And then day two is the next day of work. But day two is an opportunity for them to get more real-time feedback and coaching on the areas that they've identified that they want to work on. They're getting out of their comfort zone, trying things out, figuring out how far can they swing this behavior to be effective or if they're going too far? They're constantly thinking about how do I do this, what are my intentions, what are my options, etc. The coach helps them to reflect. Well, how did it go? What worked? What was the intention? Was there a different way to do it? What were the options here, and let's consider one of them and try it again.
Through this support and coaching, people can actually explore and practice some things in a new way, try new behaviors and find out what feels good. How to get the results you ultimately want. What does this look like at work? And that's the last job of the coach. The last half day is one-on-one coaching. People who come through this program probably won't get the quality coaching and attention that you get at a team manager development center. It's important to apply what you've learned to your work because that's where it's practiced.
PS: Right. And one of the great things about this program is that it takes what often seems like a very unstructured environment — social skills, soft skills, communication skills, leadership skills — and reinforces through immersion and feedback the notion that you can apply a process to something that seems unstructured to create improvement. And I think this is really important in the engineering mindset, but people are looking for the problem/solution, problem/solution format, and the degree to which people who need a little bit of leadership coaching or soft skills coaching can understand, “Wait a minute, soft skills are actually not that soft. There are certain hard processes that you can follow to improve and get better results at work.”
lb: Yes, I think what a coach can offer are tips and tricks to be more process-oriented. Because sometimes it's enough to just approach a particular situation in the most natural way, when we're operating from our most natural instincts. But other times, it really takes a moment to try a different approach. I mean, what's the trigger in the real world that makes you ask an open-ended question, or remind yourself not to interrupt, or step out of your comfort zone and speak up in a meeting where you're normally a reserved person because you have something important to offer. And part of that is helping people recognize what their internal barriers are. There's a lot there, and it's deep.
PS: That's deep. You reminded me of some of my own experiences. I grew up in a conflict-averse household, and if you don't know how to bring up issues with people and resolve them because conflicts are bound to happen, you're not going to be very successful in the business world. So I can only imagine the other experiences that engineering brings.
A quick story. My first formal job was as a teacher at Ohio State University, teaching a writing elective for engineers. The common stereotype of engineers is that they don't know how to communicate, they're bad at communicating, they're not very good at writing. Of course, in the process of teaching these writing classes, I learned that (1) trust was built between students and teachers, and (2) the opposite was true if there were open-ended questions. I might have had to ask one or two more open-ended questions than usual, but these people were used to giving very direct answers to questions. They had knowledge, they had ideas about what they were experiencing. I think it was the confidence that someone wanted to hear more of their opinion, and then to see them transcribe it to pen and paper (now keyboard). It was a great experience.
One of the questions I asked at the end of the class was based on Shakespeare's The Tempest, which we read. So I said, “Okay, you're engineers. Design a flag for the country where the sailors are shipwrecked, and explain why in one, two, three.” It was a chance to exercise creativity and analytical skills. It was amazing to see what they did when they believed they would be heard, and that what they had to say would matter in this classroom. You know, this is not an engineering class. It's not mechanics. It's not thermodynamics. It's a writing class. So as long as they understood what they were working on and what they were learning, they did well. It was amazing.
lb: Well, you mentioned the word “trust” and I think that's one of the key aspects of the Team Manager Development Center, these coaches have to build a relationship with each participant quickly to create space for them to be a little vulnerable and to build trust.
It's awkward to try things differently. When I was a new manager, my company sent me to a team manager development center. I think I fell in love with it because when I left, as part of the program, I watched videos of myself, I did a lot of reflection, I got a lot of guidance and feedback, and when I came back to work, I knew exactly what I needed to do to be more effective.
In theory I knew how to do it, and I had practiced it in the program itself, but it was awkward trying something new and getting out of my comfort zone. It felt temporarily vulnerable, and it also felt temporarily vulnerable coming back to real life and trying to apply it, but you start to build muscles through practice. It's like with any kind of weightlifting. I think having the support and encouragement from my coaches during TMDC and from my manager when I returned to work, and knowing what I was getting into, helped me embrace that vulnerability. It took trust, but I think that's so important for growth.
PS: I think this goes back to one of the questions we started talking about, which is how there's a stereotype of the average manufacturing worker as being rough looking. And I think there's some truth to that in that these environments have traditionally been masculine and perhaps not been very openly vulnerable. But in my experience working in this space for the last 10 years, once that connection is made, whether it's male or female, that vulnerability is created and real change happens.
lb: Yes. Almost everyone who participated in the program said, “It felt like work. It was the best training program and learning experience I've ever had.” Some people said, “I wish I had one more day.” I think that “I wish I had one more day” comes from, “I was working really hard, but I was making progress, and I was getting a lot of feedback on how well I was doing.” People crave feedback, and I think the new generations coming into the workforce expect it. And we need to teach millennial and Gen X supervisors and managers how to do it well.
P.S.: As Millennials, Gen X, and Gen Z take control of HR, especially leadership, I truly hope that there will be some budgetary space set aside for training. I hope so.
Right, and you liken it to building and growing new muscle mass over time. You're not going to gain 30 pounds of muscle the first time you train. You keep doing it, you keep adding more and more weight to the barbell, maybe running a little bit longer if you're a long-distance runner, and before you know it, you'll be running 26 miles or bench pressing your own body weight. But that doesn't just happen right off the bat, right?
lb: No, in order to grow muscles you have to tear them, which means growth is painful.
P.S. I know. A runner friend of mine who inspires me says that you have to learn to love the pain a little and accept that it will lead to better results.
