The UpLevel Podcast
In the first year of the pandemic, the global prevalence of anxiety and depression increased by a massive 25%. And employers with workers who are experiencing mental health issues spend more than $5,500 on average in turnover costs per year per employee. In addition, according to a late 2021 Gallup Survey; 85% of employees are experiencing a level of disengagement at their workplaces, and 73% are actively looking for new employment. The Great Resignation for many has become The Great Realization. It’s clear that mental health, well-being in the workplace, and having an up-leveled consciousness are more important than ever, both for individuals themselves and for organizations.UpLevel Productions is committed to ending the stigma around mental health as well as humanizing the workplace to create cultures of well-being which is why we create content, experiences, and trainings that develop leaders who make our world a healthier, more alive and connected place to be. Each series in the podcast shares stories, knowledge, and know-how from experts in leadership, wellness, mental health, and the humanization of the workplace and our schools.
The UpLevel Podcast
“Cultivating Connection: How Coaching Enriches Leadership and Belongingness in the Workplace” with Rich Jones
This week on The UpLevel Podcast, we welcome a Wellness & Career Coach, a Masters track and field athlete, and the founder of Find More Balance, Rich Jones. Rich shares his journey of expanding leadership through developing himself as a coach and using coaching tools to encourage a sense of belonging within organizations. He also touches on personal reflection, recognizing capacities, and embracing one's achievements.
If you’re a leader who hasn’t yet embraced the principles and skills of coaching, this conversation might inspire you to take the leap! Tune in now!
In This Episode:
- Rich's Journey: From coach training to applying those skills as an internal leader at his organization
- Expanding Belonging: The importance and methods of encouraging a sense of belonging in today’s diverse workplace
- Personal Capacity & Reflection: Recognizing one’s limits while appreciating accomplishments
- Coaching Frameworks: How listening deeply can uncover true issues beyond surface-level problems
- Defining Coaching: It's about helping people discover their answers and empowering them along the way
- Impactful Experiences with Coaches: A powerful story about Rich's former manager who guided him through career decisions using coaching principles
About Rich:
Rich Jones is a Wellness & Career Coach and the founder of Find More Balance, a coaching and content company dedicated to helping individuals achieve their full potential. In his day job at Google, Rich serves as a Retention and Progression Consultant in the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging space, where he passionately coaches and advocates for employees, driving meaningful change within the organization.
Beyond his professional endeavors, Rich is a masters track and field athlete and a two-time national champion, showcasing his commitment to excellence both on and off the field. A personality development junkie, Rich continuously seeks growth, not only for himself but for those he coaches and mentors.
Website: http://www.findmorebalance.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/richrunstrack
Threads: https://www.threads.net/@richrunstrack
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@richrunstrack
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We have this technology and so many people lead and live through fear and scarcity, and they really don't need to. And I know you, Christy. When you get to this place, where you know you're living from a place of purpose, things come to you. Life is easier. The right people are brought to you at the right time, it's very clear what should be done, and then you know, you get. Then you get notifications along the way that you're on the right path, signals, and it's sad for me that people have to live without knowing it. So to me, this is so important to get this into their hands if they want it. Like you know, we don't have to evangelize, they don't have to take it, but it is available.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Up Level podcast, the podcast that makes our world a healthier, more alive and connected place to be.
Speaker 3:After listening, you'll have practical tools you can start using right away to up-level the world around you. We're your hosts, Christy Mann and Rachel Baldi. Away to up-level the world around you. We're your hosts, Christy Mann and Rachel Baldi. Let's up-level now.
Speaker 3:Joni Maher is a highly respected, results-focused executive coach who enhances the performance, influence and relationships of global business leaders and their teams. By elevating the conscious mindsets of leaders, her clients report achieving unparalleled performance with greater success and satisfaction. Joni has been working globally for 20 years. From her home base in Vancouver, she coaches C-suite executives, gms, country managers and directors in Asia, europe and North America in almost every industry sector, and she now divides her time between Asia and North America, coaching and facilitating leadership development programs. She's a master certified coach since 2007, with almost 20,000 coaching hours. Joni is among the top 4% of the world's credentialed coaches who have been awarded the International Coaches Federation's highest professional designation. She's a senior corporate faculty member of the world's leading coach training school, the Coactive Training Institute. She's a member of Google's elite mastery faculty, the Foundation for Medical Excellence, and is an executive coach for the Conscious Business Leadership Academy. Working on large-scale transformational projects, joni developed a global leadership program for 1,000 leaders per year for a global consulting firm. This two-year program has as its red thread conscious leadership, the universal leadership model and applying a coaching style leadership which is all delivered and designed coactively. She has multiple long-term partnerships with Fortune 100 companies, where she and her team of coaches train hundreds of their global leaders to apply coaching mindsets and skills in their leadership. Several of the companies have been awarded the ICF Prism Awards for their high standard coaching programs and drive meaningful change. So some of her clients include Google, government of Canada, deloitte, microsoft, procter Gamble. Google, government of Canada, deloitte, microsoft, procter Gamble, royal Bank of Canada and University of BC. One of her innovative programs for a global Fortune 500 company also received a prestigious Brandon Hall Executive Silver Award in Talent Management for Best in Coaching and Mentoring. Prior to coaching, joni was nominated Canadian Women Entrepreneur of the Year by one of Canada's largest banks, was an international award-winning television journalist for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, cbc, and the co-chair of the Women's Enterprise Centre, a Canadian federal lending and training institution for women entrepreneurs. She is a certified professional co-active coach, an organization and relationship systems coach and a certified neurotransformational coach and accredited practitioner of the leadership circle and collective leadership assessment. Okay, one more thing she's also the author of Inspired Business Approach, which is a practical business guide for entrepreneurs. It's an American university business textbook and has been a columnist on workplace issues for a Vancouver Daily Newspaper. She holds degrees in journalism, psychology and sociology. She and her husband are proud parents to five adult children and one grandchild. A recent empty nester, joni really misses being a hockey mom. She loves gardening. An empty nester, joni really misses being a hockey mom. She loves gardening, latin dancing and travel.
