631: Accelerating Growth through Coaching with Andrea Wanerstrand

Pete Mockaitis
Andrea, welcome to the How to be Awesome at Your Job podcast.

Andrea Wanerstrand
Hi, Pete. How are you today?

Pete Mockaitis
I’m well. I’m well. I’m excited to dig into your story and your wisdom. But, first, I want to hear, there’s an interesting backstory to your name of which we practiced the pronunciation several times beforehand. What’s the story?

Andrea Wanerstrand
Well, Wanerstrand is my husband’s name. I took on his clan name, if you will, and he is the only American citizen in his family. It is a Swedish name. It’s actually Lake Warner which is the largest lake, and strand is shore in Swedish. And, yes, I was dating him for about a year before I could even spell it properly or pronounce it.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, sure thing. Well, I don’t think that’ll be hard but I will, I’ll call you nice things and we’re going to hear some nice things, talking about coaching, and coaching cultures, and the benefits, and your Microsoft story, but maybe let’s zoom out to fundamentals. At the core, can you tell us how and why coaching boosts performance?

Andrea Wanerstrand
Well, at its core, the technique of coaching really is drawing on the wisdom within the individual that already exists. It holds them whole, capable, and resourceful and it allows curiosity to come forth. And it’s a technique that each of us can use to really help those around us get clear with their objectives, get clear with what they want to accomplish, and get clear in understanding how capable they really are.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, that sounds like some great stuff. And I’ve experienced that on both sides of the coaching table, I guess, as a coacher, just the coach, the coach or the coachee. And so, can we put maybe some numbers on this? I know that there’s a human capital report with ICF that you’ve done some work with. Could you lay the case out in terms of benefits for individuals and organizations and figures? What are we seeing?

Andrea Wanerstrand
Well, ICF actually has come out with some even more recent studies but what we definitely see is that managers and leaders, and particular in organizations, that show up more coach-like outperform their colleagues and they’ll see it in the work health index in double digits, if you will. So, many companies and managers have employee polls as to how supportive their manager is or how effective their managers are.

So, the industry itself, at large, shows that when managers and leader, and us as individuals with our teams, show up more curious and show up more coach-like, i.e., we’re not asking folks in business necessarily all become professional coaches, but what the survey show, as well as the research data, is that you will see greater performance and greater autonomy across your teams when you enable them through the power of coaching.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And for those who are not as familiar, what is the work health index?

Andrea Wanerstrand
Work health index, that’s a great question. So, in many corporations, there is an employee poll, asking questions of like, “Does your manager coach you? Do you feel supported? Do you see yourself advancing in this organization?” And so, it’s really about the health of the organization. And this is a global type of measurement, managers are often measured to the score that they get in that. And what we find is those that we have taught to be more coach-like score significantly higher and have more engagement with their employees.

Pete Mockaitis
And so then, I imagine the work health index and engagement figures are then, in turn, linked to all sorts of other great outcomes in terms of people have more creative ideas, they stick around longer instead of trying to jump ship as soon as they can, etc.

Andrea Wanerstrand
Well, absolutely. What you see is retention. You see actually greater business outcomes. So, it’s really when folks feel empowered, when folks feel confident, they’ll achieve greater results. And so, depending on what industry or business you’re in, the power of being more coach-like with your team, if you’re a project manager or if you’re a people person, people leader, if you will, the results are very similar in the fact that when you enable innovation and creativity through the power of coaching, you’re going to get extraordinary results compared to those that perhaps don’t embrace a growth mindset. And we look at curiosity as the underpinning of a growth mindset, and the lever for curiosity in organizations is coaching.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Growth mindset, to curiosity, to coaching, I see that channel pathway. It makes some good sense to me. And so, I’d love to get your sense for maybe beyond the numbers and the conceptual. What do you see, hear, feel on the ground level in terms of individual contributors and manager’s experiences at Microsoft? Like, have any benefits sort of surprised you or things that you’ve heard folks say and make you go, “Oh, I guess that’s also great from coaching”?

