James Young joins Brendon Le Lievre to chat about making the change from Entomologist (Insect Scientist) to facilitator and coach.
James shares a technique he uses with counterparts to help them identify their strengths, informal influence and network within organisations.
James and Brendon also discuss their reaction to the word Blue, what Business Writing looks, feels and smells like and how the perfect organisational structure should be based on a jellyfish.
You can connect with James through LinkedIN.
Transcript
[00:00:00] Brendon Le Lievre: Hello, and welcome to the coach conversations podcast, the podcast where coaches have conversations about all things coaching. I’m Brendon Le Lievre and today I’m joined by James Young. Welcome James.
[00:00:13] James Young: Hi, Brendon. It’s so nice to be here.
[00:00:15] Brendon Le Lievre: I’m pleased to hear that. Uh, how’s the start of the year playing out for you at the moment.
[00:00:22] James Young: It’s good. I, I don’t know. I’m a, I’m a, I’m an, uh, a massive optimist and I think I’ve, for some reason, I’ve got a feeling that this year’s going to be brighter than the last two. Um, I don’t really have any evidence to support my optimism, just that, um, just that I figured that it’s more productive thinking that way than, than anticipating evil. Um, and I’ve had it, it’s been quiet, um, particularly in coaching and facilitating, but that’s, that’s par for the course for January. And it gives us a bit of a, gives me a bit of a chance to rethink what I do and more critically I think why I do it. Um, so that it really resonates with me inside that I am authentic in what I do.
I hope that wasn’t too deep. Brendon, but that’s where I’m at anyway.
[00:01:15] Brendon Le Lievre: I think that’s a good place to be at as well. Uh, as you sort of say, there seems to be ebbs and flow. In the way the work plays out and the first year I was in business, I was thinking, oh, gee, January’s quiet.
And then. Yeah. Yeah. My wife said to me a couple of weeks ago, what have you got on for January? And I’m like, at the moment I have one, one hour coaching session booked in and that’s it, you know, that’s increased a little bit over the last few weeks, thankfully, but you know, I think just taking advantage of that time of, yes, there’s going to be a lull there, but what could I be prepping? What can I be reading? What can I be thinking about in order to then you know when the madness comes, which will no doubt, you know, may and June, probably in, particularly in Canberra, be a bit crazy this year and be ready for that. Um, marathon is how I’ve heard it referred to.
[00:02:16] James Young: Absolutely. And I’ve, I’ve just, I’m a massive reader and I’ve loved the chance just to read. And I find that, um, uh, I can do a book plug.
It’s not my book. I don’t have a book, but, um, there’s a book called Curiosity by a gentleman called Alberto Manguel, spelled M A N G U E L. And it’s the history of curiosity. Um, and it’s beyond intriguing starts of with kind of how the question mark arose and goes from there. It’s not, it’s not the lightest of rates, but it carries you because of its just its intensity.
And um, I found that I did read that before Christmas and I found that every interaction I’ve had either coaching or facilitating or, you know, um, event type MCing it’s coming in handy because it’s almost like as adults, curiosity is something that we’ve got to remind ourselves to be or to do, or you see it in children all the time.
Children just are intrinsically curious. What there is the old thing? Why, why, why, why, why? But more than that, you, what you watch them and, and my kids are teenagers now, but. Um, you just watch little children and, and they, the way they look at the world, screams curiosity. And I think as grownups, we tend to lose that um, automatic curiosity. And if we, if we get it again, I think it makes us better coaches, particularly because you’re curious about someone’s journey and someone’s direction. And it also helps us with, um, being facilitators and leaders because genuine curiosity, begs, genuine interaction is what I’m finding.
And even just the story of the history of the question, mark, which. It was a long time ago. It started off being called punctus interagatus, which I just love. Um, and, but even that story I’ve used in countless contexts to, um, outline the importance of curiosity and yeah. Um, bit of a side shoot. But yeah, I think when it’s quiet, we can have a chance to explore things like that rather than being sort of I don’t know focused on LinkedIn and all those other chores.
[00:04:47] Brendon Le Lievre: Yeah, I think the quiet is the important bit there as well. And I find that when I’m in the doing, I just do the doing right, a workshop here, coaching session there, prep for this here. Not really that, you know, almost to your point earlier, being curious about where’s my authentic self and how do I want to live out this year or work through this year, take advantage of the opportunities that exist as a result of people being more comfortable in a virtual world and, and accessing services in that way or needing to access it in that way. Because then, you know, there isn’t an opportunity to get face to face slash what do we do when we get face-to-face because there’s going to be varying degrees of how awesome is this and uh, I’d, I’m not super comfortable being face-to-face. How do we help make that transition? For those people back into that space.
[00:05:47] James Young: Yeah, that’s right. That’s right. And I think, um, a lot of employers are being excellent in that, in that they are booking, like you go and deliver a face-to-face workshop and there’s half the people that would normally be there.
And at the moment in Canberra, anyway, it seems that the, you know, if you want to wear a mask by all means wear a mask. There’s an absolutely no problem with that. But if the spacing’s okay in the room, All those other rules, boxes, or ticks, then you can, then you have, when we have the flexibility to take them off.
