Supervisors as teachers not bosses

Frontline supervisors might be the key to our workplace culture. And they may need our attention. Supervisors are asked to do everything — schedule, train, manage quality, order supplies, write reports. And yet the one skill that might actually make their jobs easier is the one we almost never teach them: how to coach.

Hillary thinks that the answer to your productivity challenges might not be more accountability, but more adult learning. She walks through the mechanics of in-the-moment reflection, a 30-second coaching practice that can dramatically shift a worker's motivation, and makes the case for internal certifications as a tool any organization can build, regardless of sector or budget.

Then she hands the mic to her ex-wife, Steph Frances — founder of Prodigy Ventures and Little Square Studio— who has spent her career proving that the young adults most workplaces give up on are often the ones most hungry to grow.

Some things you'll hear:

• How Prodigy reviewed footage of baristas working a rush, NFL-style, and why apprentices loved it
• What happened when a shift leader jumped over the espresso counter at a customer — and how that became a breakthrough coaching moment
• Why one apprentice literally sprinted to work, and what that tells us about intrinsic motivation
• The difference between a "blue ribbon for showing up" culture and one where people actually want to get better
• How to build an internal certification from scratch using questions you can ask your own supervisors this week

Guest: Steph Frances is the founder of Prodigy Ventures, a social enterprise and apprenticeship for young adults in northeast Denver. Over eight years as Executive Director, Steph led Prodigy’s enterprise to double-digit year-over-year sales growth, raised over $5M and built an apprenticeship model for disconnected youth with an 85% completion rate. 

Most recently, Steph served as the National Vice President of Programs and Training for Momentum Advisory Collective, the capacity-building organization for Cafe Momentum. 

In her role as a consultant over the past ten years, Steph has worked with social enterprises around the country, most closely with REDF ESEs in start-up, program development, certification, strategic planning and fundraising.

Steph is also a proud 2020 Livingston Fellow, and a Denver Business Journal Outstanding Women in Business finalist. She was trained at Eagle Rock’s School of Professional Studies, has a Master’s in Nonprofit Management from Regis University and is an altMBA graduate. Steph also serves on the Board of Directors for BuCu West, a community-based economic development organization in Denver’s Westwood neighborhood; she is also a member of the Globeville, Elyria, Swansea Community Investment Fund at National Western Authority.

Transcript

My name is Hillary Frances, and one of the things I've been thinking about is how much of our economy hinges on the people who supervise entry level workers. So much is required of this particular type of supervisor. There's schedulers, project managers, quality controllers, van drivers, supply, orderers, report writers, guest speakers, and often lastly. Trainers and we know that the quality of training that staff receive is directly correlated with their output. And the output of entry level staff impacts your supervisor's retention, how stressed they are. So many of you are working to equip your supervisors with leadership skills. You're trying to pay them more. You're trying to throw everything you can at them to keep them afloat because you know that their jobs are very hard. But what if the answer wasn't more money, but actually teaching them how to coach? What if the answer to your productivity challenges wasn't more accountability, but more adult learning? That's today's episode. 

You're listening to tailwinds ideas, fueling nonprofit innovators and social entrepreneurs. Tailwinds is a project that brings momentum to the leaders tackling the world's most impossible problems. Today's episode has two parts. Part one, I'll share what I'm learning about the role of frontline supervisors in shaping an organization's culture. You are going to hear about the power supervisors have in either activating employee's innate love of learning, or creating a culture based on compliance and accountability. I'm going to share a tool to help with this internal certifications. Part two, you're going to hear from an executive director who has taught frontline supervisors how to be coaches first and managers second, she's going to tell some stories of what this looks like in practice with a workforce of high barrier young adults. We'll learn how she's seen entry level staff move from unengaged to highly motivated because of supervisors who know how to coach. And a fund bonus about part two is that Steph and I were married for seven years, co-founded a social enterprise together and are now great friends. 

