Culture Shift

Cultivating Sales Leadership in Tech: with Sean Forkan of VMware

Episode Summary

In this episode, we dive deep with Sean Forkan, VP of Security Sales at VMware, exploring the pivotal role of leadership in technology. Sean, with his nearly 30-year career, sheds light on: - The power of positive work culture and effective leadership. - How coaching can transform sales leadership in tech. - Navigating challenges and driving success in a dynamic industry. Join us for an engaging discussion that's not just about tech, but about people, leadership, and the future of the workplace. Perfect for professionals seeking to enhance their leadership skills and understand the evolving dynamics of tech industries.

Episode Notes

The podcast episode features a comprehensive discussion on leadership and coaching in the technology industry, with insights from Sean Forkan, VP of Security Sales at VMware. The conversation highlights several key points:

1. **Positive Work Environment:** Emphasis is placed on the significance of enjoying work and maintaining good relationships with colleagues. It's noted that a supportive work environment can mitigate challenges, whereas negative atmospheres, particularly with difficult superiors, can lead to employee dissatisfaction.

2. **Transformative Power of Coaching:** Susan Pahl, the host, explores the impact of coaching on individuals and organizations. Discussions involve business and HR leaders, focusing on how coaching can transform leadership and organizational culture.

3. **Sean Forkan's Leadership Philosophy:** Forkan discusses his leadership approach, emphasizing the importance of having a fact-based strategy and realistic goals. He stresses that strategies should be grounded in market realities to guide teams effectively.

4. **Operating Model and Business Rhythm:** Forkan talks about the importance of having a predictable operating model. He mentions that predictable, well-documented processes and meetings help avoid disruptions and maintain efficiency.

5. **Creating a High Performing Culture:** Forkan emphasizes the critical role of culture in team performance. He argues that while strategy and operating models are important, the key to success lies in creating a culture where teams are excited to work and feel valued.

6. **Focus on People and Culture:** Forkan shares that his growth strategies always prioritize people and culture. He discusses his long-term use of coaching as a tool to enhance team performance and leadership skills.

Episode Transcription

00:00

And people, like if they enjoy who they work with and they get to work on interesting things, right? They'll put up with some bumps in the road. But if they have a horrible boss that's just yelling at them every day, and the systems don't work, product issues, and you're getting yelled at by the boss, they have way too many choices. Welcome to Culture Shift, hosted by Susan Pahl, CEO of Shift Coaching. Join Susan as she explores big ideas in leadership and coaching with business leaders,


 

00:30

HR leaders and thought leaders. Discover the transformative power of coaching and its impact on individuals and organizations. Let's shift the culture together. I'm Sue Pahl. With me, my guest is Sean Forkan. Sean is the vice president of security sales worldwide at VMware. Sean has almost a 30 year career in the technology industry. So welcome, Sean.


 

01:00

Thank you, Sue. How are you? I'm good, thank you. Today we're going to talk about that connection between coaching and sales leadership. And as you've described throughout your career, you had a lot of opportunities to deal with messy and a lot of opportunities for coaching. And I think one of the things that I know about you is that your people really matter to you. So the customers matter, the products and services matter. But what's at the heart of it for you is really the people on your team.


 

01:29

And so when they need you, you're there. And even if there's an issue, you're there. And even if they don't need you, you're still there helping to support and develop them. So can you talk to me a little bit about why the people are at the center? So it kind of starts with, when people say, what's your overall leadership philosophy? How do you need teams, right? And I say, the first part of it starts out with having a strategy, kind of having an order to start is gonna guide the teams in terms of what your


 

01:58

you're hoping to achieve, right? Couple keys to that. One is the strategy needs to be fact-based, right? So if your market's growing at 10% a year, don't stretch the team to say, we're gonna grow at 800% a year magically without some sort of disruption. So it's usually market plus growth, right? Can we be more effective and actually advance our market share based on how our market is expanding? The other key in that is it's gotta be a co-authored plan by the team, and this is the critical part, right?


