How Do You Actually Coach Your Team?

Alright and we are back around the fire. Welcome, welcome back our lovely listeners. This is Comini by the Fire, your favorite podcast for African founders by African founders. Today around the fire, welcome Ken and Kui. Thank you Ken. Hi everyone. Hi everybody. We are very excited to get into a topic on teams and founders and how you are showing up as coach. So there's this phrase we always say your work as the founder, as the leader of the business is to be the coach and not the player and we even have an episode called being the coach, not the player and which you haven't listened to. You should probably pause, go listen to that and then come back to this one. But there's a founder who pushed back this week and asked us, you tell us to coach, but how? How do I actually coach? So today we're going to be unpacking a few coaching moments where can you start in your journey as coach. As usual, let's start with a pulse check. So today's pulse check is a scale of one to five and then what are you becoming in this season? What are you becoming in this season? I think this has become a very strange question. Yes, or statement. Last week he said he's becoming a closer. Let's see what this week is. My pulse, I'd say about 3.5. The energy has, I don't know, gone where, but it's going to come back up. This is an interesting conversation. In terms of who I'm becoming and it's interesting that we're talking about being the coach, not the player, I'm becoming the one who let's go. And for me that is a big, becoming big. So generally in life, just letting people plan things. Yeah, Ken is laughing, but I think you all understand what I'm saying. He's saying that's a big one. Oh my goodness. I'm clacking it. Okay, okay, okay, I'm never doing something bad, but. But yes. So I'm becoming a letting go. It's not easy. Like recently during mid event that I let my daughter's plan, I could see my son just telling me, breathe, breathe, like it'll be fine. And it's just, you practice it every day. Yeah. So I empathize with founders who are still on the pitch. It's not easy. Ken, what's your path? My path is a four out of five. It's still good, good paths. Who am I becoming this season? I think this season are becoming ambitious, accepting that I want to build big and this general that I like to want to build big. Yeah. So it's like I like to paint murals. Yeah. Reambitious. I think it's beyond missions. Reambitious. It's almost like remembering who you are. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm, yeah, so I'm remembering who I am. I'm accepting who I am. But I like to build ambitious and I'm not happy if I'm not. Okay. Yeah. Doing it afraid, but yeah. And then do you, Kenna? It's 4.5. I am good. I'm still at a four. I think the day is also warming up. I like days where you get to do one big thing. Such kids just focus and get to that. I'm so happy with the day. What am I becoming? In this season, I'm becoming Kenna. And my version of that is learning to accept that you don't have to be Kenna Almighty. You don't have to do all things. You just have to do the things that are you. And you have to lead in your own way. And you have to play in your superpower. And that's enough. That's actually where high performance happens. So I'm learning another version of becoming Kenna and releasing the things that I'm not that great at. Yeah. So that's the pulse. And I think we have a really exciting topic to one that I think will be really helpful, right? Because it's a how-to. Sometimes we come on the around the fire and we're bantering around, you know, things we just generally believe and this principle. And don't do this and rather do this instead. Today we are actually going to walk a step-by-step guide that gives you a starting point, right? So I had said the context earlier for the founder who was like, how do I start coaching? And maybe to just give a bit of color. There is a person on your team who they might be somewhere within coasting and rowing. And for the people who don't know their descriptions, ROI is high performance. Coastal is someone who's just kind of in the middle. You're not so sure about that. And I realize some are your shoe eyes. Not for your team. They're not a bad person, but they are not for you. Kenna. They're good to their families. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Kenna, we're in a boat. There's someone who comes to the drill. You test the drill and then you start doing the board. And you're the CEO of the grip vine. They're motionless. That is you are the CEO of that group. There are bad people in the, in the, you've seen those movies. I should not be in your business. Yeah, you've seen toss them out into the sea. One which you think about it, but yes. So your drillers generally, we, we leave those on street, we go and they're not for your business. Promote them to be good in other things. No, we are the sea. Where are they going? toss them out of a boat. I really like how this thing is going to be careful. I really like how it's making him happy, but anyway, that visual. So that's, that's the state of your boat. Now, they are, we've assumed that you've tossed those ones over a boat, fine? Now, there's coasters and there's rollers and there's a journey that we've been asking for us to walk, which is curate their growth journey and then be coach. Now, a starting point. Co is actually a certified coach. He can't, he can't, he's a, he's a master. Co is a, the master of this gig. They should listen to us. So how, where, where is an easy place to start? That's not so overwhelming. The easiest place to start is modeling, role modeling, where you just carry this person along. So you've identified that potential. I think we were just having a conversation around, you know, a row is not completely baked. You're going to have to do some work for your business and for what they do. But you need to then say, okay, the easiest way to teach to