Speaker 3:Okay, so get ready for a little bit of Joni and I gushing over each other. Joni was one of my very first trainers when I went through coach training. She's had a very profound impact on my journey and so you're going to hear a little bit about that. You are going to tap into what this bio just said right, the wealth of education, of trainings, of certifications and then application of these to leaders in the workplace. We're going to get into talking about this project that was mentioned, this big global project, some of the ROI of that, and how to really work in different geographical regions across the globe, how to work in wellness across the globe. We're also going to touch on a little bit of Joni's heritage lineage, talking about some ancestral wounds and how being on the quest that she is to bring the work that she is bringing to Asia is supporting in some of the healing of that ancestral wound.
Speaker 3:All right, thanks for tuning in Uplevelers. I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did and thank you, joni, for being with us. Welcome to the podcast, joni Moore. Thank you, Christy Mann. I'm so excited to be here with you and your listeners. I'm so excited.
Speaker 3:I have been longing for this day.
Speaker 3:You know, you actually helped kick us off the Uplevel event series during the pandemic, when we were calling on different colleagues and leaders to bring some of their guidance and wisdom during those early days where everybody was just in it, and so thank you for the contribution you've made to date to well, it's not just to this podcast but to my life, and I know that this is going to come out as we talk, so the stories will come out.
Speaker 3:So, folks who are listening, joni Marr is one of my very first co-active trainers. She is one of my beloved elders and she is a master certified coach. You heard it all in the bio, but beyond that, she's a beautiful human who we're going to tell you about some of the origin stories as we go. So, joni, in this context of the ROI of coaching in the workplace, you are one of my colleagues who went first, who brought coaching inside organizations, who has been steadfast in consistently bringing in coaching as a methodology to grow leaders, to support organizations to run more effectively, to be more profitable. How do you define coaching?
Speaker 1:Yes, well, I probably disarm the participants when we're doing a coach training inside an organization, because one of the things I say is coaching is two human beings, completely unmasked, having an honest, authentic conversation for the benefit of one person, which is the coachee. But the coach gets like a thousand times more back by being there witnessing this human being and their spirit come alive, their genius, just kind of like open up and just the fulfillment of being a supporter in somebody else's growth and development.
Speaker 3:Okay, I just feel like I need to go there right now because I remember a process coaching course, which is the fourth course in the co-active curriculum, and you and Signe Wilson were my trainers and you had me on the center of the floor getting in touch with what I can't be with. That was one of the most transformative moments of my life and it continues to grow me, work me, influence me. Oh Well, there is another little SAS book that's all about loneliness and I haven't had capacity yet to fully birth it. It's written, it's illustrated and it's dedicated to you and Zigny.
Speaker 1:Oh, no way, yeah, yeah. So, wow, well, christy, I've just first of all blown away and that's not where I expected this to go, because I'm thinking about you on the floor in that process course, sitting on the floor, and I knew there's so much in this human being and, like wanting to squeeze it out like toothpaste, you know all of your goodness, your beauty and your innovation. I tell you, you are a woman who, when you say you want to manifest something or make something happen, boom there, it is like up level this organization. Secondly, the podcast. Right, oh, I'm going to just try this pilot. And now, look at you. I should be interviewing you.
Speaker 3:Well, you are actually a CBC broadcast journalist. That's where you started your coaching, so I'm sure we'll share that baton. But thank you, thank you for seeing me that day. That's almost two decades ago. We're coming. Well, it was 2007. And what I couldn't be with is loneliness, and I think I forgot to say that context, that there's another book on that emotion. I still struggle with being with loneliness, but your, your way of being with me, I mean it was fierce. Joni folks, this is a fierce coach. You know she is going to hold you far bigger than you hold yourself. And you were holding me fiercely in that you were giving me experience of what I couldn't be with, like to really tap into the loneliness and it transformed me and it continues to. I'm still working on it.
