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choice Magazine
choice Magazine
Episode 100: Coaching for a Better World with guest, Janet Harvey
What if you could transform your professional and personal life simply by changing your mindset? Join us for the landmark 100th episode of Beyond the Page, where we feature the inspiring Janet Harvey, best-selling author, speaker, and ICF Master Certified Coach. Janet takes us on her incredible journey from a traditional career in sales and finance to becoming a leader at InviteChange, a coaching and human development organization. Her story is filled with unconventional choices, like leaving medical school for a passion in economics and finance, and her commitment to environmental causes through initiatives like Coach for Planet underscores the importance of staying open to life's opportunities.
Ever wondered how coaching can profoundly impact not just individuals but entire communities? Janet unpacks the transformative power of coaching at the mindset level, sharing personal anecdotes that highlight how deliberate judgment and satisfaction can be fostered. You'll hear about moments that touch the heart, including testimonies of lives changed at conferences. We also explore her latest book aimed at guiding young leaders through career challenges while staying authentic, and we challenge conventional wisdom by questioning why we manage conflict rather than addressing its root causes.
As we discuss the evolving definition of coaching, we delve into the shift from formulaic performance coaching to a more holistic approach that meets today's complex workplace demands. Janet offers keen insights into the rapid doubling of human knowledge and the decreasing emphasis on specialized technical expertise, urging leaders to address the ethical implications of innovation. This episode is a must-listen for anyone keen on understanding the importance of critical thinking, self-awareness, and reclaiming agency over one's time in leadership roles. Join us in celebrating this milestone and gain valuable perspectives to enrich your journey of mastery.
Watch the full interview by clicking here.
Learn more about Janet Harvey here.
Visit the InviteChange website here.
Grab your free issue of choice Magazine here - https://choice-online.com/
Hello everyone. I'm Garry Schleifer, the publisher of Choice, the magazine of professional coaching, and I'm very excited to be here today for this very special 100th Beyond the Page episode. Woohoo, f anfare everybody. Exactly. A little bit about c hoice. It's the magazine of professional coaching, if you don't know, and it's your go-to source for expert insights and in-depth features from the world of professional coaching. I'm thrilled to have us joined by Janet Harvey, who happened to be the first person I interviewed in my very first podcast. So thank you very, very much for being here. Thank you for your time and for contributing both in the Coaching Mastery column and on the E ditorial B oard and in my life.
Janet Harvey:Thank you, G arry. It's a treat.
Garry Schleifer:Yes, it is a lways a treat when we get together. You should have been in the green room folks before this. We were like hopefully we'll bring some of this into the conversation.
Garry Schleifer:But first, before we go forward, I'd like to say a little bit about Janet. She's a best selling author, a speaker, a leader, an ICF M master C certified C coach, otherwise known as an MCC, an accredited educator who has engaged leaders, teams and global enterprises for nearly 30 years to Invite Change. Yes, that's also the name of the company that sustains well-being and excellence. As CEO of Invite Change, a coaching and human development organization, she uses her executive and entrepreneurial experience to cultivate leaders in sustainable excellence through generative wholeness, a signature coaching and learning process that I have experienced. So thank you so much again for joining me today. I also just want to say how long have we known each other? Like I remember we were on the board together in 07, the ICF Global Board.
Janet Harvey:Actually, I think you and I met in the fall of 08. You were one of the first people that walked over to me when I stepped into the boardroom for the opening reception.
Garry Schleifer:Oh well, that was me? Cool, and an honor and a pleasure, and we've been fast friends ever since. So anything Janet asks me to do, I'm always a yes. She already knows that before she picks up the phone or gets on a Zoom call. So and truly, I want to acknowledge you for not just for what you've contributed to my life and also to everything you've contributed to the coaching profession, humanity through your coaching and your, I'll say it right there, generative wholeness, and also for the planet, because you're also part of an initiative to plant trees, if I'm correct.
Janet Harvey:Yes and more. That's the coachforplanetcom.
Garry Schleifer:So I'm hoping you'll mention something about that in our coaching and climate change issue in 2025.
Janet Harvey:I will.
Garry Schleifer:Awesome, perfect. Well, let's find out a little bit more about you and what's going on in the coaching profession from your perspective, but first tell us a little bit about your path to the coaching profession.
Janet Harvey:You know this is a question I get a lot. H how did you get to where you are? And I usually answer by hook or by crook.
Garry Schleifer:Oh, so it wasn't a clear path.