Andrea Wanerstrand
What I’ve found is that many of our sales folks, their individual contributors in the organization, they’re using the curiosity with their customers. So, Microsoft, in particular, was a very licensed transactional company for many, many years, and then we moved into the solutions world as we moved to the cloud. And in that, you have to understand what your customer is going through, what their needs are, how you can help them.

And the power of coaching such as, “What’s on your mind?” or, “What’s the real challenge going on here?” and showing up with curiosity has allowed the connection with our customers to be accelerated, it takes less time to actually get to something that’s something actionable and has an outcome for our sellers when they deploy these types of techniques with our customers. So, there’s that.

Our managers, as they’re becoming more coach-like, they’ve upped their capability to be able to identify in the moment, you can coach in 10 minutes or less. It’s just being more coach-like. They’ve upped their capability for identifying coaching moments when, really, that individual just needs a confidence boost rather than being told what to do.

And so, we’re seeing results on both sides of the coin, if you will. Our individual contributors are utilizing the techniques of being more coach-like and utilizing the growth mindset with our customers. And then, also, even managers are using it with their teams. And there’s a cascading effect when the manager uses it and the employee uses it, and then the customer benefits.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s cool. Okay. So, benefits all around. Well, then, having established that, folks are buying, “Okay, that sounds cool. Let’s bring it on,” can you share with us the story in terms of how did this come to be in terms of start at the beginning? What happened with Microsoft that led us to embark on this coaching journey? How did the narrative kind of unfold there?

Andrea Wanerstrand
Sure. I don’t think it’s any surprise that Microsoft at one point in our history, and not so long ago, was considered kind of the old school. You would see the Apple commercials against the Microsoft commercials where the Apple was the new sleek device and Microsoft was looking a little dated, right? We also, as I mentioned, we’re more transaction. We sold licenses to software but we’ve had to evolve our model. And now we are a solutions company and our mission has changed from putting physical devices on every desktop in the world to empowering everyone across the globe to achieve more.

And so, in order to have something big and bold like that, you’ve really got to embrace a different mindset. And when Satya Nadella came into our leadership, he really set the tone of what is a growth mindset and how is that different than how we’ve thought about before. And this is moving that dial from a know-it-all culture where we were the only game in town for a very long time, to, “Now we have competition. And how do we differentiate ourselves? And how do we expand and think of what is needed next as you saw marketplaces expanding?”

Things like Uber didn’t exist back then. Airbnb. We had classical definitions of what is a large account, and then you had these magical unicorns that were coming out left and right and using technology and innovation. So, that growth mindset as our cultural north star became very important. And in order to really foster the north star, one of my favorite quotes is Marshall Goldsmith’s “What got you here won’t get you there,” and so we really had to look at, “How do we scale?” We were not adding on people so, “How do you scale through others? How do you add on and accelerate?”

And the power of coaching, really that activation of curiosity and empowering a growth mindset, was the trigger that we thought was necessary. So, for the last few years, we’ve really been dedicated to expanding our leaders as well as our frontline salespeople with our curiosity through coaching.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And can you paint a picture for sort of what’s the current state in terms of coaching at Microsoft? I mean, it is expansive. Can you lay it out for us, like, where and how all is coaching being deployed?

Andrea Wanerstrand
Absolutely. So, we have some training efforts that we’ve done for our managers. In fact, all people managers at Microsoft are required over the next year to complete our core coaching habit training that we’ve done.

Pete Mockaitis
Is that the Michael Bungay Stanier coaching habit?

Andrea Wanerstrand
Yes, it is based on Michael Bungay Stanier’s work. We partnered with Michael and created a course within Microsoft that we have as an interactive course. It’s on what they call a MOOC platform, massively open online course. And it allows for folks to do micro-learnings, so bite-sized learning, as well as practice and cohorts, how to be more coach-like, and then actually go apply every week.

