Season 6 Episode 8: The Word on Coaching - Culture 2.0

Get your pencil and paper ready!
In this episode, our guest Amy Archer shares her recipe for creating a culture where people want to stay and grow. Amy is a Senior Vice President with Property/Casualty Insurance Experience and complex legal expertise. She shares her real-world victories and bloopers to help us understand what it takes to build a strong engaging and safe workplace culture. Her humor is only surpassed by her intellect.

I know I say this all the time but ... this IS a don't miss episode!

Contact information:
(18) Amy Archer, J.D., CPCU, CLU | LinkedIn

Books Recommended in this episode:

Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones: Clear, James: 9780735211292: Amazon.com: Books

How to Become a Great Boss: The Rules for Getting and Keeping the Best Employees: Fox, Jeffrey J.: 9780786868230: Amazon.com: Books

Monday Morning Leadership: 8 Mentoring Sessions You Can't Afford to Miss: David Cottrell, Alice Adams, Juli Baldwin: 9780971942431: Amazon.com: Books

Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts.: Brown, Brené: 9780399592522: Amazon.com: Books

Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance: Gawande, Atul: 9780805082111: Amazon.com: Books

What Got You Here Won't Get You There by Marshall Goldsmith: Marshall Goldsmith: Amazon.com: Books

Check out our best-selling book The Word on Coaching.  Buy a copy for yourself and copies to share with others.
Amazon.com: The Word on Coaching: 9781737643807: Neely, Debby, Auger, Joann, Fuselier, Kevin: Books

Check out our  quick guide about powerful questions: "Embrace the Power of Questions!"   A Quick Reference Guide to Getting the Answers You Need.  

Transcript

0:04

So,

Debby 0:05

hi everybody. Welcome to the Word on Coaching podcast. I'm Debbie, and I'm here with Kevin and Joanne. Hey Kevin. Hey Joanne.

Kevin 0:14

Hello. Hello everybody.

Debby 0:18

We are coaches three. Three friends with years of leadership and coaching experience who want to share our passion with you. So our podcast is for leaders, whether you have the formal title or not. And in each podcast we focus on one word that relates to leadership and coaching. Now we know leadership is hard, so we, along with our guests, we're gonna give you tips, we're gonna share some information, maybe a different perspective, and always a lot of support. We've got your back. Today I am very excited to welcome Amy Archer. Amy's been on my wishlist for a little while, so I'm really excited that we were able to get her on here as a guest. Now, let me tell you a little bit about Amy. Now, this is what's gonna say on paper, so we'll start there. Okay. On paper is gonna say that Amy is the Senior Vice President of customer care and Property casualty claims. For the largest national multi-line insurance company dedicated to serving America's educators and their families. Let's hear it for the educators.

Kevin 1:21

Yay. Yay, yay. Yeah. Yay.

Debby 1:24

Now all of that is true, and having watched Amy's leadership journey over the years, I hate to even tell you how many years I think it's been Amy, I would add, yeah, it's been a few. I would add that she's very passionate about leadership. She's a huge advocate for development and she really leads from integrity and then kind of a fun fact, which she's probably gonna see if she wants to talk about it. She's newly married. She's, we can still consider you a newlywed,

Amy 1:55

right. I think so. I don't know when that moniker ends, but we've been married about 15 months, so I think I'm still newly weed. Okay.

Debby 2:06

So Amy, what else would you like to share with

Amy 2:08

our audience? Well, thanks I really appreciate the kind introduction. You're right. I, I'm very passionate about leadership. I had that crossroads in my life where, Early on in my career, I could have gone on to be a practicing lawyer or I could have gone into leadership and I applied for this crazy job I never thought I would get in Charlottesville, Virginia started out as a frontline leader and I re, I remember distinctly the first time I helped someone prepare for an a job interview for a promotion, and they got it. I knew I was hooked. I knew there would be nothing else for me. I knew that I would be a leader. This is what I wanted to do, right? I knew that was the craft that I wanted to master, and I've spent more than two decades doing that. So I would say that's one thing I'm very passionate about, that. I'm a watcher. I love to watch other people my undergrad's in psychology, and I would tell you that that's deeply rooted in my fascination of others. I've been so lucky to be able to watch and learn from other leaders and pick and choose the pieces that I wanted to emulate. But I really enjoy watching other people succeed, watching other people get things done, watching other people do things in a way that I would never try or haven't tried. You know, I really do. I one of my strengths is in the. Top five strength fighters is individualization, so that is drawn upon that. Like I truly do look for the gifts that people bring and try to exploit those. I do. I mean, that's, if you can exploit people's talent for the good, then it's a win for everyone. Absolutely.