 

02:27

It can't be me as a senior leader. It can't be my plan. It's my plan. Nobody buys into it. And so I always bring in a facilitator. I happen to have someone special I've worked with for now well over 20 years, and she knows me well, and we make sure that the team feels fully vested, bought into, and is heard all their ideas I heard before we agreed a kind of a set of priorities at time. There's other things I do around that, but suffice it to say, I always say, you know, strategy while important.


 

02:54

It's kind of for me the easiest part of the job, right? The line I use is the world is littered with PowerPoint that you can go anywhere. And so the second kind of element to, you know, how I lead teams is really having a, I call it an operating model or a rhythm to the business. Right? Things need to be predictable in nature, right? Nobody likes fire drills, right? It's highly ineffective, highly disruptive. And so meetings for a given quarter, I'm always on the part of a publicly traded company. So we kind of run a 13 week cycle.


 

03:21

Every kind of review is pre-calendar. The agenda is preset. It is always well-known, all documented, what artifacts we'll use. It always balances between short and long, and usually other things, like back when we actually got to spend time with each other, we'd talk about community, like what we do for the community in that particular geography for a quarter, but all very, very predictable in nature. And so with strategy and operating model, kind of leads me to the third leg of the stool.


 

03:49

And that's really how do you help create a culture where the teams show up to work nine and a half times on 10 and they're excited to be here? Because if you can do that, you create a high performing culture, right? And in fact, I think you mess up on your strategy and your operating model, but if you mess up on the people piece, you always underperform. And so that's why, if I bring it back to even strategy, one of the cores of any of the growth strategies I've ever put in place through the last.


 

04:18

you know, probably 20 years has a focus around people and culture. And, um, and that has kind of brought us to, you know, why you and I started to work together and plus years ago now, is it? So yeah, that hopefully that gives you a bit of context too. You've always used coaching as I can, at least for the last 10 years, as an important tool for your people. So can you tell me a little bit about why coaching? Yeah. So I think instinctively I knew, you know, so


 

04:47

of at your core, sometimes we overcomplicate things, but I think instinctively I like to treat people how I'd like to be treated in their role, right? And so, you know, I knew early on that, you know, I wanted somebody to tell me, hey, here's Sean, here's what you aspire to achieve, right? Here's what kind of good looks like, right? Both kind of short and long. How you get there though, we want to leave you creativity to go solve. I knew that's what I liked as an individual contributor. And really where it got...


 

05:13

formalized for me is I had the privilege of working for an outstanding CEO in my career. He was one of those classically trained Center for Creative Leadership folks. And he formalized it for me, for lack of a better term, where he said, your role is not to do things for everybody, right? Your role is to build capacity in the system. And he used to talk to us about the need to balance between inquiry versus advocacy, right?


 

05:41

And he gave us real examples where he would lean in and inquire and inquire and inquire and inquire, even though he knew the answer, because he knew if he could get the person to figure it out on their own, there'd be additional capacity over time. So when you think about, you know, in technology, and every industry I think now is similar, but in technology, if it took care of changes so quickly, if you're not growing and developing, right, yourself and your team, you get left behind very, very quickly, right? And I developed that paranoia


 

06:11

I was very early in the nineties. And so, you know, kind of learning and growing is always, always been, always been core. And then when, when coaching team man is, is I think you need to get people a framework, right? I think you can say, Hey, it's good to tell me, Sean, maybe you want me to ask more questions and tell people what to do, but, but I, but I don't need to, I need to know where to start. Right. You know, I've always liked this process where right.


 

06:36

let's ground, right? And then, you know, in an assessment, and you know, I've used one through the years that's been very beneficial, right? To kind of ground the individual, hey, what do you need to know about yourself? What do you need to be self-aware of? And then to arm them with a structure and to see them what good coaching looks like, and that helps extend to the team, into the culture, and then back to the ever-important performance at the end of the day. Do you have any examples of people that you've had working for you?


