Coaching Conversations in 2024

Magnetic Coaching Part Three: The Mirror

February 14, 2022 Tim Hagen
Coaching Conversations in 2024
Magnetic Coaching Part Three: The Mirror
Show Notes Transcript

This episode teaches THE #1 Thing every leader & coach must do to be successful ... Hold up the mirror so someone can see their true self. This requires conversations and coaching skills providing various perspectives so when someone successfully looks in the mirror they can take positive action to go to the next level. 

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Speaker 1:

Recently our company's been doing a tremendous amount of work in emotional intelligence. Now myself, along with my fellow teammate coach, Stephanie STRP, we are certified EQI 2.0 M MHS practitioners, and we got some of the best training in coaching from ed. He, the sea outta Dallas, Texas. And while we took the assessment years ago, just recently, for whatever reason, we've been more focused on it. And I have been quoted as saying for 27 plus years, coaching is a two step process. Number one, it's getting someone to look in the mirror. Number two, it's them to take action on what they see in number one yet very few people do number one arbitrarily on their own. So recently we've been doing more EQI assessments. Now, if you have not checked out MHS, we'll put a link in that you can download, uh, underneath this podcast episode, download a link to my actual results. And it's really interesting the way MHS does it. Multi health systems does a fantastic job. It's highly accurate. And I would say between about three or four companies, we've done about 200 assessments. Not once have we had a person say, this is inaccurate? Could I redo it? It's not what I thought it was gonna be. 99% of the tying people have made comments such as, yeah, this is pretty much me. Even when the scores were low. Now a low score does not mean a bad score. A high score doesn't necessarily mean, uh, a great score. Essentially. What it means is that you're using those emotions. So one of my low scores was empathy. I'm not an empathetic person. I struggle with empathy. And when I got certified, you know, ed and I would have these great conversations and I started to practice empathy. I started to think about things that would demonstrate more empathy and yes, it was uncomfortable. It was weird. It was different. And here's something that's really funny about it. I didn't see the pandemic coming. I'm sure nobody did. And all of a sudden, I started to notice a difference in my relationships. I started to notice a difference in the way I treated people. I started to notice a difference in their response at the forefront of change is first looking in the mirror. Let me give you a rough example of where at the foundation of coaching talent development, retention, employee turnover, whatever the topic is. Number one, people have to look in the mirror. Let me add a little humor for context. If I go up to an employee and say, Bob, you've got a really crappy attitude. Bob's not gonna turn around and say, you know what, Tim you're right. I am a son of a, he's going to be negative. He's gonna push back. And when people push back, what they're really pushing away is the mirror that we're trying to hold up. Now that also prompts us to think about how do we hold up that mirror? How do we hold up that mirror? So someone's willing to look at it. Now, if you shove it in someone's face, they're gonna it right back at you. So we have to become very skilled at conversations and we have to become skilled at coaching. You know, the other day we were leading a session and I had a leader say to me, well, I tried these things and they didn't work. And I said, boy, you said that really abruptly. I said, have you given up, well, I don't know what to do next. And I said, well, first of all, I'm gonna have you do something weird. And we were in front of a group and I said, permission to do this in front of the group. And he said, sure. I said, take a big, deep breath. He said, okay. I said, take another deep breath. He said, okay. I said, I know this is weird. Please play along one more. And he did. And I said, tell me again, what the challenge is. And all of a sudden he said, you know, it's just, I don't know, it's just not working for me. And he sounded totally different. So I put a group chat and I said, how does he sound different? Everyone said more thoughtful, more professional. And I said, do you hear that in yourself? And he said, yeah, a little bit. You, you kind of calmed me down. I said, now with that being said, let me just share this with you. Your approach is also critical. You're using the questions. And I would imagine, and maybe I'm wondering out loud, unfairly to you that maybe you sound abrupt. He said, you know, I, I, I might. And he was completely different now. Well, old habits come into play. Of course they will yet. It was so cool. I said, see, when we hold up the mirror, you have people on your team, in your company that don't even own mirrors. They get mirrors at gifts. They give them back. They don't wanna look at themselves. It's hard. Some of us don't like the way we even look physically more or less mentally or psychologically. And so when you are coaching someone, we have to have conversations. Our approach, how we coach will dictate how they react. Now, my suggestion is always to hold up the here in a very thoughtful, plausible, professional, sensitive, empathetic manner, not easy to do yet. The key to anything, the key to anything, being a good teammate, becoming motivated, converting a negative attitude into a positive one, always comes back to the mirror. So how do we hold up that mirror? Ask for permission, Bob, would you mind if I shared with you a couple thoughts where I think you have an awesome opportunity to raise your game? Notice? I did not say constructive feedback. I am on a mission to remove those words from people's mouths. Not because they're bad words yet they trigger is someone. So when you say to someone, John, would you mind if I gave you some constructive feedback? They don't say, oh, goody, here it comes. They tighten up. They brace for the fight. They are already convinced you are a hundred percent wrong and you could even tell'em they're good looking. So part of come coaching is how do I hold up that mirror? When do I hold it up this high? When do I really put it at eye level? So they can truly see themselves. It requires questions. Permission. Would you mind if I shared it, it requires positive language, such as opportunity to raise your game. Doesn't that sound better than instruc feedback. So when we're coaching, bring people back to the mirror and the minute they acknowledge, yeah. You know what? I can do those things. Yeah. I know my negative attitude can creep up every once in a while. I really apologize. You reward it, you hug it, you nurture it, you kiss it. You do whatever you can to celebrate that. It, because when you celebrate self honesty, they will start purchasing more mirrors.