So, we created that with Michael a little over two years ago now. We launched it two years ago this January 2021. And from that as a baseline, we’ve now trained 93% of our global sales and marketing organization managers and 33% of all Microsoft managers as well as another 5,000 and growing individual contributors in our sales and marketing organization. So, it’s becoming a common language on the questions that we use, the Facebook question, “What’s on your mind?” that Michael kicks off with everybody. He calls it his kick-starter question.

But we also have melded that with our Microsoft values and our manager expectations of model, coach, and care. So, we’ve had that going, as I stated, about two years now. We also have ongoing kind of neuroscience reinforcement going on, I believe, in the power of social cognitive theory, which means at its simplest form, “I’m more up to do it if I see you doing it too.” And so, we have mechanisms in place to constantly be a drumbeat, if you will, to help people show up and be more coach-like.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Excellent. And then, so if…wow, 93% of sales and marketing, people managers, and then a third plus of all managers are there. To what extent do you engage with, I guess, hired guns or coaching pros as well?

Andrea Wanerstrand
Certainly. So, we look at coaching through three modalities, and this goes back to the Human Capital Institute’s research from 2016 with the International Coach Federation. We look at coaching as a service, which you’re talking about. We look at coaching as a capability that I just shared, so this, like manager and employee training on how to be more coach-like. And then a third one is coaching champions.

Let’s talk about what you called the hired gun but we call it coaching for service. Generally, this is done in a lot of organizations. Outside, external coaches are hired. They’re either hired to help a high-performer that is going to accelerate their work or sometimes it’s brought for a situation to do some course correction.

At Microsoft, we have certainly those traditional programs in place. We also look at democratizing coaching, i.e., letting it be available for different purposes throughout the organization. We’ve done some coaching on your coaching, bringing in external coaches for our managers. We’ve run a coach training program.

So, in particular, the coaching as a service is still a standard format for modality of coaching in our organization and we’ve gone deep in the last two years with coaching as a capability. And then we have a beautiful group of champions of coaching. And these are champions that are of being more coach-like in the capability section, as well as there’s over 200 and growing certified professional coaches across Microsoft that just happen to be coaches on top of their regular Microsoft day job and they all show up with a passion for curiosity and championing that throughout the organization.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that’s really cool. And so then, that sounds like a substantial investment and so, globally speaking, so there’s reports speaking to the benefit impact of coaching in terms of the worker health index and engagement. How does Microsoft go about measuring the ROI? And, to the extent that you’re at liberty to share, does it look good?

Andrea Wanerstrand
Well, the great news is that we are seeing that year-over-year trending increasing. When we launched in January of 2019, it was right before our first employee pulse poll and so we really had a great baseline, and we are seeing year-over-year so we hope to see the trend completing. It is a journey though. Even in professional coaching, you start off in the International Coach Federation where you go through 60 hours of training, and then you get a 100 hours’ worth of actual application, and then you can finally test to be a professional coach.

And then you’re an associate and you need to now gather more hours to actually become a professional level. And then you need to gather a thousand more hours to become the master coach. The same applies when you’re doing coaching as a culture within an organization, asking managers and employees to have a growth mindset and be more coach-like. It is a journey.

And so, the great news is we see year-over-year improvement, and our managers are able to identify coaching moments, they understand what’s the difference between telling and actually coaching, and they’re learning to integrate it.

And so, again, we’re working through, “How do you integrate that into your everyday conversations? How do you keep the habit consistently and be able to show up as curious as possible, especially under stress?”

Pete Mockaitis
And I guess when I’m thinking about ROI, I’m specifically thinking sort of dollars in and estimates of dollars value created. That’s hard to do, estimates, assumptions. But how is that shaking out?