Janet Harvey:No, I don't think anything I've ever done has been a clear path. It's been being alert for what showed up in front of me and trusting my instincts and going with it. And you know, everybody told me that I was smart enough to be a doctor and that's what I ought to go to college for. And I did that. I had a full scholarship, full ride to UC Santa Barbara and I got into the second quarter and I was failing physics and I had never gotten anything less than an A in a class and I thought to myself I don't think I'm on the right path. I quit school, much to my parents' chagrin, and I went to Europe and traveled around and when I came home they said you need to get a job and the company my father worked for wanted somebody in San Francisco. So I moved to San Francisco and I worked in sales and gosh, I didn't have a life. I was on the road all the time. So I quit that and I went back to school and I fell in love with economics and finance and really I mean literally fell in love with it. If I could be an economist for a living, I would have done that, but I couldn't figure out how to make a living and I had five part-time jobs while I was in school and when I graduated there weren't any jobs. It was the fall of 82. And the country was in a recession and lots of bad stuff going on, but I knew how to type. My mother said I'd never starve. I love it.
Janet Harvey:I went to work for the regional post office and I had nine gentlemen who I was supporting, and the gentleman who was leading the group, his son, happened to be the floor broker for Charles Schwab and Company on the Pacific Coast Stock Exchange in San Francisco and there was this teeny, tiny little ad in the newspaper. They were all helping me look for a job because they knew I wasn't sticking around, and so he got me a pass to go onto the floor. And one thing led to another. They had a management trainee program they were running and I was selected for that program. They really wanted people to go out into the branch offices. But I had another thing in mind. It was a nine-month program. We had to take all our exams. So Series 7, Series 63. We had to do four rotations, do some interviews. There were a bunch of things in the program, including find your job. I found my job in three months.
Janet Harvey:I went to work for the senior vice president in charge of what was called in those days control cashiers. A all the money that goes in and out and all the stock, because I knew if I learned the business I could go anywhere. And you know, 14 years later I had an opportunity to do an extraordinary change project. Chuck walked into the boardroom one day and said okay, we've been through the crash of 87. We have gone public. We've navigated an earthquake. This team is ready for the next challenge. I would like all of our branch offices to change from customer service to sales. That was a word we never said in the hall, ever. Nobody worked for Schwab because they had to sell. They worked for Schwab because they didn't have to sell. S so that was my project and we had an 85% retention goal.
Janet Harvey:We were fundamentally transforming 6,000 people's lives and this was a big training lift, kind of like what's going on in the world today. It was a mindset shift. There was a lot of resistance. We really needed the point of customer contact input and the headquarters p People all thought they knew better. Power dynamics, everything you can think of in large scale teams was there an And of course, I'm in San Francisco. So it's the early roots of coaching, and I brought in a couple of colleagues and what I would call today team coaching was our solution and it was miraculous.
Janet Harvey:We were under budget, we were early in delivery, we kept 96% of the workforce and 40% of those people had to leave their home office, their home place, and go to a city where we had stood up regional call centers. It was remarkable. I was hooked and I stuck around for another while to make sure everything got integrated into the talent systems and then I walked into my boss's office and said you know what? I've worked in every division of this company. I think I'm done and this was really cool.
Janet Harvey:I'd like to go see if I can repeat it. Can I do this in another company, not on the inside, but as an entrepreneur? And he was gracious and we worked out an exit strategy and I just feel so blessed and grateful. I learned many, many, many things there, and including the livelihood that I've been in since 1996, coaching and leader developments and organizational consulting to help them transform into something that is far more resilient and capable of sustaining excellence, no matter how much change is going on.
Garry Schleifer:Wow, what an amazing story. No kidding Zigzag. A and honoring your intuition. I have to say that's something I didn't do well until recently and well into my coaching, training, development, execution. So, yeah, good for you. Well, while we're on the track of life and work, what are you most proud of in your life?
Janet Harvey:Tprobably on, S to be h h honest., I knew you were going to ask me this question and it probably isn't something I spend much time thinking about. I don't have a highly competitive bone in my body. I am much more drawn to. Am I creating a positive ripple in the world? In fact, that's how we measure success at our organization. Is we know that every 60 minutes that a well-trained coach spends with another person impacts 1,600 people in 30 days?
Garry Schleifer:And Hold on say that again.
Janet Harvey:Every 60 minutes that a well-trained coach spends with another human being will ripple out to 1,600 people within 30 days.