So part one. It's not hard to argue that workplace culture hinges on how we supervise and manage each other. We can easily drop images of places we've worked where things were good, when the leadership was good, things were hard, when the leadership was not good. I've been observing hundreds of organizations over the past few years and think I'm finally clear on what makes leaders good. It has to do with how well leaders can tap into someone's intrinsic motivation, especially, and specifically the motivation to master their craft. In my experience, the leaders who have the power to make the most significant shifts in workplace culture are those who have the most direct reports. If you have a pyramid shaped org chart, we're talking about the supervisors at the bottom of the pyramid who have the large crew of entry level workers at the very bottom. Some of you hire a workforce with barriers to employment, so your supervisors would be the folks working directly with that high barrier workforce. They influence the largest number of people who experience your workplace culture. So they have a lot of influence on your workplace culture. Let's think about these supervisors today. How do you train them, equip them, support them? Have they recently been promoted from an entry-level position and asked to lead their peers? Excellent. And yet we often underinvest in their leadership skills. Give them online modules or a workshop here and there. My theory is that we can provide very rudimentary training on coaching toward prebuilt benchmarks that will drastically improve the way they work with their teams. 

Let's talk about the coaching skill first and then those prebuilt benchmarks. The coaching skill I'd like every supervisor to learn is how to do in the moment reflection with direct reports. In the moment, reflection is interrupting the flow of work to collectively notice something, reflect on it, and decide how to proceed. In the moment, reflection is best accompanied by a clear set of skills a worker is working on achieving. So we can reflect on how we're doing against that set of skills, but we'll get to that in a minute. First, we have to equip supervisors with the ability to identify the moment that is worthy of reflection. Show up with a great question to ask, how to listen to the answer. Then to offer an additional perspective to their employee if needed. This can take 30 seconds and it's proving to drastically improve a worker's motivation and therefore performance. We can begin with the moment before or after a shift. A pre-shift huddle is common, a post-shift debrief as well. If it's post-shift, the supervisor can begin by asking, what were you proud of today? What skill were you working on today? What went well? Then they can offer their observations, what they're proud of, what skill they saw the employee working on. What they observed went well. Okay. Then the supervisor can ask, what skill are you needing to hone tomorrow? The skills employees are working on will be obvious if there's a list of them for the internal certification they're working on. But regardless, this is what a post shift debrief would look like. 

If your supervisors are able to work alongside direct reports, they would have the ability to find moments right after something important happened. To have this coaching conversation, let's say it's after a difficult customer interaction, the supervisor pulls the employee aside and asks, I know that was rough, but what are you most proud of From that interaction, what did you do? Well. They listen to the answer and add to it. I'm proud that you came up with that creative solution on your toes. We've never offered an angry customer a tour before, and that was brilliant. Then they ask, what skill are you working on that this relates to? The employee might say managing complex customer challenges, and then the supervisor says, and what part of that do you want to get better at next time? The employee says, I need to look for the good in the customer. I was hating them the whole time. The supervisor might say, yes, you could tell you were hating them with the tone of your voice, but your solution was brilliant. So you can see how this requires the supervisor to have four things ready at all times. The question, what worked? A piece of feedback on what they saw that worked. The question, what skill are you working on? And a piece of feedback on what they observed that was either on par with that skill or fell short of the skill. 

So now let's talk about the pre-built benchmarks I've been mentioning. I don't know if you've noticed this, but we are even more motivated to achieve something when it has a clearly defined bar that has been set for us. Martial arts have belts, Scouts have badges. Video games have levels. Adult learning theory tells us that we receive a dopamine hit every time we achieve a small win, and it fuels our motivation to work on the next level. Dan Pink's research on motivation would agree. He tells us that we are motivated by mastery and that we need to create opportunities for people to have a sense that they're making progress and moving forward. So moving forward toward what some of the organizations I'm working with are developing internal certifications or badges that represent core competencies they need their workforce to have. The most familiar translation of this is apprenticeship. You've heard of apprentice, journeyman Master when it comes to carpentry or electricians. The same concepts can be built in any workplace. We simply need a definition of the knowledge, skills, and mindsets necessary to do a particular job well, and we can create a certification for it. 

The Children's Learning Center in Wyoming is creating a series of badges for their staff to work toward. For example, they created a badge called instructional strategies practitioner level one, which they're defining as the ability to create emotionally safe, well-managed, and engaging classrooms. The rubric for this badge includes a list of very specific things the person must know. Skills they must demonstrate and mindsets they must demonstrate. Example of something on the knowledge list, the difference between control and structure. Why predictable routines, reduce anxiety, proactive versus reactive management. Example of a skill on the rubric for this badge is that they can demonstrate predictable routines. In their classroom. Example of a mindset on their rubric is the idea that behavior is communication. Children are signaling needs, not testing authority. 

