The Remarkable Leadership Podcast

00:00:08:09 - 00:00:42:06
Kevin Eikenberry
Leadership and coaching are joined at the hip, but generally thought of as different skill sets. Today we're talking about leading with coaching, making it our approach to leading rather than being something we do in our role as a leader. Welcome to another episode of the Remarkable Leadership Podcast, where we are helping leaders like you grow personally and professionally to lead more effectively and make a bigger, positive difference for their teams, organizations and the world.

00:00:42:08 - 00:01:05:00
Kevin Eikenberry
If you are listening to this podcast in the future, you can join us live! Get this information sooner all on your favorite social media channel. If you want to learn about doing that, or just to get the inside scoop of what's going on with the Remarkable Leadership Podcast. You can join our Facebook or LinkedIn groups to get connected in that way.

00:01:05:05 - 00:01:33:17
Kevin Eikenberry
Just go to Remarkable podcast.com/facebook or remarkable podcast.com/linkedin. If you'll do that you'll be connected. You'll be in the know and in the future you can join us live. Today's episode is brought to you by my latest book, Flexible Leadership. Navigate uncertainty and lead with confidence. It's time to realize that styles can get in our way, and that following our strengths might not always be the best approach in a world more complex and uncertain than ever.

00:01:33:18 - 00:01:58:04
Kevin Eikenberry
Leaders need a new perspective and a new set of tools to create the great results their teams and organizations want and need. That's what flexible leadership provides you, but not until you get a copy. Learn more and order your copy now at remarkable podcast.com/flexible. And with that I'm going to bring in my guest. And here she is Luciana Nunez.

00:01:58:06 - 00:02:29:22
Kevin Eikenberry
She is the coauthor of this book Coaching Power and she's a partner and head of Americas at the Preston Associates, one of the world's premier executive coaching firms. She's an accomplished executive coach and former CEO with more than 20 years of leadership experience at fortune 500 companies, including Bayer, Danone and Roche. She blends her strategic expertise with a passion for mentoring, serving as a board member, investor, and advisor to entrepreneurs and executives worldwide.

00:02:30:00 - 00:02:39:23
Kevin Eikenberry
Today, she's the guest on the 509th episode of the Remarkable Leadership podcast Louisiana. Welcome. So glad that you're here.

00:02:40:01 - 00:02:42:22
Luciana Nunez
Thank you for having me. Thank you for having me.

00:02:43:00 - 00:03:05:15
Kevin Eikenberry
So, I'm guessing growing up in Argentina, if I remember correctly, you didn't think. Well, I am. My life's work is. I'm going to be a coach and I'm going to write a book. So tell us a little bit about the journey that leads you here. Just in short, maybe give us a little color that goes on top of what I already shared about you.

00:03:05:17 - 00:03:27:22
Luciana Nunez
First of all, thank you for noticing that the book is a short reference. So impressive that that you kept it. So, yeah, I grew up in Argentina and I started my corporate career back in, in roles in marketing, and I went through the corporate ladder, roles then at Bayer and Danone, expanding a little bit my, my repertoire of skills.

00:03:28:00 - 00:03:50:00
Luciana Nunez
And at some point, pretty late in my career, I was already in my mid 30s. I had a very clear brief from my boss at the time. It was a great the leaders and I had 3000 people in my scope, but that's point in time globally. And I thought, gee, how are we going to have great leaders from Mexico to Indonesia?

00:03:50:01 - 00:04:07:14
Luciana Nunez
And I decided that it was going to be through coaching and whatever I believe in something. I tend to take it pretty seriously. So I became a coach, thinking that I would just add it as a repertoire to my leadership style, to my leadership tools toolset. But I never thought that I would do it for for a living.

00:04:07:16 - 00:04:32:07
Luciana Nunez
And fast forward to 2018, when I decided to leave the corporate world, I took a sabbatical year off to define what I wanted to do with the second half of my life, and that's where coaching came back to the front and center of ooh, what if my life would be around coaching? And now, many years later, I could say it's the best job in the world when we get to work with leaders.

00:04:32:07 - 00:04:53:01
Luciana Nunez
But also, especially in my case, with teams, I do a lot of team coaching and you literally see in front of your eyes the power of coaching and how, let's say in a team offsite, you get a team that works with you for three days. They come a team, they leave in a magical state. Sometimes they come as a group.

