The one with that career coach - Kendall Berg, Founder of That Career Coach E124

🎤🎞️Want to be promoted? 👂Listen to or 👀Watch this episode...“The one with that career coach” Kendall Berg, Founder of That Career Coach in CX Passport Episode 124🎧 What’s in the episode?...

CHAPTERS

0:00 Introduction

3:20 Getting into career coaching

5:45 Growing your career through being customer focused

9:20 Want to be promoted? Do this!

11:15 Stuck at a place that doesn’t focus on the customer?

13:45 Managers…THIS is your job now

18:45 Wait? What? Impulsively deciding to move to Colorado?!

21:51 1st Class Lounge

26:30 Storytelling…stunning employee experience improvement!

32:15 Managers…pay attention to this too!

35:10 Contact info and closing

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Hosted by Rick Denton “I believe the best meals are served outside and require a passport”

Episode resources:

All your socials: @Thatcareercoach

Web: thatcareercoach.net

Transcript

Kendall Berg: 0:00

I am a firm believer that once you are a manager, your success is completely dependent on your ability to build, scale and find success for the people who work for you. If you are not team focused from the second you have a team, you will fail.

Rick Denton: 0:24

You're listening to CX Passport, the show about creating great customer experiences with a dash of travel talk. Each episode we’ll talk with our guests about great CX, travel...and just like the best journeys, explore new directions we never anticipated. I'm your host Rick Denton. I believe the best meals are served outside and require a passport. Let's get going. Oh, it is fun to reconnect with people from the past. Because even it even gets more fun...I love it!. Even right there. I'm connecting with someone from the past absolutely Kendall. It even gets more fun when you connect with someone who was a part of a fantastic employer experience and truly was a valued partner in creating a great customer experience. It's been a few years since we've caught up which is why I am looking forward to talking with today's guest, Kendall Berg, Director of IT planning and execution for Cetera Financial Group. Well, that's one element of Kindle. Another side of Kindle is her focus on helping others grow in their careers. This is a classic case of being asked to do something so often by people that can realize I guess it's time to turn this into a business. So Kindle is now also that career coach with non fluffy, practical, no, really, this is how you grow your career advice delivered on Tiktok Instagram and via her one on one coaching practice and near and dear to this heart of fellow podcaster as well. All right, Rick. That's neat. Now you get to meet with somebody from the past. She's well versed in business and data analysis it leadership and career coaching. But if I'm gonna give you my weekly earholes and eyeballs a better here some customer experience talk, right? Absolutely. When I was a Capital One Kendall's role focused on business analysis, which was a team that was absolutely vital partner to our customer experience pot. That combination of data and heart brought out excellent customer insights, and both employee and customer experience improvements that made a tactical business difference. Additionally, Kendall has now brought that customer focus into her career coaching in ways we'll explore during the show. The intro to CX password talks about exploring new directions we never anticipated. Do you think a weakened decision to move from Dallas to Colorado might open new directions never anticipated? Yeah, I bet they did. And I'm going to want to know more about that from Kendall today. Kendall...Welcome to CX passport.

Kendall Berg: 2:59

I'm really excited to be here, Rick. And as you mentioned, I'm always excited to connect with people that I've worked with in the past that I have been able to work alongside and create great progress for different businesses and different companies. And so I'm excited to see where we where the path takes us today. Yeah,

Rick Denton: 3:16

Lord have mercy. I have no i Well, I have a little bit of an idea, but we'll see where it goes. So, you know, I mentioned that I knew as a business analyst and a leader of business analysts, and now you're a leader of IT planning and execution. Okay, got that side. But I also mentioned in the intro, there's this other side, you career building and career coaching, I really want to know, tell me a little bit about that side of your world.

Kendall Berg: 3:38

Yeah, so I've always been really passionate about development, whether that is development for myself, whether that is development for my business, whether that's development for the individuals who work for me or work alongside me. And as I progressed in my career became more senior, I made lots of mistakes, right? Anybody who tells you, they progress their career in a perfect streamline pattern with no mistakes, I would be hard pressed to believe. And so

Rick Denton: 4:06

that's kind I would call them a bald faced liar.