Speaker 1:Yes, it is a lifelong journey, isn't it? Yeah, however, I hope that you have a lot more capacity and compassion for yourself.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm working on it.
Speaker 1:And I know that actually you being with this more, you have more capacity for others in your life.
Speaker 3:Yes, well, that's you know. That's one of the, I think, the reasons why us and our colleagues do this work because, yes, we get to serve others and grow them, but we are continually growing it, because we have to, like you said, to grow our capacity to serve more. Joni, what got you into this profession? What was the bridge from journalism and all the other fascinating things you've done before this profession?
Speaker 1:Yeah, thank you. Well, really, coaching isn't much different than being a journalist, except instead of interrogating people with an assumption, now I actually have to put the assumption aside and be very curious. My background is brain and behavior. I have a psychology degree and I really use that in my journalism right To really understand what was the motivator. That's really what we do in coaching, right. What motivates you, and bringing to the surface so that somebody can look at oh yeah, what is motivating me, Because it's often unconscious.
Speaker 3:So how did you find the Coactive Training Institute Like? How did you get your training?
Speaker 1:You got a psychology degree and then Well, yes, and then I was a journalist. And then I was going through a divorce, actually. I was going through a divorce, actually, and I decided I had to transform my entire life. I had two young children and I didn't want to go back to university and I thought, well, what could I do? And so I went to a career counseling program and they said there's really nothing you could do with all of your training. You know, there's very limited things you could do which one would be a professional speaker, but there's no way I wanted to be away from the kids. So this woman offhandedly said she was the career counselor. You know, I've been taking these coaching courses and it sounds like it might be a fit for you.
Speaker 1:So I did do a lot of research and then I went to the fundamentals, which was money back guarantee. And still to this day, 24 years later, it's still money back guarantee. And day two of the three-day program I went that is my new career. How do I do what they're doing and how do I become one of them? And so, three years later, I became a faculty member of the Coactive Training Institute. I met amazing people like our colleagues and then had participants like yourself, and it's just, it gets better and better every year. No kidding, what do you most love about this profession? There are no two human beings that are the same, so every conversation with every human being is completely different, so I have to be awake and present with that person in that moment. So it demands a lot of me, and it's always exciting and inspiring, because that's how human beings are when you see the best in them.
Speaker 3:And did you always love humans like the way that you do and the way that you just described?
Speaker 1:No, I didn't, because I didn't love myself.
Speaker 3:Okay, what can you share about that journey?
Speaker 1:Well, I have my own coach to thank, who I worked with for 12 years. Wow, I was not able to receive myself. So I grew up in a world where and in a culture I'll say in my family culture where you're as good as what you do. So I was always chasing okay, I've got. You know, to get love, I have to be better, I have to perform, I have to get A oh A's not good enough, I got to get A plus, et cetera. A lot of it was in my own head, but I was socialized that way. That's the way you know. Just the family was organized and of course, it's intergenerational, and so I had to break that for myself.
Speaker 3:And so how is coaching both offering it, training people in it and receiving it? How has that helped you break that generational trauma, if I may, or wound?
Speaker 1:maybe that's a better word. Yeah, wound, it's true, and you know we are all and I still am wounded and I keep having to recover, but having the grace and the compassion for someone else who's hard on themselves. So I work with really driven, high-performing leaders who are just always as good as the last thing and I got to be better. So they're always pushing harder and losing sight of their whole life because it's only one part and this is how they define themselves and that's how I define myself.
Speaker 3:So, because you've had this lived experience, it makes you a really powerful leader, coach, trainer, facilitator for that particular audience. Because you've walked in those shoes.
Speaker 1:I try, yeah, you know, and I hope also that they can see that relationship is just as important as getting those results, because oftentimes they come because they damage relationships or they don't understand what's happened. They can't understand or see that maybe they've stepped all over someone in order to get their own personal needs met, which is, you know, I've got to win.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Well, can we talk about this in the context of being an Asian immigrant to? Well, you weren't, specifically, but your grandmother, my goodness. And the story is so inspiring. If you will be willing to share a little bit about your lineage, and then let's navigate to what's inspired you to bring this work into Asia, because clearly there's a link, so please tell us that story.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm fifth generation Canadian and so my grandmother was born here but growing up she was told she wasn't Canadian and she's a phenomenal matriarch of our family. She unfortunately passed in January, but this woman my grandmother, and she's just still influences me today. She's so inspiring, strong and feisty, yet so loving and caring and intuitive. Like really honestly, it's like she is the co-active model, if I could. I mean she just is able to be present with you and she remembers everything. And she's gone through so many hardships as a widow in the 1940s, raising six children on her own I mean, as a single mom myself, I know how hard that is. I cannot imagine what it would have been like back in those days when Chinese were not allowed to go to university, really were not employable, and how she did it, and did it with such dignity and how she did it and did it with such dignity.