But, um, you know, that, that changes minute by minute, but yeah, I think a lot of, um, I think a lot of organizations are. Taking it very seriously by, by reducing the number of people they’re shoving into these, uh, these programs. And that gives the added advantage that you get more got the, uh, the attendees, the cohorts get a whole lot more out of the program because you’re literally speaking to 15 people as opposed to 30, uh, which is tremendous.
Yeah,
[00:06:45] Brendon Le Lievre: I like that. You can just go a bit slower as well.
[00:06:49] James Young: Take a few more parking lot issues or whatever you call them. Um, red herrings. Yeah.
[00:06:57] Brendon Le Lievre: Where would you like to go? Well, what should we talk about?
[00:07:00] James Young: What should we talk about Brendon? And that’s a good idea.
[00:07:04] Brendon Le Lievre: How did you, you sort of sharede where you’re at at the moment, how did you get to see here and, you know, become a coach and a facilitator and an MC.
[00:07:13] James Young: My life began. I was an entomologist, which is an insect scientist, and I spent, um, I spent a very long time at university and yeah, in Sydney at Macquarie uni. And, um, I did a thesis in conjunction with the Australian museum, and then I worked there for a few years, the whole lab coat, goggles, no friends, um, thing. Uh, and then as, as, as it happens, research money dried up. I got married when I was, when I was at uni. And, um, and so my wife and I moved to Canberra, partly because of the vibe and partly because they had a lot of work for insect people like in agriculture and CSIRO row. Anyway, I ended up at agriculture.
The department of, and I spend about 4, 13, 14 years there. Uh, but I, I got the job there. Believe it or not to write a fruit fly identification manual and teach entomology, uh, because to this day, not many universities do it. And we were hiring agriculture was hiring a lot of science grads, but without any, any Entos.
So I got a job that was where the teaching thing bit me pun intended. Um, and one thing led to another really. I mean the policy side of the science policy side of the thing was good for 10 years. I got bored of that morphed into sort of corporate roles. And always with teaching and coaching and mentoring involved in it.
And then I took a package a VR in 2014, spent a couple of years at home, was a house dad while my wife’s, um, career took off. And then during that I retrained in adult ed, um, and yeah, kept kept a cashflow doing professional photography for, for a number of those years, which was just this. Sort of turned into something bigger than a hobby.
And, um, and yeah, now I’ve been running my own business for since about 2016. Um, and that’s been as a consultant initially, um, the sub contracting into bigger consulting companies. And then yeah, that I sort of found my groove with facilitating. Uh, education programs and also, so through a group called PDT, I do that professional development trainers, I work for a mob called yellow edge, and they’re wonderful. I do career coaching with them. And also I facilitate like planning days, futures, workshops, that sort of stuff. And, um, my, I own my own clients. I work with improving teamwork through collaboration. So I help team leaders, um, with teams in all the sectors doing, uh, making their teams awesome.
[00:10:07] Brendon Le Lievre: Making their teams awesome I like that. And what are some of the challenges that you’re finding team leaders are facing at the moment?
[00:10:19] James Young: To be honest. I don’t know that that changes. I think there’s a lot of, oh, there’s an awful lot of hype going on about mass resignations and things, and I’m happy to be wrong. I, I haven’t seen it. Um, the biggest problem that team leaders come to me saying that their teams have lost their mojo. Um, they’ve, they’re disconnected, they don’t sort of, they don’t, their values no longer aligned with the organization’s purpose, to an extent that makes them happy to get out of bed. Uh, so rather than sort of telling team members to all go and find a place that does align with your purpose? You, the initial step is to help the team leader.
Well, funnily enough, truly be curious about their team members and find out what’s going on, what drives them, what doesn’t drive and what their skills are. And what I commonly hear from team members is that their skills just aren’t being utilized to the full extent they, they want to give more. But their genuinely not sure how, um, so going in and assuming positive intent is very powerful.
I’m assuming that the team lead team leaders want the best for the team and that the team members want the best for the team. And in that, with that vibe in a, in an event, in a workshop or whatever, you can get, uh, you can go a long way. It’s really cool. That’s that’s broad, but yeah, I think, um, I think that’s, that’s the main thing. Just a sense that they’re working. People want that people want to contribute to something bigger than themselves. It sounds Disney, but it’s, unless they’re doing it, people’s motivation. Doesn’t last for very long. I don’t think. Gee, that was a rant
[00:12:15] Brendon Le Lievre: Rant away. That’s kind of what this is about.
I dunno, like there’s obviously a lot of material out there about the great resignation, my, thoughts on that are if everyone’s resigning. That means there’s also, you know, the great rehiring that’s going to be happening as well. Right.
[00:12:32] James Young: Yeah, unemployment goes through the roof, but that’s going to be unlikely.
[00:12:37] Brendon Le Lievre: Isn’t it? Oh, it’s almost the great rearranging is
[00:12:44] James Young: That’s a much better name. It’s the great professional rearranging.
[00:12:50] Brendon Le Lievre: Let’s get people in the spot they want to be in. And, you know, that might be in the same team. It might be in the same organization. It might be, you know, not and completely different, but I think the opportunity comes you know for coaches, uh, around, well, let’s, let’s be curious and let’s people let’s help people find out what those things are that they really want to do. Not what they cognitively say they say they want to do, what is it that you really want to do? And how will you go about creating a world where you can, you can make that happen and you can do that.
