choice Magazine

Beyond the Page ~ A is for Assessment

January 31, 2023 Garry Schleifer
choice Magazine
Beyond the Page ~ A is for Assessment
Show Notes Transcript

In this interview, we talk with Leigh Ann Rodgers about her article, "A is for Assessment, How a Team Assessment Leads to Tangible Coaching Outcomes".

When coaching a leader or a team that’s struggling, it’s critical to begin with a well-balanced understanding of the team’s current state. Gaining clarity about a team’s strengths and areas of opportunity offers leaders the full-picture perspective of their team’s needs and challenges.

However, finding the capacity to do this is difficult because teams are complex and just plain overwhelmed. Quickly and effectively identifying team challenges isn’t just important – it’s paramount to a team’s success. Using a comprehensive framework in your coaching practice, such as the Better Teams Model, enables leaders to rapidly identify the key opportunities and confidently move into goal setting and informed action planning.

Driven by the mission to positively impact corporate culture and cultivate high-performing, happy teams, Leigh Ann Rodgers is recognized by leaders around the world for her ability to get resistant teams to engage in transformational dialogue, collaborate on how to work better together, and increase satisfaction and retention. Throughout her career, she’s worked alongside leaders of the most well-known Fortune Global 500 brands across the globe.  Her flagship offerings include the Better Teams Model and Assessment, Team Consultant Academy, The Better Teams Community - FORWARD, and the Leading Better Teams podcast.

Join us as we learn more from Leigh Ann on how to we can understand a team's current state and how to find areas of opportunity to improve team dynamics.

Watch the full interview by clicking here.

Find the full article here: https://bit.ly/btp-rodgers

Learn more about Leigh Ann here.

To get the Better Teams eBook Leigh Ann talked about today click here. 

Grab your free issue of choice Magazine here - https://choice-online.com/
In this episode, I talk with Leigh Ann about her article published in our December 2022  issue.

Speaker 1:

Hi, I am Garry Schleifer, and this is Beyond The Page brought to you by choice, the magazine of professional coaching. Choice is more than just a magazine. It's a community of people who use and share coaching tools, tips, and techniques to add value to their businesses and impact their clients. It's an institution of learning built over the course of 20 years dedicated to approving the lives of coaches and their clients. Yes, we've just passed 20 years of publication. Woohoo. In today's episode, I'm speaking with Coach Leigh Ann Rodgers, who's the author of an article in our latest issue entitled"A is for Assessment, how a Team Assessment Leads to Tangible Coaching Outcomes". Absolutely brilliant article, and I can't wait, but let's learn a little bit more about Leigh Ann. Driven by the Mission to positively impact corporate culture and cultivate high performing happy teams. Leigh Ann is recognized by leaders around the world for her ability to get resistant teams to engage in transformational dialogue, collaborate on how to work better together, and increase satisfaction and retention. Throughout her career, she's worked alongside leaders of the most well-known Fortune Global 500 brands across the globe. H ear that Global. Awesome. Her flagship offerings include the Better T eams Model and Assessment, Team Consultant Academy, the Better T eams Community Forward, and t he Leading Better T eams podcast s how. She's also a podcaster. Welcome, Leigh Ann. Thank you so much for joining me today.

Speaker 2:

Thank you, Garry. It's always fun to talk with you. I'm looking forward to this.

Speaker 1:

Me too. Me too. Normally when I get into this I ask so what had you write this article? And I'm just like, because I asked you to. Because I get your brilliant emails, I see you as a leader in the realm of team coaching and I'm sure of many others, but particularly that, and when we spoke you spoke and provided in this article th Better teams model approach to working with teams. So anything else you want to add on why you wrote it other than to share your wisdom because I asked you to.