Speaker 3:What were some of the qualities you saw in her that you believed helped her to navigate that she?
Speaker 1:believed in herself that she could do it and she just put her head down and just did it. She never complained. And you know, when you have six humans to feed, you know you do what it takes. You do what it takes, exactly exactly.
Speaker 3:So what's the connection here between your work around bringing coaching and CoActive into Asia? You know?
Speaker 1:I actually haven't. Here's the best I can do, because I don't know why I have this strong calling. Except for that, my great, great great grandfather was missionary from China, came through Hong Kong to Canada, and I'm completing the loop, the circle, so I'm bringing this technology back there.
Speaker 3:I just got a full body chills and full body buzz. What's it like to be completing an ancestral lineage circle.
Speaker 1:I don't think about it in those terms. We relaunched the first English fundamentals course, coaching course, in Shanghai. I had been going back and forth commuting every month for the last 10 years and, of course, during COVID, we hadn't led in-person courses and some of those participants had waited four years for this course Wow. So I just feel there's a need and there's a want. I'm not imposing it. They want it and I could see them in the classroom all sitting there, like really, you know, present and engaged and focused, hanging on every word. What is this? How do I use it? Many of the people want to increase their emotional intelligence, their social intelligence, their ability to connect with their families and their employees at work, because most of the people who are in our program are professional I'll say mostly HR leaders and they really want to make a difference in their organizations. They're working in multinational organizations.
Speaker 3:So what's it been like for you to be a shepherd of this work for these people and for this culture?
Speaker 1:So I'll just tell on myself. Remember how I told you how it was hard for me to love myself? I hear you saying these words and they feel too grand, so I'm awkward with that. I'll say I've been placed there and it feels like I'm being well used. It feels like it's the right thing and I feel like this is what I should be doing.
Speaker 3:Hmm, yeah, what's moving you right now about this quest?
Speaker 1:you're on, we have this technology and so many people lead and live through fear and scarcity, and they really don't need to. And I know you, christy. When you get to this place, where you know you're living from a place of purpose, things come to you. Life is easier. The right people are brought to you at the right time, it's very clear what should be done, and then you know, you get sort of like notifications along the way that you're on the right path signals, and it's sad for me that people have to live without knowing it. So to me this is so important to get this into their hands if they want it. Like you know, we don't have to evangelize, they don't have to take it, but it is available.
Speaker 3:It's so important what you're doing is available. It's so important what you're doing and you're definitely the right person to be bringing it in, and it's been a decade that you've been on this quest. So, from this here now, in what are we? 2024, if you look back at Joni Marr in 2014, what would you say to that leader in 2014,? What would you say to that leader, that coach, that human, about the quest she was preparing to go on, the journey she was packing her bags for?
Speaker 1:Well, that's a great question, Christy Mann, because I came to you. I came to you and some of the other leaders and elders. I came to you and some of the other leaders and elders people I respected in CTI and asked if I could open Hong Kong. Could I, you know, launch this there, and not you? But some of the other people were saying we've tried for five years, we can't do it. But I just felt like we had to be there and you know it was hard.
Speaker 1:It took two years, but we got our first fundamentals launched. We led three in-person complete series before the pandemic and then we had to move to online. So that's what I'm saying. I mean, I just thought what am I doing? This is off the side of my desk. This is not something I'm paid for, but why do I feel like I need to do this? Yeah, then I didn't get my answer for several years later when I heard back from the participants who had gone all the way through to get their CPCC right. That's a year's worth of training in our program and half of them did it just so they could be better parents, because they didn't really know how to connect and reach out to their children.
Speaker 3:I got the full body chills again. So this is an important thing I want to pull out for listeners. So if you are inside an organization and you're a decision maker about bringing coach training in for your managers or individual contributors, having your managers and leaders feel more equipped to be better parents is going to make them more effective leaders and managers. It's going to improve the workplace exponentially. So Joni just gave us some hardcore data there. That's incredible. That's so inspiring.
Speaker 1:Yeah, those people were so inspiring, those participants, those parents. I know they're also going to be better partners. They're also going to be better leaders, because the people who come to our courses are leaders, and so what they learn and how to be with their children, they will be with their staff, their employees, their peers. So you know, really, this is this the work that each one of us does has a ripple effect to everyone. We touch Everyone. So could I add something there, christy? Please add, because it is not lost on me. Please add, because it is not lost on me and I would like the listeners to get this too Is, I think when I do this work, I'm thinking about the next generations. So those children of those parents are going to be employees at one point or leaders. So how they were parented is how they're going to lead and how they're going to be in relationship with other people in the workplace. So we are supporting the next generation to be successful.