Andrea Wanerstrand
Yeah. So, now you’re going to ask me for some Microsoft specifics that I can’t give you all the exact details on but we are seeing significant acceleration in key teams, if you will, and all teams. But, in particular, when you look at those from an ROI, our folks are able to be differentiated and be able to change from where they were before and now accelerate the business.

So, I’m not at liberty to share the Microsoft physical numbers for you, but when I look at perhaps a team that did not…maybe was challenged in meeting their numbers before, and through adapting to a growth mindset, taking on being more coach-like, we are seeing year-over-year change and in the positive direction for them achieving the business results and, in many cases, exceeding the business results. We see numbers of managers that were perhaps more micromanaging doing more empowerment of their teams.

So, while I can’t give you a dollar amount, I can tell you that it is significant and it is of a nature that we see immediate business results. And if we weren’t, our senior leadership would not have embraced it, nor would they have made it a requirement for every manager in the company over the next year or two, again, this is a journey, to get trained on how to understand the techniques that can enable autonomy and empower your teams.

Pete Mockaitis
And if memory serves, the last time I looked at Microsoft’s financials on the revenue side, where the sales and marketing folks are getting lots of coaching love, it looks really nice. So, of course, there’s many variables of work but I guess we’ll leave it at that.

All right. Well, so then let’s really zoom in here. So, we have, was it, you said maybe 6,000 plus, was it, individual contributors have directly benefited and experienced some of this coaching goodness. Is that right?

Andrea Wanerstrand
Well, 6,000 of the individual contributors have actually gone through the coaching programs themselves so they could become coaches.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s huge.

Andrea Wanerstrand
And all employees, hopefully, in Microsoft, as we get our 16,000 plus managers through this, will hopefully benefit from the actual coaching techniques that we’re teaching.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, now, that’s the perfect segue. Let’s talk about these actual coaching techniques. So, we’ve had Michael Bungay Stanier on the show a couple of times, and I love his stuff, so, listeners, I recommend you check out those episodes. But you’ve seen it firsthand many times over. Can you share with us, what some of the top do’s and don’ts for being more coach-like? Are there some favorite tips, tricks, scripts, questions? If we want to go do that, what should we do?

Andrea Wanerstrand
Absolutely. So, first and foremost, if you want to understand the simple techniques of how to be coach-like, as far as coaching in the verb coaching, okay, versus being coach-like, Michael’s book The Coaching Habit and his The Advice Trap, his follow-up, where he talks about the three advice monsters so you can understand kind of the mental aspects and then the simple techniques, absolutely, absolutely highly recommend that.

Additionally, when we look at it in a business context, coaching is one of the techniques that we all have in our quiver. So, when we talk about showing up with a coach mindset, there’s an aspect of discernment that we ask each of us to have. And we all do it naturally as humans in conversations. You’re trying to understand, “Does the other person understand the concepts that I want to talk about?” so you’ll do a little bit of inquiry and you’ll move through that. You might do a form of evaluation. And you might actually realize that what you need to talk with the individual about is something that’s new to them or the challenge is really steep so you might have to do a little teaching.

But you might also need to give someone some feedback, and you can do that in a way where you’re looking at some missed opportunities or maybe positive reinforcement for a colleague on the team, and you can still be more coach-like in doing that. So, we talk about the techniques of “What was most helpful or useful here for you?” We ask the questions that Michael puts forth of “How can I help?” where you put the onus on the other individual to ask for what they want rather than you telling them what you can give, and you’re still a choice. We also have this aspect of mentoring where folks can learn from your scars that somebody can tread down the path and go past that.

So, for an individual with a coach mindset, we really look at not only the strong empowering technique of coaching, which is that folks can learn the most from self-discovery. We also encourage our colleagues to really embrace teaching, mentoring, and feedback, and learn how to do that in an integrated fashion to have the most efficient conversation that you can have that also is the most caring and empathetic conversation that you can have.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that’s intriguing. The most efficient, also the most caring and empathetic. Can you say more about that?

