Podcast with Alessandra Marini Part 2
Podcast Summary:
Discover the keys to thrivingin the digital age with Alessandra Marini in Part 2 of the Podcast. Learn how to find pride in your work and focus on meaningful tasks rather than counting
hours. Explore the importance of balance and self-care for leaders to avoid
burnout and effectively manage their teams. Gain insights into change
management during digital transformations and how coaching can help navigate
the challenges. Tune in to unlock strategies for creating a fulfilling work
environment and embracing change in the ever-evolving business landscape.
In Part 2 of the Podcast withAlessandra Marini, she highlights the importance of finding pride in one's work
and focusing on meaningful tasks rather than simply measuring hours spent. She
emphasizes the need for balance in life and how leaders must prioritize
self-care to avoid burnout and effectively manage their teams. Alessandra
discusses the role of coaching in change management during digital
transformations, helping leaders understand their team's fears, and co-creating
strategies based on empathy and connection. She addresses skepticism around change
coaches and advises leaders to clarify their criteria for success before
seeking external support.
[00:00:00] Alessandra Marini: one question that I usuallyhelp the clients to yeah I, one question that I ask my clients is what makes
you proud of your week or proud of your day or your month? And this could be
criteria that help them see if they have worked properly with good results in
performance or not. It's not amount of hours.
[00:00:20] Alessandra Marini: And so they usually say,for example, yes, I feel proud of myself when I handled this amount of
difficult emails receiving from a complaints, et cetera. Or if I did that
amount of work or if I helped. X amount of colleagues through difficult
situations. This, for me, is a real shift. So this was the first point that I
wanted to, highlight.
[00:00:43] Alessandra Marini: And As we were sayingpreviously people are looking for more balance in their lives and leaders
really need to to take this into account as well. Otherwise it can lead to
burnout because now the level of self [00:01:00]awareness we have about ourselves is increased. We know that we can do the same
job maybe in less hours, et cetera.
[00:01:07] Alessandra Marini: And when there is a lack ofmeaning. a lack of sense in what we are doing, this can also lead to burnout.
Burnout is not just the work in extra hours or doing extremely difficult things
or jobs, but it's when we don't see the point of what we're doing. So I think
that Little by little, the job of leaders become a little bit more difficult or
more complex, let's say, because they have to take into account so many new
different things.
[00:01:35] Alessandra Marini: And this is why I thinkthat coaching can help because they cannot do it. They can if they want, but
it's going to be more difficult to do it by themselves. So why not? Asking for
some help to to just to help find their inner wisdom about this and also maybe
have some tools and strategies of about how to do it better.
[00:01:55] Andrew Liew: Cool. As you mentioned, yeah,like it, this is one of the [00:02:00] thingsthat it resonates with me in terms of it's not just about the amount of work
that the team is doing, but it's about how to help them connect The work and
the meaning of the work of, like you said, finding a purposeful work to do.
[00:02:15] Andrew Liew: And, like you said, there's somany things that is going on. And a manager suddenly feels that, hey, it's not
just managing, delegating, teaching, but figuring out the well, being,
connecting the purpose and... Self caring for myself. Yeah. Yes, that's
probably experienced the demand for coaching, right?
[00:02:33] Andrew Liew: Like even if we think about likefor example, like the modern sports like basketball soccer or football, you
know those Successful big clubs. They have a manager. Everybody look at the
spotlight on the manager, but Surprisingly, there's a lot of research that they
actually increase a lot of para coaching or para sports coaching, right?
[00:02:52] Andrew Liew: There'll be a coach for, let's say,in the field of soccer, there'll be a coach for Striking. There'll be a coach
for psychology. [00:03:00] There's a coach forteam dynamics. Where do you see that this kind of Coaching come into play when
business leader, they say, Hey my company is in the need for digital
transformation and we definitely need coach coaching to help the managers and
the leaders to work through the challenges of digital transformation.
[00:03:21] Alessandra Marini: Yes. So I would like to saytwo things about what you are asking, because the first thing is what you said
about self care for managers. I think that we see often managers as people that
need to protect their teams or they need to take care of others, et cetera, et
cetera. But the first thing, the first very thing they need to do is take care
of themselves.
[00:03:43] Alessandra Marini: Because when they do not doit, of course, it will reflect on the way they work. With other people, with
their team members. There is this expression that I really like in English.
That is that you cannot pour from an empty cup. So if you have nothing [00:04:00] left for you because you burn out yourselfor you are an overgiver, you're a people pleaser, et cetera, it's going to be
hard to give what your team members need from you.
[00:04:10] Alessandra Marini: So how you as a manageralso set boundaries about what is acceptable for you and for your team members.
And this is. key. What I see is that sometimes I, coach and I train managers
that are so committed to their work that they burn themselves out. And this is
a very big danger. So how do you take care of yourself is the first big
question for managers.
[00:04:35] Alessandra Marini: And then the second pointabout how to about this digital transformation struggles. I think that coaching
can really help in change management. What I usually see is that digital
transformation scared a lot. People because they are used to work in a certain
way, they have their own habits, and it's easy for them to do things in a
certain way because it's familiar when [00:05:00]you change, especially in the digital tools, etc.
[00:05:04] Alessandra Marini: Some people, especially theolder generations can feel threatened by it. And so they resist it. And One
thing that I that I use coaching for is change management. How can I help
people realize that this is going to be beneficial for them? And also, what is
the underlying fear that team members feel when they hear about this change,
this transformation?
[00:05:28] Alessandra Marini: What are they afraid of andwhat need? Maybe they were afraid that is going to lack in their daily life.