[00:13:26] James Young: Yeah, no, absolutely Brendon and I mean, speaking personally, I love that space. Um, helping people reconsider their careers. Cause I, I mean, I guess selfishly I’ve done it myself and I remember distinctly how confronting it is when you you’ve spent umpteen years and heaven knows how much money becoming something, um, might be an entomologist, it might be an accountant, it might be a finance officer who knows it could be, could be anything, but you’ve done that and then you’re the, the world you’ve ended up in isn’t what you thought it was. And your identity is very much knitted into that title. So what do you do with that? Um, how do you reframe that and look at those skills and think how do my skills match in with a different world and the number of the number of public service clients I’ve had in coaching environment and I’ve just chatted things out. And you, you, you sort of ask questions as you well know, and you like, have you asked them, have you considered the not-for-profit sector? And a lot of people just haven’t and that’s not a criticism, it’s just it’s just the fact that it seems so divorced from my life as an accountant or my life as an entomologist or whatever. But then you find, if you, if you really look and sort of simmer off your skills that you’ve got becoming X, you find those skills are applicable in a whole lot of different worlds. And that from when you get to that point, either with a bit of help or even just with your own sort of naval gazing, um, That’s beyond exciting.
Um, yeah, you can see how you’re all those things you’ve done fit in, make you make you a good fit for different world. Yeah.
[00:15:28] Brendon Le Lievre: Yeah. The recognition of the transferable skills, what, it’s just what I do. It’s just what I’m good at. It’s just what I studied and that piece around identity is interesting as well, because yeah.
Yeah, I’m sure it’s true everywhere, but it’s seems especially true in Canberra. The first two questions you get asked when you meet people, is who are you like, what’s your name? And then what do you do? Where do you, which department are you in? Not everyone in Cambra works for either a government department or one of the big consulting companies placed in a government department, there’s
[00:16:10] James Young: At least two of us Brendon,
[00:16:11] Brendon Le Lievre: but at least two, I’m sure that there’s probably a few more out there, but I think it’s, you know, in Melbourne, my understanding is that the question is who do you support? Um, but in Canberra. So I think that identity piece can get really wrapped up in the arm of, you know, I’m a public servant, I’m a small business owner I’m a whatever it might be. And so unpicking those two things to say, well, where else can you apply those skills is firstly, what are they? Do you have good visibility of them? And second of all, um, where do you want to apply them? And how do you want to apply them?
[00:16:51] James Young: Exactly, exactly. One exercise I ask clients to think about why their phone rings or why they’re emailed or why they’re asked questions and we spend an hour, can be half an hour brainstorming that, and just what people call them for basically, and what it does. And then you, so that you can group the topics and draw colored lines around them, make it look full fantastic, but it really brings out an impression of what their peers, colleagues and bosses think they’re good at. Um, and the number of times it’s quite different to what they think they’re good at in a positive way is quite amazing. Um, this is a bit of a, it’s a bit of a, I guess you could call it a mirror exercise.
And that can, that can start off that process of understanding how your skills are interpreted. Um, people kind of go, oh, well you people ask me to do this a lot. I mean, then the obvious question is, do you like it? Cause if you don’t like you know, pushed back a bit, but yeah,
[00:17:56] Brendon Le Lievre: I haven’t heard of that one. So I’ll be adding that to the toolkit.
[00:17:59] James Young: Yeah, man. Get it. Yeah. I find clients really, really find it quite interesting. It’s almost like a 360 process, um, for free and in 30 minutes, if you could plug it that way, I don’t know.
[00:18:15] Brendon Le Lievre: And then, uh, you know, who do you, I suppose then the extension could be, whose name shows up on your phone and you get excited or not oh not them again.
[00:18:26] James Young: Yeah. Eh, we actually, then another exercise and other exercise that’s quite helpful is done in a constructive way is getting a, as detailed a, um, organizational map as you can and printing it out and actually. Um, har lauding your comrades, um, and not, you know, drawing crude peaches next to the people you don’t get on with, but just highlighting the comrades and looking at the, I guess, the channels of influence you have in an organization.
And because it is, I mean, to a large degree too, you know, as well as what you know, but yeah, I think that, seeing that in seeing that in two dimensions can help you realize more of your identity as well.
[00:19:16] Brendon Le Lievre: Yeah. I definitely didn’t realize the power of the internal network. Um, until I moved agencies, when I was working in the public service, I had spent a long time in one department, which was Centrelink as it became Human Services. And knew lots and lots of people in that organization, even though it’s a huge organization, just based on some of the roles that I’d held. And then an opportunity came up for me to move to a Department of Immigration. And I think I knew three or four people in that entire department, uh, when I showed up there and had not realized that unofficial influence that I had access to as a result of having this network, oh you need that done, you know, I know James, he works in that area. He might be able to point me in the right direction or go in so I could get stuff done really quickly, even though it was a big organization, it felt like, and then I landed in immigration and I was like, well, I don’t have that anymore.