Debby 3:51

I love that and I love that you're a watcher, you know? Yeah. That's how you learn, that's how you figure out people's strengths. Yeah. I love it. I love to study people. I love that. I think, and that can be really fun too. Right?

Amy 4:07

And I am a newly weed, my husband is wonderfully, he made dinner for me before I came for this. He is, I just, I mean, I just got married for the first time, you know, in my early fifties. Right. We, we met at when I was 50. So all new, like, I'm still learning the stuff that all of you all like probably already know, which is, you know, We have to compromise on things like what kind of toothpaste we're gonna use and like I had to make room for someone in my closet and I've never done that. There's just lots of things of that nature that I have kind of, I'm still navigating those waters. Yeah, so there's still, still

Debby 4:43

figuring out. So for today's episode, the word that we chose is culture. Now I have to say, when Amy and I had our first conversation, we, we tossed around a few words. But I was, I really wanted her to, to say, yes, let's do culture. That was, that was my wish for her. And it mainly because I've watched her again, positively impact organization by creating the type of culture that you already hear her talking about, right? One where people can play to their strengths and there's opportunity for growth. And we actually talked about culture once before, way back in season one. So we're in season six, believe it or not. Yeah. Way back in season one, we talked about culture with a great leader Lisa Howard. Now, unfortunately, we lost Lisa not long ago, and all four of us considered Lisa a friend. And Amy, I know the two of you were very close. So I felt like it seemed really fitting that another inspiring leader would build on that conversation that we started years ago. So let's, let's jump in. Why, let's start with the why. Why is culture important to an organization?

Amy 5:49

Debbie, I think culture is what creates connection for people. It instills that sense of belongingness. And as you are in an organization, whether you're just joining or whether you've been in an organization for a while, organizations morph over time. You know, they evolve and the culture evolves with that. It's, the culture is what gives people the reason to stay and decide to grow with you. It's almost as important as the mission, like truly, you know it. It has to be managed very carefully as well. You can, you can look at both sides of the pendulum and that when the culture is really positive, here are things that can go really right and align with the mission. And then if the culture gets outta control and becomes, you know, that buzzword today of toxic, then you have a whole nother situation of problems that spin off from that. So I think it is what creates that. I want to work there. I want to stay working here, kind of feeling so,

Debby 6:58

I love that you brought up belonging cuz I hear a lot of people talking. That's kind of been a buzzword, the last few years. And a lot of people will say to me, how do I do that? Like, how do I make people feel like they belong? How do I create that sense of belonging? So the fact you said, okay, it's tied the culture that you create. And I cannot tell you how many people have said we've had change at work. I've been here forever. And for the first time I felt like I might not wanna be here anymore because the culture has changed. Right. So it really is

Amy 7:28

foundational. Yeah. You can, your organization can withstand a lot of change if the culture stays, you know, fairly constant. But when the culture starts to change, that's when you have people, I think detach disengage, start to question. Does this, does this culture still align up with my core values? You know, are we still, I might still believe in the mission and what the company is about, but I might not be able to flourish in

Kevin 7:58

the culture. You mentioned values, and I was thinking about what you said about culture, creating a, an opportunity or culture creating connection. We often hear people talk about the values of the organization when they're talking about culture. How do the values of the organization and the values of the leaders work together or not work together in a

