From Frankenstein Managers to Operational Coaches: The Power of Questions

In this episode Siân Harrington speaks to Laura Ashley-Timms about the importance of asking good questions as a management superpower. Laura highlights the challenges faced by managers in today's complex and rapidly changing work environment and the need to reinvent the traditional command and control culture of management. She introduces the concept of the Frankenstein manager, who is made up of bits and pieces of knowledge and experience, and explains why organisations are not set up to ask the right questions. Laura presents a practical framework for developing the superpower of asking questions and driving action, and shares the results of a research study that demonstrates the effectiveness of operational coaching.

Key Takeaways

• 75% of bosses are accidental managers with no formal training in people management or leadership
• Employee engagement is stagnating, with only 23% of global employees being engaged
• Accidental managers are ill-equipped to deal with the complex and rapidly changing work environment
• The traditional command and control culture of management needs to be reinvented to focus on asking powerful questions
• Operational coaching, which involves an inquiry-led approach and asking the right questions, can drive performance and productivity increases
• A research study found that managers who underwent operational coaching increased the time they spent coaching by 70% and improved their skills in all management competencies
• Operational coaching can lead to positive organisational outcomes, such as improved retention and increased employment
• Asking powerful questions will become even more important in the age of AI, as it is crucial for getting the most out of AI and making informed decisions.

About Laura Ashley-Timms

Laura Ashley Timms is the chief operating officer of performance consultancy Notion and an expert on how to leverage operational coaching behaviours across organisations to drive commercial results and improve productivity and engagement levels. She has helped leaders and managers in over 40 countries to implement the award-winning STAR® Manager programme, has been recognised as one of the UK’s top executive coaches and as one of 40 outstanding global women. More recently she is co-author of management bestseller The Answer is a Question.

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Transcript

Laura Ashley Timms (00:00)

I probably should say that we're really on the side of the manager here. If you think about our lives as managers, you know, we say that we are all Frankenstein managers. And if you think about your own journey to get where you are now in your career, how did you acquire the skills you've got? You maybe went on a workshop at some point, or you had a really great relationship with a manager and you thought, oh, they're doing some really great stuff. Let me add that to my toolkit. I liked what they did. Or you had a really, really bad manager and you left your job because of it. Maybe think, well, I'm never going to be like that. 

So you kind of take that knowledge and you add it onto yourself. Well, you've read a really interesting book and you go, I like some concepts in that book. Let me add that. So they're kind of just made up of these bits and pieces of knowledge, information, concepts, experience. And that is our Frankenstein manager. And that makes all of us unique. So none of us are the same. But in that journey, almost all of us would never ever have been taught how to ask questions for the benefit of others. 

Siân Harrington (01:00)

Hey, everyone. Welcome to Work’s Not Working, a show about forward thinking people leaders, innovators and academics and how they think we can fix work to make it more meaningful, healthy, inclusive and sustainable. Brought to you by The People Space. 

I'm Siân Harrington and on the show today, Laura Ashley Timms on why the ability to ask good questions is today's management superpower. 

Did you know that around 75 % of bosses are accidental managers? That is, they have moved into a management position with no formal training in people management or leadership. At the same time, employee engagement is stagnating. According to global analytics firm Gallup, only 23 % of global employees are engaged, while nearly one in four is actively disengaged. 

Why does this matter? Well, employees who are not engaged or who are actively disengaged cost the world $8 .8 trillion in lost productivity, says Gallup. That's equal to 9 % of global GDP. Meanwhile, these accidental managers are ill-equipped to deal with today's complex and rapidly changing work environment. They are overworked, stressed and under huge pressure to deliver results as the traditional way of doing things changes around them. And as the old adage goes, you don't leave a company, you leave a manager. 

And yet the role of managers is likely to be even more critical in the age of artificial intelligence, as it is the manager that provides the human element and enables the potential of employees. This is why the traditional command and control culture of management needs to be reinvented to create a coaching approach that focuses on asking powerful questions, says Laura. 

So later on, we'll discover the concept of the Frankenstein manager and why organisations are not set up to ask the right questions. We'll hear about a practical framework for developing the superpower of asking questions and driving action. And we'll learn how research with 62 organisations across 14 sectors found operational coaching to be so successful that the UK government didn't believe the results and asked for them to be re-examined again and again. 