Kendall Berg: 4:10

So as I moved up, I realized there was so much that isn't really taught about how you work, right, in the same way that it's not really taught how to know what a customer is thinking or what they care about or what they value. The same is true about the employees about leadership. These lessons are things that we're supposed to either infer or learn by doing incorrectly on the job. And so I became very passionate about sharing the wisdom that I did have with people around me with people who I'd worked with, and it really just snowballed from there that suddenly I had people making recommendations making referrals people are sending other people to me, and it blew up and so shortly after that, we were we were rocking and rolling with that career coach and helping, you know, hundreds of people across the world. I had a client in Singapore yesterday. And then I talked to some brands in the afternoon and then a Finland client in the evening. And really helping them progress and grow their careers in a way that is going to be valuable to their companies, but also help them get the results that they want.

Rick Denton: 5:14

I absolutely love it and love the global approach you and I didn't talk about that I love the fact that you're talking to folks around the globe in this business. And it warms any podcast named CX passport, it warms this heart, for sure. Now, you had said something earlier that really resonated with me, and it's in this career coaching vein, you had said people grow their careers by being more customer centric. Now, I'm a very strong believer in that companies grow by being customer, customer centric, but hadn't really directly attributed it to the individual employee and their career growth. How do people grow their careers by being more customer centric?

Kendall Berg: 5:58

You know, there's a lot of books talked about how to influence people around you right how to influence people's very popular corporate book, I feel like everybody's recommended it the day they graduate from college, like have you read how to make friends and people know, you can check it out. And one of the big tenants about that is really understanding the priorities of the people you interact with. If you understand what somebody else wants, it's a lot easier to get them to do what you want, because you can address it from the lens in which they have value and they are attributing value. The same is true with your end customer in your business. Right. If I work for a company that sells widgets, I need to understand why customers want to buy widgets in order to do my job effectively. And that is true from the person answering the phone to the person doing the data analysis to the person who's making executive decisions. If you don't understand what your end customer values, what they find to be important. No amount of data is going to teach you the right actions to take rate. And I know you and I've talked about this ad nauseam, it's something that's often comes up especially in highly analytical organizations, is that emotional side versus the data side rate, and we worked with a leader years ago, who once told me that it doesn't matter if an issue is 5% of the time. If it's 95% of the complaints. It's still 5% of the problem. And I find that to be so true. And so when individuals come to me, and they're looking to progress their career. My first question is okay, what are the problems that your business faces? What do they need to do to be better positioned for your end customer? Yeah. And how are you going to help the business do that? From where you said, that is the most powerful motivation for proposing new ideas for innovating for creating process improvements? But if it doesn't start with how does it value the end customer in mind, it's much harder to get buy in, it's much harder to articulate your own value to the company when asked for promotions and progression. What have you done to help us I'm paying you all this money. And if you can say I solve these three problems for the customer. That's a huge one and a much easier conversation.

Your CX Passport Captain: 8:18

This is your captain speaking. I want to thank you for listening to CX Passport today. We’ve now reached our cruising altitude so I’ll turn that seatbelt sign off. <ding> While you’re getting comfortable, hit that Follow or Subscribe button in your favorite podcast app so you never miss an episode. I’d love it if you’d tell a friend about CX Passport and leave a review so that others can discover the show as well. Now, sit back and enjoy the rest of the episode.

Rick Denton: 8:45

I think it's something you alluded to before, it's triggering this thought in my head when you're talking about focus on the customer and improving the business. I think a lot of career growth to comes when you're stepping out of what your official role is. And I know especially when I was more junior in my career, that was something that was a struggle. And now I'm an independent consultant. So everything is my responsibility. So that's no longer a factor anymore. If it exists, I got to do it. But earlier on, you're like, Well, no, you know what my job and want to step on toes and that sort of stuff. But this idea of using the customer as your, your indicator your your mark your Northstar, for what you might want to attempt, even if it's outside of your role. I gotta imagine that even if you've maybe don't make it all the way at least there was that focus on the customer and you were trying something for the customer. Have you seen that work with your clients that focus on customer helps expand them beyond their existing role into something new?