model, to show by example, is carrying you along, carry them into customer meetings, carry them into management cadences, carry them into many conversations. That is a good starting point. I think it's something you can start from like tomorrow, carry them along. Yeah, I find it's actually, you know, it's underestimated in terms of it being a coaching tool, because then they see you at play. Yeah. And there's nothing as powerful as that. Show, not tell. True. I think it's an age old like format. Before we had the university, people did apprenticeship. Apprenticeship, right? So you decide you want to be a blacksmith, or as a blacksmith, you go in. Go watch. How much is a guy for like a year and you want unpaid? Yes. Right? And you're probably doing double the amount of work. But the best way to learn is actually with your eyes through observation, but also ribs. Right? So I think that should be a thing we do more often. I really like that idea. Yeah, like it costs nothing. And if you think about us, Alida, you know, that, you know, carrying them that observation and all of that, like what are you generally doing as Alida? So you're going into client meetings. In those client meetings, you're delivering customers are asking, they're raising standards. They're giving feedback. They're pushing. You're selling. You're getting push back. You're getting rejection. You're getting called out. Like, you know, you could generally say that's just like the total life of work happens in, you know, the everyday life of a founder. So you should never be in a meeting alone. You should always be, I think, if we're prescribing, you should never be alone. You should always be one person or two people at best. It's also such a trust-building moment. Yeah. Because you're letting me in. Like, that speaks so much. Yeah. You're not keeping it. Oh, oh, be here for three months. We confirm you for sure. Then I'll show you my clients. We'll show you big clients. It's almost like we've decided we're placing a bet on you. We know you're going to work and let's go. And we're going to give you access. Yeah. We're not going to give you access. That speaks a lot and I think it's you know high trust teams we always say are high performance teams. Yeah. So carry them along. Ask them and I think even in those sessions you're being first to translate your what you're hearing what have you heard. Yeah. What would you do from your vantage point with something that you can actually take away. And text the decision making off of you as a founder. It's a kind of for you actually your your journey to being CEO was actually a apprenticeship position. True. Yeah. For five years. So how was it for you? Your apprentice is under two people. Yeah. It's the only way I land. Yeah. Because I mean in the beginning it was under the you know whatever we are writing a book. And it was a apprenticeship actually just follow you around your life. Like right parts of the book and even as we started you know working together I think that first year we saw very many customers. Yeah. Many it's you're in the room and you're trying to understand what is this world. What is series and whatever like it was very new. But you're also learning the instinct. Yeah. Around certain things and developing a hypothesis about what works for you. Yeah. Yeah. So that so that curating that thing I think the way we run it is so you yes carry them along but also create a structure and a rhythm around that. So if you're going for one hour meeting with a customer sort of cover three hours it sounds a lot but you have some 30 minutes to kind of have us sit down with people just saying how do we prepare for the meeting what do you think is going to be discussed and so on and so forth you do the meeting and then you almost have half an hour what did you hear what did you see what can we do better who's going to do what and so on just as a part of life and you know if you bake that into your calendar you don't really think hard about it. Yeah. But the the result is that this one or two people that sort of coming along just take off on a very different trajectory. Yeah. And when you actually now pass them the ball you know that they can do it. Yeah. I think for me that was one of them very interesting insights. Even when you pass to us you didn't realize how much you had already prepared to do some of the stuff. Yeah. Yeah. So come along is the first step and we hope you can work it into your calendar we know you're juggling so many things but it's the best way to be coaching on the go as you're doing the things that also matter for the business. Also the best way to like prime for the work. So to speak. Yeah. So after you debrief now you say okay go work on the document what did you understand now go work on it. And then now you start to delegate properly. Yeah. And say okay we'll be checking in so often it's very and you're trying super power action. Yeah. Because everyone here has different things. Yes. Right. Yeah. I don't know if we can belay by this anymore. Yeah. Yeah. It is the most important thing. Start it like yesterday. And also it's a best orientation. I guess if someone runs your business and they spend the first one week with you just every everywhere you go. Yeah. Be amazed. So take that one we've given you for free. Now from there I think there's also the one on one so we call it the most powerful management secret. Right. One-on-one conversations with your teams. Why is that important as you also building this trust foundation? And actually it's true all cadences not just one-on-one are very powerful management secrets and tools. The reality is that this person also has expectations. They came into your business with a vision and so you need to make sure that you are aligned their vision and the vision of the business because it's where you want them to take you and to take the business. So this what this does is a tracker. The one-on-one is a tracker where you're just