Dane Jensen

CEO, Third Factor

Over the course of your career, you’ve probably handed out a few “feedback sandwiches” – a piece of criticism hidden between two pieces of positive reinforcement. But as Peggy Baumgartner lays out in her latest article for HBR, you need to stop softening tough feedback. In the article, Peggy outlines why the “sandwich” doesn’t work:

🧹 People who think highly of themselves might brush off the piece of corrective feedback, giving more weight to the positive news surrounding it.

😟 But those who are self-critical might dwell on the bad news and miss out on the good.

🐍 And the lack of direct communication makes people feel like they’re victims of a sneak attack.

Instead, Peggy offers simple advice for leaders who need to give feedback: Describe the behaviour you want to reinforce or correct, explain the impact of the behaviour, and outline what you want them to do. Click here to read the article on hbr.org. The plans for the Tokyo Games have been in the news a lot lately. In this video, our founder, Peter Jensen, shares his perspective on the preparations taking place within Team Canada.
Rather read than watch? Here is the full text of Peter’s update: Greetings! Well, it’s certainly been a while. And a few things have happened this past year, to put it mildly. I thought I’d give you an update from my perspective on the Tokyo Olympics. I believe unless something else dramatic changes, and that’s certainly a possibility, that the Olympics will proceed, but they certainly will not resemble, for the participants at least, a normal Olympics. As a spectator watching on television, you’ll see a lot of what you would normally see with the exception of loud crowds and loud noises. In the latest installment, they’re hoping to have people in the stands but get this, they’re not allowed to cheer. And that’s obviously for COVID reasons. Quite frankly, the COC is doing its best to encourage parents, family, and friends not to attend the Olympics in person because they won’t have access to the athletes and their children. Likely, it will be like the World Junior Hockey Championships, where gatherings will be held afterward online – so you might as well stay at home. What do we know from the athlete’s perspective? We know that they’re only allowed in the village five days before their event and they must leave when the event is over. Obviously each country will have their own bubble. It will not be a normal Games in terms of the athlete’s experience.
“The athletes need to be able to prepare for something very different than they’ve imagined their entire life”
The opening and closing ceremonies are still up in the air. Mid February, the IOC will publish a playbook outlining their plan. Now from a psychological perspective, the athletes need to be able to prepare for something very different than they’ve imagined their entire life. I’m sure you’ve had the experience, especially early on in the pandemic, of going to do something you normally do and then realizing, “Oh I’m not driving anywhere. I simply have to go on my computer and go online.” Those images of how we used to do things stay very strong for a long period of time. But once we start doing things differently, those things become the inner images. The athletes don’t have the advantage of that because we still don’t know enough detail to paint a clear picture of what it’s going to look like to be in Tokyo. It will get clearer over the coming months. And it will definitely not be a level playing field. Some of the countries will prioritize the athletes in terms of vaccinations, others will not. Some countries have been allowing their athletes to train in groups, others, including Canada, have not. One of the biggest things is that test events that normally are held in the Olympic venues to help athletes prepare for the Olympics, will not be held. It’s been ages since any of our athletes have had the opportunity to compete. And so, as I’ve said, A lot of changes and a lot of variables. There’s no doubt you’ll hear a lot about this in the coming months. But the Olympics are usually about overcoming hardship and hope, and my goodness, we could all use a little of that. In our 3×4 Coaching virtual learning journey, participants are given challenges to apply what they’ve learned on the job. In this video, our Chief Learning Officer, Peggy Baumgartner, showcases how one program participant used a challenge activity to make a lasting difference in his organization.
When it comes to coaching, it’s not about what you know; it’s what you do that ultimately matters. That’s why we make challenge activities a part of our online learning journeys. Participants are given a challenge and encouraged to make note of what works for them and what impact it had. One participant, taking the 3×4 Coaching program through Queen’s Executive Education, really took his challenge on recognition to heart. Following the challenge, Dave Cooper shared that he had written a letter to his team to recognize their contributions through the pandemic. As the manager of retail leadership development for Sport Chek, a major retailer with approximately 250 stores, his team had been hard hit by the Covid-19 pandemic. “Our training team got very disconnected from the stores, which was really difficult for me personally and difficult for our team,” Dave told us. “After going through eight months of this constant stress, I wanted to see if I could write something to recognize what they’d accomplished how long they had endured. And maybe give them a little nudge that they have more in them.” Dave’s letter to his team was particularly effective because it took all the key concepts from the recognition module and used them in a very powerful way: The people in Dave’s organization are sure to feel seen, heard and incredibly valued after reading his letter. It’s always exciting to see the concepts we teach transferred back into the work world. If you’re excited about the possibilities coaching can open up, you can bring the 3×4 Coaching program to your organization or enrol as an individual through Queen’s Executive Education. Feedback is such an important part of our 3×4 Coaching model. Giving people information about their performance is one of the best ways to help them get better. But do your people actually know that the information you’re telling them is intended as feedback? A woman walked up to me in an executive leadership program I was teaching and said, “My 360-degree feedback from several of my employees says that I don’t give enough feedback. That’s nonsense! I give feedback to them all the time.” My advice to her was to use a yellow highlighter. She told me that that wouldn’t work because most of the feedback she gave was verbal.
“Let me give you some feedback on that.”
“Then use a verbal yellow highlighter,” I responded. “Whenever I have to give anybody feedback, and I want to to make sure it’s been heard and recognized as feedback, I always use the word feedback and emphasize it… as in ‘let me give you some feedback on that.’” On the next day of the program she walked up to me and said “Oh my gosh that was so simple, and it will make a big difference. In thinking back to my conversations with my employees I realized that very often when I was actually giving them some feedback I rarely used the word feedback, so they didn’t recognize it as such when they were asked.” It will definitely help the employees’ performance and, secondarily the results on her 360 feedback. Negative emotion is an incredibly volatile fuel. Our CEO, Dane Jensen, lays out how to harness its energy for building motivation in his latest article for Harvard Business Review titled Turn Your Team’s Frustration into Motivation. In the article, Dane offers three tools for leaders to motivate people facing a setback:

