Navigating Promotions: How to Stick the Landing Like a Pro! with Steve Mos

Three buckets. One is the things I can just do and you're never going to hear about. The second is the things that I'm going to do and then I have to tell you about afterwards. And then the third is what are the things I have to ask you before I do.

So that do tell ask is about the decision rights and you can't get so granular that everything gets spelled out there. Establishing that can make a huge difference because if you ever find yourself in a situation where you've torqued your boss about something you've done, it's a great deescalation tool to say, I'm sorry, I thought this was a tell. And evidently you thought it was an ask. Hi there and welcome to the Step up podcast.

I'm your host, Kent Knievel. Every week I talk to experts who focus on helping leaders step up their leadership game and leaders telling their stories of growing up through the ranks. If you're new to the show, do me a favor and subscribe so you never miss an episode. One last thing as a leadership development consultant and executive coach, focus area of mine is supporting newly promoted leaders.

One in three promotions fail because we never teach newly minted VPs how to stop being a director or a newly promoted director how to stop being a manager. That's you. Or if you support a leader who had been recently promoted, I encourage you to visit my website at Kent Coach Toolkit and download a free copy of the Promoted Leader Toolkit filled with practical advice and tools to help new leaders stick the landing and truly step up to their new leadership level. All right, I've dillied and dallied long enough.

On with the show. Welcome everybody. Today we are going to be talking about a passionate area of mine, that's for sure. We're going to be talking a little bit about how does a leader get promoted to the next level of leadership, but even more importantly, what do you do when you get there?

How do you stick the landing right once you've been promoted and bird of a feather. Steve Moss, who is the executive mentor and president of Executive Springboard, is here with me today. Steve's been working in this area for quite a while. I don't want to take tell too much of your story, Steve.

I want you to tell it. But welcome. Thank you for being here for this conversation today. Kent.

It's great to be with you today. I'd love for you to just tell us all a little bit about your whatever of your career story you want to get into and eventually how did you land into doing what you're doing today? Okay. You know, for me, the process took a little while for me to understand maybe what my, my strengths were and.

But I'll start with that and then work backwards a little bit, if you don't mind. Ken. I consider myself an Olympic class connector. That's one of the things that I do well and really enjoy doing.

And in my business, Executive Springboard, I match top talent with external mentors who fundamentally change the trajectory of somebody's professional growth. And we'll get a chance to talk about that. But just as background, how I got here, my career was in marketing. I was a marketing executive four times as a chief marketing officer, and the fourth time I was working for a company called Emation, which was a spinoff of 3M.

It was a publicly traded company, about $2 million in sales. And. And I only lasted 19 months. And it stunned me to think about how after three successful times as a chief marketing officer, what went wrong this last time?

And I did some soul searching, I guess. In the immediate aftermath of the post traumatic stress that followed, I swore off corporate life and did consulting in other areas of marketing. At the back of my head, I kept on wondering what went wrong. And I did a lot of homework on why people fail in senior roles.

And it became the intellectual property for what started what became Executive Springboard. And at first I thought about hanging up my own shingle as an executive coach. The more I thought about it, I was a little concerned that I could be credible with marketing and salespeople. But I wasn't sure about CFOs or CIOs or other positions that had a fundamentally different functional skill set from my own.

So I made a lucky move, which was to contract with a creating a network of external mentors who would provide credibility to executives because they've sat in the chair. And that's what I've created at Executive Springboard. So we now have over 100 mentors covering, I don't know, 20 plus functional areas. So if somebody is in need of the kind of help we provide, there is someone who speaks their language, who has sat in their chair, who has lived through some of the experiences and is generous enough to show their own scars.

So somebody else's learning will be a little bit less painful than mine was. Maybe we can talk a little bit more at the end about how does Executive Springboard work and who comes to you, who should come to you. We'll get into that a little bit at the end, but before just a Quick detour. You said ima.

Imation. I think I always thought it was imation. And if I'm not, if I'm. If I'm correct, I believe I had a stack of burnable discs perhaps or.

Something like that back in, Back in the day. Floppies were going out when I joined. And either pronunciation. Either, either.

Okay, Imation. Imation. Either one was acceptable. Nobody's going to give us trouble about it because the company doesn't exist anymore.