 

07:05

where coaching has made a difference, like a couple things you can think of. Yeah, it's funny you asked that. So I was on a phone call last week, it's Friday, with someone who worked for me, who you coach, you're involved, your team is involved in coaching them. And they went from being kind of a classic first line sales leader, one who was probably more teller and yeller


 

07:34

than true coach to the point where I was calling them up to say, Hey, I've got an America's role I'm looking, I'm looking to backfill myself. Would you be interested? And kind of the good news, bad news story is he said, Sean, first I'd say I can't because I just accepted an America's role at another company. And I felt great for him because he'd been able to grow, you know, such that he was able to take on that kind of role. But he kind of apologized because he said, you know,


 

08:02

Sean, it's the work that we did, and it wasn't for long, curious time, I think it was only within for a year or two, but he goes, we learned, right? And he mentioned another one of his peers, he goes, we all talk about how much we learned when we got to work with you, and how you made us kind of the leaders that we know are today. I think there's a lot of things that go into that, right? One is not being a yeller and teller, and kind of asking lots of questions, you know, even though I think I'm gonna be interested sometimes.


 

08:29

which I catch myself on, but encouraging people to have that kind of culture. And if I play more of a coach to them and not telling them what to do every day, that hopefully permeates down and it extends. And so that's kind of one from literally, I had that phone call Friday with this individual and those kinds of things are, at this stage, kind of what you love to get, right? Like they had a true impact and really helped grow.


 

08:56

a team, a leader, and an organization such that they've got all this additional capacity. I thought it was a good example, Sid. Fantastic example. Well, it sounds like you really are a coaching leader. So more than just hiring coaches to coach your people, you've actually taken on that role yourself as well. So you do use professional coaching as required, but it seems like you've actually become a coaching leader yourself. So how has that paid off for you, your teams?


 

09:25

and your organization, would you say? So one of the things is your ability to attract talent. So I mentioned I'm in these messy situations often where the path is undefined. There's usually a track record of underperformance. There's morale, HR issues, right? But I can tell you, because I also had this call on Friday,


 

09:51

partially probably because of the style of mirror I am and kind of the track record of success. People believe that you're going to be capable of doing great things and they wanna be a part of that. So it helps you attract great teams. The woman who's running operations for me, she and I have worked together now for 10 years, right? And she's followed me from role to role to role, right? I talked to a woman yesterday who, or sorry, last week.


 

10:20

I'm trying to hire a very senior systems engineering role pre-sales. And she's looking at other opportunities, but she's like, if you can make this work, I would love the opportunity to partner with you again. And then even yesterday when I shared, I was interviewing somebody for a role on my team, kind of same thing. Like people I think like to be a part of that. Like they, you know, when somebody's, you know, open and transparent, but hey, things aren't easy. It's messy.


 

10:46

We're going to try to have some fun together. And this is the style of person I am, and here's my expectation of you. And they kind of align with that. You can do great things. Well, how about when times get tough? And I know you've worked in a number of places where times did get pretty tough. I think whether it was the quotas were crazy ridiculous, or the organization was coming together and then spreading apart. So how do you actually apply some of those skills in those tough times?


 

11:16

the nice guy, the supportive guy, when times really are tough. So you can't deviate from it is the honest answer, right? You continue have to kind of lead and especially especially when people have times where they're exceptionally frustrated, right? Systems aren't working. They're not, they're not winning because there might be product issues or pricing issues or whatever issues. Right. Sometimes I just do the basic ones going, Hey, what'd you learn? What would you do differently? Right. But you got to, you got to give them the oxygen I find to let them kind


 