00:04:53:03 - 00:05:16:03
Luciana Nunez
Honestly, they don't even come as a team. They're dysfunctional, having frictions, disconnected. There's personal tensions. There is misalignment strategically. And after just three days, they live in a state of cohesion, connection, trust and alignment. And then it's nothing short of magic to see it happen in front of your eyes. And that is no pun intended. The truth and power of coaching.

00:05:16:05 - 00:05:33:15
Kevin Eikenberry
Well, there you go. And of course, the book is called Coaching Power. So she's getting both of those keywords in there for us, everybody. So I'm curious though. So you've told us now about the, the leading, what led up to being a coach and how much you enjoyed doing it. Writing a book is another thing.

00:05:33:15 - 00:05:41:12
Kevin Eikenberry
Right? And so why why the book? And you wrote it with Tom Preston. Why the book?

00:05:41:14 - 00:06:02:00
Luciana Nunez
To be honest with you, the book came to us. We did not seek it out. And while the publisher of the book came to us, they did a bit of research and they said, look, we keep hearing your name as the source of what they had in mind, which was what they called the ultimate handbook for leaders that want to lead with a coaching style.

00:06:02:02 - 00:06:19:08
Luciana Nunez
So they pitched the book to us and we said, it's a long shot. We send the proposal for how we would approach it. And literally, I promise you, Kevin, this is a behind the scenes, by the way. I haven't told this story anywhere else, but we wrote the synopsis and we sent it right before Christmas and New Year and all that good stuff.

00:06:19:08 - 00:06:30:08
Luciana Nunez
And we forgot. We thought it was a long shot, right? And then in January, the publisher came back and they said, we'd love to do it with you. And then we went, oh no, we have to do it.

00:06:30:08 - 00:06:41:16
Kevin Eikenberry
Hint, hint. If they reach out to you, it is not a long shot. By definition, you are past long shot and now you know. And that's obviously what happened. I'm.

00:06:41:17 - 00:06:42:16
Luciana Nunez
I can't wait.

00:06:42:18 - 00:06:51:23
Kevin Eikenberry
So I just said don't forget because the odds are pretty good at that point. But listen, that's super exciting. And, and so then you had to oh my gosh.

00:06:51:23 - 00:07:10:17
Luciana Nunez
So that we have to write the book. So then we took it much more seriously and we just decided what the topics were going to be. We divided a little bit the chapters that each of us had affinity, and then we exchanged them so that we could cross fertilize the idea. So it was really a labor of love.

00:07:10:18 - 00:07:30:11
Luciana Nunez
And then at the end of the of the process, we got together in person to, to really hash it out and, you know, didn't go nick out on some of our processes and frameworks and tools. And we, to be honest with you, with Tom, we learned more about each other's style and secret sauce of, oh, this is how you deliver this framework.

00:07:30:11 - 00:08:03:21
Luciana Nunez
That's how I deliver it. And and in the process of writing it, we also had many of our coaches contribute with case studies that also enriched. And we're almost like a perfect fit to the to the topic, what we're talking about being powerful questions for active listening. So making it a little bit of a collective effort really amplified our ability to have different voices and different styles represented in the book, but also real life client examples, of course, anonymized and, and with with a little bit of a synthesis so that they could be easy to, to read.

00:08:03:21 - 00:08:20:09
Luciana Nunez
But the process was, to be honest with you, very enjoyable. And, and then we went through the editing and the publishing and now we're doing this fun part, which is to put it out there in the world and, and hopefully share with leaders that want to live with a coaching style why we hope it would make a difference for them.

00:08:20:11 - 00:08:36:04
Kevin Eikenberry
I want to come back to that last thing you said in just a second, but I wanted to share with people that, you know, if you if you read books and I'm guessing if you listen to this podcast or watching this live, you are if you have an affinity for books, and I'm presuming in some cases that you use this as the way to decide if I'm going to buy a book or not.

00:08:36:09 - 00:08:53:07
Kevin Eikenberry
One of the things I like about this book is you do have a lot of case studies, and it won't be seen very easily, but if you notice, it's easy when you're going through it to see the case studies because they're in gray, which is kind of nice because sometimes they're integrated and there's nothing wrong with that. But in this case, depending on your learning style, you might really like that.

