S3: E8 Why Coaching May Be The Most Important Organizational Skill In The Future of Work

[00:00:01] Hello everyone and welcome to the Hope at Work Podcast. With me today is Jim Niddle. He is the founder of Ascend Performance Group. And I think we're going to talk about coaching today. Jim, but before we do that, why don't you give everybody a quick understanding of your background and what you're focused on today? Jim Niddle Absolutely. Well, first and foremost, Marcus Mossberger, it's such a pleasure to be on the podcast. I really appreciated our previous conversations and was looking forward to this. So thank you. Jim Niddle Me too.

[00:00:30] Jim Niddle Me To make it easy, honestly, my background is 34 years in organizational development. My degree out of college, my graduate degree was industrial organizational psychology. I fell in love with it actually in high school. And I'm one of the few that can say I've been in the same space my entire career.

[00:00:51] Jim Niddle Me To make it easy, I'm one of the few that can say I've been in the same space my entire career. So it's bounced around a little, both inside organizations, helping them perform at a higher level, as well as the other half has been in a consulting capacity doing much of the same.

[00:01:02] Jim Niddle Me To make it easy, approximately 10 years ago, I started to send performance group with this mindset of we need to drive performance at a heightened level. It wasn't just about checking boxes, sending people through training or instituting new policies and procedures, but it was really focused on behavior change that can impact business performance. And that's led me here today.

[00:01:27] Jim Niddle Me To make it easy, I love it. So you mentioned you got into this in high school. How did that happen? Did you take a class in high school that turned you on to it? Like what? Jim Niddle Me To make it easy, I love it. You know, it's so funny, Marcus, I appreciate it. You know, I did take a class in psychology in high school that really started things moving. But ironically enough, I applied to all my colleges as an aeronautical engineering major. I realized quickly into this that I was horrible in math.

[00:01:57] Jim Niddle Me To make it easy, I was like, I don't know what you're going to do with this in high school. I was like, I don't know what you're going to do with this in high school. I was like, I don't know what you're going to do with this in high school. And I was like, oh, this is not only so interesting, but it felt like common sense, even though a lot of those people around me didn't see it as common sense, right? This was work in progress.

[00:02:23] And at that point, that was kind of the differentiator for me to say, there's a path here that I'm interested in. Where can I take it? Interesting. OK. You know, based on our previous conversations, I knew that we were like minded, but it's surprising how similar our experiences have been.

[00:02:40] So it was the same kind of experience. Literally my junior year in high school, I had switched from a small Christian school called Kansas City Christian to a large public school. And one of the first classes that I enrolled in was psychology. And I immediately knew, Jim, I'm like, this is it. I friggin love this. I don't want to study. I knew what I wanted to study in college.

[00:03:05] I admit my dad studied psychology, too. So I kind of had that in the back of my head. But that was my first real exposure to it. And I was hooked and I have never changed ever since. Yeah. It's just such a fascinating topic, right? When we start talking about behavior and neuroscience in the mind, I mean, it spider webs into so many different areas that I just couldn't get enough of it. I stopped 34 years later.

[00:03:30] Well, let's talk about that. So your organization today, you mentioned that your goal is to drive performance and behavior, which you just mentioned again. But I want to go down, you know, the road of talking about coaching. And I think a lot of organizations still treat it like it's something that's reserved for the leadership of the organization. So let's start there. What do you think these organizations are missing by not moving coaching all the way down to the frontline workforce?

[00:03:59] Yeah. Would it be too flippant if I just said they're missing everything? Maybe expand on that a little bit. All right. Fair enough. You know, I think, you know, you're absolutely right. You see in a lot of our organizations, especially larger organizations, that coaching is reserved for those higher levels.

[00:04:17] You know, I love the question, Marcus, because one of the things that, you know, I've seen firsthand throughout my career is by not focusing on what I'll call where the rubber meets the road, which is our individual contributors, our first and our second line managers. By not focusing in on those areas.

[00:04:36] I think we're missing this huge opportunity to really set new standards of behavior, to be able to actually drive performance where it's most effective for our clients, for our other employees, how we create just this environment of or culture of connection.