I have to go and build it or find a way to make that happen now. And over time I did, but had not recognized the value. Until that was taken away or until I didn’t have that anymore.
[00:20:37] James Young: For sure. Brendon. Yeah, for sure. No, absolutely. And I think it’s, it’s really fascinating, different organizational cultures effect that differently.
Like if you’ve got a flatter organization, um, that doesn’t have much hierarchy for whatever reason, uh, that networking can sometimes be easier because it’s easier to knock on doors and find the right people, but it sometimes can be harder because there’s less structure, um, and perhaps less powerplay.
Whereas the hierarchy has its advantages in terms of stability and, and other sorts of issues. However, you’ve got the hierarchy, which is intimidating and can cause other so it’s I dunno what, I dunno what the perfect, um, I see I’m thinking the perfect model for an organization is a jellyfish say that it’s kind of got, um, not a hierarchy in a sense of power, but it’s got inspirational leaders that the dome of the jellyfish represents truly inspirational leaders that are there for the people and all the tentacles are those people that believe in the jellyfish and help it float about, but it can cope with change. Just like a jellyfish can. Floating about that’s that came to me just then, but I’m going to stop
[00:22:02] Brendon Le Lievre: patent pending
[00:22:03] James Young: the jelly patent, pending jellyfish model of organizational structure.
If it takes you anywhere, take me with you.
[00:22:17] Brendon Le Lievre: Fish, uh, approach as opposed to an insect approach then?
[00:22:21] James Young: Oh yeah. Well, I’ve got a thing for invertebrates. I I’ve got, I will always have a soft spot for things without a backbone.
[00:22:28] Brendon Le Lievre: Hmm. Okay. Why is that? What drives that?
[00:22:33] James Young: Oh, I don’t know I just think well insects for example, are the most successful organisms on the planet, um, there’s more species of beetle than there are of anything else put together, including the plants.
Uh, it’s just a 300 and the oldest, the oldest insect fossils, about 350 million years old. They diversified with the flowering plants about a quarter of a million years ago. And I’m sorry, 250 million years ago. And, uh, but the, the thing that intrigues me is that, you know, we as humans, we kind of make a big deal of the dinosaurs right. And I get that they’re big, they’re exciting. They’re sort of otherworldly, but insects were before the dinosaurs. They devoured the last dinosaur and they’re still here. Um, it’s just, uh, they really quite an extraordinary group of animals that, that we swapped generally. Um, I think, yeah, I dunno.
It’s just, just an amazing thing to think of what they, what the history of them and what they do, but I’m biased. I’m definitely biased.
[00:23:47] Brendon Le Lievre: I haven’t had a, uh, one of my kids ask me what my favorite insect is more interested in the dinosaurs. What’s your favorite dinosaur dad doesn’t really care about the insects, but that’s
[00:23:58] James Young: exactly.
And I get that. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not mad. I do get that. Um, yeah.
[00:24:08] Brendon Le Lievre: T-Rex always rates highly
[00:24:11] James Young: and velociraptor seems to be it’s always the vicious ones. Isn’t it? Like, I think if you were to, if we were to actually be able to stay, then you’d be more keen on, on a, like a Diplodon, or one of those that’s one or one of those slow vegetation eating fellows.
[00:24:28] Brendon Le Lievre: Yeah. I agree with that. Yeah. What did you, what do you take from your knowledge of insects into your coaching and your facilitation?
[00:24:40] James Young: Oh, gee, that’s a very good question. Um,
I hate to harp, but I think it’s, I think it’s curiosity, I think, um, definitely curiosity, attention to detail, looking for patterns as well entomology is very much about looking at patterns and seeing both in sort of insect characteristics and behaviors and other elements so that you, so that you look at a whole collection of insects, so I did Dance flies. I categorized about 35,000 species. So I looked at. Um, basically named a whole lot, put them into related groups and drew a family tree for that group of insects. And what you look for is patterns and patterns, tell stories. And I think as, as a coach, now I look for patterns in what people say and how people solve their own problems.
And when you do it for long enough, you start to see which problems arise for particularly sort of EL1, EL2 SES, uh, APS6. Um, and you see how they solve those problems. And that creates, uh, a bit of a story of how you can solve problems for those people in those organizations, it’s really powerful.
But the other thing fundamentally is actually the people like my boss at the Australian museum, he, he trusted me to the, to a huge level. And I think, I mean, in that world, to the extent that we get insects from all over the world and he’d give them to me and trust me to look after them, to pin them, to identify them accurately, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
And I think a lot of that’s really important as a coach, you have to trust your clients and as a facilitator, you have to trust your audience. And I think that’s another thing I’ve carried across broadly.
[00:27:03] Brendon Le Lievre: Yeah. Trust is so, so important. And I like it when you happens one-on-one but it’s probably more noticeable in groups as well, where you, you build that trust to a point where they can have those conversations that they’ve been needing to have, but haven’t had the ability to have
[00:27:26] James Young: exactly. We create a safe space, um, for half thoughts.
Yeah. Yeah.
[00:27:33] Brendon Le Lievre: So the, the I’ve never told anyone this before, or I’m not sure why I’m going to share this with you comments, a really good sort of. Yeah,
[00:27:46] James Young: exactly. Yeah. And you know, when you, when people start a statement like that, you know, you’ve created a space where those things are going to be aired and real change can happen, um, for the, for cool, for cool effects for awesomeness.