Andrea Wanerstrand
Absolutely. So, in today’s world, more than ever in the current conditions, we are all stressed for time. We also are back-to-back to back-to-back, and I’ve heard over and over again, “I don’t have time to give them feedback,” or, “I don’t have time to coach.” But if we can show up curious with everyone we encounter, and, yes, I mean everyone, including your bank clerk or the grocery clerk that you’re giving your card to, to buy today’s groceries, the more you can show up curious in those micro moments, the more you’re showing up with empathy and connection to others versus overthinking or trying to solve the problems.

If you can really show up with curiosity, and let curiosity drive where you need to have your conversation go, and use the power of discernment, you will have a more efficient conversation, i.e., you can get more done in less time, and get to the heart of a challenge faster than when you jump in and try to give advice or try to solve it for someone else, that often becomes all about you rather than about them. And in empathy, it’s very similar. It’s all about them, it’s not about you. When we have sympathy, it’s about us. When it’s empathy, it’s about them. So, they really go hand in hand.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, I’d love it if we could do just maybe a couple minutes of demo here in terms of let’s say there’s a situation, and you can make one up, or I’d make one up, like, I’m a salesperson and I haven’t been hitting my figures lately. Or, if there’s another scenario you’d like to run with, we can do that. And so, can we see it sort of both ways in terms of the coach-like approach that you’d endorse and the not-so-coach-like approach that you’d recommend we try to steer away from?

Andrea Wanerstrand
Well, Pete, let’s do this. I’m happy to step in and show you what coaching looks like and what coaching doesn’t look like. Let’s do this. Pete, what’s a real challenge that you have right now?

Pete Mockaitis
Well, a real challenge I’m having is just our kids sleeping and me sleeping. They’re almost three and almost two, so we got two of them, right now. And, yeah, I guess I would love it if they did a better job of sleeping through the night or if I did a better job of falling back asleep when they holler for a minute and then fall back asleep themselves.

Andrea Wanerstrand
Oh, I could hear you. You know, having young ones, you don’t get sleep. I’ve got some great books that you could take a look at as far as like really some great ideas for sleep techniques. I don’t know if you’ve tried any sleep techniques. Have you tried some sleep techniques for the kids?

Pete Mockaitis
I have on my very desk Solve Your Child’s Sleep Problems by Dr. Richard Ferber, so, yeah.

Andrea Wanerstrand
Oh, okay. Well, that’s a good one. I’ve tried a few of them but when my kid was younger but it really sometimes you just got to do that tough love and let them just get to sleep. Have you tried that one?

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, and I think we’ve made some headway in terms of the screaming is rarer and shorter, so that’s improvement. But, yeah, I guess, in the here and now, it just feels like a lot.

Andrea Wanerstrand
I hear you. I hear you. And it’s hard to hear those little ones. All right. So, everything I just did right there was not coaching. All right. So, first and foremost, I did maybe ask you, “What have you tried?” but I went right into what are some of the solutions I’ve used or I could’ve used, or like, “There’s experts out there.” So, let’s take two on that. Let’s see if we can have a different conversation on that.

Pete Mockaitis
Sure. And I’ll just chime in that it didn’t feel great in terms of, I mean, it wasn’t like horrible but I didn’t walk away…and the experience of it wasn’t like, “Oh, boy, Andrea really cares about me. She gets me. She’s connecting.” It was just kind of surface level, I guess, maybe in terms of any stranger might engage me at that level.

Andrea Wanerstrand
Yeah. And even then, it’s not like a great feeling stranger either, is it?

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. And it’s not horrible, it’s just sort of like, “Yeah, okay. Well, hmm.” It’s like weather, it’s like, “All right, we could talk about the weather. It’s sort of what we’re doing here.”

Andrea Wanerstrand
Yup. And especially because I went in and I made it about myself, right? So, let’s try this a little bit differently. Hey, Pete, you shared with me that you’ve got some challenges going on with getting the little ones to sleep. What’s going on with that today?