Kendall Berg: 9:36

Absolutely. And it's something that I talk about often with my clients is non promotable tasks. And again, this category of things are not really taught. So if I hire somebody to run a report every Thursday, and they come in, and they run that report every Thursday, and that's all they ever do for me. I'm gonna say they are solid at their job and they are exactly at the level that they should be and they're doing exactly the work that they should do. I'm never going to put that person up for promotion, I'm never going to give that person increased scope, I'm never going to get them in front of senior leaders, because they haven't shown that indication that they are interested in more scope that they are taking on new problems and solving them. They're doing exactly what they were asked to do. And that's kind of the definition of a non promotable task. Whereas the work that most often gets you promoted gets you accolades gets you in front of senior leadership, is that work Nobody asked you to do. But once it's done, adds value to the entire company. And, you know, you and I've discussed this before, it's something I talk about often with my clients is, I have presented to the CEO of my company three times in the last 12 months, and not a single one was for things related to my job. Every single one of them was related to either customer experience, or employee experience, not a single one fell within my job description. And I think that alone, as a single point of reference shows the impact that it can have to have that focus. As long as you have supportive leadership, and a customer and employee focused business culture, looking for those opportunities to lean into eax to lean into CX, and find that new scope will always be more successful than just doing your job.

Rick Denton: 11:19

And you said something there that really hit my ears one, absolutely right, use the customer as your way to focus on that, like you presented to the CEO and things outside of your role, but you use the customer, the employee experiences a reason to do it, you said something in there, and I'll be able to quote you verbatim but but in an organization that values the customer and an organization that values the employee experience, what's your advice to employees or people that you're coaching, if they perceive that they are in an organization that doesn't put the customer at the center doesn't put the employee at the center?

Kendall Berg: 11:52

And this is where the corporate game comes more into play? Right? And this is kind of my, my bread and butter is what is the corporate game? How do you navigate it, that's what I spend most of my, my time talking with my clients about. And the culture that a company possesses undoubtedly, determines both the success of the product that the company is pushing, and the success of the employee within the system. To your point, if the company does not care if their end customer is happy, or if their internal employee is happy, navigating that circumstance is going to be much more difficult, right? It's going to be one of those situations where the best way to progress is to understand the priorities that they do have, right above your level, right? Maybe that's process efficiency, maybe that's product introduction, maybe that is marketing, campaign success or reach or engagement. They may not care about the end customer, but they care about something. And that's where you're going to focus your attention in an environment that's not building what I would consider to be a healthy business culture. Now, if you work for a company that does have a healthy business culture that is serving their employees serving their customers, reading those survey results, very key part of serving is actually looking at what people say in response, just like,

Rick Denton: 13:16

You mean, wait, hang on now doing something with the survey, just

Kendall Berg: 13:21

needed to be said, but in my experience,

Rick Denton: 13:24

I'll have to edit this out. That's crazy talk, I'm not gonna read it and do something, shocker

Kendall Berg: 13:30

do something. And if you're in a company that does have that culture, it's much easier to find scope that's going to be impactful to the business. Yeah. And so in this situation you're describing, but that's not the value. You have to figure out what is important to them. And that's where you're going to align your efforts. And or you're going to assess that it's not the right culture fit for you, and you're going to find something new.

Rick Denton: 13:53

I was waiting for that to come in. I'm like, Kendall, isn't there also the exit option? It sounds like yes, there is the exit option, obviously, Hey, how can someone grow where they are and try to fit perhaps even manifest change towards the customer where they are, but I'm glad to hear that exit option. Let's, let's take that and flip it a bit. So you said it, and it's a very much a very true statement, right? That you can't, the employee experience has an immediate effect and a direct effect on what kind of customer experience you create. So if you're trying, if you're working with someone, and you're helping coach, either that leader, the team or the department or a company, on how to create that better employee experience, how do you help them excel at establishing those great employee experiences?