[00:04:54] So while it's much needed at the C-suite in a lot of the organizations that I work with, the reality is I would much prefer spending the time in those frontline workers because I think we see a bigger RL. Yeah, I agree. So two part question that is a follow up. First of all, why don't organizations do that? Why don't they go all the way down to the frontline?

[00:05:19] And then if they did, like what would happen if every frontline employee had access to like high quality coaching? What would what would fundamentally change, Jim? Oh, everything. I think the good news is I do see a lot of organizations that are making that move to investing in those levels. So I have been seeing a trend over the course of the past several years in that investment.

[00:05:47] But but what would change is, you know, we start to see relationships improve. We start to see, again, all of those performance elements drive to a greater level. You know, if we look at it from an OD and organizational development perspective, I think we see employee satisfaction go up. We see engagement go up. We see retention increase. We see improved career development opportunities and pathing opportunities. So greater progression from within.

[00:06:17] But we start to see all of those things that really matter from an OD perspective because there is that investment back in the people that truly are going to be the leaders of those organizations in the future. Yeah. So, you know what, I should have asked this before because we're already, you know, farther along into the conversation. But I think it's important that we put some definition around the topic of coaching, because I think everybody may have a different perception of what it really entails.

[00:06:47] How do you define it, Jim? You know, that's another great question. And one I get often from both current clients as well as prospects. You know, we can go the formal route of, you know, are you a leadership coach or an executive coach or what does that mean? And, you know, we look at organizations like International Coaching Federation, which I'm accredited through. And it really driving some standards around what coaching truly is.

[00:07:15] And I think at the highest level, that's where people tend to go. The reality is, I think coaching can be much more simplistic than that. And I think when we look at, you know, again, a lot of those performance opportunities within organizations, coaching becomes more of, am I an active listener? Do I ask great questions?

[00:07:37] Am I able to create levels of self-awareness in individuals that report to me or I work with at a level that they may not be able to do on their own? Do I have the ability to peel back the onion, to look at things that are two, three, four layers deep and understand what these patterns in these connections actually mean with regard to behaviors and trends?

[00:08:05] And ultimately, again, how does that relate to the activities and the behaviors we're looking for? So I look at it in a much more broadened perspective than, you know, the technical definition. But, you know, everyone's got their own. So I'd be interested to hear yours, actually. Yeah. Well, first of all, I just want to respond to what you just said, because I love that you pointed out things like active listening and asking questions.

[00:08:31] And what I think, you didn't say these explicit words, but I think you were alluding to emotional intelligence. Absolutely. As a big characteristic. And what I like is that these are all what the, you know, traditional people might call soft skills. I call them hard skills, Jim, because they're hard to find and they're hard to teach. So, yeah. And I think the other thing that I tend to do, just because of the naming convention of the word coach, right?

[00:09:00] Like I played soccer growing up and through college. And so I think of I still think of my like actual coaches when I think of the word coaching, even in the context of work. And I think the other thing that they do is they, first of all, push you right beyond what you think you're capable of. And I also think, and this is a great segue into the next topic I want to get into. They inspire you. Okay. And that's one thing.

[00:09:28] When we think about the world of AI and we're, you know, almost 10 minutes in, we haven't talked about AI, which, you know, is actually, I think, a record for me. So, but that's one of the things that AI, I think, is incapable of doing for humans is inspiring us because it takes another human to do that. And I think that's an important role in coaching. So when you think about the world of coaching, let me, let me tee this up for you. So I had somebody else on the podcast recently.

[00:09:57] We were talking about coaching. She's based in Malaysia. She's like, there's a billion people here in Asia that will never have the ability to call Jim Niddle and say, I want to hire you as my coach in any form of capacity. Okay. They just don't have that capability of doing it.

[00:10:16] So her point of view is if we can create AI tools that emulate the coaching capabilities that Jim might be capable of providing in some way, shape, or form again, even if it's at a reduced level of efficiency, it's still valuable. And it's funny because she's actually an empathy expert. And I even asked her, Jim, I'm like, can technology show empathy? And she's like, it can.

[00:10:43] And I did not expect her to answer that that way. But what she was saying is, look, technology can collect, you know, the learned experience of all of us and then somehow kind of regurgitate it back to people. So there's an element that it can express. This is a long-winded question, Jim, but I'm getting to it. How do you think AI is going to impact coaching in the workplace based on everything I just said?