Garry Schleifer:Amazing. And hearing that, I am not surprised, like I'm a little surprised at how high, but I'm not surprised. You know what I mean.
Janet Harvey:So it' ins n j a c p r?
Janet Harvey:approximately five people that are in our inner circle that we speak to about our experiences, and those five people each have five people. So you start to see the exponential reach. And because a well-trained coach is working at the level of mindset, the fundamentals of our frame of mind, our belief system, our thoughts, our habits, our preferences, our biases, which are often very unconscious, mostly because our bodies want it that way. It's conservation of energy, but that mindset gets transparent to the client through a well-trained coach and, as a result, they begin to be more deliberate. A well-trained coach and, as a result, they begin to be more deliberate. Mindset influences how we show up, how we interact with each other, how we make decisions, and when we start to use deliberate judgments ah yes, I talk about that in the book Then people have a higher level of satisfaction and the folks in their lives see that they're like what are you doing? What's different, right?
Garry Schleifer:o it's not just a cognitive piece right. f.
Janet Harvey:Our clients are. T into their lives and everyone around them is impacted in a beautiful way. Frankly, um, I remember giving a talk at a huge conference. It was a like a big theater room that I was in and there's a guy sitting all the way in the top row at the very back and I was talking about our core principle of wholeness and he stands up and he says where were you when my kids were born?
Janet Harvey:I needed you, I love it you know, that's what touches my heart. I'm most proud of the fact that this work we get to do touched, is e r ippled two, shaping a world where people love their life's work and they're not in struggle. And I know for some that might sound like a fantasy and maybe a little bit naive, but I don't see it that way. I think we have a very grounded optimism and we restore a sense of hope because it's internal to each person. They're accessing the inner authority and we help them to recognize that the power of choice is always there. Easy to miss it, easy to get caught up in the difficulties of life. My coach can help you come back home and to remember you have capability and innate creativity to rise to any challenge that's in front of you, and sometimes it's hard and all we can do is breathe in and breathe out, but it's temporary and we know that when we pull back for a little perspective and realize, and we know that when we pull back for a little perspective and realize, well, if I got here, I know how to navigate things that are momentarily challenging and difficult. So impact, that's what I'm most proud of.
Janet Harvey:And I know that we set a 10-year vision 2010 to 2020, and we 740 million people. I don't mean hit, we touched. We touched Ripple two 40 million people, and so we set a new goal to touch a billion people. I heard it I And we're on track. So I'm excited about that and lots new coming. You know, whether it's writing new programs, working with new customers, stepping into new industries. I wrote a couple of books. You know giving talks in leadership circles rather than just coaching circles. These are all things that I do mostly for the benefit of broadening the circle of impact, and I don't have a job. I get to do my bliss every day.
Garry Schleifer:jokingly, my, my sister, recently retired and my mom's like, oh, when are you going to retire? And I'm like, well, I'd have to w working first. She doesn't understand that. You know, like I'm, it's a, it's a labor of love, it's a joy. I can't see, never, not coaching. There we go, sound like a pop song now, but no, I can always see myself coaching until I, I think, until I. I don't have the, either the cognitive ability or the voice, like maybe who knows. So impact let's use that word because I'm curious about your most recent book. What's the most surprising impact? You've heard about people who have been reading your book.
Janet Harvey:Hmm, you've heard about people who have been reading your book. I would say, actually, I've been quite delighted by resource, how people have received it. There was one careers, who wrote oh my gosh, where was this book? When I first started in my career, that was what I was going for, right, I think.
Janet Harvey:As coaches, you and I talk all the time about human development and I think it's easy to forget how little resource particularly people who are new in their professional careers receive to learn about how to expectation, and to recognize when it's happening and know that they have a way forward. So I wrote it primarily for the young leader to be a leader of self and then a leader of their teams and a leader of their career, and whatever trajectory it takes, how many zigs and zags, it doesn't matter. Are you being true to yourself? And I was telling?
Janet Harvey:I told a lot of customer stories and we use the customer stories to frame what is a constant dilemma. Tension always exists. I was talking to ICF Armenia yesterday as part of International Coaching Week, and I was talking to ICF Armenia yesterday as part of International Coaching Week and I was framing for them that I often think about words that are commonly spoken and we accept them as if they are the only truth, and one of those is conflict management. I certainly learned it early in the 80s, when I was starting my career, and I learned a whole bunch of skills to manage conflict, and then one day I said to myself this doesn't make any sense. Why would we manage something we don't want? Like that's how my brain works.