Kendall Berg: 14:36

So there's really two folds to that. So the first is there's been a lot of research done that shows for an individual to be successful in a company, they have to have a skill to value alignment. So what I mean by that is, if your will is being results oriented, you're in great execution or of work. You need to work for a company that values results. If you work for a company that values bureaucracy, See over results, you will not be successful, you have a skill value misalignment. If you are someone who is very strong on the communication front, right, you're able to articulate things effectively. But you work for an organization that values siloed, corporate entrepreneurship, you're going to have a skill value mismatch, you're not gonna be able to apply your strongest skills in that organization. So the first piece is on the company side, being able to assess and get the right skills in your organization that are going to align with your values, make sure you're bringing the right people into the fold. And we could have a whole separate asked on how to assess that in an interview and where that sometimes goes wrong. But where you can bring in people with that skill alignment is really important. Because if you're bringing in people who have great skills, but they don't align with the values of the company, the employee is going to be unsatisfied. And so is the manager slash company. The second piece, is that actually doing something about feedback, right, and there are so many companies and we could name names, but we won't that do surveys, they get this reputation of like, we really care about employee culture. But when it comes time to put pen to paper, or money in the bank account, to actually fix some of the issues that employees care about. Suddenly, it's not as high of a priority. And so when I'm working with leaders who really care about their people, it starts from understanding what do the employees want? And what are their goals. And it's not a pizza party, in case you were curious, it is not free. On Fridays, I have never ever seen that as a request in a survey in all my years of reading them. And I've been reading them since you and I worked together, five, six years ago. So if you can understand what the employees want, it not only makes it better for them, because you're working on the things they care about. But it also makes it easier as a manager to give constructive feedback. I'm sure. If I say hey, I know you're looking to get promoted. At the end of the year, one of the things I need to see from you is an improvement in your communication with executives and some of that executive presence. Here's some places where I've seen you struggle. And here's some opportunities for us to get there by the end of the year. That is a much more beneficial employee conversation that's going to help them achieve those goals. If you just come to them and say, hey, you need to get better at communicating, they have no idea what that means. And if you can't apply it to their goal, they probably don't care either. And so making sure that you understand what your employees want, both from a personal professional development perspective, but also from a company benefits perspective, that's going to allow you to build that better employee culture, and that's going to translate into everything they do, how hard they work, what kinds of things they deliver on how they face the customer and interact with the customer. And that ultimately makes the business more successful.

Rick Denton: 18:00

It is amazing how the same themes just come at it different topics, different discussions, you and I are talking very career coach and very career oriented. And yet that same recurring theme of listen and act and do something with it, whether it's the customer, whether it's the employee, it continues to come up it, it doesn't surprise me and yet it does surprise me. Maybe it delights me How about that. It doesn't surprise me, but it does Delight me now. You want to talk about action. It's that story that you told me where one weekend, you're sitting in Dallas and decide. Yeah, let's move the family to Colorado. Yeah, I love I love impulsive travel experiences. I love that choice of let's go do this. This excursion this trip. Let's try this alley. Let's see what's down there. You've taken that to a completely new level with an impulsive family move what drew you to Colorado? And what new directions and experiences have you discovered there?

Kendall Berg: 18:53

Yeah, so I have always enjoyed being outdoors. So growing up, my family was not a camping family. We were like an outdoor sit by the pool with a cocktail family. I think it's like the assessment. And as I got older, and I started to explore the world more, I sort of started to explore the country more. For me, it's being outside. That's where I feel grounded. That's where I feel connected. And that led to me coming to Colorado very frequently. So I did my freshman year of college up here. And then my husband when he and I met his family had a home here and we came here every summer. And there was something about being able to walk outside of your house and be in the outdoors and suburbia that was very, very appealing. Um, and so yes, you are spot on. We basically had a conversation one Thursday night saying hey, you know, COVID is here. Do we want to stay or do we, you know, this is the time to make a change. If we wanted to make a change and said maybe we should think about moving to Colorado. flew out here. The next De bought a house Sunday listed our house Food Monday under contract on Tuesday here two weeks later. And it has been hands down the best thing we've ever done for our family. My kids are really connected here, we have been very blessed to make great friends great connections. It's hard, we both work remote. And so we don't go into an office and meet for work that we can grab a cocktail with or join clubs. And so we've had to be much more intentional with our time with how we, you know, meet people how we retain friendships as well. And we've both been really lucky that we've been able to meet great people we've explored different parts of Colorado we have like a by we I mean I because I'm very tight. They have like a laundry list of cities we want to visit in the next 12 trips booked every weekend. But I would say for me personally, the best part has been watching my kids grow up doing things outdoors that not everybody gets to try, right, my kids learn to ski down our driveway. With like $20 skis from Walmart, you just strap them in, you push them down the driveway, like they only have this far to fall, it's fine. And that's been really cool. Watch my kids, my daughter is six, she can go for a two mile hike, she wears her backpack full of water, she does her hike, she knows the directions, she can point out all the different trees and the flowers along the way. And just watching them kind of really connect to this place that we live has been really, really exciting. And then obviously I think being kind of on our own our family unit is like very connected as a result as well.