The same thing is happening at a barbecue restaurant I worked with in Cincinnati. They created a certification for their meat station. The knowledge, skills, and mindsets for level one on the meat station were the most basic things they needed people to know to do and to think in order to be helpful. On the meat station example of knowledge types of knives to use for cutting different meats, they gave them a test with pictures of knives and they had to identify which knife would be used to cut brisket. Another piece of knowledge, what type of wood they use in their smoker. Skills They need to demonstrate building a brisket plate with specific quality standards for each step, including the fact that the meat cannot have too much cartilage and the plate must be tidy when finished. 

Imagine how much easier it would be for supervisors to coach if they were coaching towards specific milestones. This is so new for us. Supervision has been marked by a legacy of the industrial age and that we're trying to encourage our direct reports to perform in a certain way by checking in on them and imposing accountability measures. This misses the fact that adults, even young adults, are highly motivated to master things. We want to be good at things. We want to achieve a higher level in our video game. Perfect. Our guacamole recipe beat our phone's. Estimated time of arrival to our destination. 

Now, I'm really eager for you to hear about this in practice. I am going to play pieces of my conversation with Steph Frances, and, yes, same last name because we were married in the past. Some of you are listening because you're interested in what Steph has to say, and some of you are listening because you just wanna hear me interview my ex-wife. Regardless, you're in for a treat. Steph is the founder of Little Square Studio, a consulting firm that specializes in resourcing social enterprises. She's also serving as the executive director at Bikes Together, a social enterprise in Denver. She was recently the National Vice President of Programs and Training for Momentum Advisory Collective, the Capacity Building Organization for Cafe Momentum. She is also the founder of Prodigy Ventures. Prodigy operates a social enterprise and apprenticeship for young adults, disconnected from school and work in Denver. A few things about Prodigy that will be helpful as you hear some of her case studies and wonder how well does that work out in a high pressure business setting. Steph has led Prodigy to double digit year over year sales growth and built an apprenticeship model for disconnected youth with an 85% completion rate. Prodigy received numerous accolades including being ranked by USA today as the 10th best independent coffee shop in the country. In 2023, Prodigy has grown into a social enterprise leader, a global homeboy network trainer, a consultant to clients across the country, and into a $3 million organization with three locations.

As you listen to our conversation, note that Steph repeats many of the ideas I just shared with you above. Part of that is that I learned many of these concepts from her and I wanted you to hear them from her directly. Also, when you hear her tell this story about Andre, you might wonder why did an adult not get involved in that moment? The answer. Everyone was out of town at Homeboy Industries that day, and she does replay the conversation they had with Andre when they returned, and I will say that it was still very timely.

I thought that I could warm us up to this conversation by showing you a picture.

Yes.

Okay. So I'm gonna share my screen and show you a picture.

Can't wait. I have, I have like five guesses in my head about what this could be. Oh yeah.

Was this one of 'em?

No,

Well, I but this is a great photo.

explain to people who can't see this picture, what, what we're looking at. Um, and you go first, what are you looking at? And then I'll explain why I'm showing you this picture.

Okay. Well, first is my outfit. That's like one of the classic ones. I have a camo hat on and a white dress with a flannel cinched over it and some kneehigh boots. And have importantly I have a lanyard on, which is awesome.

Importantly, you and I are wearing orange lanyards and we're both wearing white skirts, which we probably got annoyed with each other we had not coordinated.

Right.

'cause these were the days when we wanted to be very different from each other.

right. Yeah. That's why you would wear like six inch heels, and I'm like six inch shorter than you already.

Yep. So we're standing in our, um, high heel, I'm wearing high heel flip flops, and you're wearing high heel boots with socks above them.

Mm-hmm.

And we're both wearing white skirts above the knee and our orange lanyards. And we are standing next to Father Greg Boyle.

Yeah.

Who's also wearing an orange lanyard and he has a button down, uh, homeboy Industries shirt on. And we are in Los Angeles, and it is 2015

Wow.

and
Yeah.

So I show you this picture because it's the origin story

yeah.