Garry Schleifer:Yeah. T t Manage conflict. I don't want conflict. Okay, I? W it, we're doing conflict management because conflict exists. So then I asked the question what creates conflict? And I realized that that's the end of the train track and there's no more track after it. Right, the train has come off of the rails because there's nowhere else to go and everything is intense. Well, there's no way. That's where it starts. It must've started much earlier. . T s So what do we ignore? What do we tolerate, what do we gloss over with kindness and politeness because we don't want to ruffle anybody's feathers? And in the process, like a boil underneath the skin, it just festers and festers and festers until it explodes. So, a get, we have the need for calm when conflict is there. But, gosh, I really want to put our attention much earlier on and teach people the skill to notice tension and to get curious about what's activating it. It's not always the other person that might be. Situationally, you've gotten reminded of something and you realize, oh, I am in a place I do not wish to be and I am always part cause or agent of my experience. So I got to pull back, little time, find out what I really want here and not let the autopilot switch stay on. That is the DNA of human connec.
Janet Harvey:Yeah have a little pause. That's what the book is all about, and I've had people write me with stories. It's like, oh my God, when you talked about this story. That's so happened in my career. If I'd only known. And now I see, and this will help me be a better leader with my team when they get caught up in this, and that's my greatest hope is that people begin to recognize that pause gives so much more time than it takes and in that pause we activate our curiosity and begin to see oh, I might have only looked this big. There's a whole lot more going on here and there's no way I can know it all. And that's what creates collaboration and partnership and the um, what we all are seeking in life, which is belonging.
Garry Schleifer:that's the dna human connectedness need yeah, exactly, and I can't thank you enough. There's that one phrase that you say about pause, pause.
Janet Harvey:Gives more time than it takes.
Garry Schleifer:many things you T say to T ~ me A I use like early is easy. I landed that one on a client the other day and they're like huh, what does that mean? And I'm like well, what do you, what does it sound like to you? And we went through that and they would like the light bulbs go off. Simple things, really simple things.
Janet Harvey:Janet, we never mentioned the name of the book. Would you please? Yes, From tension to transformation a leader's guide to generative change.
Garry Schleifer:And it's that one over her shoulder beside her previous book. There we go, I know.
Janet Harvey:I'm very proud of. I usually don't toot my horn this way, but it is kind of exciting. I'm very proud of the fact that it won the Axiom Business Award, a silver medal in the thought leadership category.
Garry Schleifer:Thank you. T Wow, congratulations, thank you. review, It ju f g.
Janet Harvey:review right? Peers are able to to, something on, w. b
Garry Schleifer:It just feels good. It feels good to be recognized and to hold on. What was that word Belong?
Janet Harvey:Yes. e' h w i a f t?
Garry Schleifer:Yeah, you know I'm flipping switches on you real quick here, but I'm starting to think about like you've seen a lot in your tenure as a coach, even before you officially 1996 did, but we've haven't. We've spoken. The first time is in an interview three years ago. What changes have you seen in the coaching industry in just three years yeah like I can think of. I think there's a team supervision. Icf guidelines on team supervision came up. That's been in the last three years.
Janet Harvey:The whole sub competency framework ACTP. I always say ACP alphabet. of coaching education, the entire coaching education.
Garry Schleifer:To actp. A a l o D E E
Janet Harvey:I always say actp alphabet to level one, two and three yeah and I think two other really important pieces of that work was recognizing that they're accrediting the institution, not just the curriculum, to create, uh, more reliability and perhaps veracity for the consumer to recognize that it is a legitimate business and that abides a set of guidelines around truth in advertising, fairness in marketing, follow-up process if somebody has a complaint it is investigated by the ICF, and I think these are levels of rigor that are really important. And the other is the introduction of level three curriculum, recognizing that so many people earned their PCC. And then what did they do for their continuing eds? Right, a lot of tools, not progressive learning. And then they apply for their continuing eds right, get a lot of tools, not progressive learning. And then they apply for their MCC, and then they fail their demonstration because it is not PCC plus.
Janet Harvey:And, as a lot of people say, well, just do it better and stronger. No, no, no. The demonstration expected at the MCC level is a fundamental shift in mindset and it is a very personal development journey to move from PCC to MCC demonstration, and so this was opening the door for lots of us out there who have been doing more sophisticated mentor coaching and coaching supervision of course and curriculum. That wasn't recognized and so hard to differentiate. And I think the ICF, you know, always continues to mature the territory of credentialing and education to uplevel the excellence of our work and I appreciate that very much about the ICF. .