Speaker 2:

Oh, thank you. Well, I was really honored that you did ask me and it was a thrill to write it for your amazing magazine. For me, I just think the model is so useful and helpful and my mission is all about how do you build more happy and high performing teams? If people reading this can use this with their clients, with teams that they work with, or even their own teams, that makes me happy. We're making the world a happier, better place.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, no kidding. One of the things that I keyed in though on your bio was resistant teams. So I'm guessing it's not the team that's the resistant, it's the individuals and I can't even imagine the stories you have about it. Can you share like, what are the types of things that show that somebody's being resistant and how did you overcome them possibly using the model?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, well I often get asked to work with teams that are actually performing really well. Perhaps they're doing an annual offsite or things like that. And that's always fun to do, right? Those are fun and in some ways easy to do because the team's ready to go. Where I really love to work though, because it's more challenging and more rewarding in some ways, is those teams that are struggling in some way. Whether it's a team member or multiple team members or even a leader who is struggling and going through some sort of conflict or they're out of alignment and they're just not working very effectively together and helping them kind of get to a place where they're open to figure out, hey, what do we really want in this team and how do we get there and have some tough conversations?

Speaker 1:

Yeah. Well that's great. You gave a great case study of a team that was performing well, but they wanted to be great and I really loved that. So for the listeners today, please make sure and take that in. You also made me laugh, because you're talking about offsite and your virtual offsite, it sounded like jumbo shrimp. They're offsite.

Speaker 2:

It's a new way, right?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's a new way.

Speaker 2:

It's a virtual offsite. I never know. Some people say offsite retreat, workshop, team meeting, like what does it mean? Right. And I don't know why offsite really stuck with me because it implies, well, typically you are going offsite, but you're right, virtual offsite. That's kind of funny. Maybe I should think about my word.

Speaker 1:

Oh, no, it's brilliant because it had me stop and think and it's like, yeah, that makes sense. We're in a virtual world and we have to create an offsite.

Speaker 2:

Experience.

Speaker 1:

Right. Experience. Thank you. Oh no, it's perfectly fine. It's just when I read it and reread it, I was just like, oh, that's cool. In this day and age, we're dealing with hybrid and all kinds of stuff, so virtual offsite really does make sense. So in your article you, and I asked you to do this and you quite willingly agreed to put in your model, how does having a model or framework assist a leader in the coaching process?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so if you think about, as a leader, all the things that a leader has to do or wants to do to build a team and all of the challenges that they face, it's enormous, right? It's almost limitless and can be very overwhelming. And so what I find is having a model provides that framework and that structure to kind of start to go, okay, let's assess where we're doing well and where our opportunities are and that model provides that kind of the framework to do it. So it starts to go, oh, we can chunk it down and now we can start to analyze it and figure out what we need to do.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, you know, when you're saying that I was thinking of a magnet and it's something that attracts everybody in their own way. The model is the core and then the people and their characteristic, their skills, their competencies are all the little, you know, when you were playing with them in school and the little metal shavings went this way or that way. Yeah. That's pretty cool. So in the model, which is is in the article, and I hope everyone listening has an opportunity to go to, I don't remember what page it was, darn, and take a look. Basically, there's five areas and, and while all important teams have this, they don't have enough time. How do you begin with all of this? What's the most important area?

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

How do you handle the time aspect?

Speaker 2:

And that is the biggest challenge I think, and more and more in the last few years. For some reason it's like, we wanna build a strong team, but we only have two hours. And so it's really a challenge to think about how do we quickly impact impact, right? So that we're not just doing some flighty little team exercise, but we're really making movement and so figuring that out. Just in case somebody hasn't read the article, the overall areas in the model are leadership, which isn't about the leader by the way. It's everyone on the team can show leadership skills and abilities. It's about being aligned. It's about making sure the team is ready. It's about making sure the team is happy, not just performing, but also happy and then finally trust. Those are the five big areas in the model. And so what I find is if I were to sit down with this model, and then there are characteristics for each of those too, and just quickly like walk through with either a team or a leader, even if they didn't take the assessment, right? Just walk them through and show them this model. The words are so like natural and words we use. People intuitively go, I get it, I get it, I see it. And then you can just ask them even like, where do you think your team is doing really well and where do you see is the opportunity? So it's just a great conversation starter that hones them in on those areas. So it's as simple sometimes as letting the team decide, you know, we know this is where we're good and we know this is where we're struggling. So that's one of the ways. Then the idea is whether you do it casually like that or through a more formal team assessment, you're able to narrow down quickly to the areas that the team is excited about working on and picking those one, two, or at the very most three specific kind of strategies that the team wants to work on. So you narrow it down to where are they going to get the biggest return on investment for their time. But they're deciding that, by the way, not, not us.