[00:11:08] Yeah, I think it will actually have a very big impact on coaching going forward for a lot of the reasons that your recent podcast guest mentioned, right? I think the capabilities, the ability to touch, you know, a vast array of people that, you know, individual coaches as myself just don't have the ability. We only have limited bandwidth, right? So I think the ability to touch the masses is first and foremost.

[00:11:37] You know, I look at AI and I've had a lot of these conversations with colleagues and clients. I think we have to look at AI as a tool first and foremost. And it's easy, you know, as you start using it to feel like, oh, it can satisfy so many other areas. There are discussions around the world today of how it will replace humans in certain capacities. And in some cases, that's absolutely right.

[00:12:04] I think from a coaching standpoint, we have to look at the role it can play as a tool. And you hit on it by saying there are certain transactional elements of coaching where AI plays a perfect opportunity, right? If I want to, if I'm coaching someone towards a specific goal, and we'll make it light for the conversation, they want to run a marathon later this year.

[00:12:33] And they're wondering, you know, they need help just understanding what does that process look like? What are the steps they need to do? They need a coach to really drive some of that awareness of what does that look like? Something like that at a very surface level is probably perfect for AI, right? They can pump that out in seconds versus having to schedule some time with a professional coach.

[00:12:58] Where I think the differentiator is for professional coaches out there is where we start getting at a level that, again, requires us to peel back that onion. What is two, three, four layers deep? And one of the examples I have for you, Marcus, is I often run into clients that say, Hey, I'm really struggling with my time management. Typical, right?

[00:13:27] Not enough hours in the day. I have too many people reporting into me. Too many tasks. My boss is asking for too much. All of those things, right? We all struggle with that to a certain degree. It's not until I get into those conversations that I realize that nine times out of ten, it's not a time management issue. It's, hey, I struggle with delegation. I really find it hard to say no.

[00:13:53] Or some other component that's holding them back. So time management is the easy kind of misnomer of what they're trying to solve for. But the reality is, if it weren't for my ability to ask some of those deeper questions and really uncover that, they're not going to solve the root cause of what's going on. So think of it into an AI perspective.

[00:14:21] If they type in, I'm struggling with time management and I need support, they're going to get a super set of solutions that will help in time management. Will that ultimately solve their inability to delegate or say no or anything else that pops up? Probably not. Yeah, that's a great point. Unless that coaching technology has been trained to dig deeper and to find the root cause

[00:14:49] of whatever the person is presenting as this is my issue. And you just hit on it, Marcus, which is the other conversation that I have a lot is garbage in, garbage out. Right? What are the qualities of the prompts that we're putting into AI in order to get a meaningful solution out of it? So the reality is, I don't think we're accustomed yet to be able to use the tools in such a way where we're descriptive enough,

[00:15:19] we're providing enough context, AI has enough history with us to be able to prompt those solutions in the way that, again, a coach today could. Yeah, I agree. Now, I will also suggest, based on the last couple weeks of being in Vegas at the Unleash event and the Transform event and seeing some live demos of the latest and greatest AI tools,

[00:15:43] it's remarkable how little you actually have to give it in terms of cues and good prompts where it can still actually be incredibly effective. And there's kind of three ways that I think AI has the potential to be super helpful when it comes to coaching. And I'm not that bright, so I use alliteration, Jim. So it's the three Ps. Number one is I think it can be very positive in terms of interaction with us.

[00:16:11] So looking for proof, hey, Jim, you just did something really good. So when you talk about incentivizing or encouraging positive behaviors, the AI tools can be constantly kind of scraping the data around them to say, oh, Jim, you just did something I want to call out and recognize. So, again, I think that's a positive. Number two would be just proactive nudges to say, hey, there's some other things that you can do differently and better.

[00:16:40] And, again, you didn't ask me as your little shoulder sherpa, but, hey, I'm going to proactively tell you there's something you could do better. There's something you could do differently as a manager. Again, it could be as simple as, hey, this person's on your team's anniversary today. Make sure you say something nice to them. Actually, I already put together an email. You might want to tweak it a little bit and send it.