Garry Schleifer:Yeah, yeah, no, that's amazing, Wow. So many changes in just three years, and you and I've been in this profession in one shape or another since what? The mid-2000 and whatever. What do you call that? The mid-first decade, whatever? At the turn of the century, that used to be for our D parents Brennan, I know, oh goodness. Well, we've taken a quick look at the most recent past. How's your crystal ball feel today? Do you think you could talk to us about what you see coming up in coaching, the future of coaching, and not just what you see coming, but what you would like to see come to the coaching profession and to coaches Lots of room for you to play.
Janet Harvey:I think it's important to zoom out a little bit and not only look provoking at coaching, d and I also think it's important that we're defining terms. For. as long as I've been around the ICF, we have debated the definition of coaching. I remember in that meeting, when I met you in the fall of 2008, diane Brennan was able she had memorized the definition of coaching that had actually been written down and adopted by the global board at the time, and I remember thinking to myself that I thought that the definition was going to be troublesome for people. My first reason for that was maximize potential, which makes an assumption that somebody knows they have potential. a
Janet Harvey:You sort of have to realize it before you can maximize it. Thought provprovoking and creative Doesn't actually sound like problem-solving, which is where the consumer was Absolutely wonderful to do, but a bit of a mismatch years, in my experience in the marketplace. then the idea of partnering ICF, and a peer-based relationship and of course I'd had this dilemma when I first read the core competencies and went, hmm, hmm, these words on the page, this two dimension is not doing it for me. What's the big deal? I. was definitely a skeptic and a a cynic in the early days and when I did my first certification program, which was with Newfield Network, and I started to really practice it and I was already an educator and a facilitator, I had a lot of skill, so I didn't find it hard to adopt. But I definitely saw something different and I started to realize that there was some subtlety in the competencies and in that definition that were pretty empowering. And I've turned into a bit of a geek I have to admit it, A core competency geek. I am a core competency geek and that's why we have the Learning Cloud programs where we're demonstrating all of the core competence skills and giving the learner an opportunity to see it in action. I don't think there's enough of that out there. So that's been fun to do and I think that there is back to what I was saying about the book.
Janet Harvey:There is a larger population of people who h longing for something, but they lack the context to know how to ask for it. So one of the things that I saw happen in this last three years just to pick up that thread, because we only talked about ICF was a lot of noise in the system about what is coaching. What is the coaching that organizations want? So we had several very large organizations, well-financed, huge sales teams, who sold into organizations what I would call formulaic performance coaching Useful to a point, Absolutely useful to a point and in the last 18 months I've probably talked to 18 or 20 CHROs who are realizing it's not actually what we need.
Janet Harvey:We need something that is much more fundamental. Human development and skills. alone is not enough. The environment career process was like, and I think that's why I'm asking us to pull back a little bit. Some of the dynamics that are happening in human society on planet Earth are impacting us and we ignore it at our peril and, as a result, a lot of what we do in developing workforce and unlocking the potential that's in that workforce is out of date and out of step with what's asked for. So would you like to know why I think it's out of date and out of sync?
Garry Schleifer:I just breathe and wait, because I know you're going to go Go, please. Do tell us. I know you're going to go, go Please do tell us. y
Janet Harvey:Okay, I think one theme is much of the last 50 years maybe 70 years somewhere in there we have been reductionist in our orientation and specialized. We're looking for simplicity. We're taking all waste out of the system. We want it to be efficient. You know, everything from Lean to Six Sigma. to Agile is all about do it right the first time. But complex. The world now lives in multiplicity, not in singularity. That means in multiplicity. You have to think more like a generalist. That's theme number two. So theme one is we're moving from simplicity to multiplicity. We're not actually moving. It's already here.
Janet Harvey:It's already here. We might be trying to ignore it, but it's already influencing us. The other is from specialty to generalist. I actually looked this up this morning because I knew we were having this conversation and I wanted to see where people thought the data was on the doubling of human knowledge Something Stephen Covey wrote about this in his latest book on trust. Stephen Covey wrote about this in his latest book on trust and IBM has reported that right now, human knowledge is doubling every 13 months, used to be 13 years.