Rick Denton: 21:51

Kendall That is beautiful. That is just fantastic. I love the impulsiveness of it. I could never go that impulsively. But I do love the idea of the outdoor child raising and what that has in store. Now. There wasn't a lot of time for y'all to experience the lounge. But I know that you've done your share of travels and have probably found the burden of travel and sometimes it's nice to stop down to the lounge. So I'm gonna invite you here into the first class lounge today. We'll take a little break, move quickly here and hopefully have a little bit of fun. What is a dream travel location from your past?

Kendall Berg: 22:26

Ooh, from my past. I loved Amsterdam.

Rick Denton: 22:34

Yes, tell me why.

Kendall Berg: 22:37

I think it was the most unexpected part of trip that my husband and I took where there's all this water and there's all these beautiful parks and there's all these places to walk and everybody's outdoors, which seems to be a theme of for me today. But I think it was one of those places where the pace of life seemed slower. Nice, even for being a big city. And so it's a really great place to go and just be

Rick Denton: 23:04

Yeah, the bicycle culture really gives you a vibe of slowness, even though sometimes those bikes are about to take you out. And I've I've gotten in some trouble by walking in the wrong place as a walker versus a biker. But you're right you do get that vibe that it's just a more laid back culture. I like that. What about the future? What is the dream travel location you've not been to yet.

Kendall Berg: 23:23

So I leave in five weeks to hit Switzerland and Italy. We've done Rome before but we're doing Lake Como which is like a bucket list. Beautiful place for me. And I will be so disappointed if it doesn't look like I stepped into a James Bond movie I'm going to be just like very sad. And, and we're hitting Grinda Walt, which is a mountain town in southern Switzerland. Obviously a character in Harry Potter as well but primarily because they have this bridge that leads out really into the middle of the air and you've got 360 degree views at the top of a mountain so really excited to hit that as well.

Rick Denton: 24:06

What's that? That sounds delightful. I think that's going to be a fantastic trip. You have mentioned one country that is quite well known for its food Italy and many others as well. What is a favorite thing of yours to eat? Who

Kendall Berg: 24:18

Dumplings. The easiest answer I'll give all day.

Rick Denton: 24:23

Really now, are we talking about Asian dumplings? Are we talking about Southern dumplings or what are we talking about?

Kendall Berg: 24:28

I can swing either way but I would say Asian dumplings for me I try to eat you know Japanese geyser or to eat bow or to eat dimsum any type of dumpling really? I'm a fan. I just think that they are delicious.

Rick Denton: 24:45

Well, you have now just become my children's favorite person in the world and I am a big fan of dumplings as well so I can appreciate that one as well. Let's go the other direction. Kendall what is a thing your parents forced you to eat but you hated as a kid

Kendall Berg: 24:59

porkchops

Rick Denton: 25:02

you Oh, that's a new one. I get vegetables I get brussel sprouts. I got bugs from one episode . I've never gotten pork chops. Really?

Kendall Berg: 25:10

My dad loves pork chops with applesauce, which is like a very southern thing. Yeah. And I hate it. And I think we had it like every Thursday night for my entire life. And I learned I got really good at like cutting it up and moving it around. So it looked like less like I'm so skilled at that. And to this day, I don't think in my adult life I have ever had a pork chop like I may never again partake.

Rick Denton: 25:39

Well, that's the reason I ask these questions. I get surprised so often. I was expecting the line of being and I got the pork chop. Okay. Closing out with travel. What is one travel item not including your phone, not including your passport that you will not leave home without?

Kendall Berg: 25:56

Whoo. I don't know. I'm a pretty lightweight traveler. Feel like it's anticlimactic to say facewash. Like, I like a clean face, I guess would be kind of like oh two. I can have dirty clothes. But I'd like my skin to be at least clean.