[00:17:02] And then the third, and this is the big one, is the ability for the coach to personalize its interaction with me. That's big. Now, human beings can do that too, Jim, but we tend to not take the time. But what if this AI coach had access to everything about me, Jim, and it knew my behavioral characteristics and my tendencies and my personality,

[00:17:27] and so it actually customized its interaction with me based on all of that. And it may know that I'm not a detailed person, so it's like, hey, don't forget you've got a meeting coming up in 15 minutes that you need to be prepared for. That, I think, is one of the big elements that humans need to get better at, is understanding if you're going to provide coaching to somebody to do it in a personalized and tailored way. What's your reaction to those three Ps, Jim?

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[00:18:24] I think it's spot on. I think you've hit the nail on the head in the way that, number one, current coaches need to focus. I think leaders of any organization need to build those skills around, and to your point, how AI can service us today.

[00:18:44] I think one of the things just somewhat skeptical we need to be aware of is, how does that relationship with AI really look on an individual level? One of the areas I've been working with is a financial services firm that's been trying to assess what role AI has with their advisors and their clients going forward.

[00:19:11] One of the things that you mentioned that really has come up in those dialogues as well is, the trust that I'm able to create at a human level that AI currently does not. Will that change in the future? Sure, I'm not so sure as we get more accustomed to that as a technology. But where it stands today, am I able to create the trusting environment, the connection?

[00:19:39] You mentioned emotional intelligence earlier, which I think was spot on. Do I have that connection at a level that allows me to either get more information or give more information in a more meaningful way? And that's kind of, I think, the open-ended question that still exists as it relates to what role AI has in coaching. Yeah, I love that. Trust is such a huge issue.

[00:20:07] I have a good friend of mine that started a company based on trust. It's called Trust Centric. He wrote the book, Closing the Trust Gap. He and I have been having great conversations recently about this topic because AI is challenging that. So let's continue down that path. If we do assume that AI is going to have an impact on coaching, then how does coaching evolve in an AI-enabled workplace? Yeah.

[00:20:33] I think it becomes one of those situations of how does it fit given the needs of the client? So we talked a little earlier in this conversation around the fact that anyone has access to AI pretty much in a 24-7 capacity right now, whereas you don't have that of any of your human coaches, right, or typically not.

[00:20:56] So if we look at it first and foremost as a tool, I think it becomes a supplement to a larger coaching environment or culture you're trying to build. I think it's that step one in those very transactional needs. Hey, I need to respond to this email. I'm very emotionally charged about it.

[00:21:18] I want to make sure it comes across as professional and in tune with what I originally received. Those are very simplistic ways of using AI. I think for most of the clients and the people that I've talked about today, they find themselves in this research mode with regard to I'm not sure the role AI can actually play for us. And I think coaching plays into that a little.

[00:21:46] We're not sure exactly how to take best advantage of it, knowing that it will play a role. It just how does it supplement what I'm already providing? So a bit of a non-answer to you. No, no, that's a good answer. But it's still a work in progress. I like that answer, actually. And you used a term that is adjacent to another term that's being used frequently right now to describe AI's capabilities.

[00:22:13] You talked about it supplementing an environment where coaching should be taking place. The term that's used more frequently is augmentation. So basically, again, all oversimplify, AI has the potential to automate things. And so that's kind of replacing me. Or it has the opportunity to augment things. And that is making me better at what I do. And so you used the term supplements. I'll combine that with augments. I think it's a great way to describe it.

[00:22:44] Yeah. Yeah. And again, it would be interesting, Marcus, if we have this conversation a year from now. What we see is that progression as an augmentation. Yeah. Yeah. Well, let's do that. Let's have that conversation a year from now. I love it. In the meantime, I want to keep going down this path because if we fast forward and we assume that AI is going to enable us to do a lot more.

[00:23:08] One of the things I like to talk about is that AI has the potential to completely redefine the role of management. And so a manager is in large part responsible for maintaining policies and procedures and compliance. And so if we give all of that to AI, then now the role of a manager is very different. One of the things that has the potential to change, Jim, is span of control. I'm starting to see that. I don't know about you.

