Renee DeAngelis

Renee DeAngelis

Renee DeAngelis:And so I think it's really all about being uncomfortable. And I don't know if balance is achieved. Ithink that balance is achieved by testing things out and potentially falling, but when you breakthrough it's the craziest most awesome feeling in the world.Jeff Hunter:Hi and welcome. I'm Jeff Hunter and you are listening to Coaching in the Clear, the podcastcommitted to help you learn about coaching. Coaching is more popular than ever, and webelieve that sharing in-depth personal conversations about coaching experiences is the bestway for you to learn whether coaching is for you and how you can get the most out of yourcoaching practice. We are especially interested in how people use coaching to unleash theirpotential while creating market leading big change businesses. Coaching in the Clear is aproduction of Talentism, a business dedicated to helping the world's most ambitious leadersachieve their ultimate goals by systematically turning confusion into clarity. We send out aweekly newsletter called the Sensemaker where we offer our latest thinking about issuesaffecting big change companies and their leaders, as well as provide other helpful content toenable you to unleash your potential, learn more and sign up at Talentism.com. So Renee,thank you so much for joining us today on Coaching in the Clear, my first question for you ishow did you come to use a coach? How did you get to the place where you decided you wantedto use a coach?Renee DeAngelis:Well hi Jeff. Thank you. Coaching came to me through an acquisition and merger involvingprivate equity. And so we were merging with another company that did the same thing as we do.And that's when I met you and your team and we, there are a lot of intricacies to those types ofdeals. And so we met and we decided to, that having a coach would help me navigate throughsome of the challenges with what happens with a transaction like that.Jeff Hunter:Great, and just say for the audience, that was a very successful transaction. So congratulationson that and has helped you build an amazing company. So tell me a little bit about what you'velearned about coaching and how you experience it. You came to it pretty new and I've reallyenjoyed our relationship and the opportunity to coach you. And I've seen you grow a lot throughthat process. So tell me a little bit about how you've experienced it and what you've learnedabout over time.Renee DeAngelis:Oh my gosh. So much. I think the, I mean, overall I think coaching is this opportunity for you tobecome the best version of yourself. And I, one of the biggest takeaways I've had is I had oftenlead a team and managed a team and run a company, grown a company a lot through thisinstinct that was deep inside of me. And I think working with you, I've been able to put aframework together around it and language around it that not only I can use, but also mycolleagues and people I work with can use, so it's been a sort of common, we've created acommon language. We've been able to all learn together through using that framework. I alsothink that throughout my whole life I've always had a coach and I think, I truly believe coachingis not really a one-dimensional thing. You know, as a coach, as a person who leads a team orleads a company I find that I learned just as much from the people I'm working with or coachingas I do, hopefully help them as well. So I feel like it's for me and either seat or either hat that Iwear, I feel like it's a, there's a lot of growth and opportunity and an opportunity to mastersomething and a lot of opportunity to learn something new.Jeff Hunter:So I'm going to let the audience in on a little thing. So one of the things I love about ourconversations is you are not only an expert and a professional in the world of climbing, you'realso an enthusiast and you’ve spent a lot of your time, free time such as it is, there isn't a lot,climbing and so I'm always trying to impress you by bringing up climbing references. And you'realways very patient with me as I stumble my way through that. And that's been a very cooldynamic in our relationship, but one of the things that I've found when I'm coaching people isthere's usually some area of their life where they pursue excellence. It's not always in their job,but there's some area of their life where they push themselves and they're testing themselves toreally uncover what they're capable of. And I not only have seen you, I mean, we've talkedabout climbing and what that means for you, but also I've seen that in the world of your work, isthere some way you can connect those two things for me? Like what it's like to climb versuswhat it's like to lead?Renee DeAngelis:Oh my gosh, there are, it's all the same. Well, first of all, I want to say, I'm not an expert climber.There are so many people who are way beyond me. I think I'm, I have a deep love and passion.I've been climbing for so long It's almost embarrassing, cause I should be a lot better than I am,but I love it. And that's the wonderful thing about this sport is that at any level you can enjoy it,but there's so many parallels. I often, you know, when you're climbing you are, well actually letme give you a story. Back in 2008, when I was just with planet granite, which is the companythat I was part of and helped grow before we had the private equity merger and acquisition, Iwent to climb El Cap and the actual El Cap in Yosemite. And I remember standing at the bottomof the route and looking up and thinking, oh my gosh, I am, how am I ever going to do this? Itlooks really steep and long. And during that time we were in a really busy growth