Amy 8:23

culture? No, I think, I really think that's a great question, and I'll tell you, I think you're looking at enablers when I think about that. Like I think the culture enables the core values and the talents to flourish, right? You could have all of these skills, but if I don't open the door to tap into that as your leader, Or the company doesn't provide that kind of vehicle for you, then I may never know about those strengths, right? I may never know what your core values really are. So when culture's done right, I think it can be a great enabler to buoy people up. From the leadership perspective, you know, often, especially new leaders. They're just not aware of how much they impact people in the smallest ways day-to-day, and then the largest ways, right? The things that really matter as well. And that's a leader who can harness that power and figure out how to drive the culture to align with the core values of the person to get those talents exposed. You can get discretionary effort from people, you can make a lot of deposits in their, you know, sort of emotional workplace bank that you can draw upon later. I think the other thing is culture is the thing that cre can create. The buzz and the vibe that draws people in, right, draws people to the organization and retains them. When we're hiring today, especially with the millennial group, we're. Often getting questions that historically we never, we never got, right? We, we aren't getting questions like, well, what's the workload like? Tell me about the benefits package. We're getting questions like, what is it like to work here? Well, I have friends here. Do you have social events? Are there happy hours after work? How do people get to know each other? You know, how do people help each other out? They're asking questions that are rooted in culture. They're rooted in relationships. And the smart, I think the smart organizations are figuring that out, right? They're playing to that in the interview and exposing those strengths if they have them, and if not, they're trying to figure out how to do that. You see that kind of playing out in social media presence too? Culture, you know, trying to create this concept of your culture through almost like a marketing campaign in your social media to draw candidates in.

Kevin 10:50

As you were talking, I was thinking about leaders, helping people understand where you can plug into the culture based on the things that I need. Because in most organizations, once you figure out where you can plug in, whether it's with community involvement or if it's with research or whatever it is, once you can find your place where you can plug into the organization, you know, the culture, you know, Helps that person thrive instead of just trying to find a place they can survive. So I really that agree.

Amy 11:21

Agree. Like that's where you switch it from just getting a paycheck to really wanting to be there to drive the mission of the company, right? It goes from, you know, job to career.

JoAnn 11:33

Yeah, and I like the fact that you used the word enable because generally we connect the word enabling to something bad. But we can be good enablers, right? We can enable people to be open to use their strengths to even discover their strengths. So I like the positive spin you put on enabling as well. You know, one of the things, Amy, that we talked with Lisa on her podcast was about trust. You know, we're, we're not perfect. Leaders are definitely not perfect, and sometimes we break trust with people and sometimes we don't even know that we've broken trust. Right? So one is the basic, how do you build trust with others and how do you recover if trust has been

Amy 12:20

damaged? So this is a. This is a deep topic, right? This is a deep subject if you think about it. In my experience, there's really kind of two sorts of people. There are the people that will trust you until you give'em a reason not to, and then there's a group of people that are not gonna trust you until you've earned that trust, right? And so you have to kind of first figure out what animal you're dealing with, right? What type of person do you have? But it all is rooted in similar behaviors, right? So you're, you want to follow the tried and true adages that always are in play, the golden rule, doing what you say you're gonna do. Just simple things like following through on your promises standing by your word. Doing what's right so that what I is, what I would say is the foundation, and that's just the start. Leadership Trust is rooted in a lot of other aspects, so, How predictable are you? Right? Part of trusting you is if I know how you're gonna react to you, to me, when I bring a mistake to you or when I come up with a new idea, how are you gonna respond to that if I trust you with something that is really bothering me? So predictability is huge. Transparency is huge. You know, knowing, being able to show, show your cards in a meaningful way that's authentic and genuine and not. Kind of making everything politicized or, you know, I, I've worked with leaders before where I felt like I spent half the day trying to solve the riddle of what they said to me. And I don't have time to solve riddles, right? I have other things to do. So, transparency, vulnerability is huge. You know, you hit on that, Joanne, when you talked about when you break trust. I have seen many leaders who, who just struggle to say, I'm sorry. And owning it. When we make mistakes, cuz we do all the time, make mistakes of judgment, we just, we just make mistakes. So being able to own it and give a heartfelt apology, while it might not bring back the trust, it is the right thing to do. Right? It may take time and we'll talk about when trust is broken. But I think with leadership trust, Time and experience with the leader is you're not, you know, often you're not going to have that right off the bat with someone or with a team. Often you have to navigate some rough or difficult challenges with them. Before they really know if they can trust you, right? It's that shared experience type thing. And then your brand as a leader, your brand almost always precedes you. You know, today, in today's world, someone's researched, you trust me. If you're going in as a new leader, they have Googled you. They have looked you up on link. They have, called everyone they know. They have tried to figure out what is your brand. So those are all things I think built in leadership trust. But accepting responsibility when you make the misstep is clearly the first step in that recovery. If you do damage someone's trust, whether it's intentional or not, right? It's, it's the Maya Angelou piece. It's how you made them feel. So whether you meant to do it or you didn't do it, you still have to, you have to address it. The worst thing to do is to pretend it didn't happen and wait for them to forget about it, cuz they never do. It's like the princess of the P. They can always fill that pee, that rock of the shoe. So you have to own it. I think recovery will happen over time. But trust is like an egg. It's very delicate not to be taken lightly, often has to be earned to be retained, and it can be not repairable.