[00:23:34] I think Amazon's talked recently about becoming a lot flatter and having a lot more people that have more people reporting to them in terms of span of control. If that happens, Jim, how does that impact our ability to coach people at a personal level? Like, do you think we can coach more? What's the appropriate number? Yeah. It's a great question because it is something that we're starting to see in some organizations.

[00:24:02] Even some functional entities are taking more advantage of it than others. I work a lot with sales organizations. And one of the things I see with most sales leaders is the fact that they are significantly burdened by administrative tasks. Again, those transactional tasks, whether it's creating reports or being in meetings or whatever it may be.

[00:24:27] But it's taking them away from their ability to have the biggest impact on the business, which is coaching their direct reports, right? Those sales reps that report into them. I think AI is it takes away some of those administrative items. It opens up time frame to be able to do just what they need to focus on. Now, here's my differential or interpretation at this point.

[00:24:51] I'm not sure if it gives significant growth in span of control, meaning number of employees that can report into them. But I think what it does is it allows them to be more effective coaches by spending better, more qualified time with each of those individuals at the level that they were actually hired to do anyway. Right.

[00:25:14] They're not distracted by all of those administrative tasks, but they really are allowed to spend time as true coaches. Yeah. So it ends up improving the quality, not the quantity. Absolutely. I totally agree. And I think that has potential to be impactful in health care, too, where that's one of those industries where the span of control is truly nuts, where you have 50 people reporting up through a charge nurse.

[00:25:40] And, again, if you take all of the administrative, transactional, and compliance-related aspects of being a charge nurse out of their purview, then they have at least a little bit more time to have those meaningful, active listening sessions, asking good questions, and getting to know those people. In an authentic and meaningful way. I love that word authentic, specifically, because I think that is lacking in those high-span environments.

[00:26:08] You're not able to create that connection. You lose out on critical qualities that make teams effective. Psychological safety, I heard pop up in one of your previous podcasts. I'm a big fan of Google's Project Aristotle from decades ago, where they studied the effectiveness of teams, and psychological safety came out as one of those differentiating factors.

[00:26:34] If you think about AI, again, if we're using it as a tool to be able to solve some of those transactional needs, and it opens us up to be able to create those deeper connections at a humanistic level, at an individual level, our ability to have that impact becomes much greater. Yeah. Project Aristotle. That is an old-school study. You just dated yourself. I did.

[00:27:03] I did. You were talking about. So what are you seeing today? You're out there talking to clients, working with them today. What are some of the things that you're hearing from them as they transition into this new world of integrating with AI? What are some of the challenges and needs that you're hearing from your client base? I think it's a combination of fear on one hand of, oh my gosh, I'm not sure how to use AI.

[00:27:31] I'm not sure what it will do to our business and how it could potentially take over certain job responsibilities. So that's on one realm. I think on the other end, there's this general optimism towards, oh, wow, we can be more efficient. We can be more effective. We just have to figure out how to utilize it in such a way that's going to, again, augment the way we do our work today. Good.

[00:27:59] I'm glad that you're hearing some optimism in addition to the fear. The fear gets more of the media and the press attention, but I'm glad to hear there's optimism as well. So a couple more questions and then we'll wrap things up. So this is an interesting one. I'm very interested to hear your point of view on relative to the difference between what AI can do and what humans can do. So what can human coaches do, Jim, that AI will never be capable of?

[00:28:28] Well, we talked a little bit about it and you're trying to, I love the insight that you had from HR tech of where AI is going with capabilities.

[00:28:40] But at the end of the day, and call me a little old school here, but I do think that that emotional element, that ability to read feelings, the ability to see things that are unspoken in such a way that allows a human coach to be able to ask great questions, again, drive that self-awareness. I'm not confident, and maybe I'm going to be proven wrong over time.

[00:29:09] I'm not confident that AI can replace not only the relationships and the connections that are created between a coach and a coachee, but more importantly is that ability to see things that potentially are not prompted into this system.

[00:29:30] And again, I think that's a combination of intuition and experience and just what goes into building a good coach. I'm not sure if AI can ever replicate that. Okay. I like that a lot. So we started early on, we were talking about one of those things that I don't think technology can do, and that's inspire.

