Leadership Performance

Karen Frost: Welcome to the Coaching Outcomes Podcast with me, Karen Frost. Two decades ago, I discovered the perfect synergy drawing on my background as a senior leader and bringing it together with my dedication to seeing people grow and realise their full potential. Since then, there's been no turning back. As an executive and business coach, I found my passion and purpose, my my mission to leave a lasting impact on people's lives professionally and often personally too. Join me as I explore the transformative influence of coaching and leadership development. One conversation at a time. I'll touch on the latest leadership trends, invaluable insights and practical tools by drawing on first hand experiences and showcasing inspiring stories of those I've had the pleasure to work with or or alongside. It's good to have you here.

Daniel Terkas: Trust takes a long time to build, but is quickly destroyed by the wrong action, by the wrong words and might not be rebuildable again. So this should be the basis for everything. If your skills are well developed and the challenge is too little, you feel bored. Balance those and adjust your goals in smaller goals that fit your skill level, you feel the flow state. Just develop your skill, you adjust the goal a little bit higher. If you risk a lot for a small reward, it's pretty stupid, right? You shouldn't do that.

Karen Frost: Today I'm going to be talking to Daniel Terkas. Daniel and my paths crossed a few years ago when he was doing the leadership development program that VBL was offering. We've stayed in contact and I've always been fascinated how Daniel combines his corporate life with his international career as a sportsman representing Germany. So today we're going to be exploring elements of leadership in both aspects of his life and we're going to be working out what are the similarities and the differences in terms of that corporate life and that international sports life. Nowadays, Daniel is a business consultant and um, performance coach and is eminently qualified to be able to do that. He also continues to be an international sports person and we're going to have a good talk about all of that. Welcome Daniel.

Daniel Terkas: Thank you for having me Karen.

Karen Frost: Let's start with my first question then. BBL is predominantly focused on leadership development and executive coaching. But I'm really interested in how you have developed your leadership skills over the years. You have been involved with both corporate life, um, and your competitive life as an international sports person and we'd love to hear more about that.

Daniel Terkas: Sports played a big role in my life during my university degree. I studied mechanical engineering. I was heavily involved in snowboarding. When the German national team made it all the way to the Olympics back then in 2002 and yeah, finished that career as fifth in the world ranking. I started a job and grew my career and at the same time I had discovered paragliding and more specifically cross country paragliding, which is now my second sports passion where I achieved to be in the national team and in the top five of the world ranking. Summer and winter sports with the German national team and World cup level now top five in the world ranking. So that's the sports side of my life. On the corporate side, I grew my career from small company to medium company, very big company. Transitioned from engineering to a mix of engineering and commercial roles, commercial leadership roles into strategy roles, European and in the end a global strategy, leadership role, executive role in a big multinational chemical company before starting my own business.

Karen Frost: You can't go to a global position or even start your own consultancy company unless you know about leadership. And being an international sports person, there is a leadership development in that for you as well. How the two fit together in terms of corporate life and international sports life.

Daniel Terkas: Obviously from a time management perspective it's not so easy to manage both, right? That is also a skill that is useful as being a leader. Setting priorities, understanding what has the biggest impact, where to focus. There are a couple of parallels both in sports as well as business, which are uh, like priorities. Knowing where to focus, when to focus, how to focus. It starts with self leadership, goal setting, dreaming about what you'd like to achieve, where you want to be and break that down in longer term goals, midterm goals, short term goals. What do I need to get there? This is true uh, for both I think business leadership, sports. And if you have those goals, you set the priorities, focus. The right mindset also plays a big role where we immediately arrive at resilience as well. How do you build resilience? Competing or training? You will have failures, right? You can't always win. One person of 150 or 130 competes with you. Only one winner. What about the others? Uh, how do you handle that? Or you have injuries so you need to recover, train hard. I like that quote from Nelson Mandela. He said, I never lose. I either win or I learn. Mindset, attitude thing, right? You can apply that in business too. You will not always be successful. There will be projects that fail, safe to fail culture in your company. There are a lot of parallels between sports, especially higher level competitive sports. I've seen it not only for myself but when I interviewed people for my team and you start asking questions or you talk with other people Involved in high performance sport, no matter which one. Similar traits and behaviors those people exhibit, right?

Karen Frost: Yeah.