Debby 16:14

People do have very long memories, especially when there's that feeling that you talked about attached to. If you made them feel a certain way, a horrible negative way, then their memories are gonna be very long. Right.

Amy 16:26

Yes, you have to deal with someone else's backdrop, right? What they come to the table with, and if they've had leadership experiences before where someone breached their trust, there may be, you know, kind of a, a hurdle you already have to get over before you even did anything. So you have to realize that you're, you're playing on their stage in that space. And so patience is certainly a key there. Early in my leadership career, I'll tell you. I didn't, I made an early misstep with my team not realizing I. That I, I did something my old boss did. I, I used a, you know, like a tactic or I responded in a way, like my first boss did. His name is Norwood Smith, and he was a wonderful frontline leader. And, you know, he had a way of dealing with us that really, even when we messed up, really was very motivating. So I tried something, or I reacted and acted in a way that he did and my team like, like it was a bust. They hated it. And the next day, you know, they're almost like not speaking to me and I know something's wrong and I'm six months in as a leader. I don't really know what I'm doing. I'm really just trying to survive. And I remember one of them pulled me aside. One of the really experienced ones pulled me aside and said, You seem like a nice person. So I'm gonna explain to you if someone slashes your tires, here's who's gonna do it. Okay? And I laughed, of course. I'm like, oh my God, what have I done? And he says, let me help you. So what it was really rooted in is I assumed a level of trust and relationship that had not been built yet. You know, I just assumed some and I did something I. That another leader had done with me, but he had a lot more time that he had built relationships with us. When you have that base, your team will forgive many things. They'll forgive many, many sins and mistakes, but if you don't have that base, sometimes you'll draw back enough. And I'm so grateful that I had that more experienced employee who pulled me aside and said, you're doing it wrong. I mean, that's really what he said. And so I adapted, but I thought about that for a really long time and I thought, It's because I didn't have their trust. I just had not, I was only in the part of still building that. Mm-hmm. And getting to know them. That's a great

Debby 18:47

story. So Amy, I know you're a big Brene Brown fan. We talked about that. Little bits awesome. And one of my favorite quotes from her is when she talks about choosing courage over comfort. So I have two questions for you. I'm gonna ask you one at a time. The first one was, when was the time that you had to choose courage over comfort? And what tipped the scales for

Amy 19:07

you? Well, there's a lot of examples of that and I, I would say in a world of courage versus comfort, there are more times that I need to pull back on the courage throttle than. Moving forward, right? I tend to lean into those high courage moments to my own detriment at times. So there are lots of those where I have probably led with more courage than was needed for the situation. Okay? Mm-hmm. When I make decisions that are hard, I try to. Kind of think like an owl, right? 360 degree view. Try to use my wisdom. Try to think beyond that one decision in the moment and what are the consequences intended and unintended afterwards. I really try to see around the corners before I make a decision like that. So early in my career here at the company where I am now, I had to make some decisions about culture that were. I had inherited a team of leaders and some were not in alignment with the culture that I thought we needed to have. I had to decide how long is too long to give them, to get on board. So I had to make some decisions that were, trust me, very intentional and calculated, but were painful and they were. Probably to an outsider looking in quizzical about why I would do some of those things so soon in my first six months of being there, new to a company, new to the relationships, new to a lot of things, and it was about weighing what's the right thing for three to 350 employees versus what's the right thing for right now. Mm-hmm. And there were difficult decisions that had to be made that impacted, you know, careers and jobs. And I would say the comfortable thing to do would've been to let that ride for a good bit longer and maybe let some people self deselect, but that wasn't the right thing for the operation. How do

Debby 21:24

you create that culture for the people that work with you where they can choose courage over comfort? So how, how do you, because it does have to be a certain culture or environment for people to feel safe to do that. So how do you do that?