Yeah. As I say, I think there have been some fun conversations I've even had with my own children around. What does it mean to burn a cd? I guess there's a couple different meanings these days for that as well.

I digress though. So let's start with. Because I think, I think we're going to have a nice conversation today given your background and my background. So let's start on the front end, which is I'm a leader, maybe I'm a supervisor, maybe I'm a manager, maybe I'm a director.

And I'm looking at making that next leap to either become a manager, director, vp, C suite, executive. Right. So I'm going from one level to the next. What are.

From your background and what you're seeing, what are you seeing in those leaders who make that jump, who get that promotion? What is it? And perhaps this entire episode is going to be the advice column in the end, which is for those who are seeking a leadership promotion. What are some of the things that, that you're seeing, those that are successful at doing it, what are they doing?

What do we, what are you thinking? What are you seeing that people should start thinking about doing? You know what I hear a lot, and I think it's something that's worth a discussion, is the concern that a lot of people have about their executive presence. And I want to talk a little bit about that and put it in the context of leadership.

A wonderful definition of leadership that I've used for quite some time is it's the authentic self expression that adds value. And if you look at some of the work that is done in executive presence, I'm thinking like the Bates XPI assessment, there are key elements there. There's character, there's substance, there's style. And two of those.

Character is often about who you are. And the more authentic you can be, the more that character comes out. And substance is about understanding how you add value. So now you get to the style piece.

And I think a lot of people get tripped up when they talk about style and executive presence because they try to make themselves something they're not. And what I would suggest for people is consider how you communicate, but in a way that feels really natural to you. If you can slow down, if you're communicating, it's not all about what you say. It's also taking the time to listen and seeking to understand.

It's using sentences that have periods in them. It's tying data to storytelling. And maybe as important as anything, it's stopping before you become exhaustive and exhausting to others in your answer. It's almost like having a balloon with just a small hole in it where air starts leaking out.

And lots of times, the more people talk, it's their. It's an, it's an own goal, to use a soccer expression, right. They, they convince other people that they don't have the presence that probably they have if they were more comfortable in their own skin. So, yeah, I think that's a big piece of it.

And being able to have that comfort, to have a modicum of confidence and be able to share that in a way that's meaningful, is critical in making that next step. You'll notice I didn't talk about people's functional skill set. And I think maybe that depends a little bit on the, the level that you're at. If somebody is a director and maybe in their in succession planning, they've been told, yeah, you may become a vice president in the next year.

As, as much as anything, it's not trying to build any more functional expertise than you already have. It's thinking about those leadership skills and thinking about how you express yourself that starts making a difference. How is it that you build alliances? How is it that you think through ambiguity, whatever it might be like that, that that can play a big role.

So we're anchoring on executive presence, which I think is a good place to start because you've, you've been in succession planning rooms. I've been in succession planning rooms. It's. It comes up, right.

This person does or doesn't have it executive presence. And there's all kinds of words you might end up hearing, but that it comes down to what we might then refer to as executive presence. And you've given it some, you put some meat on the bones there. And I think often, in my experience, I don't even know that the leaders who are saying somebody doesn't have executive presence know exactly what they're talking about or know exactly what they're even referring to.

But I think you hit the nail on the head. And if I were to pick on a couple things where when I've been in the room and leaders have said this person doesn't have executive presence. I'm gonna, so I'm gonna kind of say some opposites. Right.

Of what you said. Right. So they're talking about someone who talks too much. Right.

Who gives too much information, who answers too many questions, who isn't sitting back and listening. Right. I'm going to add one again. I'm going to talk in the opposite here from you.

There are people who have a hard time good, bad or otherwise leaving their old peer group behind. So when they go from being a manager to being a director, they struggle to let go of being a manager and being a peer of the other managers. And so they, I, I often call it like the man of the people syndrome. Right.

And so they become, they retain a somewhat informal and then unfortunately, in some cases, inappropriate level of candor, so to speak, with their old peer group because they don't want to lose that. They don't want to be seen as political and holier than thou or whatever. You know, they don't want to, they don't want to seem like now they're big timing their old peer group. Right.