And once you have this empathy and this curiosity, I think that you can create
a deep connection with your team members and find a strategy that help. Help
with the company in the long run because you're not pushing the strategy for
digital transformation, but you are co creating this strategy with your team
members based on their needs and their underlying fears and your [00:06:00] empathy as well.
[00:06:00] Andrew Liew: Very interesting. Alexandra, Iwanted to Talk along that line that you mentioned about a very good point.
There's so many different types of coaches, but when leaders need to do digital
transformation, the one that you will recommend first is change management. And
I've seen change management, all the big consulting brands and in house and the
problem that I see our leaders in those situations is they're very skeptic
about change managers or change coach, whether it's in house or vendor,
because.
[00:06:29] Andrew Liew: The common myth, or I don't knowwhat to call it, myth, or their, bias is you see I hire them and they coach me.
I can't see the change. I'm just curious what do you have to say about that? Or
what's your view? Why would they say they are? What's your view?
[00:06:42] Alessandra Marini: The first thing is that Ithink that leaders that can, that ask support to change change management
consultants or coaches, et cetera, maybe they should ask themselves first, what
is my criteria to consider this?
[00:06:59] Alessandra Marini: [00:07:00]Service or this coaching successful because it's very easy also to blame
consultants or coaches of the non success of this if they were not clear in the
first place. Okay. So as a coach I, try as much as possible because sometimes
it's a hard questions and it's not easy as well. I recognize that I help
clients to understand, okay.
[00:07:21] Alessandra Marini: What do you expect fromthis? What are the outcomes? Because of course I don't want to talk about the
mean or my way to get you there, but I want you to tell me where do you want to
go? What is your criteria to consider this this service that I'm providing, et
cetera, as performance. Okay. And then of course you create.
[00:07:40] Alessandra Marini: Your program or your way ofhelping the client or the company thanks to this clarity, but I also realized
that when we talk about soft skills, especially change management Sometimes
it's a little bit more trickier let's say to monitor the progress but this is
why it is [00:08:00] even more crucial toidentify what are Our criteria and our indicators that show the progress
towards this goal.
[00:08:08] Andrew Liew: Cool. So yeah, you for thosefolks out there listening to this, I think Alexander has this golden rule of
thumb. It's like in change management is that what is the criteria for leaders
and managers to engage change, change coach or change manager to be considered
successful, right?
[00:08:26] Andrew Liew: Because if they don't know whereto go, how do they know? You know how things are being measured, right? Thanks.
Interesting question is that these days, the bars and the hypes on the internet
is this chat GPT thing. And of course it has been a great boost for
productivity, but there's also a lot of recent articles that.
[00:08:44] Andrew Liew: Wrote about the human beingactually a journalist or some manager, they actually try to talk therapy with
chat GPT about it. I'm I'm not trying to doubt that the chat GPT is not
intelligent enough, but I [00:09:00] still feelthat there's a need to have a human a coach to work on this kind of personal
things and of all soft things and hard things.
[00:09:09] Andrew Liew: What is your view on that? Yeah.
[00:09:11] Alessandra Marini: Yeah, that is a very hottopic right now. And I admit I started to use as well chat GPT for to help me
in my communication to help me to use the right or more effective wording in my
communications. But as you were saying it doesn't do all the work and we still
need human interactions, especially in coaching.
[00:09:33] Alessandra Marini: I really believe that todayit's very easy to access information through artificial intelligence, chat GPT
internet resources. It's everywhere. But when people come to coaches, they
don't come for information. They come for transformation, and this is why, in
my opinion, coaching has a lot of future in front of us because coaches need to
be able to [00:10:00] read and to hear behindthe words and actually artificial intelligence right now is like a B
dimensional.
[00:10:07] Alessandra Marini: What you write is what youwill get, but when you talk to people, you can sense when you tune into your
own intuition and when you have experience as well, what the person is not
saying, but that is trying to communicate with you. So there is this
unconscious level of communication that coaches need to be very good at in
terms of, for example, body languages or the tone where we say certain things.
[00:10:31] Alessandra Marini: And in my opinion. Coachesneed to be very well aware and become very good at this skills, how to read
other people's facial expressions or, just the tone of voice or I don't know,
and just also tune into our own intuitions. And this is something that I think
charter GPT or others are not able to do yet.
[00:10:52] Alessandra Marini: Yeah,
[00:10:53] Andrew Liew: I totally agree with you that thenuances and the empathy is more human than the [00:11:00]text like the two dimensional thing. You can't, the chat GPT can't actually.
I'll give you a real funny example. It's a real one, by the way. A friend of
mine, he put some money in PayPal and PayPal decided to use some chat GPT API,
some information connector on a customer service chat.
[00:11:18] Andrew Liew: So it's like a chatbot, right?And he said to the PayPal chatbot, Hey PayPal chatbot! Then he, the reply is,
Hey, how are you today? No, today I'm not feeling good. Oh, why are you not
feeling good? Are you chat gpt? Yeah, i'm chatty. How can I help you? He said
Oh, I just noticed some of my money is gone at paypal and the chatty bc.
[00:11:39] Andrew Liew: Oh, that's brilliant That was themeans that was playing throughout the whole because the chatty bt probably
interpret it differently from a human being human beings will know that some
you put money in a bank and the bank Money is missing means something is wrong.
You should feel the common sense thing, like human beings feel empathy, feel
sorry, right?
[00:11:58] Andrew Liew: But hey, [00:12:00]great. That's brilliant.
[00:12:01] Alessandra Marini: Yes. Empathy, sarcasm, whatis said through jokes as well. We can maybe sometimes hear that there is
something deeper when we say jokes or when we say things with sarcasm. And I
think that, yes, digital tools right now are not able to understand that yet.
[00:12:17] Andrew Liew: Yeah, cool.
[00:12:17]