Speaker 1:

Well, again, back to the coaching, right? It's their agenda. They got the big A agenda. You listeners, I'm sorry, you're at a disadvantage because I'm looking at the model on my computer and you also talked about the Better Team's Assessment. So are you saying that in the assessment you use questions or measurements that are based on the triangles and the main points of leadership aligned, ready and happy and trust?

Speaker 2:

Absolutely, yes. So there's an online assessment. If a team wanted to do it, everyone on the team would go out online to a link and then assess their team. For each of the five areas, there are six questions related to the characteristics and then there's some open-ended questions too. Then it's all compiled into a single team report. So it's great tool to walk a team through that and have them analyze, okay, where are we really strong? Let's get very specific here around what we're doing well and then what are we seeing here, this is just data, right? It's just data of how we see ourselves, but what do we do with this data? Where do we see our greatest opportunities? So the assessment really does allow them to have a broader view of their team. I think so often, like if we just go in and say, Hey, what's working on your team and what could be better? Everybody kind of comes in from a very narrow perspective. But when you have a model that's all broad and all encompassing like this, and then an assessment that does that, they really are looking at all areas of their team, not maybe just that one area that's either a strength or a thorn for them.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. No kidding. I can just see that it's self-directing once it's done or would be right. But I could just see if they knew that one of the triangles was happy. I guess they're answering questions, but it may not be under the topic happy, but boy, that would be really cool to know what's engaging the team, what motivates them, that sort of thing. And the other thing that came to mind when you were describing it, and while we're talking about it, it sounds like a 360 for a team.

Speaker 2:

That's a great way to think of it,

Speaker 1:

Right?

Speaker 2:

It's a great way to think of it. Yeah. It's really how did they view themselves.

Speaker 1:

And it's not specific to a person. It's the third that entity in the room.

:

It's totally the team.

Speaker 2:

Even the leadership piece, right? Leadership is one of the areas and leadership is about how well is the team communicating? Are they accountable in holding others accountable? And then the third key word is proactive. Are they being proactive and strategic? It's not about the leader. You're not assessing the leader. You're assessing the team collectively on all of those areas. It's not about an individual, it's really about a system or this team that they're going to discuss and talk through. And Garry, this to me too is why it's so important that a coach or a facilitator, someone with those skill sets, takes that team through a debrief and not the leader of the team. Because as the leader of a team, even if you've got great facilitation and/or coaching skills and questions, it's really hard to be totally objective and unbiased and not emotional around some of the areas. So this is where having that external coach or facilitator come in to be able to ask the questions, to dig in deep on some of the topics to be sure that you're really getting any elephant that's in the room that's not being addressed. Like they can ask those questions to make this a really meaningful conversation that leads to actions.

Speaker 1:

You know, I always think of assessments as an opportunity for the introverts and the extroverts to be heard.

Speaker 2:

So true. And sometimes people won't wanna say out loud.

Speaker 1:

Right. What they're not happy about.

Speaker 2:

Exactly.

Speaker 1:

It could be specific to a person. Might be specific to the leader, right?

Speaker 2:

It could be. Or it could just feel like a different point of view that they're afraid won't be received well. It's hard for us to do that. So putting it in an assessment or score, then as the facilitator coach, you can ask those questions and get them talking about it.

Speaker 1:

In your experience, how do the leaders take the results? Let's say they find something like, I'm seem to be gravitating to the happy today because I'm happy to be here with you. How's that?

:

I love it. But you know, what's their reaction? Because if it were me and my team was going through it, I'd be like, tell me more. Oh really? Oh, what does that mean? What can we do? You know, how can we change that? What can we do in the coaching of the team to make that from four to a six or four to a seven? You know, if we're measuring Yeah. But what's your experience of the leaders' reaction to the results?