phase at work.We were opening a new gym. We were hosting a national competition. I had a brand new teamof people that I had just assembled in anticipation of this growth. And so it was really crazy atwork. And I just thought, I looked up at that rock and I thought, well, if I can get through all ofthat, I can get through this climb. And you just kind of tackle it one pitch at a time. And I thinkthat, that's what we did in that moment at our company is that we just slowly crept up the, youknow, indoor climbing version of El Cap to accomplish all the things that we had to do. And so Ithink the, you know, when you're standing on the top of it, or when you're through, you've got allyour gyms open in your past, all the competition and craziness, you feel that same sense ofsuccess. So I think an overall sense that is, there's so much similarity and I've always loved it.And it is, you're constantly pushing yourself. And if you feel like I'm always driving myself toexcellence both at work and in my personal time, and there is no one thing, but I think I'm fairlylucky that it is so similar and there are so many overlaps.Jeff Hunter:One of the things I've experienced in our conversations and it's really helped me sort offormulate this in my mind. So Talentism is constantly talking about goals and unleashing yourpotential. And because people talk about potential in different ways, it's sort of this mystical sortof thing, right? Like it's always out there, it's never achievable, etcetera. And so that can make itsort of squishy for lack of a better term. And so we talk about potential is as potential does, likeyou gotta keep pushing the boundaries of things to figure out where your potential is. And yetthe thing I, the very little I know about climbing, and I appreciate your humility so much indescribing that, but of course, relative to me, you are an expert. So we'll continue to use that asyour rep for now. But one of the things that, the little climbing I had done earlier in my life is thatsense of how much to push yourself because pushing yourself beyond a certain limit actuallycould be dangerous. And yet, if you aren't willing to put yourself in a position where you have tofigure something out, or you have to make a big move you know, then you'll never really know.You won't know what your potential is. How do you think about the balance of those things?Again, both in climbing and with respect to the excellence you're pursuing at work.Renee DeAngelis:I don't think that you really know unless you try and you have to be okay with falling. I mean,that's really what it comes down to. And I think in climbing and in a work scenario, you have tobe okay with being uncomfortable. And I have often told people, I work with that well, whenyou're climbing the first person up the route or the pitch is lead climbing, and that's a little morescary because the higher you go up your place in gear, clipping into a gear as you go up. Andyou fall to that last piece of gear that you have clipped and that's called lead climbing. And it's alittle bit scary cause you fall a little bit farther than if you're following, if you're the second person.And so I think that when I'm, when you're leading a team or helping someone get throughsomething, I think you have to be okay being uncomfortable. You've got to kind of be on leadand push yourself and navigate the unknown. You don't always know where you're going, butyou do know, you know, where you want to end up, but you don't necessarily know how to getthere. And so I think it's really all about being uncomfortable. And I don't know if balance isachieved. I think that balance is achieved by testing things out and potentially falling. But whenyou break through, it's the craziest most awesome feeling in the world. You know, that's whenyou tap into your fierce, when you've tried something, you've been on the edge of, I don't know ifI should go forward or not, and you go forward and you are successful then it is, it's just themost amazing feeling out there and confidence building and everything that goes along withkind of becoming the best version of yourself.Jeff Hunter:One of the things, so you just use the word fierce. And as you know, I've got a sticky on mycomputer that says, find your fierce. I learned so much from the people I have the good fortuneto coach and from you, I've learned a lot about courage. And so I've got this post-it that says,find your fierce because that's something you were talking about with yourself and I've seen youexhibit it. What have you experienced in coaching with regards to helping you find that fierce?Or do you think that’s just something you have and then coaching is playing another role onceyou have it?Renee DeAngelis:Oh my gosh. I think that finding your fierce is something you always have to work on. It's notthat you have it and it stays with you. I feel like I lost mine for many years and Jeff you've beeninstrumental in helping me find that and helping me really make sense of how you do that. So Idon't know if that's really answering your question, but I think that it's something that you, it'seasy to become complacent. I guess, it's easy, I think as a female to get knocked down and tostart to not believe in yourself. And so it takes, you know, I have appreciated you as a coachbecause you have been dedicated to knowing that I know how to tap into that and helping guideme along the way and how to do that, how to find it and what it looks like when I have.Jeff Hunter:Okay. So you provided an opening. I want to pursue this a little bit. And because it's actuallysomething that's deeply meaningful to me, and it's also a scary