Garry Schleifer:I thought it was 13 hours, to be honest. . S
Janet Harvey:Well, and here's what they've said, as we continue to build out the internet of things so think Gen AI, but everything having to do with the internet really being now the foundation of knowledge. 12 hours is coming, so what's the implication of that? There's 70 years of educational systems and the workplace valuing specific technical expertise as a higher priority than the overall wholeness of what is the human experience inside the workplace right? It's out of balance. It is going to fall off the edge of the cliff because the technical expertise will be replaced for the most part, by the continued evolution of technical capability, and let's put it that way. So what is the implication of that? The Edelman Trust Barometer just came out, about a month ago, and one of the things that I thought was very interesting is that 62% of the several hundred thousand respondents to this expected their CEO to speak to the impact of innovation on skills, my job, ethics in technology and what the experience of the workplace will be. That's a big number, that's a big expectation, and CEOs aren't trained to do that.
Garry Schleifer:Yeah, I was going to say the downside of that is how many have actually done it or are capable of doing it. H. Exactly, and that means every layer of leader is going to have that obligation. And we know from decades of Gallup research that people quit their boss because their boss does not address the things they concerned about. And in fact, one CHRO I was talking to kind of gave me this litany of. You know, hr 1.0 was compliance strategically have been investing in Human Resource people having coaching skill. I think the next big that addressing is skill of leadership with the laws, terms and conditions of my employment contract. 2.0 was looking at processes and standardization. 3.0 started to look at the employee experience a little bit, and that's when we got ping pong tables and fancy coffee machines Yep, right. And 4.0 now is saying right, campuses. How do we use technology to do mass customization or customization or personalization at scale and let HR people go back to what they really love about HR, cause they kind of love to hate what they're doing. l t i b g. I n
Janet Harvey:And that's people right, helping people have a fulfilling, satisfying, successful experience and, when they're not, supporting them to get back on track. And I think that's great news. And I think HR organizations dedicated to human resource professionals and companies that are a little more progressive in their thinking about the role of HR, thinking about it more in a multiplicity world, is that leadership begins with coaching skills, doesn't end with it ; right, it's not at that. I'm a leader. Now I get to get developed. No, develop every employee in that capacity to be curious, to listen, to learn rather than acquiring knowledge, to tell, which is disrespectful often and creates a lot of competitive conflict.
Janet Harvey:So the opportunity here is that we've fundamentally transformed the mindset inside of organizations and I think the good news about all those big companies who brought tech in and a formulaic approach and brought coaches in to do performance coaching they just opened the curtain and we got to see, oh, it's only part of the solution. We need a better solution, and what I know is going on in some of those organizations is that they're up leveling the quality of the coaches and how they're contracting with the company. So in some ways they've been very helpful for putting coaching on the map as a trusted and perceived effective modality to strengthen workforce quality. That's all great news, really great news.
Garry Schleifer:Yeah.
Janet Harvey:There's a th trends that catch my attention pretty regularly. Of other trends that catch my attention pretty regularly and I was working in. I have a couple of organizations where we're doing some cross-cultural work, where they have a subsidiary in one culture and a headquarters in another culture and they have expats that go back and forth and it's pretty tumultuous because they always know well, I'm only here for three years and I got to go back to my home culture, so I'm not going to completely adapt. You can hear the either-or thinking there, right, yeah, right. And I think that we are starting to realize in this multiplicity world that two truths can coexist. Yeah, there is this culture and how it operates and how it welcomes people from another expat, and there's this culture that does the same thing. They can coexist in the same shared mission and be able to be successful. They don't have to. You have to take mine. No, you have to take mine, take my practices. Right, they can coexist because the markets are different, the influences are different. This is an example of multiplicity and a very pragmatic story, and that is shocking to the system. Right, it almost feels like multiple personality, but it's not.
Janet Harvey:This is and this is the skill for the 21st century, in my mind discernment. We've so CEOs caused judgments to be the enemy. We go to a zero judgment. You're either going to suspend it or you're not going to have it at all, and that's like telling a human being not to breathe. Right, we must exercise our ability to take in information and say what's the meaning of it. A For me, that's in the heart of what we do in coaching, right, evoking awareness of what's meaningful that you want to address or resolve so you can do something different. All right, if we make judgment the enemy, we are eliminating the most important resource that a human being has to recognize. Oh, I can choose something different. Yeah, the power of choice is always exactly.
Janet Harvey:So I believe that we need to bring back discernment and back to the Elderman Trust Barometer. Ceos and businesses have a higher trust rating than government and a way higher trust rating than journalists and an even way way higher than social media. I think that's the good news. People are starting to realize that social media is not the place that they get informed, but we have 62 percent of the american public finished their education at high school really yes, 62 percent.