Speaker 2:

It's a great question. So my experience is the leaders who do this want it. They see the value in it. So they're open, they're curious, they're growth minded so they see this as an opportunity, even if there's a specific comment about them, it's possible. One of the questions, the open-ended questions is if you were the leader of the team, what would you do? And it's a gentle w ay t o give feedback, but I find the leaders who do this are usually really open and receptive. And the other thing is, I always debrief the leader before the team, so I never give this report out ahead of time because we don't want people having like the one-on-one conversation with their best friend on the team and going, w e know who said this. We don't want people to pre-judge. But at the same time though, I think it's really important that the leader has a chance to kind of see what's coming, get their head ready and be prepared. So I always show the leader the results a day or two ahead of time and if there's anything in there that might feel prickly to them, they have a chance to get a little coaching with me or whoever's facilitating with them and get their head in the right space so they can show up with a growth mindset and open and ready to learn.

Speaker 1:

Wow. Great. Interesting question. You know, since we're talking about the leaders, and then I want to come back to the model. So in our, in this issue, we have a sticky situation. And the situation is about a team coach who's about to coach a team, but the leader doesn't want to be involved. Basically the leaders hired them and said, okay, you're on your own. I'm out. How would you feel about that?

Speaker 2:

I would be really concerned. How does the leader not be engaged in the team? That would be a major red flag to me that this leader needs some coaching before the team even does. What's going on with that?

Speaker 1:

Yeah. You confident enough or you're aware enough and growth mindset enough to hire a team coach, but then you kind of want tosay, well, I don't really want to know what's going on, or I don't want to be involved. To our point about talk about the feedback. If you have a growth mindset, it's everywhere. You don't limit it. So anyway, it was an experience of a client with the leader of the team and I thought that was really interesting.

Speaker 2:

A team is a we, it's an us right. It's not a oh you guys and me.

:

There's another right flag.

Speaker 2:

That's the thing. Well, you all go fix it and I'll be over here because that's crazy to me.

Speaker 1:

It doesn't speak well for the leader as far as engagement. I was speaking with an another writer and they'd written about the amount of engagement the younger generations are asking for compared t o the baby boomers and, and that sort of thing. Y eah. So the younger they are the more feedback, apparently they w ant t o have the more interactions with their boss. It's well known, the majority o f people don't leave a company, they leave because of their boss.

Speaker 2:

That's true. Look at the environment too, that right now where most people are either remote and/or at least hybrid. So they have less opportunities to connect or have even just casual conversations with their managers. So they may have one meeting every other week with their manager. They're only talking about work. They're getting very little time. They don't get to see that leader in a lot of situations. And so yeah, leaders have a lot of demands on them right now, I think.

Speaker 1:

You bet.

Speaker 2:

To really be available.

Speaker 1:

Oh my goodness. I have talked to a lot of people obviously doing this podcast and writers and even you wrote about all the things that the leader has to deal with and the amount of time. And yet the most important people are the people that they work for/with, because I say leader works for them and, just like you said, paying attention to something beyond just the work related. You probably wouldn't be surprised by the amount of clients I coach and they have so much trouble getting a one-on-one with their boss mm-hmm because they'll say to them, what does your boss feel about this particular development area for you? They pointed this out in a report. What does that mean? Well, I'm, I, you know, I probably can't. My next one-on-one is two weeks from now, and then we talk two weeks later, the meeting got canceled. Your people are your most important asset. Okay. I'll get off the soapbox now.

Speaker 2:

No, you're right, you're right. And what I find too, the higher up people go to, so the more senior they are, I find they don't want to bother their manager. They see their manager as so busy that they don't want to be a burden. So they don't want ask for the time because they don't want burden them, but they want it and need it. So very often the leader may not even be aware that the team member is feeling that way, because hey don't want the manager to feel burdened.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. Wow.