But what that, but the leaders around the table who are talking about their future see it and they see that you're not rising above that. You're not being careful about what you say to the next level down, that you're not appreciating the weight, the way I've put it before, you're not appreciating the weight of the water that you carry, the weight of your own words. Yeah, so what did I say here? Are you talking too much?

Giving too many answers, not asking enough questions, not being appropriate, not having an appropriate level of. I don't know how I would put that. What I was just saying, it's. There's an appropriate level of distance that happens.

And what's funny about that is the new reports expect that. They expect a distance. They expect that somebody is now going to be in a, in this different role. No longer the captain, but the manager.

There, there is an expectation that this person isn't going to be going to the bowling nights with the same guys or going to the pub afterwards or what have you, like that, that they have separated themselves out a little bit and because that's almost needed for the objectivity that comes with that role. I'm smiling because when I became a director, my first director role, I was disinvited from the. So it was a. There was a men in HR's lunching group because men in HR was a small number.

And so they got together for lunch periodically. And I was disinvited from that lunch. The moment I became a director and I approached the guy who was spearheading this, I was like, what gives? Did you cancel?

And he was like, nope, you're a director now. You're no longer invited. I was like, what? He's.

We gotta be able to talk about you and. Or the use of the world. Directors are not invited so that it retains a safe space. And I was.

I understood, but was shocked in the moment. But I was like, oh, that's a smart move. I want to mention something else here that. That often happens with that promotion.

It happens with the promotion. It also happens if you're. If you're hired from the outside. More often than not, there is somebody internal who feels passed over and pissed off.

Yep. And in a lot of the work that we do, it's. It's distressing how much of this new manager's time, the new leader's time is being spent dealing with that individual. Yeah.

And I think there are some things that. That executives can do to show the respect that person probably deserves at. At the same time, you've gotta be really careful that they don't become a distraction for what you're trying to accomplish and disrupt that flow. Because that's part of the politics that can then can often happen.

Yeah. Let's come back to that. Right. Cause everybody has that.

Almost everybody has that. I'm pretty sure internal promotion or external hire. So we've been talking a lot about executive presence. I gave a little bit about what I think leaders are meaning when they say it.

The other thing I do want to give some credit to or give some airtime to the. Or at least just to say it out loud. I unfortunately have seen plenty of times where this has been used for as a. They're not quite ready yet.

Particularly for women and people of color. So it. Unfortunately, it is this thing that I think leaders both if this quote unquote, you know it when you see it. Kind of.

Yeah. The definition of pornography. Yeah. You know what?

When you see it. But again, I have seen it used and I've tried to pull out of people. What do you mean by that? And so there's times when executive presence, I think, is used appropriately.

The more words could be used to describe the behaviors that you're seeing that you would expect to see differently. But I have equally seen it used as a sort of Gatekeeping, a gatekeeping element that I don't believe has been particularly genuine. I don't know if you have any thoughts on that. Yeah, it's almost as if, when you hear that and particularly as, as you point out for certain groups that where there might be biases.

So are you saying that somebody has to perform to it? What I often see is there's, there is an expectation there. There's a question of when the promotion happens and when somebody is ready. Right.

That's that I think is worth talking a little bit about. And I think men, white men in particular, probably get the benefit of the doubt that they're ready when they haven't done the stuff that they're expected to do where people of color or women may be expected to have demonstrated it before they're brought into the club. I didn't want us to move along without saying that part because I think people will be listening and saying, yeah, but executive presence, for as much as it's written about and people have tried to quantify and qualify what it is and means, there's equally as many people who are writing about it around just how much bullshit is also wrapped up in that term.

I want to say a couple things and I want to move us into all right, now you've been promoted, how do you stick the landing? But I think there was a couple things. One thing I wanted to anchor on and one thing I wanted to add, I want to anchor back to what you said around listening, right? Talking less, listening more.

And frankly, I think it's actually tied to the other thing I want to talk about too, which is it's just the evolution of what is the work at your level and what is the work at each level then as you go. Because I think that's a big thing that changes for people that is really hard to let go of. Right. When you're an individual contributor all the way on one end of the leadership pipeline, so to speak, as an individual contributor, there's a lot of doing, right.