Daniel Terkas: They're, uh, disciplined. It's another word, buzzword maybe we haven't talked about, but they're disciplined. They train, they learn in business. They are determined to develop themselves further as a person, maybe, or in their skills that are required for that sport. You need energy for that, right? Where does this energy come from? Good time management. Because if you want to be world class, you have to invest. It's also investment in yourself. There are so many parallels between sports business leadership and performance coaching. And it goes hand in hand and it will lead you to be successful in business or life. But don't forget, what does success mean to me or society? There is a very broad definition. If success is pure money based, you might be poor in real life.

Karen Frost: It's not about losing, it's a learning opportunity. One thing I always remember about you is your energy. You talked about your energy in an international sporting context. Being really able to use that energy and then watching you take that into corporate life was fascinating. We have a lot of sporting icons we think about when we think about leadership, don't we? Because they're so visible to us, Whereas leaders within corporations, not perhaps globally so visible to us, are they? So the two marry very nicely in terms of being metaphors for each other, which is good. The other area I thought we'd explore is about risk. You've handled risk as a leader in an international sporting context and through your paragliding, representing Germany at international level, in terms of the organizations that I know that you've worked for, which have been high risk, particularly in terms of health and safety. So I just thought, moving on from leadership, could we explore how you manage that in terms of the risk factor? Because snowboarding is risky as well. You get significant injuries with snow as well as paragliding. Could we explore that a little bit and talk a little bit about risk and leadership?

Daniel Terkas: Risk and what is risky is really a, um, matter of perspective. From my point of view, what might appear as, uh, super high risk to you not be risky, but fairly safe for me. I'll give two examples.

Karen Frost: In sport or in corporate life.

Daniel Terkas: I'm thinking more about sport now. There is again some transfer possible. Maybe not to such a nice extent as all the other traits and aspects we talk at the first question. But risk. Look, I've been snowboarding and there was a very big kicker, a jump go at 80 kilometers per hour, hit the jump fly 40 meters and safely. It's like an everyday Thing for me because I slowly build the skill to get there. Risk is very skill related. In paragliding it's even more complex. I fly for almost 30 years, 3600 hours of flight time, accident free. I didn't even need my rescue and I have two of them. So it's double safety net. Despite doing it at a very high level and sometimes pushing the limit. How far do you push your limit and what is your limit? You need to be very self aware. Is true. In business it depends on skills, conditions, the environment and the knowledge you have. Paragliding is more of a head sport than you would think. Like three dimensional chess, what we do. Or three dimensional sailing competition with another hundred. Very tactical, very strategic. It requires forward thinking. Having a plan A, B, C, D is crucial to be safe, connected with skills, pure wing handling and knowledge of the environment, turbulences and all of these things. Now if I transfer that into business and risk management, ask yourself, how well do I know the environment? How good is my skill level to handle that challenge? Do I have a plan A, B, C D in place? In this Vuca world, circumstances might change, markets, customs, or another thing pops up suddenly, which you might not have foreseen. It's also about scenarios you are able to develop as a leader, tie a probability to those. How probable is that? In paragliding or other sports there is also the equation of risk and reward. So I think that is also a very interesting aspect that shouldn't be forgotten. If you risk a lot for a small reward, it's uh, pretty stupid, right? You shouldn't do that. If you look at the risk reward ratio and there is some risk associated with a decision, the potential reward, if it works out is big. Why wouldn't you take the risk? If you prepared yourself, if you investigated the environment, the trends, the market, you have the skills and knowledge, the team and leadership skills to mitigate the risk. Even if something doesn't go according to plan. It's a lot about forward thinking like chess, right? Move A, B, C, D and trying to predict the move of the competitor. And the competitor in business can also be a company. So that's maybe again to bring those two together. Sports side, business side, using the same words, you can bring those together. Many things transfer, they apply in both worlds. Skills management, environment, prioritization, mitigation, forward thinking, strategy, plan A, B, C. Potentially D. I hope that answers your question.

Karen Frost: It does, beautifully. It's also sparked something else I'm thinking about which is around trust because that uh, risk reward scenarios that you Talk about high risk but low reward. What you're after is lowest risk possible and highest reward, both in leadership and paragliding. It's not just you. You've got your team in a corporate setting or rescue teams, but you've also got all the other people around you that are helping you set up. In order for you to be successful as a leader, both teams need to trust you in terms of your knowledge and expertise, the skill set that you've got, that you're not going to take too big a risk, that they know that you're safe as well.