[00:28:01] Brendon Le Lievre: Teams,
Colloboration, Awesomeness.
That’s awesome. That’s it surprises me how quickly those things. I can show up as well. If you just sit and listen and don’t give advice, they show that almost show that trust in the other person. You know, I know, you know how to do this. I’m just going to help you to make that happen and believe in you and it’ll happen.
[00:28:27] James Young: Exactly, exactly.
[00:28:30] Brendon Le Lievre: And then, you know, in the group setting, then it can almost be it’s becomes a different conversation as well.
Yeah, I think that’s, that’s where I reflect on and with my coaching and I still surprises me sometimes around how quickly you can get there and how much people just like to be listened to.
And I think when I was team leading and managing teams and applying coaching skills. Lucky back to curiosity your point there.
Yeah, it helped to be curious. It helps to create an environment where people felt they could ask those questions. And there was one, uh, engagement that I worked in for a short period of time where I felt that there was not a culture where people could put those questions forward. They had them. They just, you know, after the meeting they’d come and ask me, I was like, oh, that’s a good question, why didn’t you ask it in the meeting when he couldn’t answer from when I actually knew what was going on, as opposed to me, who’s just going to make something up or need to go out now, probably more to the point, excuse me. What I, what I ended up doing was setting myself a sort of a personal goal around at the end of every meeting that I go to, I’m going to ask the group the silliest question that I can think of. That’s not going to have people say, Brendon, do you have any idea what you’re actually meant to be doing here? So, often that would just be. Like a word, there’d be a pattern. Right? So there’d be a word that got used a lot.
And cause I always knew his wish. I could kind of get away with it and say, well, what does that word mean? Or what does that activity, what impact is that going to have on us as a team or as a group? I ask that really, really silly question. And people sort of look at me and go, how do you not know? Yeah.
And then they’d get the answer and people would go, oh, that’s not what I thought at all, but that’s not the way I was viewing that at all. So we can have a good conversation about that. And then what I found would happen was those questions would get asked because people would say oh if , Brendon’s going to ask a question that’s that’s silly. Yeah. I don’t feel as bad about asking my question now, we’d have much richer conversations as a result. So sometimes it’s, I think there’s value in. You know, in putting those questions out there because often there’s a lot of assumption around all. Yeah. We all know what that means.
And. It’s like do, do we really, in an activity that I’ll do when I’m facilitating? And I think there’s a bit of that going on is I will say to people, um, I’m going to write a word on the board in a minute and I just want you to capture, don’t say it out loud yet, but just capture what’s the first thing you think of when you hear the word.
[00:31:32] James Young: Love that.
[00:31:33] Brendon Le Lievre: And the word that I write on the board is blue.
Um, amazed at the range of responses that you get. So you get, you know, sky, ink, cool, red contrarians in the group pen shirt, you know, it’s this huge range of, um, you know, holidays, beach, you know, all this stuff sort of comes out. And my thoughts are just putting the word blue up there and we’re getting this range of words.
What does dynamic mean? What does curiosity mean? What does good teamwork look like, what does strategy mean? Let’s unpick that so that then we can have a conversation and we all had a clearer understanding of, um, what it is and it’s, it’s, uh, it’s, it’s a good little ice breaker as well. If you, if you feel that energy is dipping and you can link it into something that you’re doing and you can pick any word you want, right doesn’t have to be blue.
I just like that color. So I throw that up there. Um, what was your reaction, James? What did you see when I said the word blue?
[00:32:49] James Young: I, I saw sad. It’s interesting. Cause I’m not sad, but that’s yeah, that isn’t it, but that sounds just tremendous. Yeah. And it shows the potential of the group has to in a very safe way, as you say, like if you can think of this to do with blue and what can we do to think of, you know, strategic rearrangement of the super-duper task force or whatever whatever’s going on.
Yeah, that’s really cool.
[00:33:19] Brendon Le Lievre: It’s great fun.
You can get people to have conversations about those things as well. Or I find that in the break, uh, they, they will have conversations about, oh, isn’t that funny? And look at that there it’s like, all right, good there’s some energy back in the room.
[00:33:38] James Young: Absolutely. And, um, I think it’s, it’s a really, it’s a really good thing if as a facilitator, you’ve, you’ve done some sort of an activity that’s sort of drifted into a coffee break and then you just sort of spend the time floating between the people, having their chats and you listen to what they’re talking about. And sometimes they’re going to talk about the weekend, that’s fine. There’s no problem. But when you, when you hear the vast majority of them actually talking about what you’re talking about on that day, then that’s a tremendous win because you know that it’s resonating and, and they’re thinking about it in a relaxed spice as well as I guess the more, not that terribly formal, but the more formal space of the workshop.
That’s really cool. Um, Trying to think of another, another fun one you can do is to, if you’re doing a topic that, um, I don’t know, like say you’re doing a public workshop on something like business writing skills, and you’ve got the sense that your audience is captive. So they’ve, they’ve kind of been forced to come.