Speaker 2:

Just a nugget here, but I do a lot of leadership training and coaching with leaders in those courses. And one of the ahas that so often happens for senior leaders especially is the reality and the awareness that suddenly, wow, my team does need more time with me one-on-one, collectively, and lots of different ways. And everyone on the team might want or need something a little bit differently to feel connected. Because connected is part of that happy in the model, right? We want to feel connected. So when managers will slow down and check in and ask the questions to their employees, are we meeting enough? Do you want to meet more? When, how often, in what format, and it might look very different for different team members. They can though start to create a structure that creates that sense of connection, which builds trust, which engages people, which retains people. And so it very much, it does take time and the rewards are huge when it's done.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. Well, to our point about introverts though, and people that don't want to bother the boss, how does a leader work with people that say, oh, I don't really need your help and you know, they do. Right? Like, it's just crazy. Like I'm the president of the Gay Coaches Alliance for this year, and when I meet with people or stuff comes up I get these intuitive hits that that person's not really speaking a lot. I need to have a one-on-one with them. So I let the result of an action determine who's the next person and I make a rotation and I write down, oh, I'm going to talk to that person and I'm going to talk to that person. Just to check in how you doing? Because they're all volunteers. Thank you for your work. How are you doing? How are you feeling about the work you're doing? Do you need any help? That sort of thing. Right. And I think that that's just, you know, should be a leader's number one thing every day is how are my people?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. Yeah. I mean that's really what leading is. Not managing the work, but leading people is.

Speaker 1:

Difference between manager and leader, right? There's managing and leading big difference. And I love how you pointed out and we spoke about it here, that everyone's a leader. In some or well in all areas of their life, but in different realms. At home and in their community and perhaps possibly a church or organization.

Speaker 2:

True. And it's up to them too. It's not just up to the manager or the leader to initiate. People need to ask for what they need and be able to advocate for themselves as well.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. No, I hear you. And we'll go back to some people are raised differently to not bother the boss. I was raised that I should know what to do next.

Speaker 2:

Hmm.

Speaker 1:

And I'm like, no and I've learned since I operate in collaboration and amazing stuff happens. It's like one and one is three squared. You mentioned something a little bit earlier and in of the five areas, you have one triangle that's called trust and it's the largest one. Why did you feel it's the largest? I think I know, but I want to hear it from the expert.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah. So trust, all the other triangles fit inside this, this largest one and it's trust. So to me, trust is kind of all encompassing. It's the largest for a few reasons. I mean, to me it's, and I think in any team model, you look at trust is always the backbone. If you don't have trust, you're just people working together, you're not, not really a team and so that element is so important. And I think though trust is not something we just say, okay, we want to have a team that has high trust. Let's do it. All right tomorrow. We all trust each other.

Speaker 1:

Right. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

It's cultivated and it's something you are always cultivating and it's always an up and down with trust as people make mistakes and say things and do things. And so we're cultivating it. So all the other areas in the triangle are cultivating that feeling of trust. So when we're aligned and on the same page, we're going to have less conflict and higher trust. When we feel connected and fulfilled, we're going to have higher trust. When we're communicating and being accountable and holding each other accountable, we're going to build trust. So all of those other areas in the middle are what leads to a team feeling high trust. And that's when they can really soar and be their best and, you know, be both happy and high performing.

Speaker 1:

And it influences all the other aspects. It goes back to our conversation about the leader and why people quit is they don't like, but it's probably they don't trust. They don't trust that their leader, their direct report has their best interests or cares about them.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. It's a big, big piece for people. It creates safety for us. It allows us to be vulnerable and say I need help or I don't know how to do something. It is really hard to collaborate with someone if you don't trust them if you don't think they have the skills or they won't follow through. So trust is a fundamental entity to build within a team and it does take effort.

Speaker 1:

Here's a dramatic turn. What if you find as the coach or the team realizes that there really is somebody in the team that can't be trusted?

Speaker 2:

That's tough. So I think to me, when it comes in and it seems like it's one person, then you've have to dig into the root of it. Probably one of my first questions would be, how is everyone else in the team contributing to that person's behavior? Because we could all point our finger at that person, but are we allowing it? Are we looking the other way? Have we kind of accepted that behavior? Or are we calling that person out when they're doing it? So that would be something I think would be an interesting conversation to see.