There's a lot of hands on work or however you want to talk about that there's producing kind of on one end of the spectrum and there is vision and strategy on the other end of the spectrum, right? And as you progress through the leadership pipeline, it's not that first leadership level that is suddenly you're no longer producing it as all strategy. No, but it is this ratio that goes from a hundred percent producing to zero percent strategy on one end of the spectrum to probably a hundred strategy vision, 0% producing and that ratio just adjusts each step of the way.

And I've seen that as being probably one of the hardest parts for leaders is how do you let go of whatever the identity is that you had built around the prior level? And because. And here's where I was going earlier, which is the table stakes that we're not even talking about here yet is you have to execute at level. Right.

If you're not executing at level and hitting goals, then all the executive presence in the world most likely won't get you the promotion. Right. But you also have to recalibrate what is executing me at each level. And where I've seen a lot of leaders struggle is I'm now a director.

I like to pick on my Buffalo Wild Wings days only because I love Buffalo Wild Wings and the operators there so much. So it's not. I'm not picking on them because they can't handle it. Because any of them who are listening will recognize this statement, which is, all right, I'm now a region manager.

I went from being a store manager to a region manager. I now manage five stores. Yep. That statement has a lot loaded into it that it's.

No, you manage five general managers. They manage their stores. Right. And.

But it's this nuance to their identity that they have to evolve into, to let you know. Because what I see people do, and you can put this into any corporate environment that just restaurant, the restaurant world is I'm just going to do more of what I was doing at the previous level and harder, because that's what got me here. And so I think coming back to your statement of are you listening more than talking? I think that's one of those examples, especially the higher you go.

Right. Is how you know that listen, talk to listen ratio. Very similarly to the sort of the execution versus strategy ratio. Right.

It almost is a mirror parallel evolution, so to speak. There are also, I think this isn't a straight line. The evolution isn't something that just keeps climbing like this. Yeah.

I see three steep climbs that happen along the way. And they often happen at like senior manager, director and vice president levels. Yeah. So at the senior level, the senior manager level, you wake up one day now with responsibility for five store managers under you.

Time is not your friend anymore. As an individual contributor for a long time, you had maybe more time than people were necessarily thinking and you could get the work done. But as the scope of responsibility grows, that changes. And when time is no longer your friend, all of a sudden tools around prioritization and delegation.

Come to the fore. Yeah. Where they hadn't necessarily before. So that's one climb before you can go fix it.

And that's the second area that I see. And the third is the developing an enterprise orientation that there comes a time when it's no longer about you just staying in your lane, but about you making an impact that goes beyond that and that becomes the responsibility that people have when they're on a leadership team is they're expected to make a contribution on things that come from the background and the experience they have. But it's handling issues that they just have a thin slice of something that's much broader.

Yeah, well put. Let's jump into, you've been promoted. How do you stick the landing? And I.

I think they're. While, you know, just kind of talking about what we were just talking about with your identity, how that needs to shift and your talk to listen. Ratio versus execution strategy ratio. Those change at each level.

And yet I would wager probably 80% of what helps you stick the landing, at least from a framework perspective, so to speak, is almost the same at each level too, though it's just kind of a recalibration of what does this mean at this level? That's my. I don't know. There's a lot in there, but you don't feel forced into that.

But let's talk about sticking the landing. When you're working with folks who have just been promoted, what are some of the typical areas you're drilling into or they're struggling with? Yeah. What I would.

I can point out kind of five areas that are critical early on for people to get a handle on that can lead to success. And. And if you don't, you can get. You can get ensnared.

So top of the list would be coachability, really about being able to ask for feedback, receive it when it's coming your way, reflect on it and acting on it. So that would be one area. I want to pick on that too. Right.

The higher you up. I like what you said, which is asking for feedback because the higher you get in the organization, the less feedback you're going to. Yes. And yeah.

My friend Kevin Wilde has, who's written book on coachability, talks about. He's been on. He was in one of my first. He's terrific.

He's terrific. And this. The notion is, what he saw was that there is a regular pattern of people losing that coachability. And the question is, how can you retain enough of that muscle memory to be successful in the next thing that you're doing.

We see that as a critical piece in this development. So. In addition to coach building, getting the feedback, emotional intelligence plays a role. Do you.

Do you see yourself? Are you reflective? One of the tools we do is ask people to journal regularly and read what they write and come back to it and understand what's going on there and thinking about their impact on other people and even thinking about how other people are viewing them. So there's self awareness and there's a social awareness.