Rick Denton: 26:24

Kendall, I love the just absolute simplicity. Yes, I hate a dirty face as well. So yes. While it might not be my one item, there's certainly a place for that in my travel bag. For sure. Yeah, I tell stories from our Capital One days. And they're a lot of who I am as a customer experience person was shaped during those days. And there's a particular solution that I still reference today in my yay, customer experience stories that came out of that era. And you I'm sure you remember this contact center agents, whether they're support servicing loan origination, pick your poison, they're at the forefront of the delivery of customer experience. And I'm the one I'll say they co create the experience with the customer there. You were at the center of a solution that dramatically improve the agent experience, which in turn improve the customer experience. Would you share that story? How did you discover that challenge? And the solution?

Kendall Berg: 27:20

Yeah, I will say in general, Capital One was such an interesting culture to work for, because they truly, in my experience, cared both about their customer and their employee to an extent that I have very rarely enjoyed in my corporate career. And while working so closely with kind of our frontline employees, as you and I did, you know, there were a lot of things that we heard about in surveys in responses that they were struggling with. And I think one of the biggest ones that we faced was just systemically, their system did not operate. Well. Yeah, the individuals who were good at navigating that system could only do it because they'd been doing it 1012 13 years. And they knew every little button to click, there was no key, it was not like Facebook, where you naturally know kind of how to navigate, it didn't have that easy user interface. And in talking with every single person in that business, I was the number one complaint. The system is hard to use. It's hard to train, it's hard to get people up to speed, it's hard to know how to use it effectively. And so I I'm very grassroots individual, so I did what I do, which is hey, can I sit next to you and watch you work for an hour? And I sat and I watched and the whole time. All I'm thinking is I cannot believe that they are doing this.

Rick Denton: 28:43

Yeah. Imagine you were pulling hair out because it was so maddening to see this. Absolutely. I

Kendall Berg: 28:49

mean, I think we timed it. In the beginning, it took 37 clicks, and over six minutes to get to a customer profile system they were using. So it was just insane. And so we sat We timed things, we documented things, we understood where the biggest pain points were, we spent probably just three weeks really, day after day sitting there and watching and trying to understand where we had issues. And I was very lucky to have very supportive senior leadership, we took a proposal to them and said, Hey, I think I think the system could give us incredible efficiencies. If we fixed it, if we had something that would allow employees, not only to do their work more efficiently, but to onboard new people more efficiently. And they basically were like, Great, we'll send you to a two day training. We'll give you four people, you've got six months, do the best you can and let's do a POC and make sure it works. And that's exactly what we did. And we came back and we built a system and one of our CO piers stepped in with me around that same time and was also helping and we were able to dramatically decrease the amount of time it took every task so that Yeah, six Minutes to screen went down to 37 seconds, that two and a half minutes to get to files went down to 40 seconds, everything went down incrementally. And as we rolled out, and as we tested, the response from the employees was so much better. But not only that, because they could navigate to things much quicker. And because they understood what was needed of them. What was expected for the customer, their communications with the customer were much more effective. Yeah, faster. And we ended up decreasing the amount of time it took to close a file very dramatically. I think we went down by almost 40%. And we're able to communicate and increase our customer satisfaction, because every time they talked to somebody that got the same answer, they knew exactly what they needed to do. Yeah, responses were timely and quick. And then on the back end, I worked with your team to build reporting on all of that, hey, have we reached out to who we're supposed to reach out to? How long is it taking? What are the customers saying? How many times are they calling in are they calling in more than once and building kind of that that ecosystem rate of here's what I do as an employee, here's how that translates to what the customer gets to the customer experience to the employee experience now full ecosystem of how we tracked all that was incredibly impactful for the organization.

Rick Denton: 31:20

That's what I love about that story. And why it's a part of my just stock repertoire when I'm talking about successful customer experience initiatives is a lot of times and it's it's still a right path, but a lot of times it's start with the customer. In this case, it was start with the employee, and yet it still benefited the customer, it still provided tangible business results, you spoke of us a faster path to onboarding, well, yeah, if you hire somebody in the great to get a more productive faster. All of these things come into it by looking at that employee aspect of it and how that improved customer experience. No listeners, don't hear me say Stop, listen to your customers and only listen to employees. I'm saying make it an am statement. This story proves it. And it really was a massive win for the employee, the customer and the business overall. Kendall I want to close out talking about today's world, I want to go back to the coaching part that you do in the career development. We've talked about the data elements that that go into a business analysis or and even your description there the reduction of time and that aspect of it. But there was a hard component to we joked about pulling your hair out watching these employees, you had to have a heart for the employees. How do you help others grow into that aspect of that career, their careers blending the data side and the heart side to make a successful career.

