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Learn how to grow your business through your employees What is a great performance coach? Meet Kathy D'Agostino. Kathy and I met through the Business Council of Westchester where I was giving a talk about my book, Rethink: Smashing The Myths of Women in Business. Like so many women, Kathy had a great corporate job until it wasn't such a great corporate job. Her passion was in coaching people. As she earned her professional certifications, Kathy realized that she had, indeed, found her calling. Her particular focus is helping leaders improve their employees' performance. Listen in, learn and share. Enjoy! Watch and listen to our conversation here A leader without great followers can't do a very good job leading an organization and sustaining its growth during these fast-changing times. But how do you grow your employees and make sure their skills are aligned with what is needed when this volatile business environment keeps shifting? Kathy has some great solutions. She talks with me about her approach, why it is designed around getting people to change, and how she can help her clients measure progress against their performance goals. You will enjoy her style and her insights. And hopefully take away some valuable learning for your company. About Kathy D'Agostino Kathy is an executive coach and business consultant who for over 25 years has helped leaders grow their businesses and invest in their greatest asset: their employees. She has worked with hundreds of organizations to develop their leadership teams, accentuate their core values, and create a strong culture. Prior to establishing her company, Win at Business Coaching, Kathy held senior-level positions for global organizations where she turned around underperforming sales teams, drove revenue growth in a declining market, and built game-changing customer service programs. You can connect with Kathy on LinkedIn, Twitter and her website Win At Business Coaching, and you can email her at kathy@winatbusinesscoaching.com. Need to grow but not sure how? Here are some great places to start Blog: How Do You Grow A Business In A Fast-Changing Market? Blog: Entrepreneurs, Be Smart and Pick the Right People to Help You Grow Podcast: Kim Bohr—Assessing Your Company's Organization To Sustain Growth In Changing Times Podcast: Jacqueline Kibler—Want To Grow? Take A Good Hard Look At Your Culture Additional resources for you My best-selling new book: Rethink: Smashing The Myths of Women in Business My award-winning first book: On the Brink: A Fresh Lens to Take Your Business to New Heights Simon Associates Management Consultants website Read the transcript of our podcast here Andi Simon: Welcome to On the Brink, a fresh lens to take you and your business to new heights. Hi, I'm Andi Simon. I'm your host and your guide. And as you know, my job is to get you off the brink. It's not good to be stuck there. Stalling is not happy, whether it's personal or professional, your corporation, your company or small business or yourself. So my job is to help you see, feel and think in new ways so you can do things differently. And that's what I'm all about. You know, I'm a corporate anthropologist and I love to help people change, but it's painful. So I go looking for people who can help you do just that. Today, I have with me Kathy D'Agostino, who is a terrific woman. She's going to help you see, feel and think in new ways because that's exactly what she has done with her career and her business. Let me tell you a little bit about Kathy and then she'll tell you more about herself. She's an executive coach and business consultant. She has 25+ years of experience helping leaders grow both their business and invest in their greatest asset: their employees. Today, this is a big topic because the employees are hard to attract. You know the big gaps and they're hard to retain. And they're all finding new ways to do things. She's worked with hundreds of organizations to develop their leadership teams, accentuate core values and create a strong culture. Her client base is diverse: global, pharma companies, professional service firms, education, nonprofits. In business coaching, Kathy has held senior level positions for global organizations, where she was responsible for turning around underperforming sales teams, driving revenue growth in declining markets, and building game-changing customer service programs. So I have somebody who had corporate experience who is now an independent coach with a great business. Kathy, thank you for joining me today. It's been a pleasure to get to know you, but tell the listener or the audience or the viewer, wherever you're watching or listening to us, who is Kathy, what was your journey like? And then we'll go into this big problem for today, the great resignation and what do I do? So who's Kathy? Kathy D'Agostino: So Andrea, you're quite interesting, the great resignation, because I actually was a little ahead of the curve. I guess I was a trailblazer as many of us were, but it wasn't quite as visible in public. About seven years ago, I quit my corporate job