At the same time, there is a cultural agility that is critical, particularly when you're in a new organization that has its own set of rules. There is a political savvy, which I want to talk about in a little bit of depth in a minute. And then the fourth is change management and getting the cadence on your agenda for change. If I can talk about politics for a minute.

We already discussed a little bit. Yeah. That notion of separation or distancing a bit from the group that you worked with before. And there's been an awful lot that has been written about it.

Far less written about the new group of peers that you find yourself in. Right. Yeah. They may be more key to your success or your failure if there's rumbling behind your back about your performance, your.

Whether the credibility you bring can be made personal for them. That's all kind of a critical piece. And people find themselves in roles where a mentoring relationship that they may have had internally, now all of a sudden this person is a peer and they're getting cow snapped as someone tries to protect their own. Their own domain.

And that's. It's a difficult lesson because almost anybody in that new role is the least politically savvy person to deal with. So even if you start looking at counting stripes on a sleeve, there might be some asymmetrical warfare that goes on with somebody who can have that. That newly promoted person at a significant disadvantage.

Yeah. And this is where. Right. I think we're almost talking about.

I mean, we're saying politics, but we're also just talking about relationships. It's relationships. It's influence. To.

To use a word that may not. Be as, you know, similar as executive presence. What the heck does influence me? But I think there.

There's three buckets of relationships that I try to talk about with the folks that I work with, which is your boss, your direct reports, and your peers. Y. And what I see is sometimes not enough time spent with some pretty critical conversations with your new boss very quickly and very early. An over index of time spent with your Direct reports and an under.

Even though it's kind of. I'm not trying, I'm trying. It's different because I would say I see it an inordinate amount of time spent with the team, the direct reports and, you know, under indexing on boss and peers. Yeah, but I think you need to spend even more time with your peers than you do your boss.

Right. But there's critical transitional work to do in each of those three buckets and to stick with peers for a moment. Can't tell you how many times I've heard in hypo talent review conversations where we're identifying high potentials or even talking about specifically talking about role successors is has not built a strong network among their peers and how many times that was a significant knockout factor to whether or not someone was considered high potential or where we were talking about their readiness for the next level.

On what kind of timeline. Yeah, and honestly, in my own work and those that I've been coaching, on the one hand, you do need to spend significant time with your direct reports immediately, of course, right away, and I would argue some real critical, important conversations to have with your boss right away. Right. Understanding what the real goals are for you and your area and what you're expected to deliver and then figuring out how does that cascade to the people under you.

You know what I often say you don't do what in your head's gonna roll. How do you have that conversation with your leader? Especially if you've been promoted internally, you might neglect having that conversation because you were on the team. There's an unfortunate expectation that you already should understand that maybe already get it.

But I would say have the conversation out loud. And I don't usually recommend that people spend a ton of time with their peers in like month, one month too. But you want to be careful not to ignore them either. How do you have some light touch conversations right away?

Just setting the stage that you're going to be spending some time. But then I've seen too many people completely neglect that peer set. And so what do you. I could keep barreling on there, but when you were talking with people about how they are either establishing as an external hire or recasting, so to speak, as a internal promote.

What are some of the things that you're talking with people about on recasting those relationships with those peers? Yeah, on the relationship with a boss. Yes. I think clarity on goals is critical.

I also think decision rights are right up there as well. And we've used a tool that I wish I could remember who first explained this to me, but he had a business in Minnesota and the two owners of the business lived were brothers who lived in Florida. So he wasn't going to get a whole lot of time with them. And he said, I want to get things set in three buckets.

One is the things I can just do and you're never going to hear about them. The second is the things that I'm going to do and then I have to tell you about afterwards. And then the third is what are the things I have to ask you before I do? So that do tell ask is about the decision rights and can be a critical piece in all of this.

And you can't get so granular that everything gets spelled out there. Maybe it's budget levels, maybe it's something else, but establishing that can make a huge difference because if you ever find yourself in a situation where you've torqued your boss about something you've done, it's a great de escalation tool to say, I'm sorry, I thought this was a tell. And evidently you thought it was an ask. So there's a language there that can help with that.