Speaker 1:

Is the team holding the conversation?

:

I love the way you approach that. How were they contributing to that?

Speaker 2:

Chances are their somehow enabling that. And if they're not, if they're truly addressing it and it's not, then you have to decide. One person, we all know, can totally kill the culture if it's not addressed and dealt with.

Speaker 1:

Right. If

Speaker 2:

Sometimes a really high performer a team will keep them because they count on them for so much, yet they create so much havoc. And so we have to decide is this really worth it in the end? And usually the answer is no, it's not.

Speaker 1:

Let them go.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. Or hold them accountable and see if the behaviors begin to shift.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. In team coaching, there's also one-on-one coaching, right? You do meet with the individuals too?

Speaker 2:

Often, not always, but often yes.

Speaker 1:

Maybe that's a good opportunity.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. Maybe there's a 360 need for that individual as well to get some feedback about how they're perceived. And that gives you some really good insights to coach them if they're willing.

Speaker 1:

Well that's true. It could be offered coaching, but you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink. Right. No, very good. So when you were done with the article, we limited you to 1400 words, what is it that you wanted to say or you thought of afterwards you wish you'd put in. Anything come to mind?

Speaker 2:

What a good question. I guess probably just more elaboration on what it all means and how to use it.

Speaker 1:

How to use it? Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. Like, what do you do with this? How do you use it? Probably would be where I would've added more if there was more time.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. And you alluded to that too, that you can use it with individuals, the model, with individuals and with the team. I thought, oh, okay. That's pretty cool. I like that. I like that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. If it's a leader, you could literally just, even if they didn't have a team assessment, you could again share it and talk to them from your perspective, what do you think, where do you think your team is doing well? Where do you as a leader need to be more present or more focused? It gives that leader kind of, again, a framework to help them assess what's working and what's not.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. Well, brilliant. I have to say, I really love it. Thank you so much for doing it. What would you like our audience to do as a result of the article and this conversation?

Speaker 2:

Oh, great question. Well check it out and if you want the e-book for it, there's a simple e-book that goes with it. We can include the link, Garry, for them to get here.

Speaker 1:

Oh, awesome. We'll put that in with this post. Exactly. Or as I like to say, look below.

Speaker 2:

Look below the link here. Yes, absolutely. Yeah. And my website is Better-Teams.com. I've got lots of free resources for teams. I do a blog every week and most of them are like just simple team activities and icebreakers and things. So they're welcome to join that list and get that every week as well.

Speaker 1:

Better-Teams.com

Speaker 2:

Yes, yes. And that's important. Otherwise you'll go to a different site.

Speaker 1:

Well, and that's the best way to reach you as well, right? Through that?

Speaker 2:

I think so. Yeah, they could. Absolutely. And I'm on LinkedIn as well. I'm always on LinkedIn.

Speaker 1:

Oh, good. Yeah, we're there too. In fact, we post a lot of this, our podcast info on LinkedIn as well, and it's picked up a lot. Oh my gosh, Leigh Ann, my head is spinning, but in a great way. Very eye-opening. I hope our readers take as much from this as I did and consider if they're not a team coach being one. If they are, reach out to Leigh Ann and find out more about the model. Read the e-book.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. Awesome. Love it, Garry, it's been a pleasure.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, me too. Thank you so much for joining us for this Beyond the Page episode. Been a real treat. Thank you. That's it for this episode of Beyond the Page. For more episodes, subscribe via your favorite podcast app. I know for sure we're downloaded at Apple and Spotify, so join us there or go to our website, choice-online.com and you can find all of our podcasts there. And while you're there, don't forget to sign up for your free digital issue of choice Magazine by going to choice-online.com and clicking the signup now button. I'm Garry Schleifer, enjoy your journey to mastery. Thanks again, Leanne.

Speaker 2:

Thank you, Garry. Bye

Speaker 1:

Bye.