Strategy and Team Health: A Story from the Coaching Field

I had the great fortune of working with a manufacturing team recently to talk about team health and strategy.  Both of these facets of a team are incredibly important.  As people get to know, trust and respect each other more, they are better able to do the heavy lifting of putting issues on the table in the service of the betterment of the team, department and overall company.  Workers with boots on the ground, doing the everyday tasks can feel disconnected sometimes to the overall mission and vision of their company because they just see what is in front of them.   They are ‘in the weeds’ and not necessarily ‘seeing the forest’.  In my work I seek to connect people to each other, to efficiencies, to connecting their roles to a purpose. 

As we explored what it means to be a good teammate, guys started to chime in and give shape to a definition.  A good teammate is humble, open to learning, able to ask questions and ask for help, have fun and humor together, pick up where each other leaves off and just tacitly, implicitly know how to pitch in to help the overall cause or goals for the day.  It was awesome to see grown men in greasy Carhart jeans describe this ideal and have an earnest desire to embody it.  They don’t always exemplify these traits, but that’s the journey.  Sometimes people get into funky moods for whatever reason, personal or professional.  This is normal.  Being supportive of others in down moods was another characteristic that came up.  Additionally, the team just let go of an employee who was being overly negative for an extended period of time.  They know what they stand for and use this as a standard.  They realize that attitude is far more important as technical aptitude on the job. 

We also talked about issues and goals, two sides of the same coin.  Issues are normal, and abound in most relationships.  My job as a coach is to smoke these out by making it a safe space to do so.  If people can’t trust that their truths will be met with openness and a desire to work them out, they will stay silent, or hold back the totality of what they want to express.  We came up with some really pressing issues that they are faced with currently: workflow, communication, efficiency and training issues.  In my estimation, issues are opportunities for growth, and as we put them out there together, we can solve them together.  Amazing.  People are wise and it’s my contention that we are more wise together, what I call collective wisdom.  We talked about two of those issues, namely training new guys, and a particular workflow issue.  It was awesome to talk through why they are issues and move to figuring out how to solve them.  It was beautiful to see the creative responses that ensued.  For training we came up with shadowing other people, being mindful of training opportunities, giving a plan each day for training, and sticky notes on various machines.  Now they will go and try these tactics, and then I will follow up and see how it goes. 

I haven’t been with this team for about 7 months during COVID and it was great to reconnect.  My mission is always to uphold focusing on what we can effect, defining it, talking it through and finding actions to solve it.  It’s a really good process that works over and over again because as humans we are always working on something.  Most humans I work with as well are committed to learning, evolving and growing. Nobody really wants a bad work environment. 

The CEO and The Coach Part 3: on Resilience

The CEO and the Coach Part 3: On Resilience

On this episode of the Focus Coach podcast. I interview Ken Abbott, President of ABTech Manufacturing in Fitzwilliam, NH about the notion of resilience and how that has manifested in this economic COVID downturn as well as through an injury he sustained while riding his mountain bike.  We talk about what tools have helped him recover from these downturns and the current state of his life and business.

On the podcast we discuss:

·       The notion of resilience, or learning how to cope better with adversity

·       Some things Ken has done to help his business thrive

·       The value of teamwork and values to sustain through challenges

·       The value of keeping calm under duress

·       How coaching helped Ken make shifts in his thinking

·       How an injury led to right-sizing his expectations

The Unintentional and Intentional CEO

The Unintentional and Intention CEO

In this podcast episode of The Focus Coach, I interviewed Mark Bodin, president of the Savings Bank of Walpole in Keene and Walpole, NH.  On the podcast we talk about his ideas and strategy for succession planning, employee development, culture building, community focus and employee well-being.  Mark gives us an in-depth expose of his journey of the path to becoming president, which he wasn’t necessarily looking for.  When he realized that the mission of the bank in its community and people first culture was aligned with his strengths and core values, he jumped at the chance. 

On the podcast we talk about:

·       Mark’s history leading up to becoming president of a community bank

·       Mark’s diligent and methodical approach to employee development

·       Mark’s definition of culture and the bottom-line and values-driven benefits of getting it right

·       Mark’s approach to succession planning, an indispensable function of any Executive

·       Mark’s deep roots in the value of giving back to the community and how his bank achieves this

·       Mark’s candid and humorous style

·       Mark’s strength for understanding individuals’ needs

·       The dichotomy of the organization giving opportunities for growth and advancement and the employee seeking them out.