00:08:53:07 - 00:09:18:00
Kevin Eikenberry
And, and that's a useful, useful thing. I will tell you now, it's my inside baseball time, that I get lots of books, pitched to us, some of which we never actually get copies of, some we ask for copies of, some get book copies, get sent on, on requested. But when I first looked at your book, the subtitle starts leading with coaching.

00:09:18:02 - 00:09:38:13
Kevin Eikenberry
And and to me, that's the thing that makes the. I mean, there's a tremendous amount of great stuff in here about coaching, right? But as I said in the intro, Luciana, the the idea of thinking about that the way I'm going to lead is by coaching is a different thing than saying, I need to, I want to be a good coach.

00:09:38:15 - 00:09:54:05
Kevin Eikenberry
And so I'm curious about I mean, we'll get into some tactical stuff and some skill stuff, but like, talk to me about the keys, the overarching keys to this idea of leading with coaching.

00:09:54:07 - 00:10:19:06
Luciana Nunez
The first thing I'll say is, now that the book is out there with realize that the the notion of leading with coaching really resonate, resonates with the leaders that have realized that the old command and control version of leadership is no longer effective. Right? You have to have felt that in the way you lead the the boss that tells you what to do and exactly how to do it, and bosses you around.

00:10:19:12 - 00:10:40:01
Luciana Nunez
That is no longer a boss that gets performance out of people. In a world where millennials and Gen Z ers want to be coached and they want to have the freedom to do things in their own way and find their own path, a boss that doesn't allow you or develop you into your full potential is just not going to cut it, to be honest with you.

00:10:40:03 - 00:11:00:02
Luciana Nunez
So the keys to leading with coaching first is you have to realize that, that there's something to manage. Sometimes with I always say there's three gears of leadership. There's a time to manage. You have to run up the sleeves and those things yourself. There's a time to leave, to set up the vision and to show people where to go and how to get there.

00:11:00:02 - 00:11:24:18
Luciana Nunez
But there's also a time to coach, because sometimes it's no longer about setting the vision. It's about showing the people that the answers are within themselves and coach them towards that direction. So then the keys to coaching are essentially two key skills that we really unpack in the book. The first one sounds a bit counterintuitive and is the importance of actively listening.

00:11:24:20 - 00:11:56:15
Luciana Nunez
The first thing you have to do to to lead with coaching and to be a good coach to your people is listen, there's the old expression of we have two ears and one mouth for a reason, and it's because listening is really the foundation of coaching. The second course cue is to ask powerful questions. So the point of why with coaching is important in a world where you can Google any answer, the leader that leads by thinking that all they can provide is having all the answers is obsolete.

00:11:56:17 - 00:12:20:03
Luciana Nunez
It's about asking the powerful questions that will get people to think, that will get people to inquire, to find different avenues and approaches. Coaching literally expands your thinking because it puts you in a place where you are the ones that implicitly have the answers within you, and the coach is there to guide the process of questions so that you get to the right answer.

00:12:20:03 - 00:12:35:18
Luciana Nunez
Because guess what? When the person that you're coaching, let's say, in this case team member, gets to their own authentic answer, their commitment to the follow through of making it happen is going to be exponentially stronger, right?

00:12:35:20 - 00:13:03:09
Kevin Eikenberry
Yeah. For sure. So the next thing I wanted to ask you, you've mostly, I think, answered, but I want to I'm going to ask it anyway because I've, I want to make sure you you said that the old command and control approach is not going to be effective anymore, and I completely agree. There's there's a there are moments, yes, moments of chaos where that's still effective, but it's relatively very small percentage of the time.

00:13:03:11 - 00:13:33:21
Kevin Eikenberry
And so you said, hey, we've got to build some new skills. If people don't see that need to shift, it's going to be hard to shift. So the question is how? What is the mindset shift? That's needed? I think you answered that. But how do we help move? How do we coach a leader in the direction of that mindset shift that says, hey, doing it that way probably won't get me the results I need?

00:13:33:22 - 00:13:36:00
Kevin Eikenberry
How do you help people do that?