11:46

kind of unload, right? Like get that frustration out. And so that's what I've been effective at through the years. And then, and then try and take that in and say, okay, how do we drive a different outcome, right? To kind of get them pat on the, hey, I can, you know, yeah, that's suck, but we're going to live to fight another day. We're going to, we're going to find a way to go solve this. I don't know the answer, but I know I've got, you know, someone who's going to support me and I can come to any time and they're going to, they're going to help me work through this, right? I mean, it's not going to always tell me what to do, but


 

12:13

but they're not really looking for that. If they're looking for more, he let me vent and maybe guide me a little bit. So that's historically what I've done. And there've been times where people are elevated in talent, right? And it doesn't always work perfectly every time, but I think you have to stay grounded in it in tough times. I will say, right, when I first had trained on coaching,


 

12:42

you want to make sure you have time for it, right? It's like, if you get a gunshot wound and you show up to emerge, you don't want the surgeon asking people, hey, what do you think? Like you need people jumping in and right? And so I always, especially if there's balance, like sometimes they need leaders to make very, very quick decisions. And then, but more often than not, staying in that coaching mindset and that coaching philosophy and continuing to ask good questions while you're able to better outcome in life to me. Oh, absolutely. And there's really only two ways to get work done.


 

13:12

either do it yourself or have other people do it, right? And so the way to get other people to do it and not come to you constantly asking for guidance and support and direction and the command and control style, it sounds like you kind of lead beside people, not necessarily in front of them, not necessarily behind them, but with them. And you take that very much of a collaborative approach to support them to figure out, you know, what's next. So how does that apply to sales leaders specifically? Why do you think coaching is important?


 

13:42

for sales, you know, for that sales function. Well, I think it's important for all functions, but in particular, you know, in sales, right, you can get, you know, we're on this 13 week cycle, right? And oftentimes when I take over teams, one of the things I find is they're completely nearsighted. Right? They lose the concept of balance, right? And balance is both short and long, but it's also people, right? It's like, you know, taking the time to have a


 

14:12

coach in conversations about their career. You know, what do they think they want to do next? And why do they think that's important to them? And how might we, you know, we might go about doing that together, right? And so all of that has to come together, right? And then, you know, the classic first line. So, you know, the toughest transition, most, you know, books or leaderships will tell you is going from individual contributor to first line leader. Right? And I made these mistakes because, you know, you get that job because you're so awesome.


 

14:41

Right. And so you think you can tell everybody what to do. And, you know, good thing I was alerted because I tried that going in, because I was asked to build a plan and I told the team what the plan was. I mean, more or less that plan sucks. Yeah. Right. And so I said, okay, I can, I could kind of try and dig in because I'm now the boss or I can go, okay, well, why do you think that? And so, you know, whether it be, you know, how do you balance short and long? How do you continuously learn? Right. How should we be preparing for the deal? Right.


 

15:09

What do you think those executive care abouts or those client care abouts are gonna look like? I think, knowing that if you can take the time, right? And build that capacity, right? And create that environment where people learn, it can be truly powerful, so. Well, and it is hard in sales because it can be a roller coaster ride for people. It's very volatile and very out in front. So everybody can see the numbers, everybody knows. You don't always see what's happening behind the scenes in organizations.


 

15:39

but often sales is out there and everybody can see if you're doing well or if you're not. And as a leader, leading a team like that, it can be quite an emotional roller coaster. So how have you used coaching to support them through that kind of a process? So the first thing is, I'm very open with people around, there's a what and a how to your role, right? There's a what and a how and how does it get measured. And so, and the reason that's important is there's not a single sales professional on the planet


 

16:08

but has made every single quarter, right? It doesn't happen for a variety of reasons, right? And so, the line I'd use, it's not the best terminology, but I said, if you're what sucks, make sure your how is strong, right? And since you're gonna have a bad quarter, right? Are you doing the right things around building longer term opportunities for customers? Is your training planning up to date? Are you doing the right things with your partners? Is your sales force hygiene clean, right? I'm like, if you get A's on all of that,


 

16:38

in a C or a D, you're okay. But what you don't want is the bottom, right? The coaching element of that is making sure that all the leaders are bought into what good looks like. So what does it take to get an A? What do you think? And so I went through that process again, when I landed in the anarchist role, because there wasn't a lot of guidance around this. I said, okay, well, what does good look like?