11 years ago and this was just one of the moments that was foundational for us homeboy Industries

Yeah. Yeah.

Hillary Frances: 16:60
So I'm eager for you to share this thing you've created that maybe was inspired maybe by Homeboy Industries a little bit, but across your career you've been working on, how do we create workplaces where people rediscover their love of learning and therefore are fully engaged in their jobs? because I really believe that you have something sort of seminal here. Like I think that you have, created a methodology for working with folks who normally don't succeed in workplaces. That is very unique.

Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting. Our lens at Prodigy is working with a group of young people who have, different experiences, were marginalized from traditional school and work structures. And so our lens to getting them to this place of stepping into their own inherent greatness comes from really doubling down on the science of learning and cognitive psychology around like what motivates humans in life. Right? And so it's been really beautiful to take our understanding of how people learn and get young people and actually people in all sorts of workplaces to this place of feeling like they belong and contribute in workplaces and are high performers and a very short amount of time.

Yeah. And that's what I want you to explain as much as you can today, the way that you bring science of learning into a workplace. You've done something different in the places you've worked, which is not to give supervisors more leadership or management skills or money right away. I mean, you do eventually.


but to equip them with adult education skills to to be teachers before their bosses. So why is that your inclination? Tell us about that.

Yeah. Well, one of the things that has been really powerful for me to learn and to share with our staff and supervisors is that people, all people. Are motivated by, of course, intrinsic, like internal factors like your passion inside and external factors like pay and promotions and things like that. And those, both of those things are really important. But what we tend to in our culture, try to throw the external factors at this, right? Money, bonuses, titles, all the things. So those are somewhat important, but we don't tend to factor on how do we motivate people so that they actually want to come to work? Um, and you know, one of the images I always have of this is when we were building Prodigy, we wanted apprentices to get excited to come to work. And I remember in the first month when we opened, we had an apprentice who had never had experience, uh, successful experience and work had just come outta jail. And she walk, she, she gets to her, her shift and she's out of breath. She clocks in and we're like, what is going on? And this is Frankie sprinted to work that day. And we were like, yes. And it wasn't because she was gonna get in trouble, it was because she was excited about working. And so like, that's this image that I always think about, like, how can we make people like Sprint to work, right? And this is across the board. It can be apprentices, it can be entry level workers, all the way up to your senior level workers. So a lot of this stuff, I think, can be translated across whatever working environment you're in. But you have to tap into people's intrinsic motivations. But the really good thing is there's a universal place to start in all of this, which is understanding that every person by the very nature of being human is motivated to learn. So if you can create a workplace around learning that right there, you're setting things up for some intrinsic motivation. And so this idea is, yeah, think like an educator and a facilitator rather than a supervisor. What I see in workplaces,. Yeah, is you're usually in one of two different places in, in the workplace. Like one is this old school understanding of how work should be structured, right? Like this hierarchical kind of get this idea of this corporate middle manager vibes, right? We set gold, hold people accountable, and we give them feedback in their performance evals and they might get a raise, you know, or whatever. So I see that in some workplaces. And then I see on the other flip side, this is really pervasive in nonprofits, is that sometimes we, we wanna care so deeply about our team that, and we think we're putting the person first and being compassionate that we. Actually lose sight of helping them learn. We just incorporate this, you've got this sort of cheerleader vibe going on, like blue ribbon for showing up on time to work and stuff. And, but that, that becomes empty, and it can actually, feel like some people would call it coddling it, it can also have a detrimental, impact on motivating people. And so this third way is this sort of educator facilitator, where it's highly relational, highly human learning environment.


Okay, so let's think about that in practice. I'd love to hear what that looks like because I'm thinking about who would agree with you but don't know how that would affect their business. Bottom line, that sounds expensive. That sounds slow. That sounds, like we have to hire people who are good at teaching. But that there's a lot of pressure on the production line or on the service delivery or on whatever the business model is that we don't time for this to feel like school.