🏷 Label the negative emotion and engage. Right or wrong, giving it a name helps uncover important information that can be used for moving forward. 👏 Feed the self-coach, not the self-critic. Encourage them to look for the opportunity in the crisis. 🛴 Channel energy to action. Use the moment to build a vision of a better future and build clarity around what it takes to get there.

Strong leaders don’t shy away from negative emotions. They lean into them and help their people use them to recover and grow. Click here to read the article on hbr.org.

Building a Coaching Culture in 2020

Click here to watch on demand Building a coaching culture has never been more vital – or more challenging. In the midst of disruption, leaders are expected to be able to help their people re-skill: to coach them up learning curves and get them excited about unlocking new potential and abilities. Meanwhile, coaching is happening remotely with much greater frequency, reporting relationships and organizational structures are more fluid and the notion of a job as something with a static description that a leader can ‘manage’ to is increasingly obsolete. In this 60-minute webinar, Third Factor Director of Training Peggy Baumgartner and Principal Trainer Cyndie Flett will synthesize over 30 years of experience working to embed coaching in organizations large and small with the last 4 months – in which many of our fundamental assumptions around leadership have changed. You’ll leave with highly practical ideas on how to engage in large-scale culture change around coaching – and how to embed the 3 plays and 4 skills of effective coaching throughout your organization.
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Building a Coaching Culture in 2020

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About the presenters:
Peggy Baumgartner has dedicated her life to training excellence. Her passion for developing people, proven expertise, vast training experience, and engaging style make her the perfect trainer to deliver Third Factor’s programs to demanding, senior level audiences.
Cyndie Flett is one of Canada’s leading experts on coaching. As the former Vice President of Research and Development for the Coaching Association of Canada, and Director of the National Coaching Certification Program, Cyndie has dramatically impacted the way that literally millions of coaches are educated across the country.
We at Third Factor have spent the better part of 30 years studying coaching. Our co-founder, Peter Jensen, was a pioneer in bringing coaching principles in the workplace. We’ve worked along-side more than 50 coaches who have helped athletes win Olympic and Paralympic medals, with thousands of corporate leaders who have embraced a coaching mantle, and with academics and educators at our university partners who study coaching and leadership. This three decades of work has led to a model for coaching that we call 3×4 Coaching. The name is rooted in our observation that great coaching can be distilled down to the consistent execution of 3 core plays using 4 communication skills.
In this whitepaper, Third Factor CEO Dane Jensen and Director of Training Peggy Baumgartner discuss the mindset of developmental bias; the reason great coaches start with ‘why’ and focus on clarity, competence or recognition in every conversation; and examine why questioning skills alone rarely make for a good coach. Click here to download the whitepaper. We have long said growth is what gives meaning to pressure. During difficult times, the people who are most likely to stay committed are the ones who have clarity and feel like they’re moving forward with their personal development. And the person with the greatest ability to provide clarity and help drive that development forward is their leader; their coach. In this interactive, 60-minute online session, one of Canada’s leading experts on coaching, Cyndie Flett, will explore the strategies great coaches use to ensure clarity, inspire and develop their people even when faced with significant uncertainty. And, she’ll introduce the tools leaders can use to overcome the logistical challenges of building engagement while working remotely. This session is about people – not technology. The environment has changed, but people’s basic needs haven’t. You will come away with a better understanding of the role coaches play in supporting people to rise to the occasion while meeting them where they’re at. You’ll also gain practical tools you can immediately apply in your environment, backed up by examples and best practices from top coaches. Participants will learn:
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About the presenter:
Cyndie Flett is one of Canada’s leading experts on coaching. As the former Vice President of Research and Development for the Coaching Association of Canada, and Director of the National Coaching Certification Program, Cyndie has dramatically impacted the way that literally millions of coaches are educated across the country.