Pete Mockaitis
You know, it’s funny, today, my sweet wife did the hard work last night and I was in a different location doing some better sleep. But it’s funny, it’s sort of like it’s followed me a little bit in terms of it’s like my body almost thinks it’s normal to wake up in the middle of the night, or maybe like at 5:00 instead of a 7:00 that I was going for, it’s like, “Aargh,” and I wanted to fall back asleep but I couldn’t quite so I said, “I guess I’ll clean the bathroom.”

Andrea Wanerstrand
I hear you. It really can play with your body clock as far as what’s night versus day. What are some of the things that you and your wife are doing to try to get some normalcy or some type of pattern going?

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I think we’ve gotten a lot more rigid in terms of, “This is the wakeup time and the nap time and the bedtime. And you may scream out for any number of comforts but those are no longer going to be provided to you, so learn to comfort yourself better.”

Andrea Wanerstrand
And how does that feel when you’re doing it?

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, it’s hard. It’s harder for my wife than for me. I think it can be a little better being heartless but, yeah, man, hearing your beloved child yell for five plus minutes is tricky even with the earplugs in.

Andrea Wanerstrand
What’s the plan to, you know, we talked about today? What’s the plan for tomorrow and the rest of the week?

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I think we’re going to kind of just sort of keep at it and I guess that’s sort of the hope is that we have seen improvements. And if we keep on trucking, the hope is that we’ll enter the Promised Land here of everyone is sleeping adequately most nights. So, it’s not really innovative of a plan. It’s just kind of like stay the course and I guess tiny refinements, like, “Oh, maybe a night light would be good in terms of providing some comfort that doesn’t require any intervention from us later on,” or, “Maybe the time-release melatonin will give me what I need to fall back asleep if I wake up at 4:00.” And it kind of has so that seems to be the thing. Going the course and minute adjustments.

Andrea Wanerstrand
Well, it’s an ever-changing time when you have children and, especially, at that age so staying the course, trying little new things. How can I be of further help for you today in this discussion?

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, you can be forgiving if I say, “Huh? What?” and need to repeat yourself.

Andrea Wanerstrand
Well, I’m here anytime you want to chat or talk about it and just hum, “Yeah. What?” So, I appreciate our time together. I look forward to our next sync. And then off you go. And then how did that feel versus our first?

Pete Mockaitis
Well, yes, it’s more pleasant and I think I don’t see you but I think I heard a smile coming through, which is appreciated. Thank you. And it’s interesting, like it’s true, you didn’t…well, in either conversation did you give me sort of an quote-unquote answer, like, “This has nothing to do…” But in the second conversation, I walked away with more hope in terms of, “You know what, yeah, it’s unpleasant at the moment but we are on the path and we’re just going to keep on rocking. And it’s not a crisis that I have to solve so much as just sort of breathe and keep calm and carry on.”

Andrea Wanerstrand
Yeah. And let’s acknowledge that we’re doing this in front of 20,000 plus people that might be listening to this and so it’s a bit more filtered but it was the aspect of what you’re doing and reflecting on what you’re doing, and that you’re staying the course. And if you’re feeling good about staying the course and there wasn’t anything detrimental to you or the child or whatever, it was my job to encourage you.

And every coaching conversation looks different but the main thing between our conversation A versus this conversation B is I didn’t offer up any specific suggestions. I didn’t, in the second one, tell you what I’ve done. I might’ve empathized and said, “Yeah, it’s tough to have young kids.” And that’s where we, as colleagues, can really show up for each other.