Daniel Terkas: Yeah. Ah, yeah. Trust is a very big topic and the most important maybe of all relationships, be it in business, in your personal life, also in business transactions. I believe the sport, I do. Yes, there is some sort of team involved, but in fact it's more I have to trust myself, my skills, my assessments, right. I'm up there by myself, I can't stop, I must do something until I have a safe landing with me in a team sports environment. My son plays basketball. You need to trust your team members, the coach and everyone else. It starts with trust in your skills and being honest with yourself, your knowledge, who you are, how you behave to others and how you build trust in a customer supplier relationship. It's important you build that trust over years. And also it depends a bit on the cultural setting. We all know how you build trust. Trust takes a long time to build but is quickly destroyed by the wrong action, by the wrong words and might not be rebuildable again. So this should be the basis for everything. Finally, it's integrity and honesty leads to trust and it should be mutual. And I remember once we had this discussion about trust and are there multiple level of trusts or not? Or is it just yes or no? Do I trust this person then? And the logic consequence with my life, for example, in climbing, or is there something gray in between? What is your definition of trust?

Karen Frost: It is a big subject area. It does come into that risk element as we have highlighted. The similarities are still there, aren't they? Do you trust this person? Don't you? I think there's another dimension to trust as well, which is around the currency of trust, which is often what we talk about at VBL is how one person might trust differs from how another person might trust. Because skill set knowledge is something that people, some people would trust other people. It's about honesty. Words that they say, do they lie, do they not? And um, so understanding that about the people in your organization, do they trust you because of how you communicate? To them. And, um, what you think is important from a trust level fascinates me because it's a big part of leadership.

Daniel Terkas: Oh, yeah. And everyday life. There are so many different aspects around it which are also heavily culturally involved and differentiated in some cultures between business and private settings, or sometimes not. Or even the opposite. So I think we could do a whole, uh, podcast around trust. The various definitions of trust, cross cultures, people and corporates. Company culture plays a role. I think we could do a whole podcast around that. I boil it down to another nice quote. I, like you, always see twice in life, and that's the way you should behave as well. Right? What do I mean with that? So if I meet Karen for the first time and we do whatever kind of business transaction, if I meet you again, would I have to hide or say, hey, Karen, let's have a beer or a glass of wine? It should be the latter, especially at the beginning of building a relationship.

Karen Frost: Absolutely.

Daniel Terkas: But also later. You don't want to be the one having to hide behind bushes.

Karen Frost: That wouldn't work, would it?

Daniel Terkas: Not for me, at least.

Karen Frost: We're still seeing synergies between corporate life from a leadership perspective and paragliding synergies with risk. And we're also seeing synergies, uh, in that area we've just talked about. In terms of trust.

Daniel Terkas: Yes.

Karen Frost: Can I explore another area then, which is around something that both you and I are very much involved with, which is around coaching and mentoring, specifically performance coaching work that you're doing now through your own organization. So you have coached leaders in different organizations, and from my understanding, you're taking experience from a global role and translating that into performance coaching for senior leaders. You must have done a lot of coaching within the sports you're involved with, whether it be coaching yourself or coaching other people. So, again, it'd be lovely to explore the similarities between corporate life and what you're doing now in terms of performance coaching and also within your paragliding world.