after 25 years, as you read in the bio. And I really decided that I'd been thinking about it for a while and probably waited a little too long. So I made a pretty snap decision. What I did was, one January after having some time off and reflecting, I called the gentleman that I work with. I told him I have a problem with my boss. I just liked to say I worked for him, not with him, probably why I'm not in corporate anymore, right? So I called him and I said, look, it's January, I have this opportunity of a lifetime to take two weeks' vacation. And he said to me, you're crazy, it's only January. He said, you're going to use all of your vacation, because I just started about a year ago. And he said, that doesn't make business sense and we have a big project coming up. I'm like, I totally understand. He said it was going to cause a lot of problems for his boss. And I'm like, I would never want to do that for you. So I said, you know, it doesn't even make common sense. I totally agree with you. I understand that because to me it makes sense. So I said, here's what I can do. I can send you an email with a resignation or I could send you my vacation request for two weeks. I said, you know it's up to him. He goes, how long do I have to decide? I'm like, oh, I don't leave for three weeks, just let me know before that. I'm glad to send either email. I wish I had a recording of his voice. And about a day later, he called back and said, I'll take the email for the vacation request. I'm like, gosh, and he said, you'll come back relaxed and rested because we have a big project on the schedule. I'm like, absolutely. So I took that vacation, came back, finished the project two months later, and in the beginning of April I resigned. So I used that time for reflection. We will talk about that more and what people can do at the end. Then I got home in April and I said, Oh, my God, what am I gonna do? All the freedom and flexibility I was looking for I had, and I'm like, now what do I do? I'm so used to having this reporting structure and people you know, and now you're free. Andi Simon: But, you know, this is not an inconsequential life journey for us. Because I remember, I decided to leave corporate after 20 years helping organizations as an executive change. And I really didn't have anything propelling me except 9/11 and I had that Aha moment which said, If I'm going to go into my own business, it's not a bad time to do that. I had to go find a PR guy who I had worked with a great deal. And so who am I? And it was fun to listen to him say, You're a corporate anthropologist who helps companies change. I said, bingo, in a capsule. Does anyone know way back 20 years ago if anyone was looking for a corporate anthropologist? It didn't matter. So I knew I could help companies change. But how? So how did you end up becoming this kind of coach that you are today? What kind of coach are you? What did you finally decide? Kathy D'Agostino: I decided to do executive coaching. And I had a transitional period where, you know, I kind of had my niche and didn't find it. But when I really thought back after about two years of really looking through and working with small business owners, and whenever I really said what made me leave, what was the impact that I needed to make? And it was really on culture, because the companies that I quit were bad bosses, or because companies didn't live their values. And for me, it's all about integrity. So to me, I really thought about what was it that made the biggest impact, and it was really creating better workplaces for employees so that they stay. I thought, you know, retention has always been a challenge for really good employees. And I just really felt that it was all about that culture. Because if I would take less money to work in a company where the culture felt right to me, we can make a lot of money. And I felt like I'm selling my soul. Andi Simon: So when you were in corporate, the kinds of work that you were doing had to do with building better cultures? Correct? And it was a way of learning on the job. You're not an academic, but you certainly had huge credentials while you were developing these perspectives and skills. Am I correct? Kathy D'Agostino: Oh, absolutely. I know what you mean by now. So when I really looked even deeper, what really drove me to be passionate about these great companies and these better cultures was when I was managing sales teams, and I could develop those people. So while I realized maybe the company culture wasn't exactly in alignment with what I was, I could align my team with what those values were. And that experience alone was really, really valuable. Now I had a manager at that time, because I had to come in and fire a number of people when I took over this role. She said, Oh, you'll be jaded by this forever. And I think I'd like to reframe her and say, No, I was driven by that, where I had to change that team, because they had a manager there for 25 years that liked to coast a little bit, you know, and I came in, and I'm like, Oh, this isn't the way we work. So I wanted to create my own culture within this team, even