topic to talk about. And so I justwant to put it out in the open, which is, as you know, I coach a number of female founders, anumber of female executives and something I'm asking them during the course of this podcastis about my blindness and about the privilege I have as a straight white male and about whatthat does with respect to whether I can be an effective coach for somebody who I don't sharetheir experience, because I do have so much privilege. And you and I have talked a fair amountabout this, about your experience being a female executive and for you it hasn't just as far asI've understood it, it hasn't just been being a female executive. It's like you're sort of a trailblazerin a lot of different areas in climbing as a very male dominated sort of sport. At least that's wherea lot of the attention goes to. And so I would just love anything you could tell me or tell us aboutwhat I need to pay attention to or think about with respect to being the best possible coach forpeople who don't have my privilege, and I don't share their experience.Renee DeAngelis:Well, I think that you, one of the most important things is doing the work and it feels to me likeyou do, do the work. You're always asking questions that sort of stop our conversation. Andwhen you're able to say, well, you know, wait you know, I don't know the perspective you'recoming from and you kind of recognize when you might be coming from a place of privilege.And so part of that is to be, I think it's absolutely possible, but it, but the coach has to besomeone who is humble and open and willing to do the work, to learn what coming from a placeof privilege means. But I guess that's it for now. I’m trying to think. I mean, I think that it's just,you know, I kind of think of it as we're in this together, you've been helping me and I, you know, Ihope that you've learned a perspective from me that maybe you didn't have before and the otherwomen that you coach, but I don't, it's sort of, it's just a journey. And I think that if you have therelationship where you can be open and honest with each other and have the conversations,when, that it is a start and, you know, I don't really have a... I just don't think there's a blanketanswer to that because every, not every coach is going to do the work and get educated onwhat it means to be coming from their perspective.Jeff Hunter:Well, that's great. Thank you. Okay. So tell me if you could change one thing, two things,whatever it is, I don't want to put an artificial limit on this, about what the people who work in thecorporate world need to know about what they can do better to create an environment thatunleashes the potential of their employees. What would it be?Renee DeAngelis:So what would it be to create the environment that would unleash the potential of theemployees? Well, I think, I mean the first thing is create a culture in which that is able to thriveand have a huge ear to listening and learn how to ask really good questions.Jeff Hunter:Good. So what would be a really good question?Renee DeAngelis:Hmm. Well, I think if you asked anyone that I work with, they will tell you that I am very good atasking questions. So I think a good question, if there's maybe not one good question, but I thinkthat I don't pretend that I know everything. And so it's trying to, when people come to me withchallenges, questions, you know, help me get through this. It's being able to ask them aquestion that helps them think critically about the situation so they can learn to come to aconclusion on their own or get to a conclusion together. If you don't know the answer is either.Jeff Hunter:Yeah. So the thing for me, and we've talked about this a lot. So, you know, I have this belief,like, we're all confused. Confusion is this thing that's happened to us as a species. Like it's notsome people are bad and some people are good and some people are confused andunconfused and stupid or lazy or whatever. It's like as a species, we have this interesting sort ofthing where we're able to create lots of complexity, but we don't necessarily have the right mindto deal with the complexity that we've created. It's over constantly and confusion about what'shappening around us. And then I think great leaders and people like yourself come to it with asense of humility about the fact that you're probably missing something. And because the, Ithink of things like, and again, this is something we've talked about. I think of it like the, youhave lots of tools at your disposal to achieve your goals, but the biggest, most important toolyou have is your brain. And so what you really want to do first and foremost is be like acraftsman of your own brain. You want to be excellent at using that tool. It's not the only toolyou've got, but it's a really big one. It's a really important one. And because the brain is giving usconsciousness and giving us awareness and all those things, it's almost sort of like we're insidethe tool itself as opposed to separate from it and looking at it and saying, oh, how could I usethis better? And so the first thing is to understand that we have a lot of agency in any situation tobe able to step back and say, okay how, you know, what could I do better? How could Iimprove? And then the question to me, the single point question that continues to help people,both reinforce that humility, as well as ask a productive sort of inquiry to help you move forwardis what am I missing? Because I think we're all missing stuff, right? It's just constant. And it'sboth just a reality that our brain can't possibly process all the information that's flowing into it. It'salso our reality that our brain