[00:29:55] Another that we didn't talk about was innovate, because again, what AI is looking for, generally speaking, is patterns. And to innovate, you kind of get away from that. And so the third I, again, I mentioned my affinity for alliteration, is now what you mentioned, which is intuition. And again, we possess that technology, generally speaking, does not.

[00:30:19] So to be able to see the nonverbal cues and behavior when you can tell that there's something wrong, the technology is not going to be able to do that. Yeah. Agreed. Okay. So I'm curious to know one other kind of unique thing relative to your point of view. Are there any beliefs that you personally possess about coaching that you hold that maybe others might disagree with?

[00:30:47] Any provocative points of view that you possess? Yes. I don't know if it's provocative, Marcus, but I believe coaching has the ability to be the biggest differentiator in success in organizations going forward.

[00:31:04] I think when we start to look at generational differences, when we start to look at just how organizations are structured going forward, I think one of the big patterns that I've seen over the decades is the need for some of these, what I'll call soft skills, you'll call hard skills, right? Emotional intelligence, active listening. It's the simplistic things of, hey, can I deliver feedback? Can I receive feedback?

[00:31:33] Can I handle conflict? How do I set goals? How do I ask deeper questions to be able to get towards levels of critical thinking or strategic thinking I'm trying to drive? I think coaching provides a differentiator that if we're able to develop that skill within our managers and leaders and organizations, we will see gigantic returns on investment. Now, don't get me wrong. I think technology plays a role.

[00:32:03] I think innovation, all these things that we've been talking about play roles. But I think what's been lacking the most, and this might be controversial for some, what's been lacking the most is those humanistic connections that coaching will drive. Okay. Good answer. I like that.

[00:32:24] So, based on everything we've talked about, where coaching is going relative to the world of AI, do you see coaching increasing in need or will it be diminished or just take a different form? You know, the title of this is Hope at Work, right? That's right.

[00:33:22] That's right.

[00:33:47] So, time and money are those easy barriers that I'm guessing everyone would jump into. But I think one of the things that potentially is holding the ability for coaching to be able to play a bigger role going forward is actually ego. I think what I see with a lot of the people I've worked with over the decades is we think we're good managers. We think we're good leaders.

[00:34:16] We think we naturally are great listeners and good, you know, individuals of curiosity and ask great questions. The reality is we're not. At least the masses, we're not. So, oftentimes when we look at developing coaching cultures, we get individuals that are really set in that egotistic element of, hey, I'm already good at this. I don't need it.

[00:34:44] And I think that becomes our biggest barrier that we need to overcome in order to drive these cultures of coaching.

[00:35:21] I like that a lot. The experiences I've had across generations. When you get someone that's truly invested in their own growth and development, regardless of age, regardless of experience, they are all into coaching, right? They see this as an avenue that will allow them to flourish and grow going forward.

[00:35:44] So, while I do see trends from a generational standpoint, I don't think they're an indicator of openness towards coaching. So, it really becomes more of an individual kind of analysis where people are coming from and getting yourself in their shoes, meeting them where they are before you go forward. Yeah, either way, personalization with a boomer versus Gen Z, it's still a good idea. All right, last question, Jim.

[00:36:14] You pointed out this is the Hope of Work podcast. So, what makes you hopeful and optimistic about the future of work? Oh, this whole concept, right? Everything you're doing, all the podcasts you've done, all the books, the research, the trends that I'm seeing in clients.

[00:36:30] I am so optimistic about the fact that we are on the cusp of great things in driving better relationships, improved communication, ultimately driving performance within the businesses that we touch. I think there's a huge opportunity in front of us, and I think the years to come are really going to be fun to be a part of that. I agree. I told my wife I can't retire for a really long time because just sheer morbid curiosity, I want to know what's going to happen next.

[00:37:00] Yes, absolutely. Great to hear your point of view, Jim. Thank you for taking the time to be on the show. How do people get a hold of you? So, easiest is my website, www.ascendpg.com. And they can get me through that. It'll give an overview of what we do as an organization. And again, I just appreciate the time with you today, Marcus. It's always a pleasure to talk. You too. And remember, we're going to have to do this again in a year. Absolutely. All right.

[00:37:30] Thanks for taking the time, Jim. All right. Thanks so much. Thank you.