Right? Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

So how would an organization start this process without having to do a huge overhaul? How would a team begin to create a culture of learning having to hire a bunch of teachers?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, there's some simple things you could do today if you wanted to, that would make a significant difference. I would call out two things that, that you could do in your, with your team today. Number one is mine for greatness. So what I mean by that is. Train your supervisors and you as the leader, have to demonstrate that, start with, you go and catch people doing great things, especially things, that are complex. And or high quality. And if bonus, if it's something that is really unique that they do really well, uniquely that they're demonstrating at work. So like for example, working with a bike, social enterprise and have a mechanic who struggles with some of the team interpersonal stuff which is what we're working on. But we didn't start there. What I started with, and I came in as a supervisor, is I caught him. And this is genuinely, he's the best at working with people who are, what a lot of other employers would call difficult participants, right? Challenging. They, you know, they're grumpy, they're drunk, they're, they brought their kids in. They're, you know, like all the things and it was so beautiful he spent a long time with this, woman and her daughter one day teaching the kid how to like, true a bicycle wheel, right? And. I took him aside after the shift and I said, can I talk to you about what I noticed today? And he always thinks he's about to get fired and, and was able to say, oh my gosh, you did that in such a beautiful way working with this mother. And then giving genuine examples in the moment or in before the shift was over.

And he, like, we both had tears because this woman's life was changed by working with him that day. And he's like a problem employee. And he was like, I can't believe you, like how much you see me. No one's ever said that to me that way. So mine for the good, right? And it has to be genuine and it has to be complex, right? It can't just be give a blue ribbon for. Tie in your shoes. No. Like, you wanna, you wanna reinforce those things that are really good. That also helps you build relationship, right? And it helps you also, norm, just reflecting. So I try to reflect after every shift that we're around each other, something great. And also, hey, there's other pieces here, that, we can reflect on that maybe aren't the greatness, right? And so the, so the number one is mind for greatness and mirror back the greatness of that person genuinely. Number two is create space for reflection. So 80 to 90% of the feedback that people need to be motivated and to grow. They already have within them. All I do is create space for them to reflect on it. So number one is, it's kind of hokey even with like highly skilled workers. We'll do a shift or a day together, and then I'll ask them to identify what are you proud of today? And what did you learn? So at, a national restaurant social enterprise at Cafe Momentum, like one of the things we would do, we would fly all over the country and help cities, stand up, social enterprise restaurants. And after every trip. We would pre-schedule a reflection, in that same week, um, we had huge events and you know, we're going to the Super Bowl and all this stuff, but we just had it on our calendar that we're gonna reflect and each person would come. And it was a very simple agenda. What are you proud of personally? What are you proud of about your teammates? What's your personal growth opportunity and where can our team grow? It's a half hour conversation, but you just build that in Um, a couple other pieces around reflection that I get excited about. One of the things we would do at Prodigy with apprentices is we would actually videotape them during a rush when they are, this is a coffee house and they're becoming crab, coffee baristas, and. We would videotape them during a rush or during our, we had a certification where they had to demonstrate, high quality, marks on creating a series of drinks within a certain amount of time. So we would videotape them during that. And then afterwards, kind of like an NFL team, we, this would be like, this is this, we're doing video, you know, video day, we're analyzing video on a separate day next Thursday. We pull it up and they get to watch themselves. And we put the standards that we've already talked about next to them. We watch it together and it's so much fun. Or even better when they get to watch their peers doing it. 'cause you know, then, then what

I was never there for that.

exactly, oh yeah, it's so much fun. And also like lots of like. They'd see each other do, do well when this video's up. Right? And they'd be like, oh damn, did you see that? Oh, that was so cool. You know? this, These are like 18 to 24 year olds that like, had not very good success in traditional school, but they're like doing these things that I'm sure Hillary, you would not be able to do.

Well, that's 'cause you never let me behind the bar.

Oh, uh, yeah. But like prioritizing, like doing four things at once. while honoring someone's humanity who is ordering or watching them, wanting to talk with them while they're building their drinks and taking care of the drive-through and all the things. Um.

Think I can do four things at once? Is that what this is?

Not behind, not behind the espresso machine is all. And you'd probably, if you were running out to, to take care of the drive through, you'd trip with.

I would trip. Yes. Yeah. I would not be able to do four things and be cheerful at the same time.

that's right. Yeah. Yeah. So, no. One of the thing I would say that we would do, again, this is coffee shop, example, but we've had some rushes, where there's a line out the door and you have four young people who are learning all this stuff. Sometimes they, I don't know, can, are we allowed to cuss on, on tailwinds? Is this.

