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Coaching in the ClearInsightful conversations with leaders who use coaching to shape our world. Author: Talentism
Insightful conversations with leaders who use coaching to shape our world Language: en Genres: Business, Education, Management, Self-Improvement Contact email: Get it Feed URL: Get it iTunes ID: Get it |
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Dave Fano
Episode 11
Tuesday, 2 February, 2021
Jeff Hunter:Hi, I'm Jeff Hunter, the founder and CEO of Talentism. Today, I'm speaking with Dave Fano, thefounder and CEO of Teal. Dave is an architect by training and a serial entrepreneur bycompulsion. He founded the successful building information and technology consultancy Case.He then sold Case to WeWork and took on the role of chief growth officer there, where he was akey driver of their meteoric growth. I met Dave when he started his latest venture, Teal. Iremember when Dave was first talking about his career experiences and how he wanted tomake things better for the people who actually build companies, the employees, he told me thatit struck him that the way people think about their careers and their jobs was broken, and he feltthat the need to create a company to fix that. That compulsion led Dave to create Teal, anincredible group of people dedicated to providing the education, community and tools to helpprofessionals build successful and fulfilling careers. I'm especially grateful to be talking to Davetoday because Teal is one of Talentisms, first IP partners, and is using our big four frameworkand methodology to help people create their own unique path of professional excellence. Iencourage you to learn more about this amazing company at Tealhq.com. That's Tealhq.com.Dave, thank you so much for being here. Welcome to the conversation.Dave Fano:Thanks Jeff, I'm super honored to be a part of this as you know, someone who I look to as amentor and someone that's really paved the path for some really incredible things. And so I'mreally appreciative to have the time to talk to you and to do this with you.Jeff Hunter:So, Dave the way I understand it, at Teal you provide career coaching. You've worked with me,you've partnered with Talentism. So, you know, our approach and thinking, and of course I knowyou've done a lot of coaching over time as a successful executive. How do you think about thevalue and importance of coaching?Dave Fano:So I think coaching is critical and I think that for anyone to push beyond their understanding oftheir limits, some kind of external force is incredibly valuable, right? I think you know, for theshort time that I had a personal trainer, I was able to push myself, they were able to push mefurther than I was able to push myself, just because I think we kind of you know, we like to playit safe. We don't want to hurt ourselves. We don't like to fail. And so there's something abouthaving someone who you know, has your best interest in mind and helps you push to what theythink your potential is. And also that they've seen it done before, right? I mean, a lot of, I thinklife is quite lonely in the sense that we're doing these things and we're experiencing them for thefirst time and having that broader perspective, because even though that thing we’reexperiencing for the first time, there's a high likelihood someone else has experienced it. And soI think that that is a lot of the value that, that coaches bring. I do think there's an importantdistinction between coaching and advice and you want both, but I think that distinction isimportant. Now all that said, that's not really what we do at Teal. I think that coaching is acomponent of what we do and we're trying to be quite cautious about how we engage with thetheme of coaching. I think one of the things that's inherent in coaching is this one-on-onerelationship with an individual. And I think one of the things that you guys have done great atTalentism is that you're establishing it as more of a platform. But you're still obviously have yourassociation to your coach that is using the platform. We're hoping to take that a step further,mainly because we want to make it accessible to more people. There is an inherent coststructure that comes with, you know, the livelihood of a person being based on, you know,advising and this one-on-one high touch way, that I think is great for those that can afford it. Anda lot of times it's funded by companies, but we really want the consumer or the person thatworks at companies to be able to do this and have agency with their career. And so that putsthe pressure on us to figure out ways to make this cost accessible and really leveragetechnology and develop a platform and a methodology and framework that allow people to do iton their own without the need of the high touch one-on-one coaching. So then that pushes us toinvest in tooling, content and frameworks that people can do in a self-guided way with the abilityto level up into a coach as necessary, but even that we're trying to figure out ways where thatcan happen through chat or other low cost models and mainly so we can make it accessible tomore people, because that was kind of one of my contentions that you brought up earlier on inthe introduction is that these kinds of resources that I've been incredibly lucky to have. I got laterin my career, once I was sort of fiscally eligible. I have very few regrets, but I just think that if Iwould have had access to these kinds of things earlier, I might've made better or differentdecisions, and I really want to help people get access to those things sooner. So that's kind of,so I think there are aspects and essences of coaching in what we do, but in terms of like adelivery model and methodology, we're trying to break some new ground.Jeff Hunter:Yeah. So I want to talk a little bit about something that you said at the beginning of what youwere talking about. So I've shared with you that, you know, seven years ago, when I startedTalentism, I really didn't intend to start a coaching organization. I had these theories about thehuman mindand how things work and a way to unleash potential. And it turned out that what Ithought was going to be a consultancy ended up being very much a coaching organization,because as I worked with leaders and brought these frameworks and this way of thinking tothose leaders, they said; Hey, would you coach me? And so then I went out and started trying tofigure out the world of coaching, cause I had never done it before. And I know there's a lot ofincredible coaches out there and I wanted to sort of respect the craft as also learn about myblind spots and ended up really differentiating or at least trying to differentiate what I was tryingto do from what I experienced most coaches trying to do. And I think you brought up a little bit ofwhat I experienced most coaches trying to do, which is be almost like a change agent or anaccountability agent in a person's life. Like there's a, I'm gonna push you or I've got a better wayof doing something. And what we've been trying to do is figure out how to be a good detective inyour life to help you make sense of the evidence that you're producing as you try to achieveyour goals. So it's really not an attempt to provide a place of security or safety. It's not anattempt to say; Hey, listen, you said you were going to go out there and, you know, apologize topeople and he didn't apologize or whatever the thing is that the pushing of the, towards aperson's limits, but more to help them gain a level of se...