makes all sorts of unconscious distinctions and biases that wearen't even aware of. And so we're just sort of dealing with what another part of our brain hasalready led us, sort of, deal with and coming to a place of humility and saying, what am Imissing to me is the question that sort of, you know, sort of unleashes that moment to explore.And I've in our coaching I've seen you do that wellRenee DeAngelis:I agree. I think this is a great example of what I was, when we were talking earlier about sort ofwhat's the value I've gotten out of coaching is so, you know, as soon as you started talking, I'mthinking in my brain, of course, yes, the best question is ask, what am I missing? I don'timmediately go there. And I go to my gut instinct in this intuitive of, you know, I'm askingquestions to help people think critically about something. And so I think just, I want to, I don'tknow if this is making sense, but it's just like, I'm pointing to the framework that you all have puttogether as a way to talk about this as a way to maybe formalize how and speak about how Iwould go about coaching someone or how I would go about creating that environment thatpeople can become their best selves and is, yes, you're right. That is the best question, is whatam I missing here and getting to that through a series of questions. So I don't know if thatmakes any sense.Jeff Hunter:Yeah, yeah. I think it also connects back to the previous question, the previous thing we weretalking about around privilege, I think if more people with privilege would just ask themselvesthat question, it would create a space and an opening to really learn. I think every again,something you and I have talked a lot about is power grades privilege, and that we're allsomewhere in a hierarchy somewhere, and we all have bosses and we all have somebody who,you know, people are more powerful than us and less powerful than us. And especially whenwe're an executive, there's a lot of people who are less powerful than us and how we show up tothat experience with a sense of humility and yet being completely focused on our goals and notlosing sight of that, holding that tension is just so incredibly difficult. And one of the things I'vealways loved learning from you about climbing, etcetera, is that dynamic tension that you can'thave arrogance as you're working towards the summit. And yet you have to be laser focused onthe summit and knowing that, you know, there is an end goal you're trying to achieve. I'velearned a lot from you about thinking that way and thinking through that. What do you thinkabout, so one of the things I'm pretty curious about is how you create a really great organization,an organization in your case. You know, ELCAP runs these incredible climbing gyms and I'vealways loved hearing from you how important it was that people walk through the door of theclimbing gym and they find a safe place to try something extreme and something important tosort of unleash themselves on the wall if you will. And so when I think about all the details youand your team cover in the myriad little things that have to go right. So somebody has,somebody, one of your customers can only pay attention to one thing. You can only payattention, like, okay, have I picked the right wall? Am I clipped in? Am I going to do this asopposed to like, wow, this place smells or whatever it is, how do you think about both holdinghigh standards for just a lot of little things, while at the same time being incredibly open, that aperson who's helping you achieve that goal isn't having a good day or is, you know, they, todayjust, they made a mistake and in the mistake is affecting a customer. And so you care deeplyabout that customer. You care about their experience. You care about that employee. How doyou think about being a leader and a manager in the midst of that tension?Renee DeAngelis:Well, I think it helps in our, in my particular world that we, there's not a lot of separation from ourteam at work and the community that we work in and our personal lives. So if we are all, youknow, I can speak to myself, I work here. I, but I'm also part of the climbing community. Sothere's a tremendous amount of accountability and ownership that I have on a personal andprofessional level just every day, whether I am stepping into the gym to work, whether I'mstepping into the gym to climb, or even if I'm out at a local crab, local crag, climbing crag. I thinkthat it's on one level, that's, it's a lot of weight on your shoulders. But on the other, I think itmakes that tension a little, it eases that tension because it gives the sense that we're all in thistogether. And, you know, it's not just when we're talking about safety in the gym, for example,it's not just on us to ensure safety, it's on the whole community. It's on every climber who walksin to make sure that if they see something that potentially might lead to a mistake that they'respeaking up about it, whether to our team members or to that fellow customer member guest.So I think that it's a little bit, I feel very lucky that it's a little bit easier because we care deeplynot only about the experience and not only about the safety but the people in the community.And we've really, haven't, you know, we've had our success by building great communities andhaving a good culture and having a great vibe when you walk into that door. And so we're allpart of it, whether you're working or whether you're there for fun.Jeff Hunter:That's awesome. Okay. So what if you're managing someone and you, as their manager, see,they have so much more to give. They have so much more potential in them, and they're just forwhatever