I guess.

All right. Well, you can bleep it out. Sometimes the apprentice crew would shit the bed. Right? Like it would be a bad, it would just be, and I'd be watching the whole thing. Right.

I know what could have been done as of their supervisor differently. But what we would do is when there was a lull, or at the end of their shift, we'd say, I need the team to stay 15 minutes after. We're gonna go over, you know, we're done with our shift. We're gonna go in the meeting space. Let's talk about as a group, what happened. What happened during that, oh, you know, I was busy doing X and so I forgot to do this, or I miss this. Okay, how'd that affect the rest of you? So you get the team together, and I'm not telling them what should have, could have been done, but we have them come up with the solutions and kind of co-create the, the next steps there.

Simply ask what happened?

What happened? What are they proud of? I always start with that. Even when there's a shit, the bed situation. Start with what are you proud of? What went well?

So they get, they, they get pulled into the conference room knowing that, that they might be in trouble, but you start with what are you proud of?

Yeah. Well, by now, if, if we've done it, if we've been together long enough, they know they're not getting in trouble. They know that we're gonna, but there are other things that are motivating them. So number one is we do have a culture of taking personal accountability. They know what, the quality standards are. We've committed, this is one big thing in all this. As a learner, you have to have the learner commit. And so this learner has committed by, by working with us from day one, they know this is a learning environment, so they've committed to learning. So they know we're gonna go in this place, and they might just say, look, I totally messed that up. I'm so sorry, team. And there are some times when they don't see what the issue is, or there's something that I, as the supervisor or their coach, or their teacher in that moment need to say, yeah, I, you all are talking about this. Here's what I noticed and here's what I, what do you think about that? How does that feel when I say that? And so that's also a way that you can align, the expectations of the supervisor versus what they think they are in their head. Sometimes those are in different places, like they think they're doing really well and the supervisor's like they're doing terrible, but over time you can kind of get alignment because you're creating space for those reflection conversations. So I think I, I'll give an example of, a particular young emerging leader that I worked with. We will name him, Andre. And, and he wanted to be a leader. So one of the things we, we do also in this process is to put leaders into situations where they can demonstrate and fail at leadership, right? So, Andre was leading, his first, shift, lead shift and he had a younger, person at the point of sale. And he was at the espresso machine. he is someone who has a background, coming from being gang involved, justice system involved, and, probably some different learning abilities so he is in this leadership position for an hour leading the shop. And so this guy comes in and he, starts being really rude to this new apprentice at point of sale system starts spewing off, things and like just getting frustrated with her and Andre's like overhearing this situation. Andre's, trying to make the drink that he ordered, the guy ordered wrong, whatever he's telling he's, by the way, Andre is a tall, skinny, black young man, and the customer is a white, middle aged man. And he basically told Andre that he's not a real barista and Andre's using all his skills. And we had identified for Andre, look, creative problem solving and communication are really important next steps for him. And he tried, he tried. Well, the guy became such a jerk that Andre had it and he kind of, uh, went back into what he knew best, which was he, jumped over the counter from behind the ESA machine, jumped over the counter, got into the guy's phase, and he told the guy to go back to Chicago, which he had heard. The guy had said he is from Chicago. So he said, go back to Chirac. Um, which is a reference to a Spike Lee movie and yells, meanwhile, there's a line of people watching this whole thing in the shop. bit,

He is the supervisor.

He, he's the supervisor and all the things, and so traditionally, right? Like he got in the guy's face, like he was threatening to the guy and it with his body. He didn't touch him. But anyway, traditional employer is going to be. You're in trouble. We need to talk about, put you on performance plan. Um, you need to go home. All this stuff. We knew what Andre needed most to unlock his greatness that was there. And so what we did is got someone to take over the shift and we went and reflected with him after that. Okay? The first thing we said after this situation was, Andre, what went well in that situation?

He came into our reflection head down thinking he's about to get fired. And so he said, well, I get, I mean, actually after I got in the guy's face, and he left by the way, when he was like jumping over the counter, he almost kicked a pregnant white lady. Okay, so,

It was a, a, a, like a very, um, karate kind of leap

Yeah, he's a very tall, like leggy young man, and so he said without any prompting other than What were you proud of in that situation? It like took him aback and he said, well, after I got in the guy's face, I went up to that lady and I told her I was sorry. And you know what she said to me? He's, he's saying this. She said, that's all right. That guy was a dick. And then he went around and he is like, I'm also proud because then I went around to every single person who saw that happen in the coffee shop, and I apologize

Wow.

