One of my most valuable and rewarding coaching moments is when I learned to always question my assumptions and never take anything for granted. This lesson was especially important to me as I fulfill an executive role in a leading tech company. When you have extensive experience in the industry, it can be tempting to rely too heavily on one's experience and expertise, and easily assume that one knows everything there is to know about the industry. This mindset can be a dangerous trap for anyone in leadership, but it’s especially harmful when you are trying to take your company to new heights. With an open mind and a willingness to learn, I've been able to take my company - and myself - to new heights. I have made it a priority to constantly ask myself questions about our business model, sales strategies, and customer base. This allows me to identify opportunities for growth that might be slipping through the cracks if I were too focused on what I "know" to be true.
In 2022 I started a new position as the People and Culture leader at Teambuilding.com. One of my biggest learning moments in the role was fully understanding the systems already in place. I assumed that my conversations with fellow leaders briefed me on the full extent of company culture initiatives. However, as I began having one-on-one chats with team members and pitching employee engagement ideas to them, I soon learned that previous versions of several of my "new ideas" already had been tried, and similar resources already existed. Rather than forcing my visions, I was happy to relaunch and improve current culture activities. However, I could have saved myself a few hours of work by running initial ideas by multiple team members before starting development. The experience taught me that in remote companies, one-on-one meetings are not exhaustive sources of information, and it helps to verify via multiple meetings or pitching to a committee vs individual coworkers.
2022 has presented me with coachable moments and opportunities to grow personally and professionally. Thus far, I'd say that my most coachable moment has been receiving constructive criticism from a leader that I respect highly and deciding how I'd respond to it. The feedback was a serious blow to my confidence, and I experienced a full range of emotions, from embarrassment, anger, and denial to hopefulness, appreciation and desire to change. After committing a few days to self-evaluation, I reached out my mentors and solicited their advice as well. What pushed me forward, was an attitude of gratitude. I realized that this leader cared enough about my journey to provide guidance on my development. By framing the feedback positively, it felt natural and exciting to adopt the desired behavior. In 2023, I will continue to incorporate this feedback in my workstyle and focus on gratitude when receiving feedback. Growth is a lifelong journey and being humble will take you far.
In 2022 I had a period of time where the eNPS for my team was lower than normal. Though not disastrous, I wanted to make sure my team was happy and engaged. As part of a 1:1 with my CEO I shared the sentiment score and asked for his guidance. His coaching was literally, "Have you been coaching your team members proactively?" Though I had been engaged, I wasn't helping them progress like a coach would. It was a great reminder, helped me change my approach and the eNPS quickly rebounded after I increased how I was mentoring.
I am an HR technology nerd. I live for process improvement, reduced overhead costs and improved ROI. And my recommendations normally fit the bill for what companies are looking for. Unfortunately, I recently let my enthusiasm for what I felt was the best HR system based on a company's needs overshadow their wants. In HR, even if you know what a company needs to better engage their workforce, work more efficiently, etc. leadership has its own ideas of what they are looking for based on their exposure or lack of exposure to some vendors. When the executive team expresses an objection, and you've already made your case, it's best to move on and pivot to something else, even if it's not what you would select for them. That is what I ended up doing, and in 2023, I'll be sure to uncover any existing objections early on and be ready with viable alternatives.
Our CEO signed up our startup team to partake in a Spartan style 5 mile obstacle race. It turned out to be quite a challenge to get team members to agree to go. This turned into a coachable moment where I stressed the importance of team bonding, how people can bond over successes AND failures. I reminded them of what a positive and supportive team they already were and how that would be sure to translate onto the obstacle course. In the end, 6 team members attended, virtually none of us near fit enough to actually race, and you know what? We had an absolute blast and are closer than ever before. In 2023, I now plan to arrange multiple team bonding opportunities across different categories such as mindfulness, sport, and escape rooms to further build upon and ingrain the idea of team bonding at Ling.
Founder & Author of "Evidence-Based Recruiting" (McGraw-Hill) at ECA Partners
Answered 3 years ago
Around April of 2022 there was a spike in news headlines about layoffs. Our recruiting business was sold out at the time, but the negative headlines made me cautious about internal hiring. I looked into the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), which showed that 1.0 percent of the labor force was impacted by layoffs and discharges in April of 2022. This is a historically low number. To put this in context, BLS does not have a single month on record prior to 2021 where layoffs have been that low. But some argued that there is a lag in the BLS data and the next monthly report would show an increase. So I held off on less urgent hiring decisions to see if aggregate layoffs would increase. We are now at the end of the year, the aggregate layoffs are still around the same low levels and our business is still sold out. I've learned my lesson. We just made a few offers and in 2023 I will pay more attention to internal leading and lagging indicators when planning our hiring needs.
The most coachable moment of 2022 was training employees on how to stay organized and concentrated on their work. Although it is one of the most basic skills it still needs a little brushing up because of the post-pandemic effects that employees are facing right now. While the world was facing the problem of covid-19 and the corporate world was working on virtual platforms things were more flexible for employees and there was a lack of concentration. Now that things have become offline it is a little tough for employees to get settled in this kind of environment which has made them forget why one needs to be organized and hence must be trained for it. In its response, I have organized a work chart for every employee to keep a track of their task completed and to be taken on to keep our record so that 2023 can be more organized and balanced.