But first a little bit about Laura. Laura Ashley -Timms is the chief Operating Officer of Performance Consultancy Notion and an expert on how to leverage operational coaching behaviours across organisations to drive commercial results and improve productivity and engagement levels. She had a childhood career in international sports and began coaching when she entered university. 

Since then, Laura has helped leaders and managers in over 40 countries to implement the award-winning STAR Manager programme. She's been recognised as one of the UK's top executive coachings. She's been recognised as one of the UK's top executive coaches and as one of 40 outstanding global women. More recently, she is co-author of management bestseller The Answer is a Question. 

Siân Harrington (04:07)

 Well, it's lovely to have you here today, Laura. One of the ways that work isn't working for us as employees, managers and organisations is that we aren't asking enough questions. Now you believe the ability to ask questions is a management superpower. Why is asking questions so important in work today? 

Laura Ashley-Timms (04:25)

Well, first of all, thank you so much for inviting me onto the, onto here, Sian. I really appreciate it. That is a really important question. Why is it so important today? I think we are in a moment in time right now where we've never had our lives this complex.

We're living in a world with 24 -7 communication, new cycles, constant being bombarded with information. And then you layer on top of that the volume of technology we're juggling and handling, and the fact that that's evolving almost daily. And we've just think for a moment, the conversation we were having about AI a year ago versus what we're doing now and how we're talking about and using AI now. That's just one of the multitude of things we're having to juggle right now. And how do we keep pace with all of this change?

We can only do it by having to become so agile in what we do. And when you take that at the organisational level, this means that our work environment, our organisational structures are changing constantly. I can't tell you for some of our clients number of times ago, oh, we know we're going through another change programme right now or we're restructuring the organisation. I mean, it's like every six to nine months you're having that conversation with the same organisations. It is really, really challenging. And everyone's having to kind of keep moving that Rubik's cube and turning it to stay current, stay relevant, stay on top of the competition. 

On top of that, you've got the volume of knowledge that we're having to, to acquire. The volume of world knowledge, they're now saying is doubling at least every year. And if you just think about the, the elements of how much stuff is out there now, how can you possibly be an expert anymore? Who is not possible to stay on top of that? So everything about kind of work and our environment is just going through this massive change. And let's put more into the pot. What about the fact that we're now managing five generations for the first time in the history of the workplace? We've now got to take on board and think about and adapt the needs of every single one of those generations who are in different places with different needs and different concepts of what their career and work is there to do for them. Again, that's another layer. And you look at all of this, and I guess, you know, is it any wonder that global disengagement is at all time high, something like 90 % of people are not fully engaged at work. It's only about 10 % of our workforce would describe themselves as highly engaged in their role. That's leading to really, really dire productivity levels and a whole host of other issues. So that's kind of where we are now. So yeah, it's a really good time to do something different. 

Siân Harrington (07:00)

And that complexity means that we don't know the answers. We need to be asking more questions. But why aren't we asking these questions? Why you think we're not set up at the moment to be able to ask the right questions? 

Laura Ashley-Timms (07:15)

Well, I guess the very, very simple answer to that question is we've never really been taught to ask the right questions or how to ask questions. And specifically, why that's so important from the neuroscience point, if you have how that can really support and develop others to come up with ideas.

 And it's really because of that, that this is so important. So we're never going to learn to ask, we don't learn to ask questions, we're not going to ask them. And all of our role models is around the command and control culture of management. And if we look back at the whole practice of management, it hasn't changed at all since the 20th, and in the early part of the 20th century. And the concept of management as we know it today was set out in 1911 by a gentleman called Fredrick Winslow Taylor. We're in, you know, in the 21st century and nothing has changed. So we really do need to reinvent what it means to be a manager today. And we believe one of the most fundamental ways of doing that is to really learn to ask powerful questions for the benefit of others. 

Siân Harrington (08:20)

And you talked earlier about the disengagement element. What does this mean for people and organisations. The fact we haven't made this change in leadership? The fact that managers are under so much pressure. You talk about cave dwellers standing on the shore. 

