Pub. 10 2015-2016 Issue 6

www.nebankers.org 18 Extraordinary Service for Extraordinary Members. COACH’S CORNER Paula Pace of The Executive Development Group focuses on communication within businesses—a skill you rely on every day for the success of your organization. Consulting areas include coaching, training, and speaking. Contact her at (402) 430-0710. Danielle Crough, Ph.D., represents the SilverStone Group, a full- service, resource management organization offering customized services to meet business and private clients' specific needs. The Human Capital Division provides advice and direction to organizations to maximize the talent of their people through selection, coaching, training, teambuilding, and human resource consulting. Palm Trees and Broken-Down Escalators: Insights on Coaching From the Bank Executive Conference in Orlando Paula Pace & Danielle Crough O RLANDO IN FEBRUARY—PALM TREES, BLUE POOLS, golf courses calling your name. And in the midst of it all were down-to-earth, bank-healthy training sessions: information to increase bank knowledge, inspire ideas, and strengthen the footprint you have in your hometown. Paula Pace, The Executive Development Group, and Dr. Danielle Crough, Silverstone Group, presented the Friday ses- sion on executive coaching—a session where reality smacked up against possibility, and where bankers were encouraged to consider how executive coaching can help them address challenges today and into the future. We addressed: • How do you lead in a changing bank culture with sea- soned employees and new employees that span three and four generations? • What can you do as an internal coach to help your bank address current and future challenges? • Howdo you “let go” when an emerging star does things differently than you do, or when that young star is proposing action that is the opposite of what you have known to be successful? • How do you listen to ideas without judging, without shaking your head, without dismissing them? How do you embrace and consider ideas and people? • What do you do when someone resists coaching? • What strategies should you use when communicating with younger and older generations? So, what do you do when two or more generations collide, when some new employees set their own attendance policy in the midst of other employees who abide by the 9-5 rule? And how do you lead when so much of what needs to be done can be done at home, thus allowing an employee to leave early for his son’s baseball game? Although the work gets done and is sitting on your desk or laptop early the next morning, how do you manage in this new world? How does what we can do technically fit into what you have done successfully for so many years? How do you navigate this new world? And what of succession planning? You’ve identified the person who is best suited to fill your shoes, yet your succes- sor seems to have a mind of his or her own. Do you try to shape that person into the person you are? Or, do you work to grow the person into the leader needed by the bank of your community’s future? And what of teams and branches filled with possibility, yet are not working together as a unit? How do you pull them together? An outside executive coach can help you do all of the above. As we have mentioned before, we must first meet with people involved with the challenges as each is an individual quest for growth. We meet with you to identify how we can help you, or how you can help your staff. In some way, we all end up being a coach—perhaps in different degrees, but we do coach. When you do, consider: • How can you best listen to your staff, without judge- ment? • How can you talk to your staff, ask for what you need, and give direction? • How can you bring together two people, teams of people, or branches? • Howwell have you identified challenges ahead of you and your community? • How can you best build a bank to meet these chal- lenges? In Orlando, we discussed bringing in an outside coach as well as focusing on your skills as a coach. We discussed how to recognize a challenge and how to address it. So, next time you see someone who shared this session inOrlandowith you, be sure to ask him or her if people have been safely rescued from the broken-down escalator. If you missed Orlando, and are interested in coaching for you or your team, give us a call. 