Our most coachable moment in 2022 was keeping up with employee wellness. HR implemented more employee health and wellness activities to keep employees engaged at work and help with employee mental issues. For 2023, we are trying to come up with different activities so employees do not feel burned out at work.
In 2022, my most coachable moment was when I was able to take constructive criticism from my coach and use it to improve my game. I responded by working hard to correct the areas that my coach pointed out, and as a result, I saw a significant improvement in my performance. In 2023, I will continue to be open to constructive criticism and use it to further improve my game.
I have always had a passion for writing and traveling, and I can say it's how I found my happy place. For me, being in a leadership position and curating content means coaching people on their style of writing. This doesn't have to be what the website requires, or even the audience. But, what they love about travels or their favorite moments or most sought features. Generally, these articles also receive a lot of attention and hype among our targeted audience. Many times, the people I have coached have told me they found their writing style through this process. I felt like a made a difference within our industry itself, even if isn't a new practice. Looking at the success of this practice, I have planned to take workshops on different working styles. This can help people find theirs through experience. I feel it might make an impact outside the company as well.
Coachable moments in life are designed to help us build ourselves at the appropriate time. These moments teach us the right life lesson at the right time. When I receive feedback, it helps me keep track of myself, and this teaches me. When I ask someone for feedback on myself, their words inspire and encourage me. It provides solutions to significant problems in my life that I find difficult to solve. The feedback assists me in finding the best version of myself, as well as the best version of my business. The team requests feedback and experience with our service. The feedback enables us to improve our customer service and our work.
My most coachable moment in 2022 was when I realized that I needed to change my attitude in order to be successful. I had been negative and pessimistic for too long, and it was holding me back. I did some soul-searching and decided to make a change. I started being more positive and optimistic, and it made a world of difference. I began to see results almost immediately. In 2023, I will continue to be positive and optimistic, and I will also be more coachable. I will be open to feedback and willing to change things that are not working.
Letting bad fit projects go so that you can focus on the good fit ones. In 2022, I learned not to look back at any failed project and obsess over what I could have done differently. Instead, I learned to take responsibility for my actions, learn from my mistakes and pivot accordingly. By doing so, I was able to eliminate any self-doubt, which allowed me to focus on the projects I had left.
Early in 2022, I decided we needed to outsource some of our marketing due to our current marketing team being overwhelmed. I thought I did my homework on selecting the correct company, but my mistake was I wasn’t educated enough about the projects they were doing. I didn’t know the correct questions to ask and it was so out of my current skill set I trusted that the outside marketing company was doing the right thing and trusted them to do the work correctly. I paid for months of their service to understand they weren’t specialists in this marketing field and I was the one paying for them to learn. This almost bankrupted my newly founded company. I did learn a very important less in business that I will not make in 2023 or ever again. You need to educate yourself enough on all topics to make sure you have the right people in place. You don’t need to be the expert, but need to have enough knowledge to see the red flags.
This is not a wonderful method to create a nice workplace, much less one that is secure! Your cybersecurity procedures should motivate each team member to carry their fair share of the load. Instead of depending on these cheesy and antiquated scare strategies, we advise putting your attention on insider threat training that fosters ethical behavior and increases employee trust. This is not a wonderful method to create a nice workplace, much less one that is secure! Your cybersecurity procedures should motivate each team member to carry their fair share of the load. Instead of depending on these cheesy and antiquated scare strategies, we advise putting your attention on insider threat training that fosters ethical behavior and increases employee trust.
My most coachable moment was when I realised that my biggest weakness as a team member was not being able to give feedback. In the past, I had always been afraid of giving criticism, and so I did not say anything when someone performed poorly or made mistakes. As a result, they didn't learn from their mistakes and failed to improve. I realised that this was holding back our team. We had all these great ideas, but none of them were getting implemented because we were afraid of hurting people's feelings if we told them what they needed to do better. I decided that I would try to be more direct in my feedback—even if it hurt—and see how others reacted. I found that people responded well when I was direct and honest with them about where they went wrong. In 2023, I plan on continuing to be open and honest with my teammates about anything that could impact our work together positively or negatively.
My most coachable moment in 2022 was all about learning all the technical stuff that comes with working remotely. I'm a traditional person who prefers working in-office, so I found some of the latest software in our work-at-home kit challenging to navigate. However, I'm always up for new things, and thanks to our IT team for providing me with detailed materials to get everything started. As for the following years, I'll be doubling my effort to get updated with technology from time to time. That way, it will be easier for me to adapt to them when the situation calls for it.
The only thing worse than making a mistake is not owning up to it. Just this fall, I had an employee come up to me and apologize for a mistake they made. It wasn't something major, but something minor that could've led to a crisis if it wasn't averted. The fact that my employee felt safe enough to reach out to his boss, made me feel like I must have done something right. I never wanted to be that scary boss figure, but a mentor you can ask for help. Trust me, teaching is a journey of being taught.
Coachable moments aren’t just reserved for challenges and failures, but leaders often drop the ball regarding successes. Some employees are too hard on themselves or lack a realistic understanding of their achievements despite their stellar performance. After chatting with a teammate and congratulating them on a well-done job, they expressed surprise - they didn’t feel they deserved the accolades. We discussed their feelings and had some significant breakthroughs that helped the employee leave the conversation with a complete emotional shift. In 2023 I plan to not simply congratulate employees but ask questions about their feelings and discuss in detail why their performance was so fantastic. When teammates have a clearer understanding of management expectations, they can better quiet that internal voice that might say they’re “not enough.”