Laura Ashley-Timms (08:30)

It was interesting that McKinsey identified eight priorities to CEOs this year. And one of them was to learn to love your middle managers. And in the last six months Gallup as well has put out the most horrendous statement around the state of the global workplace where they talk about there's only one solution, which is to change the way our people are managed. And they actually have put a number on it. They estimate that low engagement is costing the global economy $8 .8 trillion. That's 9% of global GDP. And they're talking about how this situation is making people miserable. They said it's enough to make the difference between success and a failure for humanity. 

We have issues around retention where 50% of people leave their job to get away from a poor manager. We have issues and changes in values post pandemic. A lot of people work, isn't what it was before. They want to have a different work-life balance. They've recalibrated what's important to them. There's much more focus at work on wellbeing. That is somehow now meant to be the manager's responsibility to look after the wellbeing of all of their direct reports. 

They're also juggling hybrid working. And, you know, we've talked about the fact that most managers as well aren't trained. 82% of us as line managers are accidental managers. We did a good job. The next step in our career was to get promoted. And suddenly this line management people responsibility just comes with that promotion but there's no training. I think some like any 8% of people have formal training around being a professional manager. So you've got all of this complexity of what you're trying to juggle as a manager. It's no wonder we're feeling overwhelmed and stressed. And you know, it ain't going to get any easier. The pace of change is going to continue to accelerate. So yeah, it's, it's when you look at all of that, it's not surprising that we're sitting here, exhausted leaders, exhausted managers doing our absolute best. 

Siân Harrington (10:30)

And so you believe that the answer to all this is a question, to use the title of your book. And what you're really talking about here is we need to take more of a coaching approach to management, be able to ask great questions and help our people in that way. I have heard these words a lot recently from our HR audience about trying to create what they call a coaching culture in the organisation. But also research has shown me that there hasn't been that many positive outcomes yet in doing this. It doesn't seem to have really been that effective. So I think people want to do it. They're doing something maybe wrong in how they're doing it or in how they're measuring it. But can you give us a bit of a view on that? Because I know in the book you looked at quite a lot of research here. 

Laura Ashley-Timms (11:20)

We did. And so we shall start with the research we were looking at and doing is we noted that there's a massive, like I said, there's a huge will and a belief that in all of this change, one of the solutions is this idea of having a coaching culture. And as a result of that, loads of organisations have invested millions and millions of pounds into what they have attempted to do is develop coaching cultures in their organisations. But then you look back at the impact of that and it's had almost no impact at all. And why is that? Well, let's look at what impact it has had. 

I think the CIPD got employees in an employee survey to rank the capability and skills of line managers. Coaching me on the job came 15th out of 15 of the skills that were assessed. We've invested a lot of money, 15th out of 15th. You then look at the work, we did a rolling survey for over six years, looking at the structure across hundreds of over nearly a thousand global organisations. And this is kind of in the book as well, where you can see over that massive investment period, most organisations are still very or mostly command and control. 73% are still mostly command and control in their leadership style, kind of the day-to day experience that most people have when they're at work. And actually, the number of organisations that said they very much had a coaching culture only went from three to five and a half percent in that entire period of investment. So a tiny, minuscule shift on the positive and still this over-weighting management style that is predominantly command and control across most organisations. 

And so this is kind of the environment we're in. So when you're in that situation, you've really got to think about what is the coaching we're doing in the organisations that is not creating an impact. So we're doing all of this stuff independently and individually. Everyone's coming back saying, yeah, it's really good. Yet it's not having an impact. So actually we need to face into that. We can't just put our head in the sand and go, but we're doing all this great stuff. Well, clearly it's not. It's not having an impact. So what can we do differently? 

Siân Harrington (13:20)

Okay, and so what are these the major barriers to people doing this correctly? You mentioned the 5% who are being coached. Well, how do we actually turn that 95% into the everyday coaches? 

Laura Ashley-Timms (13:30)

So the first thing is, is to recognise that we're not trying to make our managers to be coaches. And I think that was a really big aha moment in that most organisations when you look at what they're doing are utilising what I would call executive coaching information and skills and training and trying to get the managers to be coaches. So let's do talk about those three barriers that we talked about. Let's actually identify each one of them kind of in order maybe. 