Janet Harvey:Okay, so where do those people go to get information? How do they learn about community and citizenship and how things work If they're not getting it at work? That's a big debate, right? What is the role of the business to talk about things going on in society? The business to talk about things going on in society and a lot of them have gotten in hot water in the pandemic, post-pandemic period because they did step into those issues and I kind of think we're not out of the woods yet on this one but the fact that we have most people at work is their living hours, right of their waking hours and their professional endeavor, and that's the most trusted source of information. What is it that we must be giving attention to to prepare those leaders, to create opportunity for people to be learning about what's going on in the world In a trustworthy and competent, non-exaggerated, non um, uh, distorted way? How do we? How do we like?
Janet Harvey:I remember in grade school I don't know if this was true for you, but we would be asked to look at a newspaper article and critique it. What are all the questions this article doesn't answer? Why are there assumptions in this article that there's no evidence to support? What? Would you go and research, and then we'd have to go away and do that. In those days you didn't have the internet, right.
Garry Schleifer:Right, yeah, it's library. The best you had was microfiche.
Janet Harvey:Yeah, microfiche for other newspaper articles and radio yeah oh so, um, you know, that I l introduced to public television and national public radio when I was like eight, so I'm not sure that's happening today. Yeah, right, because of the internet there's lots of. So this, that two truths can exist at the same time it's an and not an or, and the tension we feel of of uncertainty. This is the last theme that I wanted to bring forward, because I believe that what happens in the coaching interaction is that we help people remember the power of choice. We help them to connect to the essence of who they are, to what matters to them, the values that they want to stand for, and to be more conscious on purposeful perhaps, in the choices that they make, of who they interact with, where they give their life force, what they define as success and other awareness. What is the ripple effect?
Janet Harvey:I'm trying to get somebody in tech to write a platform or a software, an app would. Let me look up something I'm about to purchase to figure out where was it manufactured and what was the workforce and what was the footprints to the planet. Right.
Garry Schleifer:That would be brilliant.
Janet Harvey:Wouldn't that be brilliant. But I haven't gotten anybody to to take my idea and run with it.
Garry Schleifer:All you can do is look at labels and specifications on your purchasing platform Exactly. w m
Janet Harvey:Which takes extra time and lots of people J don't do it. And the next thing, you know, you know you've just bought something that was a sweat labor and fire trap building and that's not what any of us want, right. But that requires other awareness to think about. What is the ripple effect? What's the unintended consequence? What's the? What's the voice that's not being heard in this decision that we're about to make, that if they were sitting at the table, they would remind us. Maybe this isn't quite the right idea. That's development that's missing in the leadership development space today, except sporadically. Right, I see glimmers of it, but the standards haven't changed yet. But the standards haven't changed yet and I think this is part of the next five, six years, perhaps on into we have decades of learning about collaboration and collective work, another form of the multiplicity thing.
Garry Schleifer:I heard that clearly. It's so funny, janet, you know you say all this and I think have I been in the coaching world and in self-development for so based, t that what you're saying just seems like, yeah, I forget the outside. Even though I'm coaching the outside world, I forget the outside world. So, thank you, it's a great, great, great reminder. It answers my question. You know what's the impact on coaches is to be more aware, do things W wow, yes.
Janet Harvey:We're talking know, I was working with an executive who is part of an organization headquartered in France and has a very large probably 48% of gross rev is North American based Travels like crazy, heads up a very important function that cuts across all the continents. And we were talking about some really basic fundamentals yesterday, because of position, this person is known by all kinds of people outside the organization and they all want a piece. They all want a piece of time and attention, right, right. And we were talking about strategies to work with her executive assistants to be sure that she's carving out time for them, but with some boundaries on it, right? So, for example, she said maybe what I'll do is create office hours. Like once a week there's a 90 minute block. I could probably see three or four people in that time and that's it. That's the only time that my EA can book. And I said so, high side, low side, what, what do you want to project to those people? That shows you as accessible, but not a pushover, right? We're? talking about all of that in this, that's all basic fun, that's block and tackling, but the environment is so intense that that block and tackling a occur, and that's why I think coaches have to be careful to not make assumptions that some of the fundamentals are known by the executives that they're working with. It's not a comprehension issue. Of course they know about it, but the understanding in context is what's missing. Understanding is connecting the dots to something's relevant to me right now, and I think these are a great thing we're bringing as coaches. Slow down a little bit. How is your self-care right now? What are the things you're doing every 90 minutes to help yourself ground and center? How do you prepare before you go to a meeting? Are you thinking about just being yeah, and that will never go away? In fact, I think you know these practices as coaches become ever more important the more complex things become, and we're. to ourselves.