00:13:36:02 - 00:13:59:08
Luciana Nunez
I think that the mindset shift happens, especially when people are in that transition, going from manager to leader, and it's realizing that it's no longer going to be about you getting things done by yourself. When you're a leader, you have to get things done through others. You're no longer than the law. You're the leader. You're the one that sets the vision that equips the team, that gets that, that actually puts the team together.

00:13:59:08 - 00:14:40:08
Luciana Nunez
So that mindset shift is to realize that, you know, the the manager doer mode is okay. If I was spending eight hours working, maybe now I have to spend ten hours and maybe 12 hours. There's a moment in which that that ability to get things done through your own ability to deliver is finite. So the mindset shift is to realize that if you need to get things done through others, it's going to be about how you equip them so that they have the the independence, the resilience, the resourcefulness, and the ability to, again, just ask the powerful questions, get to the answers themselves, and then pave the way and go the way and walk the

00:14:40:08 - 00:14:48:19
Luciana Nunez
talk to that. So the mindset shift is all about realizing it's no longer going to cut it. If I'm the one doing the one.

00:14:48:21 - 00:15:09:06
Kevin Eikenberry
So I agree 100%. So, we could spend the rest of our time on those two things you mentioned, which is listening and questions. And they're great stuff in this book about that. And that's not what I want to do. Because, number one, I want to take us to some places that I think you're providing stuff that people haven't thought about as much.

00:15:09:12 - 00:15:38:19
Kevin Eikenberry
And that's where I'd like to spend a little bit of time, if we can. And one of those places is you. You bring up a really important point that that we need to talk about. And that is as a leader, as a coach, we have biases and our biases can get in the way of us doing this. Well, even doing it in how we're intending to or what our intention is.

00:15:38:21 - 00:15:52:09
Kevin Eikenberry
So give us some. Let's talk about that. You're nodding like you agree with me, but I want you to talk to us about how we check our biases, understand them and keep them in check, if you will.

00:15:52:11 - 00:16:20:00
Luciana Nunez
Thank you for for assuming in that because it's one of my favorites. You know when when we coach coaches to be good coaches is one of the first things that we try to do. The easiest task to get your listeners to connect with this is biases are actually very connected with your values. So when you are biased about something or someone, it's usually linked to the things you believe to be true in life.

00:16:20:02 - 00:16:42:11
Luciana Nunez
For example, if one of your key values is fairness and as a coach, you're listening to a client story where you're realizing or thinking in your head that that client is not being fair, you will, as a coach, have a bias to maybe led that value of fairness, getting the way of how you're going to coach that person.

00:16:42:13 - 00:17:06:08
Luciana Nunez
So value sometimes can get in the way of curiosity. So what you need to do when you detect a bias that is coming up. And as coaches, by the way, we develop this ability to zoom out of ourselves and see the meet, that part of it. You see yourself, you see the client, you see what's happening. You you almost zoom out of your body to see the situation and come back to it.

00:17:06:10 - 00:17:33:12
Luciana Nunez
So when you show out that you're like, oh, this is me getting a bit biased in how I ask that question a little bit loaded because of how important fairness is to me as a coach, then you have to de-escalate yourself a little bit to that and stay in a place of curiosity. So then you can ask your client instead of saying, where are you being fair in that situation, which, by the way, some bad coaching question because it's a yes or no question, I see, well, learning the book.

00:17:33:13 - 00:17:57:16
Luciana Nunez
So that in itself, as a coach, a very first you. Yeah. Getting out of my, you know, brilliant song by asking them the question. So instead of taking it to the fairness piece, you can frame it differently and say, if we apply a lens of how is this situation feeling to that person, what would it feel like to them?

00:17:57:16 - 00:18:25:02
Luciana Nunez
And maybe fairness will come up and maybe fairness will not. And then you will understand the logic of your client much more. So check it. Your bias biases is also about, as a coach, staying very self-aware of what buttons are being triggered in you and not acting on them. It's human, it's natural, but you just have to be capable to zoom out, check it, and come back to a place that is rooted in curiosity to to check for biases.

00:18:25:04 - 00:18:25:22
Luciana Nunez
Does that make sense?

00:18:26:03 - 00:18:47:05
Kevin Eikenberry
Yeah, I love this idea of zooming out, and I almost think about it like you're a silent drone, right? Like you're looking at the interaction dispassionately in a third as a third party. And the more that we can do that, zooming out to use your language, the better chance we have. Because if we can, once we do that, then we can.