Kendall Berg: 32:43

I am a firm believer that once you are a manager, your success is completely dependent on your ability to build, scale and find success for the people who work for you. If you are not team focused from the second you have a team, you will fail. And that is true at any level of seniority. And I know the first comment everybody makes is like, Yeah, but I had this one boss, okay, we've all had that one boss, right? Everybody's had one, they worked for that to this day. They're like, Oh, that guy hate them. Right? You're never gonna get rid of that one person who sneaks their way through. Right? In general, you know, what I talk about is you've got the individual contributor to manager to executive pipeline. And each one requires a mind shift and a focus shift. So to go from an individual contributor to a manager, you go from task orientation, to people orientation, I have to care about my team, how I scale them, how I grow them, what they care about what they value, all the things we talked about earlier, to build their success, and then I get out of the way so that they can build their success forward. You should be in a constant state of replacing ourselves in any type of managerial role you're doing yourself and your team a disservice if you're trying to hold tight to your position. But once you start to make that transition from manager to leader, is when you become customer focused. Yeah. So you've built that people skill, you've built that heart, you've built those relationships internally. And to progress to that directors, Senior Director higher levels, you must have a mentality shift that says okay, not only do I care about my people, I care about the company's people, whether that's beyond my org, whether that's our end customer, whether that's my personal internal customer, and by valuing that you're able to put the things that you want in terms of what they want, you're able to build more successful processes, like we talked about that overhaul at Capital One. I am a process person, but the process has to work for the person. It doesn't work for the individual. It doesn't matter how great your steps are, how documented it is, how easy it is to read or to follow. If the person who's expected to do it doesn't want to or can't. And so when you talk about building heart and building that care, you have to say seek to understand. And then you have to build around that and you have to build them up. And the more successful your people and your businesses, the more successful you'll be.

Rick Denton: 35:09

Awesome. Oh, we're going to leave it right there. That is exactly where we're going to stop Kendall. That is a fantastic, I could talk to you for a lot longer. But that was that was great. Let's end right there. Kindle. With that kind of wisdom being shared here, both in the business space, the IT space, the business analyst space, the coaching space, how can others get in touch with you to learn more about the coaching and any the rest of the content that you offer out there?

Kendall Berg: 35:32

Yeah, so on any social media, you can look up that career coach, so that's tick tock Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, podcasts, all that career coach, and then thatcareercoach.net, you can reach out to me directly. That's how most of my clients end up with time on my calendar so we can talk about your individual issues. And you know, part of what I think of as a coach, is I got to understand you, who are you? What are you looking to do, what processes work for you what interpersonal is work for you what doesn't, and then we make a plan for that. And so, love interacting with lots of different individuals, lots of different companies do speaking engagements. The best way to start with that that website

Rick Denton: 36:08

Awesome. Well, as you know, listeners scroll down. It's right there in the links. You don't have to write any of that down, scroll down, click the link book time with Kendall and find your career accelerating. Kendall, It was great catching up again. What a great story, the impulsive story, what a great the career wisdom and even just getting the chance to kind of relive that success at Capital One. That was that was a fun, fun opportunity to do today. So thank you for being here today. Kendall. Thank you for being on CX passport.

Kendall Berg: 36:37

I love coming on CX passport. I'd love to come back in the future. And you know if anyone has any questions, I'm always available to help.

Rick Denton: 36:49

Thanks for joining us this week on CX Passport. If you liked today’s episode I have 3 quick next steps for you Click subscribe on the CX Passport youtube channel or your favorite podcast app Next leave a comment below the video or a review in your favorite podcast app so others can find and and enjoy CX Passport too Then, head over to cxpassport.com website for show notes and resources that can help you create tangible business results by delivering great customer experience. Until next time, I’m Rick Denton and I believe the best meals are served outside and require a passport.