Janet Harvey:By the way, I am a part of ICW. I was with a group of leadership coaches and asked the question what's the four letter word? All leaders present as the excuse for not changing. I expected them to be as prompt as you were. I expected time to just get blurted out. It was almost 70 seconds. Somebody said pace and I said are you warm? And then somebody finally said time, and I'm noting that in the back of my mind, going hmm, time is a construct. We are always part, cause or agent of the experience we are having. Stopping, if we as coaches fail to illuminate this and restore a leader's understanding that you are never a victim to time, because that's saying you're a victim to yourself, I don't make any sense. And of course we got a lot of pushback on that and we had a lot of conversation. You know earnings reports every 90 days. How do you do that and also develop your people? Well, you won't have an earnings report that's very positive if you aren't developing your people t.
Janet Harvey:So this cause and effect and I think we are people who shine lights on faulty assumptions and biases, that hold in place practices that are unhealthy and ultimately J unproductive, leading to poor profitability. I mean
Garry Schleifer:Exactly, and that's one of the key indicators. That's how we get there, though. That's what we're talking about, and that's why we're here as coaches, janet, you know we can talk all day. We're here as coaches, janet, you know we can talk all day, but we won't, but we won't. There's so much wisdom in what you offered today, what you spoke about, anything in particular that stands out, that you want our audience to do or be with as a result of this conversation, or be with as a result of this conversation.
Janet Harvey:A question that I'm in reflection on JanetMHarvey. com lot right now is the what's my part in rising to what's emerging? You know, as I said, I'm about impact. There's a lot of what I would call simultaneity going on, lots and lots of change happening Right and and the the parameters of what, what is the solution, are shifting all the time. So, letting go of my attachment to finding a right way or the right way instead, how do I become ever more present and responsive, as the environment is, that is, changing to what serves now. Letting go of if something else served a year ago, okay, it's not serving now. What wants to happen here? Deeper listening, deeper curiosity. I like to experiment with wonder, the rapt attention to something astonishing emerging, and this is why I wrote books. This is why I'm speaking.
Janet Harvey:I created a little free assessment at JanetMHarveycom on workplace tension. How effective, how well do you manage workplace tension? Because unless we can attend to the health and of the workforce, the organization. is not going to sustain. And we need organizations, since that's what humans are seeming to trust better than any other institution. We wanna do some things to uplift it. You know, I always hear Sir John Whitmore yelling at me from the stage where were you in the financial crisis? God bless him. I'm so glad he did. I think it's woken up many, many, many social issues to be in the eyesight and in the mindset of coaches who are working with people who are in positions of power to make a difference, and this is another way of understanding that tremendous impact we have. And it's so easy for coaches to get lost in the building my business and getting more clients, and I don't like marketing and I don't like sales. Stay connected. Stay connected to shaping a world where people love their life's work. Then we begin to turn toward each other, not away.
Garry Schleifer:Yeah, well Harvey@ invitechange. com, T and thank ED just being you and for just Janet@ JanetMHarvey. com just connecting and doing everything. Walking the talk to reach you.
Janet Harvey:Awesome and good ways Janet Harvey at invitechangecom that's our coach, ed and enterprise Garr solutions T hank, and Janet at JanetMHarveycom, which is my writing and speaking platform. Awesome and good luck with that. Thank you, super excited. B P c choice-online. J
Garry Schleifer:Thank luck Garry with that. Thank you, super excited. Thank you, jerry. Thank you so much and thank you so much for joining us for this 100th Beyond the Page episode. I was just so thrilled that you said yes, and let's not make it another three years. And again, thank you for everything you do for the profession, for for humanity and for the planet. I can't say that enough. That's just. You know, I see you and that's what I see. That's it for this episode of beyond the page. Please remember to rate us and leave a review. For more quest episodes, subscribe to your favorite podcast app and and, if you're not a subscriber, sign up. Oh, there we go. Now. choice-online,com did it wrong. Sign up now for a free digital issue of Choice by going to choice-onlinecom and clicking the sign up now button. I'm Gary Schleifer. Enjoy the journey of mastery. Thanks, janet.
Janet Harvey:Thanks, Gary.