00:18:47:05 - 00:19:11:01
Kevin Eikenberry
It's easier to see the button being pushed than when you're in it. Right? And, it's absolute. So I often think about that is how do I think about the process of what's happening here, not the content of the conversation. And if I can move to the process of how this conversation is taking place, and that's the place where we've got a better chance of dealing with those biases, because now we're not we're a little more detached from them.

00:19:11:01 - 00:19:35:10
Kevin Eikenberry
Right? I that there's another thing that I love that you talked about and everyone who's listening or watching us would say, well, you know, visualizing results is really important in helping people, you know, anything you read about goal setting? Everyone has said it like, you get to visualize. I can tell you 12 stories about the power of visualization.

00:19:35:10 - 00:19:57:11
Kevin Eikenberry
I know you could do the same. But you spend some time talking about how do we help others visualize. Sometimes as a leader, we have built that skill. It's one of the many reasons why we may have been promoted, or we find ourselves in this role, but as a coach, we have to help others with that skill.

00:19:57:13 - 00:20:11:06
Kevin Eikenberry
What is your advice to us about helping others get there? Maybe to help ourselves, but I asking it about how do we help others do that? Because until they see that, it's going to be really hard for them to make the adjustments they need to make right?

00:20:11:08 - 00:20:39:09
Luciana Nunez
Yeah, totally. So the first thing I would say in terms of visualizing is take it back to something you you have already seen. You know, when we watch the Olympics and I remember always Michael Phelps with the be you know, music, headphones and totally game face. What an athlete is doing there is visualizing every, every stroke the moment the they jump out the pool, how the water is going to feel.

00:20:39:09 - 00:21:04:01
Luciana Nunez
They visualize it in 3D in for the high definition, because they want everything to feel as real as possible. Because guess what? The brain doesn't know the difference between that visualization and reality. So you're priming the brain to accept that to be true and even results that you think are unimaginable. Your brain starts to accept them and it doesn't fight them anymore.

00:21:04:01 - 00:21:22:10
Luciana Nunez
So that's why as coaches, we put our clients in the in the solar visualization because you, you turn off the part of your brain that is going to be questioning everything, and you allow it to see it as possible and true. And then you coach the person into the skills that will take to to win that gold medal.

00:21:22:12 - 00:21:43:09
Luciana Nunez
So that's the first thing that we do is explain the, the, the neuro science of visualizations. So that is more than just a feel good thing. There's real power in it. The second thing that we do with clients is we help them uncover moments of visualization in a moment of their day, when it feels like it belongs there.

00:21:43:09 - 00:22:10:02
Luciana Nunez
Some clients love don't ask me why to visualize in the shower. Other hands love to visualize when they are commuting. Other clients love to visualize when they're walking the dog. So you want to find a place where they are alone when they are on, disturbed when they have place to travel in words and do that visualization process. And we just let them take where one of the other skills of coaching is, you have to suspend your judgment.

00:22:10:02 - 00:22:15:14
Luciana Nunez
So we've heard all sorts of unusual places to visualize where we go with it.

00:22:15:16 - 00:22:17:08
Kevin Eikenberry
It might be a long.

00:22:17:10 - 00:22:35:13
Luciana Nunez
Exactly. So then we allow them and we let them choose. The space that stays in the moment actually does make a difference. And then we give give them tips and tricks like the ones that we unpack in the book for how to visualize, how to see yourself in 3D, how to make it seem like you literally jumped in the pool.

00:22:35:13 - 00:23:00:19
Luciana Nunez
Is the water cold or temperature is, you know, is that effort less trouble getting you faster? How are you turning in the pool? So we help them do it, and then we get them to practice. And we also help them practice visualization in a tough environment. Let me give you a personal example. In my corporate days, I was leading a project in which, like you literally couldn't win.

00:23:00:21 - 00:23:33:04
Luciana Nunez
Everything was choosing between the the two of the lesser evils or the three of the lesser evils. It was just the nature of the of the project. And I had to present to the board once a month, and it was always bad news, like I couldn't win. So I would visualize that board presentation I would be prepared for for the challenge then and being on the spot, and I would even have hype myself up with that with the song Titanic Titanium from Sky and, someone else.