reason, at least the way you're perceiving it is, they're not bringing it. They are just,something's going on. And there's a pretty big gap between your expectation and yourexperience. There's confusion. How do you approach that? Thinking as much as a manager, asa coach in that moment to try to unleash their potential?Renee DeAngelis:​:I mean, how do I approach it? I mean it's a very, I feel like it's a long road and that starts withunderstanding what's going on with that person. So it's the question you asked, what am Imissing here? Is there something, you know, have we missed a skills assessment? Is theresomething going on in the person's personal life? Have they performed previously? And there'ssuddenly a change in performance? I just start by asking all of those questions initially. Yeah.Jeff Hunter:Yeah. So you talked a little bit just to connect to this. So to tie some of those together, youtalked a little bit earlier about culture. You're talking a little bit about performance, aboutpotential and you went through a merger and mergers are always interesting experiencesbecause they take two organizations filled with incredible well-meaning people who are trying toachieve something. They may even be trying to achieve the same thing, like incredible climbinggyms, but they have different cultures. They have different behaviors, they reward differentways of making sense of things. This was really your first time going through that experience.What have you learned about that merger and about people and about cultures and unleashingin the midst of that?Renee DeAngelis:Well, so we've actually now gone through two because we, so we merged with earth planetgranite merged with earth treks two, almost three years ago. And then just this past December,we also acquired another, a third climbing gym company called movement. So we have beenputting together, stitching together and creating a new culture out of all three brands sinceJanuary really. So my experience with that is, I mean, it was really eye-opening because whenplanet granite and earth treks first merged, we very much viewed each other as wow, we're thesister companies, they, you know, we knew each other. I would always call up that team andask questions. How are you doing this? Or, you know, what software do you use, etcetera? Andwe would collaborate on a lot of things when we were two separate companies. And so themerger seemed like it would be easy. It, you know, of course all the puzzle pieces are fittingtogether, but when we actually dug into it is, the companies did things drastically different. Notthat one was any better than the other. It's just, we then realized very quickly, we needed tofigure out how to take the best of and create new. And so what I've learned about people is thatthere are, you know, I think the success of it depends on people being really open to changeand open to new ways of doing things. And I think it also, it was also a lot of conversations withpeople of, do you really want to, you know, be part of creating this new thing. And I think asleaders, it was really important and it still is very important to cast a vision of where we want togo. And what does that look like and how we get there is important, but where are we going toget everybody, you know, on the bus and are in the boat and rowing in the same direction. Andthat has been incredibly hard to do. And I remember you telling me that creating culture whenyou've gone through a merger takes years and years. And I am definitely, we're three years intoit and yeah it does, it's a lot of work and that's a long road.Jeff Hunter:Yeah. Culture is one of those things. I think it's, first of all, it's one of those words that's thrownaround a lot and a lot of people do. And yet it's typically, it's very difficult to sort of define it. Wehave a particular way. We define it as you know, we've talked a lot about that. But the thing thatstrikes me is when you're going through any sort of integration, cultural change associated withthat integration, and it doesn't even have to be two companies, it can be two teams. It can beyou know, two people then you're really dealing with this thing. That's interesting about humanbeings that we all think one thing about ourselves, we believe something about ourselves astrue. That may not be true. In other words, if you go to two, if you go to a person and you say,would you be open-minded to doing things in a better way? They'll say yes, almost universally.I'd be like, yeah, of course. And then, but what both the data and the experience shows is theanswer is probably no. Most people are very deeply grounded in these unconscious biases,ways of working habits, procedures. We just get used to them. And our mind really attaches tothem as a way of like making sense of the world that when someone comes along and onecontacts, the conversation says, would you be open? Then the person says, sure. And whenyou actually put them into the change process it's a radically different thing. And how you workwith human beings through that, again, you're trying to achieve a goal. It's very interesting,especially in the private equity context, you're operating in where there's, it's not like, you know,15, 20 year horizons, it's 5 and 7 year horizons, and you got to integrate a lot of stuff. Improve alot of things, go through a lot of change, open a lot of gyms, do all these things all at once. Andyou're dealing at the end of the day with human beings and human beings, some like change,some types of change. Some don't like change and you as a leader, have to take them throughthat. And one of the things I believe that it's just so