Speaker 3:That's so important and I really, at Apple level, we really want to inspire more organizations to think that way. How are we preparing the next generation? By what we offer our employees, how we grow them as humans, as leaders, how we support them in their well-being. We know that coaching whether they're receiving it there's coaching services available to them or they're being trained in it it is going to make the work environment more engaging, more productive, but from a healthy place. So you know, I'm just always plugging the ROI of coaching in the workplace, like it's just, it's there's, it's like an octopus and there are so many tentacles to it, some that, because the profession is still somewhat new, even though we're into its third decade, there's not enough data yet. And you're just talking about this generation that's receiving the training who are going to parent the next generation?
Speaker 1:So yeah, yeah, yeah, there is a for the current leaders.
Speaker 1:Why this kind of approach in leadership is also important is because we never had a workforce that spans so many generations.
Speaker 1:And so, if I think about the boomers, who are very senior and experienced in their role, they don't want to be told what to do, told what to do, but if you use a coach approach and ask them, you know what's fulfilling for you or how could you be more effective, or you know how can you use these last few years to leave a legacy. You know, using that approach really speaks to them. And, on the other end, gen Z and again, I don't, you know, it's not like the whole generation is this way, but those who the whole generation is this way, but those who have grown up as the first digital natives, they actually they know all that they need to know and they could look it up. So really, what they like is to be supported in terms of what is your purpose and what do you want to accomplish and what does success look like to you versus? Let me tell you what it should look like. So, honestly, this works for all people, because all of us want to be valued and respected.
Speaker 3:There's two places I want to go, okay. So first I want to take it back to your grandmother, okay, 113 years old when she passed. My goodness, what a tremendous legacy. And you articulated a little bit about maybe a wound in the family. How has serving in this way and doing work in this way in Asia over the past decade supported you to heal?
Speaker 1:that wound Serving and recognizing that I do have value to bring and it's just in my being. I don't have to actually achieve something, don't have to win something, don't have to get an A Not that she ever said that to me, by the way. So I don't want to, you know, mischaracterize her, but I think that that's the milieu that I will say. As a Chinese Canadian I was raised in, so friends, even their families, and of course not every family is that way, but in my family, yeah, yeah, yeah, and of course, as immigrants. So my mother, on my mother's side, she's a second generation Canadian and you know, I think when you're trying to find your footing in a culture where you're the minority and it's not equitable, you know you do what you need to do to survive and to be accepted. So I assimilated a lot instead of standing up for who I am.
Speaker 3:And so the work that you've been doing. What I'm hearing it's having you reclaim a lot of your identity and, specifically, like you're in Asia doing this work. Is that a fair statement?
Speaker 1:Or yes, and it's complex because I really am a foreigner in both lands over there. I'm not Chinese and over here, you know, I look like I'm not Canadian. So it's holding the paradox and being okay with holding the paradox.
Speaker 3:Which is so significant in the times that we're living through right now, right, supporting people, humans, leaders to grow, our capacity to hold paradox yeah, how are you seeing that coming into play? That like capability, if you will, inside leaders or with leaders inside organizations being able to hold paradox, being able to hold complexity.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I think we go to where our comfort zone is, and for many leaders it's get the results, get the business results, and then my job is secure, I know where I fit, I'm in control. Relationships are a lot more complex so I can't quite do that as effectively or quickly or as expediently as I like. So the paradox of holding results and relationships together, that is sort of like the best of everything and it's of course not always 50-50, it's what is needed in that moment and being able to be fluid.
Speaker 3:We need more of this everywhere. I feel like this has been a big place where humanity has fallen down Our inability to do what you just said. So more of this work. It's not easy and it does. It takes a real level of consciousness and with consciousness there's like a level of energy that's needed to hold the pose, if you will. You know, to really hold that pose, hold the focus, hold the screen, and it takes time to build that energy and that muscle to be looking there.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, and I think what a coach approach whether you're receiving coaching, whether you're giving coaching, whether you're just getting coach training inside an organization gives you that pause. If we could just stretch out the time between some incident happening and our response to it, the space in between those two things is what gives us the moment to recover from our limbic system back to our prefrontal cortex and make a conscious and intentional choice. But our fast paced organizational like the speed of things, the complexity, the stress makes us just like, okay, I got to just get it done, get it done, get it done. And we're not playing a longer game where we're developing our relationships with people so that we have not just one way of looking at things and solving things. We can go out to a community or a team and have different perspectives. It might take longer, but we definitely get a more conscious, intentional and probably a better result because it had all this diversity that was considered in making the result. Beautifully said.
Speaker 3:I'm still pulling the thread of how I see the work that you do is healing that lineage wound, because this, who you've become in the work that you do and that you offer, is a model of what you just said, like.
Speaker 3:One of the things I so admire about you is that you always stay in relationship when there might be bumps in the road or potential conflict, or you ensure that all the stakeholders are aware of this thing's happening right now and you come in with a very neutral lens. But what you're steadfast on, from my perspective, is the transparency and ensuring all stakeholders are aware this is happening, this could have this impact and it's like you raise the flags and the impact of that on me and I know many of our colleagues and the folks that you serve is that I could trust Joni anymore. You are so trustworthy. You lead with such integrity, such grace and the relationship piece like you just described. So I'm just also seeing how you continue to heal this wound by who you be and how you show up, not just what you're offering and you're teaching.