The first barrier is that organisations are doing a really good job in sort of two areas I would say of kind of that the coaching spectrum. Most organisations now would take their very senior leaders and a lot of them would have at some point in their career, not often, but at some point, an executive coach. And that's a really nice, proper development programme for their senior leaders. And those individuals will get great benefit from that interaction. 

To scale that, and this is, I think, where the big misconception is, they go, let's scale that by developing internal coaches. That's great. You can do that executive coaching now for more people in a more affordable way, if you do that well. And there's other whole journeys there and conversations there we could be having about how to have sustainable internal coaching, how to have measurable internal coaching, but that's probably not for today, but that also has to be considered. 

But let's say you're doing all of that brilliantly. You think about for a minute, how many of your leaders and managers or even your colleagues in your organisation get access to an executive coach or an internal coach? Almost none. We say 5% because we're being generous. It's probably in larger organisations, 1% or 2%, if that. So actually, what about the other, we say 95%, but it could be 98/99% of people. How are they getting exposed to coaching? So the answer is actually, let's get all our managers to be coaches, is I think what you said, Siân. But actually, that's what sort of happened. We then put all of our managers on these managers coach courses or coaching conversations courses. And we said to them, here we go, do some of this. And If you ask those managers, were they good courses? They were brilliant. They really enjoyed the workshops. They thought the content was great. The trainers was great. They would have given a five out of five in terms of scoring. So everyone's happy that they've done this great job with this coaching programme.  

But then you look at what's happening. The managers don't do it. So let's go and find out why aren't they doing it. Well they tell you they haven't got time. They can't make time for these coaching sessions. They just don't have time for it. They also are in busy operation. We just talked about the pressures they're under. And now we expect them to have these lovely coffee chats where they go away and sit down and they're there. And to really look after these other people that they're responsible for, but they are equally responsible for the outcome of their departments and their jobs. So it's just not aligned with workplace reality. 

So then we look a bit deeper about what are they actually being taught? Almost all coaching programmes that are designed for managers were being taught executive coaching models like the Grow model. And the Grow model is a fantastic executive coaching model. And we have it in our programmes. We have it actually even in the STAR Manager programme. We do use it later on for developmental conversations, the purposeful conversations where you sit down and have one -to -ones. But the Grow model is designed for you as a manager to be in the service of the coachee and to be on the coachee's agenda, to be on the other person's agenda. But in the reality of work, you're a line manager, it's your agenda too. 

And this is where the whole dichotomy is. And this is why managers don't coach their colleagues other than in these maybe the once a year meeting they have, all these very occasional. So it's a very infrequent experience. And while they intellectually like this information, they can't use it. There's no behavioural change. There's absolute conflict with what we're teaching managers and what they need. 

Siân Harrington (17:17)

So you've stood back and looked at this and come up with a four tier model, for want of a better word, which is the Stop, Think, Ask, Result. Can you tell me a bit about what you mean by that? What does that look like in practice? 

Laura Ashley-Timms (17:30)

Yeah, so we have coined the term operational coaching. And what we are saying is that if you want managers to coach in the flow of work and in the moment, and they don't want to become coaches, instead, they need to have a style of management, an operational coaching style of management, where they're just using an inquiry-led approach to this idea of asking questions. So how can we actually change the way our managers work and all managers work to start enabling the potential of others and use questions to achieve this. So we needed to get them to think about how can they adopt coaching-related behaviours. 

So the STAR model, which you said it stands for Stop, Think, Ask, and Result, the idea is to break this down into a behavioural change model aimed 100% at managers. So we talked a minute ago about how lots of the models are based on the coachee. There's nothing actually to support the managers to change their behaviour. It's all about the coachee. So what we did instead is we looked at this from a completely different angle. If it starts with behavioural change, because the managers need to do something differently, what do they need to help them learn and embed new habits to stop telling and instead start learning to ask? And then once you've done that, you can layer on top of it, the actual art of asking powerful questions. 

But if they don't stop, nothing's going to change. If they don't stop telling, nothing's going to change. So that's really the essence of the catalyst for this is actually having a model that is 100% focused on the managers and changing behaviour.  

Siân Harrington (19:04)

And so asking questions, it sounds really simple to ask questions. It's obviously what I do for a living. I'm naturally a curious person. I like asking questions. I like finding out about people. But, in reality, it's quite hard to ask the right question. It's like an art and a science. How do you develop this sort of missing superpower? How can we actually be more intentional about it? What are the real practical steps for people? Asking questions. Yeah, we get what it means, but how do we actually get that as that power? 