Um, I’ve found that, well A you call it out for what it is you just ask. Who’s a captive. Um, and most generally they all are, uh, And then, um, I, uh, I’ve never done what you suggested, but is it to swap tools? I guess? Um, I, I write up business writing on the, on the board and I split the group into three groups and I say, how does, what does business writing look like? What does it feel like? And what does it smell like? And the three groups do the three separate things. With business writing again, patterns. It’s fascinating. Every single I’ve done this scores of times every single time, what it looks, it looks impressive, stylized, powerful, energetic, but it smells terrible.
Um, all sorts of expletives, uh, and what’s the other one looks, smells, feels, it feels uncomfortable, scary, um, awkward say that’s what always happens. And I still don’t know what to do with that pattern, but there it is, you know, it just it’s, it gets people to think in creative dimensions. It’s just really interesting.
[00:35:58] Brendon Le Lievre: The captives is always an interesting one, depending on. Levels of trust. I might ask people to close their eyes and raise their hand. If they’re a captive, cause then not everyone’s going oh Brendon over there he’s the captive.
[00:36:12] James Young: So it’s much safer. I’m a bit blunter.
[00:36:16] Brendon Le Lievre: Like I know now, um, you know, I’ve done that before with, um, If we’ve done some sort of report or profile debriefing, that’s meant to be confidential, but there’d be value in sharing.
Close your eyes. Raise your hand. If you’re happy to share.
[00:36:34] James Young: Yeah.
[00:36:34] Brendon Le Lievre: Usually all the hands go up and I can say, all right, put your hands down, open your eyes. Everyone’s happy to share, but if someone doesn’t feel comfortable sharing, then you can say, look, there’s a number of people in the group that aren’t prepared to share.
So yeah,
[00:36:49] James Young: for sure. For sure. Well, that’s about creating a safe space. Isn’t it?
[00:36:54] Brendon Le Lievre: Rather than oh, right. Who doesn’t want to share on one hand, get the whole team. I don’t want to create that.
[00:37:01] James Young: Yeah. Let’s not, let’s not create. Um, minority groups in the one workshop. Hey I’d love to ask you like, in terms of coaching, what some of your, like to generalize hideously, what, what is sometimes challenging about coaching sessions?
[00:37:21] Brendon Le Lievre: I think the main one is, uh, people coming to coaching or being sent to coaching to go back to our captives and they don’t know what coaching is. And even though it’s explained to them, they don’t want to engage in it in that way. They sort of, um, I think of it more as mentoring. And so even though I say to them, I’m not, I’m not here to tell you what to do, I’m not here to give you advice.
Um, they sort of play along with the questions until. I think they’ve done it enough for me to just tell them, and then they’re like, I’m really interested in what you want to know, or I’m really interested in your thoughts or I’m really. Yeah. What would you do in my situation? And I find that really difficult because you know, if people want mentoring, I’m happy to mentor but that is a different engagement and approach, um, than coaching and I’ll often ask, I’ll ask groups when I’m working with them on the difference between coaching and mentoring, who would like me to be their mentor. And normally, you know, two or three hands will go up and, and sometimes people in the group can be a bit worried about that.
Like, or were you expecting a higher number, Brendon? And I was like, no, I’m not. Because unless you want to do what I do or, you know, hear about my experience in previous roles, I’m probably not the right person to mentor you, but if you want to engage in a coaching process, Yeah, some better than others there’s a number of factors that go into it, but I can use my coaching skills to improve whatever it is you’d like to improve. So I find that a challenge that I bump into sometimes where particularly when people go, I’ll just go and get some coaching, like a manager says to them, just go and get some coaching and you become sort of a defacto performance management conversation without any of the context or the content from other people’s points of view. And therefore I’m like, this is not the most effective use of my time, your time, your organization’s time. And so let’s, what’s the best way for us to use this time.
Like, we’re here, we’ve got the hour. Um, what, what’s the best thing that I can give to you? Uh, in this moment, uh, and if it is advice like mentoring advice, A I think that’s very unlikely B it’s it’s not going to land because you know more about you than I ever will. And so my, my advice is going to be based on my experience.
Um, It never quite, it never sits particularly well with me when that’s where we end up. Um, but yeah, so normally what I will will do now that I’m thinking about it long answer, but good question obviously. I’ll encourage them to work out who they should go and engage as a mentor. You don’t want to hear my. like, I’m just here. You probably don’t want to hear my point of view. Who is it that you should be talking to about this or who is it that’s got great advice for you? Go and talk to them because you know, they’ll get, they’ll usually understand more of the context to have a stronger relationship with you.
They’ll have seen you.
[00:41:04] James Young: That’s a good point. Yeah.
[00:41:07] Brendon Le Lievre: What about you? What are you bumping into theirs? That’s challenging in coaching.
[00:41:12] James Young: I very similar. I think, yeah, I couldn’t pull God. Couldn’t put it better. Actually. I, I don’t get it very much. I must admit. It’s very, it’s rare. Um, but I go to the, I go to the same comment.
I say, well, how, how will we best use this hour, um, to, uh, to be valuable. Um, I guess the, the, the, the moment that Springs to mind, to, to generalize, to the point of not anybody being identified as fairly an older fellow who was nearing retirement and he’d been put into a program and he said, you know, um, who I got, I got nine months left.