 

17:04

What does good, what should pipeline look like at a quarter? Everybody in sales operations is telling me, what do you do as a leader for US enterprise and US Fed or Latam or Canada or commercial, what do you think that needs to look like? And there was a little nudging, like, you know, if they said, oh, big deal is access, maybe it's a little higher. Let's see if we can stretch people a little bit, but they felt bully bested in saying, okay, I know what it takes to get an A on both the what and the how for my teams and...


 

17:33

And I think if I walked in and we ended up where, you know, where, where I thought we would, but, but I would never would have had the buy-in. And then I asked each one, what do you think it takes to get an A? So shared common knowledge, shared common language, and had a shared goal. And you said you got it. You brought it from within them as opposed to putting it on top of them, which is like, and they're just, there's so much more bought into it. Right. And, um, you know, and that was the learning for me, right. You co-authored both the strategy,


 

18:03

and the op model. And then, when you think about diversity, equity, and inclusion and developing people and being back to the community, same thing, right? And continue to kind of use that, embed that through everything. And people, if they enjoy who they work with and they get to work on interesting things, they'll put up with some bumps in the road. But if they have a horrible boss that's just yelling at them every day, and the systems don't work, product issues, you're getting yelled at by the boss.


 

18:31

They have way too many choices. Well, you know you talked about when you were working somewhere and you inherited a marketing team and they said, you know, you can get rid of them all, but you didn't. So can you just talk me through that one a little bit? Cause I'm just curious, because if that was, if you almost had permission to start again, it felt like maybe you could just bring in all these superstars, but you chose not to. So can you tell me a little bit about that? Well, and that one is interesting cause that became foundational for my process.


 

18:59

much, much later. So the first thing that I do whenever I inherit a new team is I spend time with frontline staff in the field. I go to CGAN and I try to get to know them as people. And I try to get them to tell me a little bit about their business. And that really started with the marketing team. And so I spent time with all of them and heard their frustrations. And a lot of them were, I'm not respected, I'm not valued. The people in corporate and the US, right? I can't get time or day with them.


 

19:27

And then, you know, I talked to the folks in USCS marketing and they just said, listen, like this, they don't really do anything. And we have no sense of what they're trying to do. And so the process I went through is I brought in this facilitation partner of mine, he works on strategy, sat it down and said, hey, how do we help them build their plan? Right? It's totally their plan. It's not the leader telling them their plan. It's their plan. And so we, this is in the back of the days of pagers, it was pager wise. And so what would happen is,


 

19:55

We decided to leave me out of the room because there was a sense for the team that they were marketing practitioners and I was a sales professional and sales was always telling marketing what to do. And they lost sales would say, go do this. And they kept getting steamrolled by sales. So what we agreed to do was to kick me out of the room for the entire session. But if the team got stuck on a problem, I'd get paged and walk into the meeting and get


 

20:24

and make the decision and the team could move on. But everybody felt like they were heard and we just kept the planning process going. And that became their plan. What I told them, I would not hold them accountable to results per se, but to measuring the results towards execution. So someone said to me, hey, I need $100,000 to do this. And I'm like, what's the impact gonna be? And we said, well, it's gonna affect this part of the business.


 

20:50

know, she said, I said, when are we going to know if this was successful or not? She's like, oh, it'll be a year from now. I'm like, okay, open up your laptop. We're going to book the meeting a year from now and you're going to tell me whether or not this was a good investment. And so that worked really well. And then I was in a meeting with my peers who I'd been working with for a while. And one of them said, Hey, I need more money for a golf event. And I said, go F yourself in front of everybody in the room. I'm like, I'm not, I'm not the piggy day. Right.