I would agree with you just a bit on the, on on the peers that it may not be the focus on day one, but somewhere along the line they're going to start playing a big role and you come in with. With not a lot of competence. The competence is in your team that they can deliver things that perhaps you have to commit to. And, and so a lot of it is begging for time either with the, with your peers or with your boss, that as you are getting up to speed, some things are being delivered for them and understanding what that is and what's important to them, their priorities to try to make whatever competence you have valuable to them goes a long way to start building those relationships.

Another thing that I'd say, and it, it ties in with the team a bit when people get promoted and particularly if they're staying in the same business unit and the job hasn't necessarily changed, but now they're in a more supervisory role, getting out from under the work they used to do. Yeah, it's so important and it can be so hard because lots of times all they're being told is congratulations, you're now a vice president. And it's not clear that the role has changed, but someone has given you a pay bump to do different kinds of work than you were doing in the past.

And figuring that out can be a pretty important thing. I want to come back to piers for just a second and then I want to make sure we come back to how do we deal with the person who also wanted the job. I want to stay honest to that. But with peers I often recommend just start out building a friendly relationship.

Just where do they live? What do they do outside of work? You could certainly get into some of the like what are the goals of your I do recommend at some point you get into some specifics on what are your goals, what are the things you're responsible for delivering for the organization, Getting into some conversations around what's what gets in your way. How does my team help or hinder that?

Get some understanding of how they see the world. I have also seen and while you're no longer a level below these folks, I have seen some leaders be quite successful in how they are taking recasting a more peer mentor sort of relationship at least in the first three to 12 months, right to say hey you've made this jump. How do you pick if you have six, seven peers now that used to be above you, how do you take a few of them as your peer mentor? Partner in crime?

Those who can tell you all the unwritten rules, right Uncovering both from your boss and your peers. Where are the power dynamics that maybe I didn't see before, but I have seen some. I've seen some people be quite successful with just a slight near term tweak to those relationships where I still need your mentorship but just as a peer. Now I think that's a.

It's a great point and totally agree with you on that. I also think that in situations where you may not have had a close relationship before, going in with an assumption of positive intent is really a kind of critical thing. Until if something happens and you feel like you have to protect yourself or other or your team, okay, different situation or even in that situation go into the conversation with a recognition that that somebody wasn't doing this to to necessarily to shiv you.

But so where is the triangulation that can happen? And the balance in that is is to try to create that alignment without while still maintaining air support for your own team. I want to come back to before we're going to do a rapid fire advice column. Like I said, I think this entire episode has been the third segment of this podcast which is great but I want to come back to because I've moved us along from it and I don't want any listeners out there being like wait, that sounds really sticky and important.

So you've been promoted or even brought in from the outside, and there is someone on that team who wanted the job, didn't get it. What's your. How do you work with people through that? What are some of the things you have helped people or how have you helped people overcome that very specific challenge?

I'll come to that in a. But let me bring something up that's related to that. Lots of times leaders do their people a disservice by suggesting that they're somewhere in the succession plan where they're not. And so lots of times that person who is feeling like they should have gotten the job, they're feeling that way because the former incumbent told them and because it's.

It's one of those things that helps them with their. With retention, it helps them keep somebody engaged is to say, you're on my list. Yeah, someone's been pulling their punches and. And there should be recognition if you're in that.

If you're in that situation, there should be recognition that it's not necessarily your decision to make. You know, it's a recommendation that you can give. It's not your decision to make. And those people have to understand that it wasn't the person before his decision to necessarily make.

Okay, what happens. As I said, this happens with a lot of people. They see this dynamic. It takes up a lot of their time because that person is.

That person who was passed over is normally vocal about the fact that they are passed over. Or if they're not vocal, there's other ways that people are that lead, that leader is recognizing that somebody is amiss. It doesn't go away by not talking about it. So I think there's gotta be room for an honest conversation.

I also think it helps if you can figure out in a situation where you're learning the business to be able to say to somebody going back to do tell, ask there. There should be some things that not everything's going to be an ask some of the things I want to give that individual feels passed over enough ownership of something that I don't want to call it a consolation prize, but that they have a belief that you won't micromanage them. And so I think that's important. Some people will be able to live with that, some people won't.