And, um, you know, um, and so we explored what that would look like, uh, what retirement would look like, basically what his skills could do when he was retired because you might, you might retire from work, but you know, you’re no longer an accountant or whatever, but, um, but you don’t, you know, you’ve hopefully got quite a few years left in you to kick on and make a big difference in an area that you’ve never applied didn’t before. So yeah, we did. We did that more of a cry create, created a preferred future for him, um, based on these passions. Yeah, I think that’s right. Um, I think the, and the coaching space is really cool as far as, I guess, selfishly, as far as we are concerned, it’s an area that we can make a difference that’s bigger than us. Um, and it’s, you know, really amazing to see people grow and, uh, find, find roles or shift their current role into one that satisfies their values and their purpose. It’s just, that’s really, really cool.
[00:43:05] Brendon Le Lievre: Plan that retirement out. What sort of tool I’m going to be? Everyone that I know that’s retired and said, I don’t know how I used to fit work in. So they just seem to get more and more on their plate.
[00:43:17] James Young: My dad, my dad’s opposite he’s he’s 78 and he still, he still works part time. And, um, And yeah, I like, I just blown away by him.
He’s just amazing, like he’s next level. Um, but he loves it. So, you know, it it’s so variable, I think is, is what happens depending on the life you’ve led and then what you can do when you, when you do retire, what I’m doing, inverted commas, because this is a podcast and no one can see me. Um, yeah, it’s amazing.
[00:43:53] Brendon Le Lievre: I think it’s always intriguing for people to think about whatever that next stage might be. And obviously I can’t mentor on that cause I haven’t retired. So I have no idea what that might look like.
[00:44:12] James Young: You just called my bluff.
[00:44:16] Brendon Le Lievre: Would you be doing, how would you spend your time?
[00:44:19] James Young: Oh, basically, I, I run a futures. I run a preferred futures, exercise for groups that want to explore that. And, um, you come up with four futures, um, uh, disowned feature, one that nobody wants to sort of features that are I K and a preferred future through a method called causal layered analysis, which sounds a lot scary than it is.
And, um, so we did that. So I threw the method at him and then. Filled out the filled out the results to create that preferred future and avoid things that he, he possibly hadn’t thought of, that may approach, which is the benefit of that tool. But, um, but yeah, no, I definitely was well and truly outside my comfort zone in that hour.
Yep.
[00:45:01] Brendon Le Lievre: Which ironically is where I think I do my best coaching.
[00:45:07] James Young: Absolutely. Absolutely.
[00:45:10] Brendon Le Lievre: I can’t give any advice. So I won’t and that’s good. Yup. And here we go.
[00:45:17] James Young: But I’m curious, Brendon. And I’ve got lots of good questions.
[00:45:22] Brendon Le Lievre: Yeah. And, uh, what was it? Punctus Interagatus.
[00:45:29] James Young: All the question mark is, was Punctus Interagatus. Yeah. Um, uh, basically, you know, symbol of interrogation and it’s started its life.
Yeah. Okay. So that’s a long story. I don’t want to, I don’t want to be a, um, what do you call it? Wreck the movie. Um, spoilers. That is all I will say about curiosity by Alberto Manguel, if I’ve pronounced that correctly. Um, yeah, it’s intriguing
[00:46:04] Brendon Le Lievre: And what about you know, teaching people those facilitation skills so they can use them.
Do you find that leaders have a desire to learn those skills or benefit from, from learning those things?
[00:46:19] James Young: Actually, I do. It’s interesting that the word facilitation. So stems from the Latin facility, which means to make easy. So that’s a really nice way to begin and because leaders do want to make things easy.
Uh, and I find that I’ve got to explain myself in that leadership doesn’t tradition, I don’t think leadership traditionally involves facilitation per se. Um, but I think more and more, if you interpret facilitation as one of the languages of leadership, it can increase your, uh, positive effect on your team. So by that, I mean, using facilitation skills to run team meetings, to run project meetings to run, uh, performance management, basically building in these skills to empower your audience, to contribute and feel ownership of the content, um, can be incredibly powerful. It’s not about leaders giving up any authority at all, leaders, needle authority. There’s no two ways about it, but I think if you gain that or authority through authentic curiosity and facilitating collaboration you’re going to be far more effective as a leader than if you gain the authority through carrot and stick, for example, to push it to it extremes. Um, and yeah, so yeah, I find that a lot of leaders that I’ve talked to haven’t and I’m not surprised they haven’t viewed facilitation skills as a tool for their leadership.
And when they do, it’s very, very empowering for them because they create conversations like we’ve outlined where their staff start with “I’m not sure, but” could we try, this is a half thought, but et cetera. and inadvertently it increases the team’s appetite for risk, which is a freebie, um, that is just awesome.
Safe risk, you know, but yeah, that’s what I find.
[00:48:46] Brendon Le Lievre: And then appetite for risks and interesting side effect there as well, which is let’s not play safe because
[00:48:54] James Young: yeah, I’m still, yeah. Sorry. Now you, you finish, I’m still lost on that. I’m still a bit, there’s a lot of work to be done in that space. I think particularly in large organizations, I don’t think it’s public service disease.