And if I was doing a professional coaching session with you, I probably would’ve been going deeper with you, and we would’ve traversed maybe some other challenges, like, with curiosity, I was like, “Okay, so why is your wife having a harder time than you with this there?” But, again, staying in curiosity, helping the other individual for self-discovery for them, “What’s going on?” to empower them, to have hope, to not be closing down and feeling hopeless, those are the attributes of powerful coaching that can, even with two people who’ve never really chatted before, because you and I haven’t really had in-depth conversations prior to today, you can still instill some hope in somebody else.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Thank you. Well, you’re good at coaching, and I’d love to get your take on what are some of the top resources you’d recommend for folks looking to improve their coaching skills? Any frameworks, books, tools? You’d mentioned Michael Bungay Stanier’s couple of books as being excellent. Anything else you’d point us to?

Andrea Wanerstrand
I think, from a coaching technique, if you’re looking to be more coach-like, Michael Bungay Stanier’s The Coaching Habit and The Advice Trap are excellent. If you want to learn more about the powers of a growth mindset and how curiosity does that, Carol Dweck’s Mindset. And, also, there’s a couple other favorite books I have out there. Everything is Figureoutable by Marie Forleo. It really talks about creativity, figuring things out. The Code of the Extraordinary Mind by Vishen Lakhiani. I think I said that right. He’s the founder of Mindvalley, and he really challenges what he calls the brules. And I’ll let you guys go out and look out at what brules are, with a B.

Pete Mockaitis
He’s going to be on the show shortly so it’s going to be there.

Andrea Wanerstrand
And then I just finished reading Undaunted by Kara Goldin. She’s the founder and CEO of Hint. It’s a niche market beverage industry, and she really showed that grit and determination as an underdog for coming into a really established market and what you can do about it. So, coaching is a technique and it’s a powerful technique. And when you combine that with a growth mindset and coming in and being curious, you really open up the opportunities for yourself and those around you to really do some extraordinary things.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Thank you. Well, now, could you share with us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Andrea Wanerstrand
Well, I think I mentioned it earlier. It’s, “What got you here won’t get you there,” by our friend Marshall Goldsmith. And the reason I’m a big fan about it is when we keep going back and trying the old ways, it doesn’t allow us to adapt to today’s environment or tomorrow’s environment. And while there are some stated true methods in the world, the world we live in is constantly changing. So, what got you here won’t get you there.

Pete Mockaitis
And we talked about some favorite books, so how about some favorite tools, something you use to be awesome at your job?

Andrea Wanerstrand
Well, I work for Microsoft, my friend, so I have to say my Microsoft tools.

Pete Mockaitis
Awesome.

Andrea Wanerstrand
Well, Teams, in particular. Teams has been lifesaving for my distributed teams, physical teams, that is, across the globe. And I have the privilege of working with people all across, about a hundred somewhat countries now, so my favorite tool these days is Microsoft Teams.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite habit?

Andrea Wanerstrand
Oh, meditation. Every day. Queen’s University in Canada really did some interesting new research into the brain, and it’s something like we have more than 6,000 thoughts in a single day. And so, for me, I do transcendental meditation. And, for me, it’s a way to really kind of follow my thoughts and organize myself and kind of get to that deeper level of thinking.

Pete Mockaitis
And is there a particular nugget you share with others that folks quote back to you frequently?

Andrea Wanerstrand
It’s “Lead before you manage.” It’s all about that extraordinary leaders whether you’re an individual contributor or a people manager. It’s not in the doing; it’s in the being that differentiates you. But if you’re going to do, do you.

Pete Mockaitis
And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Andrea Wanerstrand
LinkedIn for Andrea Wanerstrand or my website AndreaWanerstrand.com.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Andrea Wanerstrand
I would encourage folks to embrace the power of a growth mindset. And I, literally, challenge you to show up curious with everyone you encounter in the next 24 hours, and that includes anyone you run into, anyone you talk to on the phone, anyone you send an email to, that you just might learn something extraordinary about that other individual.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Andrea, this has been a treat. Thank you so much and we wish you all the best in your coaching adventures.

Andrea Wanerstrand
Thanks, Pete. I appreciate you having me.