Amy 21:43

I'm a huge, huge, huge fan of Abraham Lincoln. Huge. Okay. And one of the things that Abraham Lincoln did is he, there's a book based on this, it's called Team of Rivals that Doris Pern wrote. And he, in that moment where he was the president and we were going through this great civil war, and the big issue was, are we going to be able to keep the union intact? I mean, that was really the question along with a lot of other issues that surrounded that. But were we gonna stay a United States or not? And, and so he created a cabinet of rivals. All people that did not agree with him, people that ran up against him, people that verbally and vehemently opposed his views, and that was his cabinet. He chose a team of, in some ways, enemies. And his feeling was, if I have this group here as we make decisions that will shape this country, I will have heard every view. Before I make the final decision, I will have heard all the opposing views. So I totally love that concept. So I would tell you that I am, I encourage dissent. Lots of discussion. Lots of debate. I think that's really healthy for an environment, but. It makes some people really uncomfortable and some people really don't like to do that. It's like way easier to go along than it is to like take a stand. So if you wanna create that kind of environment, you have to first say, that's okay. You have to give that permission and demonstrate that it's okay to disagree. And when you're the head leader, that is meaningless. Of course you can disagree. You're the leader of the group, who cares what I mean? That does not matter if you're on the team, you know? So you need to provide that permission. And for me, what I usually do, like I make my group practice. By doing things like at the beginning of a meeting, I know if we're gonna have some contentious subjects, I'll assign a devil's advocate. I'll say things like, Kevin, today you're gonna play devil's advocate, and when I call on you, just be prepared to argue the other side. I don't care if you believe it or you don't give it your best shot, It will kind of often, the minute the opposite view is presented, others will begin to ask questions. Austin, that's what opens the, you know, kind of spirited debate. And I have done things like, okay, well, I mean, great example is, you know, do we, do we remain a hybrid environment? This is a few, couple years ago with Covid. Do we remain a hybrid environment or we, do we come back to the office or do we go full remote? And I made them fight about that. So we, we had a lot of discussions about the pros and cons of those things, and I think it helps people prepare for, you know, the back and forth of what that looks like, right? And to be comfortable disagreeing with each other. That's hard to do. It takes a lot of practice and they have to have great relationships with each other to be willing to, to try that. The peer level that's a herd that often manages itself.

Debby 24:50

Healthy debate, right? Is very

Amy 24:53

important. Agree. Mm-hmm.

JoAnn 24:57

This this has been such a great refresher and a reminder, especially even though we're post covid, a lot of organizations are struggling with the after effects, right? And and we all hear a lot about, well, the culture's not the same. You know, it took a hit. And some organizations say they're actually rebuilding their culture. So. You know, as Debbie, when she introduced you, Amy, is you're, you've always been known as a person who not only helped create the culture, but you modeled a, a culture of, you know, trust, transparency, all of these things. So what are some words of wisdom? That you could give us that could help create a culture that honors all these things that we've talked about and how do you get others to buy into it?

