_02 53:27

Well, the final question of every coaching session is what's your takeaway?

SPEAKER_01 53:34

Having you as a podcast guest, I would say, for me. Love.

SPEAKER_00 53:43

Thanks for listening to Mentor Conversations at Score Houston. If you're an entrepreneur or small business owner, we'd love to support your journey. You can reach us at 713-487-6565, or visit us at 8701-South Gestner, suite 1200, Houston, Texas 77074. Our office is open Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., except for federal holidays. Walk-ins are always welcome. To learn more, to request free mentoring, or to register for workshops, visit us online at score.org slash Tuesday. Until next time, keep learning, keep growing, and remember, at Score, we're here to help you thrive.