00:23:33:10 - 00:24:03:21
Luciana Nunez
But the song says you're bulletproof. Nothing to lose, fire away, fire away. And it helped me visualize. I wasn't visualizing a perfect ending. I was visualizing that I was going to be challenged and that I would race to the occasion. So we also coach clients to not only expect the perfect pass, but also build that muscle memory to if and when they are challenged, be okay with it, have that presence, had that gravitas so that they can take the fire and still rise to the occasion?

00:24:03:23 - 00:24:05:18
Luciana Nunez
Does that give you some ideas?

00:24:05:20 - 00:24:26:20
Kevin Eikenberry
Absolutely, I love that. Thank you for sharing that. There's an equation in the book. Most of you came today and you weren't expecting there to be math, but I do have a little math for you today. Because, I don't care how long someone's been leading or what level they're leading, they're always thinking about the performance of their team or of their team members.

00:24:26:22 - 00:24:50:02
Kevin Eikenberry
And you, you, you and Tom share what you call the performance equation. Don't worry, everybody. It's not a lot of math here. But there are three. So performance equals and there's two things. And I think one of them everyone would agree with I would say, in fact, some people would say the equation is performance equals competence. But you say there's more to it than that.

00:24:50:04 - 00:24:53:20
Kevin Eikenberry
So talk about the performance equation.

00:24:53:21 - 00:25:16:00
Luciana Nunez
Let's say you and this disclaimer to your your audience, geek out briefly audience because it really gets me going. So the equation is what we call p equals c times a square. The p stands for performance which is what does success look like for you. Right. It's very important, by the way, that leaders define their own definition of success.

00:25:16:00 - 00:25:41:02
Luciana Nunez
A lot of people don't know what success look like for them. They accept someone else's version of success and they haven't pressure tested. It's that success for me. How do I define success? So we get them to define the p of the of the performance equation. Then p equals c. C stands for capabilities. And it's very important that as a leader we know what the competencies what the capabilities need to be.

00:25:41:04 - 00:26:11:05
Luciana Nunez
But the premise of the equation is that p equals c times a square. It stands for attitude. And the reason why attitude is squared is that it's actually a limitless driver of your performance. You get to choose your attitude, your mindset, your behaviors every time you show up to something is limitless because you have boundless amounts of how you decide you want to show up today.

00:26:11:05 - 00:26:38:22
Luciana Nunez
Today, I want to be the advocate. Now. Today I need to be the charmer in this meeting. Being the fighter is not going to serve me well. Being the the champion is the is the is the attitude that I need to bring in the behavior that I need to showcase. So it's really about reminding leaders that we get to choose how we show up and remembering that it has a limitless driver, because in capabilities, there's only so many things you can hire.

00:26:39:00 - 00:27:08:18
Luciana Nunez
There's only so many, you know, full time employees you can have in a team. There's only so many organization design exercises you can do, but at some point, capabilities are finite and attitude is limitless. And that's what we help leaders see, is that they can drive disproportionate results of performance by choosing and coaching their teams to the right attitude, which is not saying other than behavior and mindset.

00:27:08:20 - 00:27:34:04
Kevin Eikenberry
Perfect. So and I love that you said at framing attitude is mindset and behavior. Which is helpful. I think. So if we're going to lead, through coaching or with coaching, right, if coaching is going to be the way in which we lead, having written a number of books about leading at a distance, long distance and all that stuff, and of course, we've all lived through that.

00:27:34:04 - 00:28:01:00
Kevin Eikenberry
And most leaders are still many leaders. Of course, are still leading folks at a distance in some way, shape or form. My question is, what specifically would you say about coaching at a distance or remotely or virtually or whatever word you want to use? Is there something specific you would want to add or make make us aware of when we're doing it at distance?

00:28:01:02 - 00:28:32:07
Luciana Nunez
Yeah. Thank you for for that zoom in because context does make a difference to to to the coaching space. Right. So the first thing I would say is if you're going to go into coaching mode with someone at a distance, try to create their context a little bit. If they're in a room where people will hear the conversation, take a moment to say, would you mind maybe putting your AirPods on or your headphones on?