important for anybody who's listening abouthow to unleash your potential is to understand that you yourself are probably the thing that isstanding in the way of that. It's you, you're saying authentically. And I don't think people are everlying when they say, yeah, I'm up for the challenge. And then later when they struggle with achange or a similar challenge, then you'll hear them, you know, sort of blame others and say, noI was up for the challenge if it had only gone down this way or whatever, but if you put them in asafe space and you really take them through that, it often is that no, it was easy to say thechange you were open to change and it was actually very difficult to do. And that's why startingwith the premise that people are confused as opposed to bad or good, where, you know, stupidor lazy or smart or dumb or whatever those sorts of models are frames we put in our head tomake sense of things are just not productive, but knowing that people are confused and gettingthem to clarity can take a lot of work. I think is sort of the center of it. And I've seen you gothrough that and work through that. Yeah.Renee DeAngelis:And I don't think we're there. I mean, it is such a long process because there's layers ofconfusion. There's you know, I think we, it's creating that safe space. I think you mentioned youtouched on it when you said that. I think it's creating a space where people do feel that they canexpress something and be heard and that there aren't consequences to it, but it has also been alot of conversations about what does a merger and an acquisition mean. And what does, youknow, it means that we're probably not going to be doing the same thing, because we've got awhole new blank slate of way to, for me, it was this opening up to create an experience thatwould transform our industry and I, for both team members and customers walking through thedoor. And I think that getting everybody on board to do that meant letting go of how you didthings in the past, and it's still difficult for people, and you can see it on their faces whensomething is challenging, the way things used to be. And we're slowly getting through all of that.But I hope that it's been a great learning experience for everybody involved, but it has been somany conversations on so many levels. And it's every person in the company from top to bottomhas to go through this. And it just takes someone with a, I mean you almost have to set yourkind of step outside of yourself to be able to view it. And trying to, I think for me, one of mybiggest challenges has been, and learning experiences has been, how do you encourage thatbehavior across departments, across the whole company and at many different layers. So it'sbeen a journey and I'm incredibly thankful that I have a team of really talented people to help mealong with it because it can't, you know, it shouldn't, it can't fall on one person to bespearheading all of it.Jeff Hunter:Yeah. And I think what makes it especially difficult is when I talk to people about the leaders Iwork with and, you know, anybody who occupies a position of leadership probably has somelevel of celebrity associated with them. I don't think that's a good thing, by the way. I just thinkthat's natural for human beings to take a look at somebody who has more power or privilegethan they do and say, oh, wow, there must be something unique or special about them in myexperiences. Like, no, usually there's not, we’re all just human beings. We're all confused. We'reall sort of working our way through a lot of stuff. Some people have particular talents and giventhose talents or give them luck, they end up in a certain place, but, you know, tomorrow thecontext could change and it could be you and you could be the right leader for the time. And soit's really just about constantly being in pursuit of you know, as we've talked about the, your bigfour, but to understand that when you're in a position of privilege or power, that you've got these,as we've talked about psychological keys to the kingdom because you can hire people, you canfire them, you can promote them, you can demote them, you can give them status, you can givethem membership or cast them out. You can give them the security, or you can diminish thatsecurity. And to me, that's such a critical, important thing everyday to understand like howimportant it is to be in that position of power or privilege, and treat that with humility and treatthat with a level of like, understanding that if you are as a leader, confused or having a hard day,that's going to have a big ripple effect and that's going to really impact a lot of people. And Iknow a lot of leaders almost sometimes get defensive about that. Like, you know, that's not fairor whatever. And I sort of feel like use that celebrity metaphor. It's the, you know, the celebritiesthat complain about the paparazzi and I'm like, okay, got it. But it's the reality. People want tosee pictures of you. So how are we going to deal with that? And the thing I've experiencedworking with you, and again, so many other great leaders, as the times you're most connectedinto that humility, the time you're most connected into that, like, okay, I may be missingsomething. Or if I'm asking people to change, I've got to sort of start there myself and be thechange I want to see that courage of going first. Being first on the, you know, being first up tothe pitch is really the, one of the biggest, most important parts of leadership. And I think you'veexemplified it really well.Renee DeAngelis:Well, I think when you were talking about, you know, people basically being walking around,being confused, it is