What I would also say is if somebody's behavior becomes disruptive, you have to point it out to them and make sure they understand that's not okay. Right. And if that means an eventual exit, that was part of the decision making that came with you getting the role that you're in almost as often as not it doesn't work out for that person go but giving them the opportunity to prove that they can be a member of the team, a valued member of the team who has who has responsibilities where I as that new boss will keep out of their hair from time to time.

I think that's a way that you win. Yeah my yes and to that would be depending on how what your own reputation is for being a developer of people depending on the openness of this person there there could be a great conversation at some point. Probably not right away but I wouldn't wait too long for it either around Hey, I understand that you wanted this role. Let's talk about that and let me try to be honest with you about what I understand or even the assessment of your capabilities are or what my new observations are and what my commitment level is to giving you feedback ongoing and helping you if that's what you really want to get there.

So watching the time again I feel I usually ask what's one piece of advice for those who are seeking a promotion in leadership and what's one piece of advice for those who have landed the promotion to me, stick the landing. I feel like we've talked about that. So what I want to do is actually just get right into would love for just to hear a little bit more about for those who want a little more Steve Moss or executive springboard in their lives. Who's reaching out to you, who should reach out to you?

How do they find you? Yeah, Kent, you've been at Buffalo Wild Wings and General Mills and Cargill. So was there ever a time when your plate wasn't overflowing in a talent role? Yeah.

Yeah. So it's the insight that that we have is even if you take a cut of your business that's focusing on the high potentials, the top talent, the C suite, whatever it may be, there's still probably more than you than your bandwidth can manage. And that's something we have over a hundred mentors in the executive springboard so we can help organizations tackle the bandwidth issue. We work with companies to help their executives, often through transitions.

So we've talked about promotion readiness. We've talked about onboarding a third piece that that we get involved in. It's more of a chronic issue than a an acute issue. I think maybe a way of thinking about this.

People who are at a different point in their careers, people who are close to the end of their careers, who are no longer motivated by a promotion, who may Day by day feel like they're becoming less relevant to the business. They become often just emotionally less engaged in the business. How can you reignite them? What is the, what's the spark that you can provide to get them to, to think about the impact that they can have beyond their own function, the legacy they want to leave, what values they can model in the organization?

I think there are lots of things that we don't usually do. And these senior long tenured people in an organization can sometimes go on autopilot by believing, yeah, I've got knowledge, that is because I hold this close, I'm of value to the organization. And trying to flip this so they start realizing that there's value in that information being shared, that institutional knowledge being shared instead of being held tightly, I think is something that's critical as well. So those are the three areas that Executive Springboard deals with.

Yeah. So folks who are looking to relieve some of the bandwidth issues, particularly around promotion readiness, onboarding, or think to your point like helping seasoned leaders think about their legacy. Right. Perhaps they'd be great candidates for an executive mentor.

Right. Somebody who has been there, maybe same industry, same level. And what we find is almost every company in Fortune 500 has a mentoring program, even at an informal level. Mentoring programs internally generally break down at around a director level, even if it gets that high, because people will not be transparent, will not make themselves vulnerable with somebody in the organization who someday can become their problem.

Right. So the default has been to go to executive coaches. We differentiate ourselves a little bit from, from executive coaches. We're in the same game.

The big difference for us is that those hundred mentors within Executive Springboard have sat in the chairs of the people that they may be working with. Yeah. Nice. So where can people find you?

We are. You can reach me at smoss@exec springboard.com exc springboard.com and be happy to entertain conversations with people who are running into any of these issues on transitions within their, their executive team or just want to, want to talk through some of the talent issues that they have.

I'd be delighted to. Yeah. And I would say you're easy to find on LinkedIn. I would encourage people to check you out there as well.

And we'll make sure we include Your email and LinkedIn in your in our show notes. Perfect. Steve, thanks so much for being here today. This was fun.

Kent, it's been a pleasure. Thanks so much. All right, thanks. That brings us to the end of our episode.

Thank you for listening. I'd encourage you to head on over to my website Kent Coach and start a conversation with me there. Or check out my promoted leader Toolkit at Kent Coach Toolkit. Before you go on with your day, please take a moment to leave a rating and a review wherever you listen to podcasts, which the five stars that helps put this podcast in front of more ears.

Till next time, take it easy.