 

21:19

And so it was kind of that balance. They felt they had somebody who believed in them, who wanted to be their voice, who respected and valued them, who asked them a lot of questions, because I was learning a whole new function. I'd never run marketing before. And I let them build their plan. I just provided being someone to help them in the oxygen. And they wildly delivered. They started as the worst respected marketing team in probably the world. And at the end of that, we were turning away money.


 

21:49

corporate kept saying, well, we want to try more stuff for Canada. We want to try to work because they deliver, right? They execute, right? We can count on them. And we ended up since stock, we just, we don't have capacity. I need more bodies, right? And so those things I actually, you know, you learn how to do that, how would you do differently? And so I actually embed that now into every time, you know, I take over a new team, right? I'm having to course correct as the teams, you know, when the team's 50, you can do it, 60, you can do it. You know, now it's 500. So it's a


 

22:19

You know, we're trying to think of it as a different operating model and there's no planes, but yeah. Yeah. Well, that is impressive. And it sounds like one of the foundations that you work on all the time is trust. It seems like you get in and you build trust, you trust them, but they also trust you. And then on top of the trust is when you start really working with them. So it seems like what I've heard as I've listened to you through this whole process is that seems to be a foundational component for you.


 

22:48

So much of this is relationship. So the other thing I tend to do, and there's two parts of that starting phase with New York teams is one, I do a journey line, right? Which if you haven't seen one is kind of both personal and professional experience. And I'm very open to the journey line. I talk about miscarrying a child. I talk about the recent deaths in my family. And then I talk about my successes and where I've struggled through the career, right? And you get mixed reactions. Like some people are like, I didn't hear all that. But others are like, wow, now I kind of


 

23:17

I've worked for all these leaders, I really don't know them as human beings. Right. But then the next stage is, and always freaks them out, especially when you're dealing with not kids, but people who are very young, early in their careers. And an invite shows up for a 30 or 45 minute one-on-one with me. And they're all scrambling, like, what do I need to present? And the way I treat it is like, I'm just looking to get to know you and what you do and your business.


 

23:47

I've done that always kicking over new teams, but I decided when I wasn't able to travel was really critically important to check in on people during COVID. And so when my team was North American based, I was, you know, even the most junior people, hey, how you doing? What's your personal situation? Are you doing okay? Are you taking time for self? You're not doing them like nine, 10 hours straight of Zooms, which I unfortunately just did again today. I'm not supposed to do, but you need to take those breaks. This is...


 

24:16

You know, this is we unfortunately learned was a was American and not a sprint. Right. So hopefully that gives you some more sense. Oh, yeah. Well, you sounds like you're also bringing that real human aspect to leading. So leaders are just these people that sit back in a big white ivory tower, whatever they call it. And you're someone who shows up and sits with people and helps and supports them. So imagine that you must get fantastic results, because they said most people who don't have a strong leader are actually looking for work elsewhere.


 

24:46

I was with a CISO for a large US retailer two months ago now. And he's hit the turn, he and his colleagues are using our, it's a resignation pandemic. Right? So, so, you know, right now, even if you're a good company, I think 40% of individual contributors are looking to do what's next. And it's worse for leaders, it's 15, 16, they're all burnt out. And if all just kind of had it right. My opinion, you know, is I don't see that changing until we really get.


 

25:15

back to face-to-face meetings. I just did my first one with colleagues where we sat in a room three weeks ago now and for a day. And it was amazing. But it was amazing. We walked in there, I had a chief of staff and operations personnel that would support me. We were phenomenal. And four of us sat in a room and got so much done in a day. You know, it was great. Everybody's been fully vaccinated. So you got to shake a hand or give a holler, right? I think that's gonna be important.