00:28:32:13 - 00:29:11:19
Luciana Nunez
You want to create the same moment of privacy that we would have in a one on one session, right? You want to create psychological safety because if you go full on in coaching mode and asking a person to unpack difficult feelings for a challenge, and they are in an open office space, and you can tell that they are not sharing too much because of that, that sensation of being exposed, you have to almost say they take one minute, yes, take one minute to to find the space where you and I can be just you and I go to a little booth, go to a different if you have your kids running around you, maybe take

00:29:11:19 - 00:29:30:23
Luciana Nunez
a moment and, you know, go to a private room in your house so that we can have a better quality conversation, because otherwise, that the quality of the context will inform the quality of the content. And if we don't have the right context, the content of that coaching conversation is not going to be as good. So that's the first hygiene factor.

00:29:30:23 - 00:29:56:13
Luciana Nunez
Don't underestimate it. I've had I've made that mistake even as a coach. I took a chemistry session and I could tell that the person was in a space where they didn't feel safe to speak. And I should have said, let's either reschedule or go to a different place. So don't underestimate the importance of that context. The second one is stay in a place of curiosity, with the power questions that would really empower.

00:29:56:18 - 00:30:18:23
Luciana Nunez
Unpack in the book. Get to the definition of success of that person in terms of what do you want, right? And get them to define what what they want, but also unpack what is going on today. What would success look like for you? What is getting in the way of you getting to that? What have you tried? What has worked?

00:30:18:23 - 00:30:46:05
Luciana Nunez
What hasn't worked? What is the cost of doing nothing. So you stay in that what mode in that in a virtual environment because you want to not cut to the chase and you want to surface some things that are less than obvious. So stay in the what in a remote environment, especially more than you typically would, because is the what is clear, then it's much easier to get to the how, who does what, why, when, and how will you make it happen.

00:30:46:05 - 00:31:13:17
Luciana Nunez
So in especially in a remote environment, keeping that trilogy, shape off of one of the frameworks we unpack is going to really help you make it to the end of that conversation. Feeling for that person that you've coached, feeling that they got something very tangible at the end of that. I think it's easier when you do it in person, because you know that you have to stop at a certain time, but keeping that architecture in a virtual environment is really going to be helpful.

00:31:13:17 - 00:31:21:00
Luciana Nunez
And and that gives you then the permission to repeat that architecture the next time you have that virtual conversation.

00:31:21:02 - 00:31:35:23
Kevin Eikenberry
Yeah. That's awesome. I love that I, I've got a couple things I want us to do before we finish. I'm going to sort of shift gears, if you will, because I want to talk about you. I want to ask you this, Seattle, what do you do for fun?

00:31:36:01 - 00:32:02:21
Luciana Nunez
What do I do for fun? Well, I'm eclectic in terms of how I have my fun. First of all, I'm a big time crazy music person. If you look at my my phone with my playlist, you can't tell who's that person, right? The people that are very, you know, one lane off of music, that's not me. I have everything from top to classic to funk.

00:32:02:21 - 00:32:28:05
Luciana Nunez
Old Neil. I still go to concerts thing. My my God, kids think I'm the cool hound because I go to like, new staff and I explore new music all the time. So music is like my escape. I don't I really don't know what humans would do without music. So a big part of my my family time has to do with going to concerts and listening to new music.

00:32:28:07 - 00:32:47:09
Luciana Nunez
Something pretty pedestrian that I do for fun is just watch movies and series and all that good stuff is is a little more relaxed than the music part. But I but I get a lot out of that and just hanging out with with family and friends. Nothing. Nothing too too extreme. And every few years we'll take with my husband a good, good trip.

00:32:47:09 - 00:32:56:02
Luciana Nunez
So this year we're going to Sicily and Sardinia and having a good solid three weeks of travel and good food. So that's a lot of fun for me.

00:32:56:07 - 00:33:05:01
Kevin Eikenberry
I there you go. Two more questions. The next one is, what are you reading these days?

00:33:05:02 - 00:33:39:02
Luciana Nunez
Now reading something unexpected. And I'll tell you the backstory to it. It's a book called The Boiling Frog, and it's written by, UK doctor. And the story is how the system puts so much pressure on doctors today that it starts to be a little bit like the boiling frog phenomenon, but this, this, metaphor, I think, translates to leaders right in their leadership environment, which is you're in that pressure cooker and you're getting adapted to the environment, but at some point there's no longer enough adaptation.