Laura Ashley-Timms (19:37)

So I think that we talked about behavioural change. So if you just break down the model in a bit more detail and we kind of take some of the steps, maybe that will help answer that question a little bit. 

I talked about the first step being stop. The concept of stop is to really learn to break the habit of going in and solving a problem. People come to you with problems all the time. They will all come in and ask you a question, how can I do this or this has happened. And your gut reaction is because you're a really nice person and you want to do the right things, you want to help them. And by helping them, you'll tell them what to do. You'll share your insights. You'll say, well, that's what I would do. Well, why don't you go and do X, Y or Z? That is the first thing you've got to do is you've got to stop that. If you're going to ask a question, the first thing you've got to do is stop your habit of wanting to solve the problem and step into the problem and take it on as your problem now. 

So you've got to stop, you've got to step back and you've got to learn to change states. So this is all about building triggers, identifying what is it that's making you go in and feel the need to solve it and be the hero that's going to answer everyone's questions and fix everything. And instead build the habit to recognise what's making you do that and create that change. So the stop is the most critical step actually of the model because the second you stop, you give yourself a choice and you're giving control back to yourself to do something different but that takes a bit to change. Then you've got to identify, is it a coachable moment? So think, is it a coachable moment? 

And once you've embedded S and T, the stop and think, that happens in a click of a finger. It becomes absolutely natural. You're walking down the corridor and instead of when someone comes to you with a problem, you answering and telling them what to do. Once you've built the S and T of the model as a change for yourself, that's the split second for you to get through those two steps. And then as you rightly say, all becomes about the art of asking powerful questions. 

So the A in the model is probably one of the only times I've seen it in all the coaching work I've done where you really get to deep dive into how do you craft questions for the benefit of others. And we're never taught this really in life. And we might be taught about questions for data collection or in certain sectors for interrogation and for different things like that, but we're never taught how can you ask questions that are going to generate positive insights in other people? We do break down the types of questions you might get and their purpose. We explore that. 

For example, that might be questions that are driving scope and focus compared to questions that are more about creating insight and action. So we have these different types of questions. And then later on in the book, we go really deep dive into the art and science of asking questions. And there we share the question model which is a unique model that really helps people generate, if you like, powerful questions. So there we're looking at timeframes of questions, sort of looking at whether it's in past memory, future memory, the style of how you ask the question, as well as the type of question you ask. 

But if we kind of just give you one example, maybe,  just take the type of questions that generate insight and actions, there's three different types of questions that can generate insight and actions. One is around shifting perspective. So questions that get you to change your perspective of how you're looking at a situation. So I might ask you, if you've come to me with an issue and I want you to shift perspective, what advice would you give to a colleague in your situation? So instead of you thinking about the problem from your perspective, now think about if someone else asked you that question, how might you approach it? So you're getting them to shift perspective. 

Another way you might do it is to get them to challenge a barrier. Maybe they've got a limiting belief. They come to you and they've made assumptions about something, it's not my job, I can't do that. So what is it that makes you think that? You know, this idea that you need permission the whole time for things, you can easily unpick that by sort of challenging barriers and getting to sort of realise that it might be within their gift or what's the worst that would happen if they did do something. So really getting to challenge barriers. 

And then another one, as the third type of question really that can drive insight and action is to change the context. So often someone's looking at something or a problem from a particular point of view. If you want them to change context, imagine this has been achieved already. Looking back, what was it that had to change? So again, you're now changing both the time context, so they're looking at it, because you've now, you know, it's happened, so you're in the future and you're now looking back.

There's a whole lot that's at play there when you look at the question around timeframes, how and type. It's really looking to craft questions to trigger specific insights in the other person's brain. 

Siân Harrington (24:20)

I enjoyed reading that and thinking about how I could apply that both in working with people, but also to my own craft. That's the ST and the A in the STAR model. What's the R all about? 