though I had the external culture, my higher ups, and I had the ability to do that. And that's really what made me think about what was so important. Andi Simon: What I love about that story is, it's going to jade you or it's going to drive you is an interesting perspective. You know, on one hand, you were anticipating being frustrated by this. We do the same thing in this vacuum, where I have people who are underperforming. They're sort of just now attending, and that can demonstrate that they can rise. This is so exciting. So as you've launched your business now moving out of the small business world into culture, tell us about what you do and how you do it, and for whom. Kathy D'Agostino: So you know, again, as the bio said, it is diverse, but lately it's been like you mentioned. The 9/11 pivotal moment in the world has been the pandemic. So looking once again at these pivotal moments, the organizations in the last year and a half have changed that I'm working with. I mean, some stayed, but one of the things that's really been important is the government. I work with a number of local government agencies and because they have constraints of unions and civil service to promote their people, they have some unique challenges. So working with some of them, they have huge departments around 1100 people. So when you see that group of people and even the executive team, some are in the union, and some are non-union. So there's all these things you have to manage in addition to culture, and making change. And those organizations have been really impactful. And luckily they got some pandemic money. So that's actually allowed them to bring me back because I worked with them a little bit before, and now even more so. Nonprofits are definitely another one that you know, they're struggling. There's so many people asking for money. So nonprofits, I work with a number of them and I'm on a board for one so I am really passionate about the work that they do. And then interestingly enough, several of my executive clients that I work with through corporate, called me during the pandemic and said, You know what, I don't want to make that three hour drive, I don't want to be on the train anymore. I had time to rethink my life. I like working from home. I need to rethink my career and not just thinking about just staying because tomorrow is going to get better. I need to think about what I really want. So the blend of those two, which is interesting, because I have the corporate side or the organization side, but then I had the employee perspective. So just a case in point, I have an employee, a woman that I'm speaking with this morning, right after this, and she's been with a company only a year and a half. She is a top graduate from one of the top business schools. She's in a top company, and she's unhappy. She's there 16 months, and she has an early promotion and she's like, I'm bored. I think I should leave. So it's executives that have been in their mid-career and then this young one, in like 16 months says, I'm going to get this promotion and I don't know if it means enough to me to stay. Andi Simon: Okay, don't lose that because this is an excellent case study. I have a bunch of 29-year-olds who came out of universities, colleges with good degrees and have been working in the same place for a period of time. It isn't even a promotion or not a promotion, it is that I'm unhappy. But I don't even know what will make me happy. And that's the coaching challenge, because I can't make them happy. And for yours, it's a real interesting aha moment, because she came in with lots of hoopla, I'm sure. And they were excited to bring her in. And now the question is for the company, and for the individual, what are we missing here? A woman too, which I think is a really important thing. Because they need purpose. They don't need just a position or a salary. That's just what she's saying. What's my purpose? What do you see? Kathy D'Agostino: Very much so. What's interesting too, is because she's been a high achiever all her life, she's been getting kudos and kudos. Now, she's gotten into this organization where there's a lot of other people that are very similar to her. So they're bright, they're faster, quick, and she's going like, But I should be put first. And so I think what I'm seeing, this is a little off topic, but I think a little emotional intelligence. She's got the IQ off the chart on the IQ. She's got the, you know, work ethic. But I think a little bit more, she has the attitude, I know you recognize this, what's in it for me, and she wants to go to the corporation and tell them, this job, what's in it for me? And I think I want to see if she's willing to say, can I bring my talents and how can I best serve you. A little bit of a different statement, then I think she got bored. How about, let's say, what are you working on that I could help you with? So I think a little emotional intelligence there. I'm seeing a little that, you know, maybe insightfulness and self-awareness and empathy. Andi Simon: But I do think that executi…
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