Speaker 1:I just made a connection in your coaching there, christy. I just made a connection in your coaching there, christy. So it's the wound of shame, the shame of not being a white male.
Speaker 3:Perhaps you know in a culture where that is the dominant Identity, the dominant identity.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and being raised as you know, like don't make too much noise, don't draw attention to yourself, you know you don't want to, you don't, you don't want to create any backlash, and and for me to be able to step into my own space and say, actually I do belong here and I am okay, I can be safe and trust myself. That's been a very long journey and I wouldn't doubt that many other human beings of many other cultures have something like that going on inside, for whatever reason, because we all are human and we all have some sort of wound all have some sort of wound.
Speaker 3:Most definitely, most definitely. Oh yeah, I mean my one of my saboteurs. You know her, her name is Miss Perfect Pants and some of our listeners would have heard about her and there's a similar energy where it's just like, yeah, it's dotting, eyes crossing, t's making sure everything's perfect and constant, constant doing and generating, and there can be such a negative impact of I get burnt out, those around me may not feel like they're in relationship with me anymore because she's driving the bus and forcing, like her level of excellence and her pace onto others. So, yes, this like we are all working to heal the wounds. You know where they come from our culture, our family, like it's just the systems that were raised it and how it impacts our identity. I mean, it is, it's significant.
Speaker 3:I'm so glad that you found this work. It found you, and just to see over the past 25 years right, you're coming to 25 years of how you've been expressing it in your unique way is super inspiring. So this is a good segue into talking about one of the exciting new ventures you're on. You are co-developing, developing a global leadership program for 1,000 leaders per year. It's a two-year program and it has as its red thread, conscious leadership, which I'm really curious about that, and the universal leadership model and applying a coaching style leadership, and it's all been delivered coactively, so please share more about that and in the context of what is the return on investment that this organization is seeing and that these leaders going through the program are seeing.
Speaker 1:Thank you. Being two years in development, and one of my KPIs, I'll say is that, as we're designing this program, all of us actually have to be conscious in our leadership as we're designing, so that we're passing this on to the learners when they come to the program. So what I mean by that is we're very conscious about what we're saying to one another. We're in right relationship with one another. We're not just getting the project done. We're in our first round of delivery here. We just started delivering October 2023. And we deliver in Asia, north America and Europe and the leaders are saying oh my gosh, I need to be a leader. I thought I actually just needed to just, you know, hit my targets. Oh, I'm supposed to actually develop my team. Oh, wow, I just never realized that actually I have a role and a responsibility inside this organization to develop those who are junior than me, not just actually hit my own goals. Success is the team dynamic.
Speaker 1:So what we're trying to do, using the universal leadership model and this conscious leadership, is take a pause, and what are you trying to achieve? What is the we, what is the system needs? Not just what you need or what your goals and deliverables are. We're also using a coach approach to talk about how you support others to grow and develop. You're not the leader in front telling others how they to grow and develop. You're not the leader in front telling others how they should grow and develop Amazing. So we're completely trying to shift the mindset of these leaders. And these are senior managers, so you know they're not junior leaders or high potentials.
Speaker 3:So how's it like? How's it going? What are you noticing as the like account holder of this significant contract? Congratulations.
Speaker 1:They're very open to it, but they're very skeptical at first because it's completely different from what they have been told up to this point. The participants I mean the learners and it's taking some time to shift the culture. I mean, this is a very large organization, it's not easy to change and I'll say that it's been a little tough to be out in front.
Speaker 3:Well, and I'd be curious, if there's anything maybe it's too early anything you can share about delivering in these different regions, Any themes that you're noticing?
Speaker 1:Themes, I'd say that everyone comes in a little bit like prove it to me or show me, yeah, and different regions actually receive it differently. I noticed that Asia is much more receptive. North America might be a little bit more skeptical. So we just have to meet the learners where they are. That's the key is, we're not trying to convince them. They have to see the benefit for themselves, and that really is a coach approach, and that's why we're delivering it in this way that they get to test it, they get to try it. We give them the theories, they practice it. So it's very immersive and experiential.
Speaker 1:And at the end I'd say that you know there are some early adopters and there are some people that you know they'll have to try it back in their role to see the difference. You know, test it for themselves, yeah. So you're right, it is a little bit early, we don't have a lot of data, but so far the feedback has been excellent and they're just grappling with it. So if we think about conscious leadership for a moment, most of us are reactive by nature because the brain is trying to protect us. Leadership for a moment Most of us are reactive by nature because the brain is trying to protect us, so it's healthy for them to be skeptical and to not trust it and do their own research.