Amy 25:53

It, it's not quick, right? That's a process that takes place over time. I think it starts with the leaders that you choose. Leaders who are aspiring for similar things, who model the same type of behaviors, that want that same type of environment and believe in that culture. I think that's key is build the right leaders. And think about that as you're developing new leaders that you're putting into the pipeline also, how are you kind of sprinkling them with, you know, the culture? Concept so they know what critical role they play in that. You know, leaders I think have the ability to harness that a culture and change it. There's like always a conversation in my head of the ongoing messages that leaders need to hear from me to know what's important, what do I continuously reinforce in. Behaviors, words, messages, actions, deeds, all of those things. And then I try to recognize and reward the behaviors that I wanna see repeated. I focus on targeted feedback and my words that linked to that. Like I might say something, for example, Joanne, I notice that you take time to. Go on instant message in the mornings and talk to all of your people and say good morning to them. And I wanna tell you that I think that's really effective to create belongingness and here's why, right? So I try to give very specific laser-like focused feedback when I see something happening. We, we had a recent in-person meeting in Dallas and I had a bunch of newbies who had never traveled and have never gone to a leadership meeting in their lives. So it's the first time using a company card. It's the first time flying to a work meeting. You know, there were, it was a lot of anxiety, you know, what do I wear? All of these things. And so I asked that the morning we were gonna open up right after lunch, and I asked that morning, three of my veteran leaders who have been with me for a long time and who've been at the company much longer than me. I said, in my opening, I'm gonna have a moment about. Advice for if this is your first leadership meeting and I, I want you to be a plant in my audience and just share what's your best advice, you know, what would you say to someone? You've been to dozens of these meetings list, just like I have. You know, what would you tell someone to do? And afterwards I went back to each of them and said, this is what I really liked about what you said. This is how that, I think ha went over well. And I, and for me, if I'm focused on it, then I'm checking for it, right? If I'm focused on culture and environment, and I've, I've worked in many environments that needed to be cleaned up, that needed to be adjusted, that needed to be changed from small things to big things. You know, when I first went to work, a good example that comes to mind is when I first went to work in Florida. I worked for a very large call center type environment with around 600 employees, and they had mandatory overtime and they also had a rule that you could not leave the job or post out until you had given them six months in the role. And I couldn't understand, which, of course you can imagine the environment that created, right? No one, no one wanted to work. Mandatory overtime. After a while, after a while that loses its luster and people didn't like feeling, you know, sort of handcuffed to an environment. And I just asked my leaders the question, they had just been doing this, right? They really had not thought about the why. And I just said, why? What do you wanna keep someone here Who doesn't wanna work for you? What does that do for the customer? You know, how does that feel to the customer? It's kind of like making, trying to make a teenager do something. They'll do it, but it'll be as absolutely pouty and insulin as it has to be, you know? So that's the first thing I did is I said, there'll be no more mandatory, there'll be no more of this. We're getting rid of that day one. And there was a concern like, okay, well then everyone will post out, everyone will leave. We'll have no one to do the work. And you know, the reality is, so I. Data, how many, well, how many openings are there, right? How many openings? There can't be 650 openings. So your job is to make them want to stay instead of holding them here and making them stay, make them want to stay. And that was the beginning of the shift in the mindset of the thinking. So if I wanna check for something like is the environment better, then my, Test that I usually do every day is I make myself articulate at the end of the day in my little daily debrief in my head, what was my cultural growth for the day? What was my finding, what improved today? I'm very relentless in that pursuit, and if you keep it that level of top of mind, trust me, it will change.

Debby 31:00

The word that kept going through my head when you were talking Amy, was intentional. You were very intentional about what you were doing and how you were doing it, and I, think that can make all the difference.

Amy 31:12

I agree. Intentionality. It took me a lot of years to figure out, to be deliberate and intentional as a leader. And I finally realized like, that is what you must be, you must be deliberate. You must be intentional. You can be completely transparent about it. I am absolutely transparent about what I want. I do not play hide the ball. I, I say right up front, but I'm very intentional and very, very deliberate about it.

Kevin 31:36

You were talking earlier, you were talking about people posting out, but you said make it a place where people want to stay, like create the culture where people want to stay. So maybe we have some new leaders listening or maybe we have some experienced leaders listening who are realizing their impact and their responsibility for creating culture. What tips or advice would you give people on how to create. A culture where people

