Roger Connors is a four-time NY Times Bestselling Author and Top 10 Organizational Culture Expert. He is also the Chairman and Cofounder of Zero to Ten, a leadership training company. Roger is out with a new book, Get a Coach, Be a Coach, where he discusses how leaders, often overwhelmed, must learn to become better coaches. Roger discusses why and how we need to train leaders at every level to seek support facing tough challenges.

Key Takeaways

[3:00] Executive coaching is often only accessible to C-suite executives, but there is a way to make coaching accessible to everyone, even at the frontlines.

[4:00] The key to create a non-hierarchical culture is to reach out from within the organization to get advice in real-time.

[6:00] You don’t need to find a master in their field to receive great coaching. Tiger Woods is a master in his craft, but he’s not the best coach out there.

[8:15] The average leader has 14 direct reports, which is too many to be present for each person.

[12:00] There are five distinct coaching conditions we need to develop so that we can seek help before problem compounds.

[16:25] Knowledge-hoarding is a natural human tendency when there is competition within an organization and people feel like they need every edge they can get to get ahead. Leaders need to change the culture to a knowledge-sharing environment.

[22:05] The vast majority of coaching happens in under 15 minutes.  

[29:25] Don’t wait for your team leader to give you the coaching you need. Take responsibility and seek it out!

[33:25] The problem with accountability is that the conversations are often happening after the fact rather than before the event.

[38:10] Millennials don’t want a boss, they want a coach. They want support from their leaders.

[41:00] Be surrounded by people who can help solve your problem.

Quotable Quotes

“We found that recency can often be more powerful than expertise.” Click To Tweet Coaching needs to be an organic, self-directed process. Click To Tweet Transition from a knowledge-hoarding environment to a knowledge-sharing environment. Click To Tweet “‘You win by asking for help when you need it.” Click To Tweet “You need to teach team members how to get the coaching they need and how to empower themselves to get what they need when they need it.” Click To Tweet

Resources Mentioned

• Website & Book: Zerototen.com
• Roger Connors on Wikipedia
• Roger on LinkedIn