Speaker 3:But when they buy in, they will have bought in on their own accord, and that's what we want. What are the measurements of success for this program?
Speaker 1:Yeah, retention in the organization, not just for the leaders that are there but also their teams, balancing relationship and results, like I was saying. So that you know, this particular organization is well known for having good relationships with its clientele, so maybe even more effectively in their relationships with their stakeholders external, but more importantly also how they treat their internal teams, not burning them out, keeping them whole, keeping the system healthy, understanding the dynamic that's going on and being outward looking, not just inward focused.
Speaker 3:Brilliant. I mean, that's the ROI of coaching in the workplace. Right there? Right Retention, having people focus on relationship not just for results, but being able to hold both, and more self-awareness so that they're aware of their impact, so that they can lead more effectively and adopt different styles for different audiences, different people, different cultures. This is super exciting. Congratulations on this engagement.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's been very rewarding.
Speaker 3:What's been rewarding about it?
Speaker 1:Well, you know, I'm sort of like a junkie for self-development, personal growth, and I have had to really keep recovering to consciousness myself because I go reactive um. I'm on a global team, so our calls are midnight till 2 am and two, three times a week, and then I work in the um pacific time zone. So you know I'm getting up for an eight o'clock meeting. So it's been very taxing, very stressful for me. I'm sleep deprived as well as I'm doing my other projects. So I keep having to, okay, check myself, check myself, of course, correct, and the key is doing it without shaming myself.
Speaker 3:There you go, there's the healing, the lineage wound. There again I did. I wanted to ask you about that because I know for the past decade, especially during the pandemic, you were leading courses in the Asian time zone. So, and you're saying you're sleep deprived we had two weeks recently Rachel and I were I were leading courses in Asia and I was just thinking how is this what I reached out to? I'm like how does Joni do this? For a decade, because I kind of lost the plot a little bit. The lack of sleep and just feeling the best way I can describe it is I felt kind of hung over a lot and I don't even drink anymore. So I was like this sucks. So like how are you navigating? Because we do have people listening who are holding or intending to hold global accounts, global projects, work in different time zones because they have a quest, like you did, to serve different audiences from where they live. How are you doing this? How are you doing this and are you doing it in wellness?
Speaker 1:Great question, christy. So before I would just force myself, this is pre-healed or pre-pre-healed I would just force myself. Okay, I got to get up, I got to start my eight o'clock calls blah, blah, blah, blah, blah do my day, know I have this mission. So I'm doing this off the side of my plate or my desk and I'm just going to do it Now with grace for myself. Okay, I have to go for a walk, I have to take a nap. In the afternoon.
Speaker 1:I'm going to eat a specific kind of food at dinner, you know so my husband's fantastic. He makes me, you know, this huge salad and just making sure I'm making healthy choices. I it does cramp the social part of my life because you know I'm here in the evenings and that's been hard. But you know, once you get on a mission and once you're invested into a program with all these other stakeholders, I'm pretty committed. Yeah, so I will say that I do. I will give myself the day off or I will, and when I travel, I'll try and take two or three days off. You know, whatever destination I'm in and it really does feed me. Yeah, off, you know, whatever destination I'm in and it really does feed me the people who I'm working with in Asia are so grateful and so appreciative. It just doesn't feel like work. So yeah, I'm trying, christy.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and when I get from that.
Speaker 1:I'm not going to tell you otherwise.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm sure I mean they'll always be the critics, but what I hear is like the lesson I'm pulling from is our purpose, our missions, our quests. We can really let them fuel us to help us find the energy, the right partners. What are the practices that this quest will have me practice so that I am an integrity with even what I'm teaching? That's what I hear you've been doing and you've been working this way for a decade, so I know you've been allowing yourself to be a learner in it and sometimes do it brilliantly, sometimes not so brilliantly, but it's really great to see you in this place. It's like you are in a whole nother vantage point of your quest. From when I spoke to you last, I see you now up on the balcony looking at it. I'm assuming there's more account managers and people holding relationships, that you've probably infused your Joni Marr-ness into them, right, so you could step back a little bit more. Anyways, that's what I'm making up and that's what I'm hoping is happening.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, more into managing the whole system as opposed to perhaps being on the ground. So we have lead faculty who were managing. In fact, we have one going on in Paris this week and I have somebody there who is taking responsibility on the ground, so that helps a tremendous amount. But let me tell you, when I added this third region in Europe, I mean I just didn't have the bandwidth for all of this. This was really hard and I've had to go to more workouts and doing them on Zoom with my trainer Amazing, trying to keep all those balls in the air. It's not easy Totally understand what all these leaders are going through.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, well, and that's just it. So for our listeners, who are practitioners and consultants and coaches, using Joni's experience as motivation, it's like, well, when we're juggling a quest like this, that's global, you're getting a lived experience of the folks that you're working with which can really help create that connection. You can bring in your personal stories, which we know in this work is so important. Doni, we're getting to the tail end, but I didn't want to leave our talk today without honoring your book that you co-wrote and co-authored with one of our beloved colleagues who's no longer with us, leslie Lipinski. And the book which I know when I started coaching, the Inspired Business Approach, was something I read I went through Leslie's course. It's a practical business guide for entrepreneurs, also an American university business textbook. Just tell us a little bit about that, like co-authoring it with Leslie, and like where are you now in your authorship? Because there's like so many more books that I'm I think can be birthed from Joni Moore. That's what I'm hearing. Okay.