pulsing how they are doing and how they evolving in terms of thought in terms of where their heart is in terms of yeah like versus the business. So this look at it as a tracker of where they're doing I mean how they are doing to see whether the work is challenging them is it stretching them to see also what's happening in life because the reality is that we keep on saying you can't leave who you are they don't and then go to work. It's basically you're the sum total of all those experiences and if you harness that one-on-one properly you can really extract the very best from that person that roa. So those one-on-ones take it as this is going to be a progress tracker I mean investing acillary in this person anyway you might as well then make sure that you spend the time finding out how they're doing. It's very it's this one-on-one it's such a such a powerful idea so I've got a new very senior colleague who's joining my team and we've we've been doing a one-on-ones one hour every day six to seven and actually I cannot conceptualize a situation in which we're not doing that one-on-one and and in that a program it's kind of like their onboarding we've talked about a vision alignment we've talked about their fears around our mission we've talked about their aspirations we've stress tested we've had dinner and all of that right like the that foundation building for making somebody successful just requires a lot of investment so sometimes found as bulk they say okay I've got seven people I need to be doing one-on-one with these guys some of them I'm doing them every day they're like wow that's a lot of time but actually what else is there to do your job actually is to prepare those people to build their business because you can't be everywhere at the same time right so one-on-one it's a very important thing and what happens in the one-on-one how are you doing 10 15 minutes is okay like how are you doing my child is sick I went to hospital whatever it is and all of the 10 15 minutes is perfectly okay don't be transactional or be transactional you're leading people into greatness you know you're not leading work you're leading people and then and then okay how's the work going what is going well because there's always some stuff that's going well what's not going well it first as people to own reflect and own their work so it's not like you're telling them this is not going well is what's not going well and then how can I help where can I help and then you actually take commitments and you do those things yourself everybody takes homework you do you do powerful relationship of trust as Koi said their world's simplest management idea all it takes just a calendar item one-on-one with Koi one-on-one with Kenna and so on that doesn't move imagine yeah you don't cancel it you don't show up late you can't prepare yeah and I think also just even on that point I think laying that foundation that space when you first laid you know the safety understanding and you know working this journey what will this look like those conversations that you're having with your incoming team member I think it's in those conversations as well over time when you're consistent where you can you underage to stretch them yeah because then you know exactly what they are trying to grow in you know where their superpowers are shining you can coach mistakes because there will be mistakes even with rowers right they'll come on they will be things that are dropped or even just things that need to notch up that's actually the space to have those hard conversations but when people know that you really care they are willing to even endow you in that so I think start with that layer of trust in those one-on-ones and then you can also underage to stretch to correct to have some of the harder conversations that are also yeah they'll have understood your intentions they know your heart is in the right place yes like if Kenna and have one-on-ones we can be quitting on him every week yeah tough experience yeah very tough very very tough but when you realize okay he's talking to me like this because he's trying to extract the best out of me and that can only that connection is only made because you're spending time having conversations and I realize actually you want me to win you want me to do well yeah so I agree 100 percent yeah yeah okay so I hope that's a good starting point number one come along bring them into as many things as you can you should never be alone you know customer meeting anywhere as the founder number two have the one-on-ones because that's the foundation of trust check on them don't be transactional number three you underwrite to stretch them because you show them that you truly truly care right 100% how do you feel about that just going into the world just start in fact I feel like we give a new so much good yeah just start you'll become you know a better coach as you go ask them also right how do I coach you better because people are just individuals and there might be a way to get through to them better so I think you are often a good start and we hope this is helpful remember that even in the journey of building your teams and your people community exists so that you don't have to do this alone that we have program spaces rooms that we curate with so much love and care to make sure that your people and you are guided along this journey and so for you as the founders we have these community by the fire sessions that we have twice a week on Wednesday evenings and Friday mornings which would love you to come into we have band style conversations just like this every week and for your people we have the rowers program the next one starting in August end of August so you still have time to sign up your people and bring them into rooms and conversations where they are being stretched that they can also pick up more from you that way we all arrive alive yeah all right so we'll see you by the fire bye bye happy coaching happy coaching