 

25:45

I mean, like for, you know, this, this resignation pandemic is, is, is our world is a small, makes it really, really hard for, for culture. Right. And, um, so we continue to try to do what we do, right. Making sure we're checking into what teams and individuals and making sure we care. And we want to get to know one and help them out, you know, wherever we can. But I don't think this slows down my opinion, right. Until we're, until we're mostly got, you know, able to meet people in offices.


 

26:13

Yeah, well that human connection can make all the difference and we are only in this two-dimensional world right now, so we really need that connection with other people. So my last question for you is, as you've answered a little bit already, but what advice or guidance would you give to the people who are going to be going back and leading in this hybrid world? Because you've led this way for a long time, led remotely and then been able to connect with people. So you're very familiar with the hybrid environment.


 

26:42

they've never done this. I literally was talking to somebody in a large government agency, and they said they had to go when the pandemic hit. Five days later, they're all working remotely, and they were told for 30 odd years before that, we could never work. Never do it. Yeah, so necessity, the mother of all invention, right? Exactly. So what advice or guidance would you have for those people out there trying to figure this out? So I think you have to acknowledge, we as leaders have to acknowledge that the world has been forever changed.


 

27:11

I have a close friend of mine who is an executive recruiter and she was recruiting for a white collar role. US company coming to Canada, very well paying role. And they just said, hey, the one condition we have is we expect this person to be in the office five days a week. And she couldn't find a single person who would sign up to that. So I think in technology, we've been very much hybrid models for.


 

27:39

long period of time, we wanted to be able to use the technology that we're promoting to customers as part of it and always try to be on the front end of the curve. So I've been, I had the ability to work from home, be on video for 20, 20 years, 22 years I've been doing this. So this is very normal to me. But the one thing I would tell you is I don't, my opinion again is you can't live in either one of the extremes. There's no going back five days a week, even if you're


 

28:08

probably even running an inside sales team. I think they can do a lot of good work from home, younger people, single moms, lots of folks want that inherent flexibility. But 100% remote in most instances is gonna be tough. And there will be companies that decide to be 100% remote. I'd suggest figure out a way to inject some balance into it, whether the ad hoc meetings or something, just to maintain that person to person connection, which...


 

28:37

which I just think I continue to believe is so important. So. Thank you for spending the time with me today and talking about this. And I wonder if there's any final words of wisdom that you have around, you know, coaching and that connection to sales leadership particularly, because whether it's in technology or in any area of different organizations, like to know what you think. So just a couple of things. I think I touched on these already, you know, when you're in the coaching D in the moment.


 

29:06

the advice you get with them, they give advice to parents, right? You should like flip your laptop over and kind of be present. It's one thing to ask a question and be looking at your text or your email, right? That's not, you're not genuinely interested in me. So, trying to remove those distractions. I would advise you to get a framework, to work with an agency like a shift to say, like, I've got to have somewhere to start, right? I've got to know or experience it myself, right?


 

29:35

can't just say, I'm going to be a coach tomorrow without kind of any, anything to work with. And then just be patient with yourself. Know that this is, but this is a journey. Like you just, you start with something and you're like, okay, I tried to do a coaching conversation and then this didn't go well. Okay. Well, what did you learn? What would you do differently? Right. And just know it's a, it's a journey and try to continue to make it part of who you are and, and how you, you know, how do you show up through your teams? Well, that's great advice. Thank you. And I think that's part of coaching is you have to practice.


 

30:04

And I think it's practice makes perfect. Well, you know, at least I'm almost perfect, practically perfect. But I think that is one of the key things. And it works if you just stick with it. Well, thank you, Sean. Thank you too.


 

30:28

That's it for this episode of Culture Shift with Susan Pahl. If you enjoyed it, subscribe, rate and review it wherever you get your podcasts. If you have feedback or have a topic that you think would be good for the show, we'd love to hear from you. To reach out, visit the contact page at shiftcoaching.ca. Thanks for listening and see you again soon.