I think it’s a large organization disease. Um, but yeah. Sorry, you continue.
[00:49:11] Brendon Le Lievre: No, I think I finished. So
[00:49:15] James Young: yeah, no, it’s like, I don’t know. They talk about, I think there’s a lot of, there’s a lot of chatter about increasing in organization’s appetite for risk, but unless it’s led from the top, I haven’t seen it successful.
Um, people have to see the leaders actually taking risks and learning from their mistakes publicly before they’re gonna do it. Plus they need to feel that there’s a net below them. Um, I think I stole that from a Simon Sinek book, um, that you know, how acrobats in the circus they, they fly about. But if they’re confident enough, perhaps they don’t have a net below them, generally speaking, they’ve got that net and they’re prepared to take that risk, take extraordinary risks as long as there’s that net there. I think organizations that do deal with risk very well have that net, um, and the net is actually it’s stitched together by the leadership team very publicly and physically.
[00:50:19] Brendon Le Lievre: Yeah, that’s my experience. Like like values, uh, innovation and risk-taking is the way you create a culture about that is the way you respond when it’s done. And it doesn’t go well, you know, when the wheels fall off, because it’s easy to put, our values are that we, um, have trust and we care and we develop people and you know, whatever other values you might’ve sort of organizationally put up, but the first time someone makes a mistake. If you just haul them over the coals, that is not showing them trusting here and development. So those words on a wall, they’re not, they’re not values. They’re not your organizational values, their stated values, but that’s not what you’re actually doing.
And I think the same, this job be more innovative. Well, if we’re going to be innovative, there’s an element of risk. Things are not going to work. And people can’t be innovative when they’re doing all the time. So there will be a requirement for there to be quiet and still, and not, can you have that innovation on my desk by Friday?
And if you don’t have the appetite for those things to happen, then you’re not going to get it. And I find, you know, for me, if I’m wrestling with something. And I can’t crack it. And I know that the answer is just there, but I don’t know what it is. I’m much better to get up and go and make a coffee or go for a walk or go to the gym, go and weed the garden, and then I’ll be able to I got it. I know how to fix that. Now. Now I have to remember that or I have to write it down or record it somewhere so that I don’t forget it, but I could have sat at my desk for hours. Yeah. And not got to that point. But if it’s because I’ve gone and got done something differently, the answer has come to me.
[00:52:19] James Young: That’s right. It’s really cool.
[00:52:22] Brendon Le Lievre: I’ve got seven questions here, James is how I’ve started to finish these off. So I’m going to fire these seven questions at you, shortish chances, but say what needs to be said. I’m just going to rattle through them here. So the first question is James, what fulfills you?
[00:52:39] James Young: People
[00:52:40] Brendon Le Lievre: and what frustrates you?
[00:52:44] James Young: Um,
What frustrates me.
To be brutally honest.only like Xero. Um, that’s what springs to mind, if you write, if you write frustration on the bullets,
the, the business financing software. Oh, okay. Um, the support channel is excellent, but. Um, it’s just not, it’s just not a language that I speak. So I think if I am, if, when I’m frustrated, it’s most often when I’m trying to make Xero reconcile.
[00:53:32] Brendon Le Lievre: Yeah. Finances. I understand that. Uh, if you could recommend one book besides curiosity that everyone should read, what would the book be?
[00:53:41] James Young: Oh,
Brendan. That’s next to impossible. Um, Oh, say just one, just one. Can I have an author? You can have an author, a few Simon Winchester, Simon, Winchester.
[00:54:04] Brendon Le Lievre: Yeah. What do you most admire in your counterparts?
[00:54:12] James Young: Their?
Their optimism and their life learning philosophy.
[00:54:20] Brendon Le Lievre: And what is your favorite coaching question
[00:54:24] James Young: that I ask? Well, that I’ve been asked?
[00:54:27] Brendon Le Lievre: Either or.
[00:54:28] James Young: Ah, um,
my favorite coaching question that I ask is what would you like to get out of this time? And I feel. Uh, the way they’re the why their recipients respond is like they’ve got a little, not that I’m a genie, but it’s like, they’ve been given a genie lantern to rub and they’ve got, they can ask for three wishes that looked, they look, it’s and I’m no genie, but they look excited.
[00:55:05] Brendon Le Lievre: Yeah. If you weren’t a coach, what would you be?
[00:55:15] James Young: Probably, um,
I don’t know. Um, if I wasn’t a coach, I’d probably, probably be. I’d probably just been cafe. Like if money was no option, I’d probably just be in cafes a lot, talking to people. Um, I love people’s stories. Um, they’re just endless and I’d just do that. If that was, if you know, you didn’t have to earn a living. Yeah.
[00:55:56] Brendon Le Lievre: And final question then, if you could tell your younger self anything, what would you say.
[00:56:02] James Young: I’d say the wisdom is actually in the room. It’s really, truly easy in the room. Deleted numbers in the room. Yeah.
[00:56:10] Brendon Le Lievre: Wonderful. Well, thank you James, for joining us
[00:56:13] James Young: Oh thank you, Brendan. That was absolutely fun. And, um, let’s do it again.