Amy 32:03

wanna stay. The first thing you have to do is decide what you want and decide what they want, and figure out where your gaps are. One of the. Fastest, earliest wins I had when I, I remember when I got to Florida, I met with all of my teams, you know, 650 people. I met with small groups of eight to 10, and I said, tell me what you think are the top three problems that I need to know, right? I'm brand new to Florida, don't know anything about this. What do I need to know? And I probably met with, I don't know, 50 groups, spent about an hour with each one of'em. Well, after about 15 groups said, we need an ice maker. I said this is ridiculous. Like, if I can't even give them ice, how can I possibly get them to stay? So that was my first mission is get an ice maker. Right. And it was a very simple situation where we had too many people putting too much demand on one machine. So, you know, it was, that was my first win. I won probably. 25% of my hearts and minds just by giving them a basic fundamental plus that really what they were probably entitled to anyway, you know, they should have had that. I mean, we should be able to pro provide the basics. So you, if you want to figure out how to create, create a good culture first. Figure out what you want it to be, and then figure out what your employees think it should be, and then start to identify your gaps. As a leader, I think all of our leaders, me included, I challenge them to say, can you define the culture in a minute or less? A few sentences at most. If you can't then delve into why that is and how you get there, you ought to be able to define your culture very quickly, very, very deliberately. After that, then you can start to build backwards, right? What are the behaviors you need to get that? What are the competencies that are essential? What are the must haves that are gonna create the culture that you think that you want? Then you go about being intentional. If you wait for culture to happen, or for culture to evolve, you know, it's kinda like beach erosion. That's gonna take some amount of time to do so. Always control your controllables. That's how I feel about it. You know, the things that. That I heard early on from my teams that were irritants or things that were holding them back or things they didn't like or things that made the environment seem oppressive. I made a list and started prioritizing like, which ones can I control right away? Now, I couldn't control, you know, I couldn't control making the phone not ring right. I can't take away the work. It is work, but I can certainly. Make it so they could post out to chase their own career dreams. I could certainly get them ice, right? I could certainly create other positives in the workplace that would start to create a buzz about the environment. Like you just have to get started. It's like a baby, baby fire, and then you get it to grow into this bonfire, but you start slowly slow wins. I've done that with every team I've ever had, like figure out first what they want and then you start looking at what can you, what can you do? And then I, for me it's like the relentless messages and I always, I'll coach the unwanted behaviors, but reward the ones that I wanna see Repeated. Leaders who drive culture tend to have their finger right on the pulse. They tend, there tend to be rarely surprises where someone comes and says, Hey, did you know this was happening? Normally a good leader has some idea. They might not know every detail, but they usually know something is going, they usually know they have their finger on the pulse. Yeah,

Kevin 35:48

I just have one question for you, Amy. When is your book coming out? When are you writing your book on culture? Just the real world culture 1 0 1. When? When's the book coming out? I'm

Amy 35:59

ready to buy, read that. But I have, I have really enjoyed talking about it. You know, ever since Debbie and I had this conversation, I kept thinking about how critical. Culture is, and I've moved 14 times in my career, so I've had 14 mini culture moments to create everywhere I've gone because they've been different states, different places, different jobs, and every one of them had an environment that had a gap. Sometimes the gap was little. Usually the gap was large. And how you navigated that. And often your environment might be going perfectly fine and the culture is great, and then a large company change comes that tests your culture, right? It really tests that. So I've spent a lot of time building cultures. The job I have now, I feel like I've had the most autonomy to truly create a high performing work environment where employees can thrive. But I I, I don't think we're there yet. But I feel like I've had the most autonomy to be able to do that. I have to

Debby 37:08

laugh, Amy, cuz I was looking at my notes and I wrote down things like think like an owl. Get them an ice maker. Right? Get them an ice maker. Fire to bonfire. I'm like, if anyone looked at my notes, they'd be like, what is Amy talking about? That's all good stuff and stuff. It's stuff people are gonna remember for sure. Stuff you can use right away. So, So before we let you go, Amy, we have three questions that we like to ask all of our guests. So the first one is, what is a book that you think a leader coach should read? So that was