Right there, what a win and what gave him space to reflect on his own right. And then we certainly had a conversation about the other stuff, right? Like. How this can a affect your life. Dre, you could put yourself in jeopardy. The police could be coming down here. But I'll tell you, we made sure we talked about the high standards we have and a path to get there. And so we had a plan for next time this happens and all those things, but

Well, I remember you gave him two choices. One was, he look up the guy and apologized to him, or two was to earn five, five star reviews, something because the guy left a bad review. The guy left a terrible Google

Yeah. That's right. That's right. Yeah. Not excusing that behavior. We're calling it out all the things, but leading with some of the other things that we knew this young man needed.

The thing that seems important in this equation is that we know what the standards of great are. So, that we're working toward a certain type of latte or a certain type of customer service or a certain type of speed accuracy, and that that's clear otherwise these conversations are gonna be very generic.

Yep. Yes. So the way that, that I've found really amazing success with this is to create, a structure of learning around, we would call them internal certifications. In the couple of, employment social enterprises I've worked in, doesn't have to be called a certification, but here's how it is laid out. Number one is you create an outline of learning, that helps you identify the knowledge, skills and reasoning that each employee or apprentice needs, to be able to perform well. you really Can ask your core, supervisor team, a set of questions to get you, 80% of the way. So one is you're, you wanna identify what's the basic knowledge that an employee needs to know to, to do their job. Well that stage of the job. So it's what do the interns or apprentices or employees, what do they need to know? The next is you wanna identify the skills that they need. So what should they be able to do? And then this one is really important. It's identifying like key mindsets that they can have. So how should interns approach this work in their minds? Like an example is, I am a learner. When I fail, I try again. So some of those core mindsets. Um, another in these certifications to set the quality bar. So the question is how do we know when we got it right? What are the quality indicators, right? So, with a coffee drink, it's a certain, set of, metrics and also a visual and also a time, right? And then the last one is just get some ideas from your supervisors how can staff best teach this skill? So just get some ideas from them that can help you build a framework pretty quickly to then, put into some sort of, learning or certification outline.

That sounds really helpful. So how do you get people excited about these certifications versus feel like they've been imposed upon them?

Yeah, that's great. So number one on the extrinsic motivation part of this is like they do, there are some like milestones that they can hit when they demonstrate certain skills. They get a little raise or they get a little promotion, or that it unlocks more opportunity for them to learn more or do more. Um, but internally, we as humans are designed and motivated by success, right? And so you're basically like getting little hits of, adrenaline and little hits of success. And so the idea is that you, these certifications are not actually evaluations. They're set up as. Frameworks for learning the next most important skill on the job. And so,

What would be some things on a basic certification that, that you've created before?

Yeah, So we would have a Barista, one level certification in our coffee house that we built around about a three month process. Apprentices knew like, Hey, you know, number one, you can work on this as quickly or as slowly as you want. This helps you take care of different styles of learners and different pace of learning and people coming in to the job with different sets of experiences. But we sort of like in our heads, designed it around this three month mark. And the goal was that we want them to get the most important foundational skills to be helpful on the business side as quickly as possible.

And that, and then, we broke it into four different, mini evaluations. The first was working on the point of sale system. And so we had basic knowledge about coffee. The most common questions that customers might ask about coffee would be on that knowledge, of evaluation. And then, skills would be like giving change, show us that you can do a discount in the POS system, things like that. And reasoning might be, is able to, solve simple customer problems or respond to customer complaints, using these things. They would do that within generally about a month, and we would be coaching them both in the moment during shift as well as. Having some professional development or some learning, outside of shift with it allows them to focus on some of the learning, the knowledge pieces. And then, that would unlock the next thing, which is, ooh, they get to, they're excited because now they get to be behind the bar. And so they get to be learning how to, actually make drinks. And that's the really fun part. And, and so there we had a, demonstration of skill behind the bar, as part of this three month barista one evaluation where, they get to make a couple drinks with certain quality specs in a certain amount of time. And we built it. So actually it was really kind of hard for an entry level person. Almost everyone would quote unquote fail that the first time they take it. That's okay, So they know exactly what's on the test.