00:33:39:02 - 00:34:08:17
Luciana Nunez
You're going to boil it past the point and you're going to get into into burnout. So this doctor developed a coaching system for doctors where they can go past the boiling frog point and and stay in what he calls the Jacuzzi place, which is the coaching stone. And it has very quirky illustrations with the frog in the in the portrait, the Jacuzzi and the Jacuzzi is coaching moments for doctors to stay in a place.

00:34:08:20 - 00:34:41:17
Luciana Nunez
Yeah, it raises the temperature, but it's also comfortable enough to get you to relax and to coach yourself and to coach there. So it's it's very deep, but it's very cleverly simplified to make the metaphor really land with fast paced professionals like Doug Prescott. I think it also travels to leader. So so it was interesting to discover that I'm I'm now going to use it, and I'm even thinking of in coaching sometimes we want that comfort zone of the Jacuzzi to work.

00:34:41:17 - 00:34:58:16
Luciana Nunez
But I said what about the cold plunge? Right. Because sometimes we need to be stretched out of our comfort. So. So I started to picture the the frog in a cold plunge moment to stretch it out of its comfort zone and then go back to the Jacuzzi. So anyway, that's my own segue into into the book, and we.

00:34:58:16 - 00:35:20:00
Kevin Eikenberry
Will we will have, the, the information about the boiling frog as well as Luciana and her, and her coauthor there, Tom Preston's book Coaching Power. That will all be in the show notes. You can find that, of course. But where do you want to point us? Is there anything that you want? So people can learn more about you, find out about you.

00:35:20:02 - 00:35:23:12
Kevin Eikenberry
Where do you want to point people before we finish up?

00:35:23:14 - 00:35:47:04
Luciana Nunez
Well, first of all, feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn. My profile. Luciana munoz I'm based in in New York. Feel free to go to our website WW the Preston associates.com, where you get to see the work that we do with themes one and one across different geographies. We coach people from San Francisco all the way to Hong Kong and everything in between, and the website will give you quite a bit of info.

00:35:47:04 - 00:36:09:02
Luciana Nunez
And if you want to get the book, you can get it anywhere where you buy your books. Amazon the person associates as well. Birch there's there's a website that now drawing a blank, but I know you're having it in your, in your, in your links, later so that people want to buy more more orders.

00:36:09:02 - 00:36:14:05
Luciana Nunez
They can they can get a little bit of a discount there. So feel free to reach out.

00:36:14:07 - 00:36:32:13
Kevin Eikenberry
We'll make sure all of that is in the show. Notes for you all. Before we go and before I say goodbye to Luciano, I want to ask you all a question that I ask at the end of every episode. I think my new coach friend will agree with my question. And the question is, now what? What are you going to do now?

00:36:32:13 - 00:36:53:06
Kevin Eikenberry
Like, hopefully you found this interesting and and maybe even a little bit of fun and all that. But if all you do is say, hey, that was good and don't take any action, what was the point? The whole point here is that you leave as a more effective leader, a more productive leader, a more confident leader, a leader who coaches more effectively.

00:36:53:06 - 00:37:20:09
Kevin Eikenberry
And to do that, you have to take action on something from today. Maybe it's about the performance equation, maybe it's about that. Just the idea of I got to work on my listening and questioning skills. Maybe it's the conversation we had about visualization. I don't know what it is for you, but what I know is that if you don't consciously think about what you will do with what you learned, you won't get nearly as much long term value from this conversation.

00:37:20:11 - 00:37:32:13
Kevin Eikenberry
So that's my challenge to all of you. Luciano, thank you again so much for being here. It was a pleasure to have you and for us to have this conversation. Thank you for the good work that you're doing in the world.

00:37:32:15 - 00:37:38:15
Luciana Nunez
Thank you. Gave it. And it was a lot of fun to to just geek out and chat with you. Thank you for having me.

00:37:38:17 - 00:37:57:17
Kevin Eikenberry
It's my pleasure. And so everybody, if you enjoyed this, make sure you invite somebody else to, to join us. If you found this for some reason, make sure you subscribe wherever you're watching. You're listening from so you don't miss any episode because we're back again next week with another episode of the Remarkable Leadership Podcast. We'll see you then.

00:37:57:17 - 00:37:58:02
Kevin Eikenberry
Thanks.