Coaching Conversations in 2025
Coaching Conversations with Tim Hagen, where we teach leaders and managers how to coach their employees. This is the ideal podcast for leaders, managers, and aspiring leaders to improve their coaching and leadership skills to create a more positive coaching culture within their teams.
In 2025, we're doing weekly podcasts on various coaching topics and strategies that will rotate throughout the month, as opposed to 2024 where the weekly episodes featured a monthly theme. Coaching Conversations will continue to have four episodes per month and we're going to sprinkle in masterclasses, which will be lengthier, workshop-style formats.
We also invite you to join the new FREE e-publication, the Workplace Coaching Times founded by Tim Hagen. This weekly newsletter contains expert insights on coaching strategies on specific topics like sales coaching, leading with empathy, and self-awareness techniques, and much more. We're a community of leaders, managers and coaches transforming workplace challenges into coaching victories—one conversation at a time. Subscribe here: https://coachingtimes.beehiiv.com/subscribe
Coaching Conversations in 2025
The Human Element: Why AI Won't Replace Coaching Conversations
Welcome to Coaching Conversations
We have created a NEW and Innovative line of books called Workplace Coaching Books. These books use QR codes with embedded audio and video lessons speaking directly to the reader. Each book comes with assessments and journal based coaching pages where they document what they've learned and what they've applied. In addition each book comes with the self analysis link that prompts them to share what they've learned and what they've put into action leading to greater learner application a
Progress Coaching 360 is a dynamic leadership development system that equips managers and teams with powerful coaching skills through a blend of training, real-time practice, peer learning, and feedback. It combines expert-led instruction, a train-the-trainer model, group coaching certification, and monthly coaching pods where leaders practice, share wins, and tackle challenges. With built-in accountability and hands-on application using Coaching Cards and best practice sessions, Progress Coaching 360 turns coaching from theory into action—building a sustainable culture of growth, feedback, and performance.
Progress Coaching 360 teaches leaders how to coach and employees how to develop coachability skills. This unique combination helps build great workplace cultures.
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So coaching and artificial intelligence will certainly become something that incorporates, integrates partners with one another. Yet I also want to throw something out to everybody Artificial intelligence might actually prolong a problem that currently exists, especially with leadership coaching. So for 30, 32 years, people ask me all the time what's a successful coaching culture? Number one it is people who schedule time with their people on a regular, weekly, bi-weekly basis, focus on a particular area over a period of time typically 12 weeks and then move on to the next area. Those are the people, those are the organizations that really create great value. I think about companies like the Milwaukee Brewers, the InPro Corporation. Currently I'm working with a great agricultural firm, aurora Cooperative, and they're creating great traction.
Speaker 1:Where people get in trouble is when they do something called observational or spot coaching. I observe somebody, I hear a phone call or I see them interact with a member or customer and I go give them constructive feedback. I call it coaching, but in the moment I'm telling myself I'm coaching this person and you probably are. Yet there's no continuity, there's no consistency. You're not driving a particular area through the levels of change. Now here's what makes it worse and, I think, makes it challenging for leaders. I think leaders also need employees who are coachable and approachable, which we also do.
Speaker 1:And when you take the statistics that are out there today, 85% of people significantly lack self-awareness, according to the study done by Dr Tasha Yurek in her book New York Times Bestseller Insights. Gallup reports what is it? 21% of people are actively engaged. The rest are neutral or actively disengaged, meaning they're negative. Those are daunting numbers, everybody. So then I sit there and I think about it and I go, wow, now artificial intelligence is going to come into play. What's going to happen with that? I guarantee it, because I already know what's happened with one of our client sites. Well, we're thinking about using AI for coaching. It'll save our people time, especially our leaders, and I said aren't they saving time right now with AI that could be reinvested in having coaching conversations? One HR leader looked at me and she goes that's a really good point. So if people 85% lack self-awareness, only 21% are negative or 21% are positively engaged, the rest are negative or neutral then we have to ask ourselves the fundamental question is an employee going to go to an AI tool and be transparent? Will the AI tool automatically know that person's strengths? So let me bring up another number by the Gallup organization Eight to one ratio People engage eight times more when you lead with their strengths. The AI tool, at least initially, will not have the foundation of a person's strengths to start the coaching process.
Speaker 1:Now let me just be candid. We build AI tools. We have about 14 AI products in existence. I'm not against AI at all. We actually have a tool that allows us to take an assessment, or your assessments, like DISC or EQ, and craft out a coaching strategy specific to your goal and business imperatives, to your sales process, to your DISC results, your EQ results, your corporate values. We're doing it right now. I love AI, yet when it comes down to the actual conversation, we've got to be really, really careful.
Speaker 1:Let me give you one more example. You know I was talking to a company out of Silicon Valley, very young group, technically unbelievably gifted, and they were selling organizations on their AI tool that does coaching but then does the end of the year review, and that was their call for action, that was their value proposition. And I saw the tool and the guy goes what do you think? And I said fantastic technology. He goes. Do you like the product? I said I hate it and he goes. Oh, can I ask why? I said sure, how many end of the year reviews have you given? He was sub 30 age, so I made an assumption he goes well, not many. I said well, how many? He goes a handful. I said does everybody leave the room happy when you give an end of the year review? He goes no, typically not. I said so. If I understand you, a company, a large company, is going to have people get their coaching from AI. It'll do the end of the year review, absolving the leader that the employee reports to. And what's going to happen when that leader at the end of the year says here's your end of the year review, the AI, too, will put it together for you. But that person's been giving that person feedback all year. It's going to create a mass exit at the doors and his jaw's on the ground. I felt like I burst the poor guy's bubble. He later sold the product and the technology, so he made his money, but just fundamentally, I have not seen the product implemented successfully.
Speaker 1:When the pandemic hit, we were all online. We're all virtual right. What we found out was wow, we can be productive, we don't have to build that new building. Guess what happened. Everybody started to crave to get back in person. So the two main reasons are number one AI is not going to have context with the employee right away. In addition to that, when we're talking about coaching, are we coaching in the moment or are we coaching with continuity? And number two, we have to realize that relationship that an employee has with coaching needs to be nurtured. They already lack self-awareness, they're already resisting feedback. Are we saying because it's AI, they're arbitrarily going to become more self-aware and more open to feedback and perspective? That's going to make that transition tough. What are your thoughts?