They know exactly what needs to be done. They can work with each other to practice. It takes practice. And, and the goal is actually that it's hard. And so they're excited. Then we get, then we get to celebrate when they, when they nail it. And so generally it would be about three or four times that they would take that. That was the other key piece of sort of these certifications, is that you get to try again. It's not just one and done, it's not like your SAT, right? And so that normalizes all those pieces of iteration, reflection, and, deliberative practice. Deliberative practice is huge.

Mm-hmm. one of the things that might be occurring to people is that the, the skills you've talked about supervisors having in the workplaces you've worked really advanced and mature and like a seasoned professional would need to be the supervisor be able to do this in the moment reflection, to be able to, ask such good questions. But I know that you have equipped. Folks with those skills aren't college grads with a degree in nonprofit leadership like that, you have taught people to be shift leads and, supervisors who recently came through the program. How have you taught those skills to people?

Yeah. So one is you really lean on that internal learning structure, whether it's certifications or what have you. You create, routines where these supervisors, can give, feedback through this learning structure, there are touch points at the end of each of these sort of mini certification chunks where supervisors can, naturally give some feedback. So one is your internal structure. Two is I have those supervisors sit in with me when I give feedback and have hard conversations and have the good conversations too. So, and then a third is I'll take a supervisor, a young emerging leader, and we'll do shift audits together. So take, you know, Hillary, you're my, you're the emerging leader. I'd be like, Hey, okay, come on, let's go, let's go watch the team. For this hour together, and we're watching the same thing in real time, and we're gonna compare what we see, what do you see happening? What, what are you thinking about? Then let me tell you, because you, as the young leader, might see, you know, 10% of the good and, and the things that need improvement. And then I might say to you, okay, here's, let me tell you what I'm seeing and here's here's why. And so. They're they can learn how the experienced supervisor really thinks in situations. And then I might say, okay, what should we address first? We're acknowledging that these three things are maybe not hitting our quality standards. What do you think we should do? Well, I think, you know, and then kind of comparing there and then okay, actually we need to go intervene right now. Let's go, let's go practice. 'cause some things need to be intervened like in the actual moment, right? But it's really fun to do an audit. You can have a team of a couple emerging leaders go and take notes on everything. They notice and recommend things to you. And you in that same shift are doing it in your own, and then you can compare. Right? And so those are really fun ways to do that.

We did it.

I'm impressed that you let me take the, take the mic for a little while.

There were a few times I had to pretend I didn't know what you were talking about.

Yeah. You're really good with like the Mm, mm-hmm

Like I've never heard that before. A few times I had to pretend that I didn't have a good idea for what I wanted you to say.

I know. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. That's so good. Yeah. And, and a few times you had to like stop yourself from cutting me off.

And a few times. Yeah. And a few times I did not try and summarize what you said. 'cause I know that it would've not pleased you.

That's amazing. You know, the classic thing is the difference between you and I. Like I would wanna redo that whole thing again.

You would wanna redo this episode like. Four more times and discuss it beforehand for 30 minutes each time.

I think one of the best things about the workplaces Steph described is that they take their workers seriously. Motivation skyrockets when people who have not been taken seriously in the past are taken seriously for the first time. At the end of the day, we all want to work alongside people who are onto something. So if you wanna make the biggest impact on your organization's culture, start with equipping the supervisors who lead the biggest teams. Equip them with the ability to do in the moment reflection. Equip them with internal certifications or badges to offer their staff. And if you're feeling brave, set up internal certifications at all levels of your organization. I think I'm working on a podcast host badge myself, but also an ambition without judgment badge. Tailwinds is a production of Flying Whale Strategies, a consulting firm that is equipping teams to solve impossible problems. A special thank you to Steph Frances for sharing her framework with us. If you'd like to learn more about Steph's work, please visit www.littlesquare.org. You'd like to see Prodigy apprentices in action behind the bar. Take a look at their short documentary film at prodigyventures.org. If you'd like to learn more about Flying Whale Strategies, please visit our website at flyingwhalestrategies.com. Thanks for listening.