Amy 37:41

of all the questions that was the hardest. Okay. Because I cannot pick one book, so I'm gonna have to talk about a couple of books. Okay. And then, because I think it depends on where you are in your leadership journey. I have a book for that. Right. Wherever you find yourself, I've got a book for you. I would say right now I'm reading Atomic Habits. My team and I are reading Atomic Habits, which if you wanna make some personal and professional changes, Great, great stuff in that. That's by Ja James. Clear. Now for new leaders, the two books that I really, really love are, and they're not necessarily new. One is How to Become a Great Boss by Jeffrey Fox. Okay, that's one of them. And the other one is Monday Morning Leadership by Steven Cattrell. Both of those are great practical tips. I mean, how to become a great boss has some of my favorite lines. Grim or broom. I mean, it just, it has some, you know CS and Ds never hire A's and B's. I mean, they're just some great tips in there about how to become a great boss. And then the other one, Monday morning leadership is one that one of my early, early managers gave me to read and is a really thin, quick read. And I used to read it every time I took a new job because it had such a good take on things and it was about a new leader dealing with some performance challenges. But now I read it and he goes to a mentor who gives him advice. That's what the book is about. And after a couple of roles, I read it with my eye on the mentor. Right. What did the mentor, how did the mentor get the leader to. Change his thoughts to influence him. And I think that's a great one. For if you're in a change management moment and you're leading through something big change wise, switch by chipping down. Heat is excellent. Of course. Brene Brown dare to lead. I mean, my goodness, it's like the Bible. If you love process improvement in a book, which always makes me think, I tell lots of stories from this one. It's called Better. A surgeon's notes on performance. It's by UL Gawande. It's an incredible little short story vignette of varying professions and how they did some very significant improvement in how you get people to change the way they think about things. I think if you're looking at career growth and professional development, I really love Marshall Goldsmith's. What got you here won't get you there. And then for. If you're looking for a book that you can read with your team and grow a team together, any of Patrick Lencioni's books are great. I think those books are terrific. So I couldn't pick one. I'm sorry. You'll have to give me an F on that. I'm, I'm a reader. I believe Leaders are readers. Great leaders are readers, and I love to read. I wish I had more time to do it. Mm-hmm. Those, I could not pick one. Sorry. Okay.

Debby 40:46

I was smiling so big when you said Monday morning leadership, because when I became a new supervisor, years and years and years ago, a group of us got together and read that book together. So

Amy 40:55

Jim still gave me that years ago, and he gave that to every new leader. And he would love that I mentioned him, but that was a great game changer book to get You started, especially leading leaders in your first role, leading leaders. It was terrific.

Debby 41:11

So your next question is, what question have you been asked that just gave you pause or let you think a little deeper? I think the question

Amy 41:22

that made me really think is the one about how do you create a culture that honors words like vulnerability, transparency, and how did you get the buy-in from others? That that creating safety piece, because it made me stop and think. How do I do that? What is my recipe, right? How did I do it? And be able to kind of articulate that because I think with, to do that, you need a basic recipe. You know, the recipe, ingredients and volume might change here and there, but the recipe is kind of the same. So it made me have to stop and think about what was my recipe. So I like the question.

Debby 42:04

So now you have it for the book, right Kevin? She's the recipe for the book. So Amy, what is, besides culture that we talked about today, what is your word on

Amy 42:14

coaching? So my word on coaching is storytelling. I think it's one of a leader's most effective, best tools ever. Short version of that is using analogies, but storytelling and analogies I think are absolutely. Critical to getting things done. Another thing Lincoln did really well, right? It was a great storyteller., it makes sticking points last longer, right? Like the things that you wrote down, the bonfire. It, it makes people remember and relate. So I've had some great leaders who I thought were mesmerizing storytellers to get their points across. Mm-hmm. And I think. It's a tool that admired leaders know when to reach into their grab bag and pull out, and sometimes they're your stories. Sometimes they're somebody else's stories. Sometimes they're stories that you heard about. Sometimes they're stories you lived. But I always feel like if my story, my mistakes are often some of my best stories because once I can tell it to someone else, then I've come full circle with it. The learning has come full circle cuz now I can use it to help someone else and make no mistake, that's not right away, right? So right after a mistake, sometimes you're like still in the. The pain. Mm-hmm. The pain of the mistake and the guilt and the, why am I so dumb of the mistake? You're still in the, you know, you know, beating yourself up. But once you kind of get past that and you start to think about like what you learned, what you changed, and how you're, what you're transforming as a result of that, that's the second piece. But when you can really tell someone else, Hey, let me tell you about the dumb stuff I did. So you don't do this and you can learn, then it's hit full circle. Right? That's where story storytelling, I think is the most effective. Okay. I

Debby 44:01

love it. That's, and it's a great way for growth mindset, right? So now you've reflected on the whole experience and what did I learn? Yeah. So, Amy, it's been a pleasure. I'm so glad, like I said, that you've been, you were able to be one of our guests on our podcast, Joanne. And Kevin's always a pleasure. You too. So we wanna thank our audience for listening. Check out more word on coaching podcasts. Like we said, this is season end of season six, so there's a lot out there for you to check out. You can connect with us on Coaches three Facebook page and our book, the Word on coaching is available out there by copies for yourself, and it's a great book to share with others. So until next time, that's the word on coaching.