courage. And I think it takes courage to lead and to set that example. And I,but I also want to, our job is to help people make sense of things. And you've said that often,and I think if we can't do that, then you know it's recognizing when we can't, but I think a lot ofpeople, something that's been on my mind lately is a lot of people are thinking about, you know,I want a mentor, I want a mentor at work and I, you know, I need this to develop and what is thedifference between mentorship and coaching? And I think that is, you know, as a coach, you'rehelping them make sense of things. And, you know, I'm not really sure, I’d love to know yourthoughts on that, but I'm kinda, I don't really like the idea of mentorship because I don't want tocreate another person like me. It also assumes that I have some, you know, as a mentor, thementor is this person on a pedestal that the other person is trying to be like. And I think that itwasn't, it's not about that. And it's about I don't know, like showing people these, showingpeople courage and strength and vulnerability and how to bring that all into the workplace andhow to make sense of things. And I think that is, I don't know, that has been helpful to me. Idon't know how I don't know. I just kind of wanted to point that out.Jeff Hunter:Yeah. I think it's very, it can be very easy to confuse management, leadership, mentorship,advisory, or advice and coaching, and because they all sort of play in the same arena of humanpotential in certain ways. And so when we talk about it, we think about leadership as painting apicture of the future. You want the organization to create and developing a sense of trust andmeaning with the group, with the organization, so that they'll actually want to be inspired to gothere. Whereas management really is a discipline associated with achieving goals through thework of others. And so, and then with regards to advisory, when you get advice from someoneor you hire an advisor, they're there to give you an answer in my opinion, as opposed to amentor, which is there, who is there to show you a path, because hopefully they've done itbefore and they can show you a path, but it is your own journey. Whereas a coach, I think whena coach is excellent is really there to help you just make sense of things. It's an externalizedsensemaker for you at the end of the day. I don't think they can inspire you to be somebodydifferent than you are, nor should they try. They should help you become the fullest, mostauthentic version of yourself. And that has to do with helping you uncover the very confusionthat blocks you from the potential you seek. And the, you know, the excellence you seek. Sothey play very different sorts of roles. And of course somebody can be all of those things, butnot at once. And I think there's a lot of people who get very confused by this as they're trying tobe coach and manager at the same time. There's a, at least in the way we think aboutmanagement coaching is a huge part of being an excellent manager. But at the end of the day,a coach has just one goal, which is to unleash your potential and to help and do that throughhelping you make sense of the world. A manager has a different order goal, which is to, youknow, achieve a bunch of work through the effort of others. And there are times where coachescan be very patient and take long periods of time in order to work things out where a managermay not be able to, they may be in the midst of a triage situation or something else. And thenwith respect to what you were saying about what you were saying about mentorship, I think it'swonderful that there's lots of studies on this. And one of the reasons I'm such a big proponent ofputting more women and people of color and transgender people and all sorts of differentpeople in positions of power is because I don't know, I think human beings often have to see itbefore they can be it, and they often have to see a leader or somebody who's excellent dosomething for them to think, oh my gosh, I'm capable of that as well. And so one of the reasonsI love working with people who aren't straight white guys, although I work with plenty of straightwhite guys too. And you're all great if you're listening to this, but I, because I feel like that's how Ican help multiple generations unleash their potential because they can see somebody beinggreat, who's like them. And human beings just at a DNA level are very much like that. That's notabout we're inculturated that way or anything. We're very, from the time we're born, we're verysensitized to physical attributes of others. And so if we can see people and behavioral attributesof others, and so if we can see people like us succeed, then we become inspired and we think,oh, that's the opportunity of myself. And so again, if those people, if they gain power are doing itin a way that is humble and profound in a way, frankly, like guys like me, haven't done a goodjob of I think the world will get better. And it's one of the reasons I absolutely love and I'mincredibly grateful for working with people like you. Not just that you're a fabulous female leader,but you're so fierce. And to see, to have people around you be able to see that and carry thatmessage into the future, I think is just incredibly exciting.Renee DeAngelis:Well, thank you. I hope that I can leave that impact on the world.Jeff Hunter:I think you can. All right. Well, Renee, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate itvery, very much. I've loved our conversation and really just incredibly grateful.Renee DeAngelis:Thank you for having me, Jeff.

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