Speaker 1:Well, here's the true story about this. This book is now very old. It's 2006, was our original publication date and I couldn't have done it without Leslie. Leslie really was love, like embodied. Every Monday she'd call me and she'd say so. You know, where are you with the book? Because I just would procrastinate on getting the chapter done and we both were serial entrepreneurs and we really wanted to get this out for coaches. How could you build a coaching business using just our experience? And, quite honestly, I took two months off work and sat on the back patio and just did it. Wow.
Speaker 1:And it started with clip art and you know, just like in the like, think about 2006,. What we were doing back then, yeah, but honestly, it just, you know, struck a chord. We wrote it in our own voice. It just was like tried to be something that just didn't appear in the marketplace and just like it was just hey, we have this thing, it is a mission, we're just going to put it out there and see what happens, and so that's all we did. We did not expect it was going to turn into a program going to be accepted by university, et cetera, et cetera. So, honestly, it's just following. You know that voice inside of you that says this needs to be out in the world and just seeing where it goes. And so here we are. I sold another copy just the other day. It's just like how many years now.
Speaker 3:Amazing, yeah, what a legacy. Yeah, yeah, it's a great book. So I do, I do, we'll put it in the show notes for folks who might be interested in it. But like, and then, just like a shout out, like you did to Leslie, we're so blessed to have colleagues like each other to co-create our missions and our purpose in the work, and I think that's part of what we're trying to do inside organizations is help individuals, managers, leaders get connected to their values and purpose so that the work that they're doing is coming from that, like that type of energy you know. And how does their individual purpose and values connect back to the organization? And who can they co-create with? Who in the organization or external clients, vendors, can they co-create with? That's one way for a more, you know, collaborative, co-active world.
Speaker 1:Yes, and as you say that, christy, what I'm thinking about is all the work that I've been able to create is not just from me, it's ideas from you, our other colleagues, everyone in our faculty community is very generous, very co-active in their heart, willing to share and give without expectation of anything in return. So we value the relationship. So you and I have the lived experience of having peers and colleagues who value relationships and they get the results. In fact, actually, the relationships help to multiply the results.
Speaker 3:In my experience, so, on that note, what are some of your final words? Guidance to this theme of the return on investment in coaching. Why would an organization make this investment from the lips of Joni Moore?
Speaker 1:Well, this is not for me, but at least two studies that I have seen show that coaching returns up to 800% return on investment. I mean, that's a reason to invest in itself, but also you get a return on impact and effectiveness. Leaders being more conscious, they act more intentionally, so there's less that they need to clean up afterwards. They're, they're, you know, like what you say at the outset is actually more intentional and, um, I hope, more authentic as well. Another thing I would say is that, um, the impact they have is they're more intentional in being a role model and in guiding other people in how to lead more effectively and to be an authentic leader.
Speaker 3:There you go. You heard it here, folks Right from Joni Maher, the ROI of coaching the workplace, and so many other important drops of wisdom. Joni, thank you for being with us today. I adore you, I love you, I respect you so much. How can people stay connected to you and learn more about your great work?
Speaker 1:Well, let's see. I guess LinkedIn. I am on Instagram. I think it's Joni Mar, I'm not really sure, but that's fun to you know. Be on Instagram LinkedIn, I guess, is probably the best way, yeah.
Speaker 3:And we'll put all that in the show notes as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. And Christy, I just really want to appreciate you, the work you, Rachel, are doing, just who you are as a human being, and you know our connection over the last 20 years. Yeah, you're a very special human being.
Speaker 3:I love you, Joni, I miss you. I want to get to Vancouver eventually and see you. Or maybe we'll find each other in Asia. Maybe that might be more accessible, I don't know. But yeah, or maybe Costa Rica you can. I think we'll do that. We'll do that because I'll be here. We can have a retreat, and you know, and just reconnect.
Speaker 1:What I love about Instagram and social media is that I can keep connected to all of our colleagues globally, and we really are so blessed to have one another, and so I really appreciate you. Thank you. Thank you, joni.
Speaker 3:Thanks for joining us this week. If you love this episode, please subscribe. Download a few more episodes and leave a review.
Speaker 2:Also, we'd love to hear what key takeaways you had from this episode. Be sure to reach out to us on social media. You can find us by searching for Uplevel Productions or looking for our handles in the podcast description.
Speaker 3:We truly appreciate you. Thank you for coming to learn, love and uplevel with us. Until next time.