Daniel Terkas: Um, I've also thought about my value proposition to clients. Where do I deliver value in this mix of consulting and performance coaching? It depends. Firstly, it depends on the client. How far are they in their leadership skills? How far are they as a company? Where is the status you start off with? For me, I condense everything I learned in corporate and from other leadership trainings. I love reading business books. There are so many great books out there and other sources of knowledge, podcasts, audiobooks, what I learned being coached myself, having coached in sports, seeing what works, what doesn't work. You must Ask yourself, do I coach this person more in terms of self leadership? How do you manage yourself first, are they looking after themselves? Are they looking at all aspects important to come? A role model for coaching others or leading others. How do you bring the performance aspect into it? Does the leader have an athlete attitude or want to develop it? What are your desired goals, outcomes you would like to see through this type of coaching and mentoring? There are also various setups. Uh, full blown leadership development program which goes like one week with business project. Or you do it like one on one on an hourly basis where the people being coached bring up their own issues they faced. Maybe discuss special situations, trouble or conflict with their team or leadership peers. Knowing the person helps. How do they tick? What type are they? Are they extrovert? Are they introvert? Where are their energies? What's the communication style? No one size fits all. If you're an extrovert with a high temper, I coach you differently than if you're an introvert. Shy as a mouse, barely able to speak up. But think again and make the loop to the beginning. Goal setting athletes, what are your goals? Where do you want to go? What are your dreams? Do you have the skills to get there? What skills are you missing? Can we break it down into smaller sub goals, sub steps and see how you can develop on the way? If your goal and dream is big, it might feel overwhelming to get there. I didn't set myself the goal to be in the Olympics and achieve top five world rankings in two different sports. You can't set such, such a big goal. Right? It develops and maybe you need to adjust. That's the point. Maybe those goals over time and uh, see, does this goal still fit or is the goal already too small to have this challenge? One aspect to finish off. Flow athletes perform their best when they reach a flow state.

Karen Frost: Yes.

Daniel Terkas: So research shows that also leaders have the best performance in a flow state. Skills must be on a level that suits the challenge you face and the goal you want to achieve. If you don't have the skills for the challenge, you feel stressed, you're overwhelmed. Right. Climbing Mount Everest with not enough skills. If your skills are well developed and the challenge is too little, you feel bored. Balance those and adjust your goals in smaller goals that fit your skill level. You feel the flow state, you develop your skill, you adjust the goal a little bit higher and increase performance. Happiness comes from achievement. Uh, that's a big part, the satisfaction of reaching a goal.

Karen Frost: Yeah.

Daniel Terkas: And you have the dopamine and set another goal.

Karen Frost: My brain is going 10 to the dozen here, listening to you, which is good, I'm learning, which is great. I'm thinking about the whole importance of building the relationship with an individual when you're coaching them. Because one of the great things about coaching, whether it's for a specific objective or performance coaching, at the beginning of the coaching relationship, you can set goals and be clear about that individual wants to achieve in that moment or year, rather than I'm going to be fifth in the world. The fact that you meet them, it evolves. And you're checking the goals and stretching them. You've done that. So what else do you want to do? Is a great thing. And me and my colleagues, we often talk about the third or fourth coaching session. It often feels that individuals, uh, get into their flow of how to use coaching effectively. That flow happens once having worked out that the goals are too much or not enough and you work on those and then you start to motor in terms of what they can achieve. I love that phrase, athlete attitude. Are you fit and ready for all of this good stuff in there?

Daniel Terkas: Thank you. Not everybody has an athlete attitude by nature. Mental attitude, competitor. Exactly. An athlete attitude involves the drive to train, to get better, to achieve a goal. There must be some drive, some intrinsic motivation to make it work. If there is no true intrinsic motivation, find something that motivates you more. Otherwise the coaching might be in vain. The whole goal definition thing, such a crucial step. I think in the beginning it might

Karen Frost: take a time and revisiting to make sure people are not overwhelmed or that they need stretching more. When you get into that flow, you're going at the pace they can go at, which is great. It's quite special to walk alongside somebody like that and encourage support and energize. Are you finding that now that you're doing more of it?

Daniel Terkas: Absolutely. Purpose and a positive impact with the things you do. It's not only coaching, it's consulting, mentoring, advisory, a mix of everything. I must be careful not to lose focus because I've done experience so much and can help with many aspects with one of my clients. Not such a big company. There are so many aspects of that relationship that are appreciated and valued. And then you have your client tell you, I've never been so happy to pay an invoice. Yes, it's beautiful. If I compare it to corporate life where you push hard. Everybody, ah, acknowledges it would be great when nothing happens. It's different when you have this opportunity for direct, positive impact in a short term and help people grow. That's why beyond the commercial side, it's going a lot better than expected with my business and clients.

Karen Frost: That area we touched on in terms of trust, we could do another podcast on that because it's such a big area of leadership. I think we need to stop at point this point. Daniel, thank you very much for your thoughts and wisdom. Really appreciate you coming in to talk to me today. Thank you.

Daniel Terkas: You're welcome. Karen. Thanks for having me.

Karen Frost: Thank you so much for listening to this coaching outcomes podcast with me, Karen Frost. I hope you enjoyed it. Take care and goodbye for now.