Laura Ashley-Timms (24:30)

Well, this comes back to the fact that this is all about managers and R is about getting to a result. So I think what's really important to think about is that if you just had a great conversation, even if you've asked some powerful questions and there's no outcome, it's just a nice conversation. As a manager, that's not going to get you anywhere. So how'd you get that commitment to action? How'd you get to that result? And again, there's a series of questions you can ask to make sure that don't make assumptions that there is a commitment to action, that they are going to do something having come up with those insights is then just honing that down to that's great. 

So, you know, you came up with a couple of ideas, which of those do you want to move forward with and great. So when are you going to do that? All right. So you're going to make that phone call tomorrow. Brilliant. How about you drop me a line to let me know how it went, or it might, you might say, is it okay if I pick up with you tomorrow afternoon and just get some feedback on how that went and what you're going to do next?

It's the idea that you've got constant momentum because you're still a line manager in this conversation. This is the whole point that there needs to be an outcome and then you need to sort of move on from that. So it's about micro conversations and micro steps, all moving forward to positive action. 

Siân Harrington (25:33)

I love this idea of operational coaching because coming back to what you said earlier, we often think of coaching as the executive coaching. So even just the access, as you said, of other people to get coaching is one thing, but also that the concept of it being tied to the outcome is really good and the everyday applicability of it, because it's true doing everyday actions that we build those habits and we're able to do it. So it sounds great in practice. We were just saying how little the coaching model we have at the moment is showing in reality. So have you got any measurable outcomes from doing this? Have you got any research to show this does actually work?

Laura Ashley-Timms (26:11)

Yes, I always think this may be our maddest moment in the history of our company or in decision making that we made. We had this incredible opportunity to become part of a research programme that the government was doing. There's data from Gallup about the huge impact on the poor management and the lack of focus on focusing on the people is having on the world's economy. The CBI did a similar piece of analysis earlier than about three or four years earlier, where they identified that raising the average quality of people management by just 7% would add a massive £110 billion to the UK economy. And when they broke that down and did their research, what they identified was putting people objectives on a par with commercial objectives was one of the things that had to happen, that managers needed to be able to provide appreciative and strengths -based feedback. And most importantly, they had to be on the job coaching and support to really drive and unlock this 110 billion. 

So as a result of that, the Government actually asked organisations to go away and identify what management practices or other effective technologies could boost productivity and unlock this 110 billion. And as a result of that, we were invited to put consortium together to do a research project. And what we didn't know at the time was 189 other consortia were put together to do this research, but they only selected six of them and we were one of the six and we were the only business led research trial that was part of this business basics programme. 

So in our consortia, it was our programme, so it's a STAR Manager programme, the full 20 modules of the main programme that we run that was put into this randomised control study. And it was evaluated as a randomised control, it's a blind evaluation. It was evaluated by the London School of Economics. Go big or go home, I guess. If you're going to do this, do it with some of the best brains in the world.  And then the whole protocols of this research study was overseen by the Department for Business and also the brainbox statisticians that the Government has around IGL and Nesta, which is some of the organisations, Innovate UK is also part of the sponsoring groups. So it's a really, really big study.

And the question we had to answer was, does access to the blended learning programme and operational coaching STAR Manager lead to greater adoption of coaching related management behaviours that drive performance and productivity increases than no access at all? So that was how the study was set up. 

And as I said, it was a randomized control trial in 62 organisations across 14 sectors. So probably one of the biggest ever coaching studies ever conducted. We've not found one. Please let me know if anyone comes up with a bigger one. But we believe it is the biggest study conducted. 

What's interesting as well is it was a really robust population in that we had every level of management represented. We had every age group. So we had all five generations of the workplace represented. We had really great diversity in terms of gender and ethnicity as well. And so it was a really, really brilliant population. 

So what happened? So six months later, you had these two groups of managers from different organisations that some had been on the programme and some that hadn't. And what happened was we were looking at originally these four domains of leadership. So how much time do they spend coaching, leading, managing and doing? So we kind of looked and broke down how managers were spending their time at work across those four leadership and management domains. 

And what happened is beginning of the study, all of the managers in the programme, pretty much exactly the same baseline. They spent exactly the same time coaching, leading, managing and doing. But by the end of the six months, the managers on the programme had increased the time they spent coaching by 70% and were doing significantly less time doing. Now, the organisations and the control group had actually got even worse. They were spending even more time doing and even less time coaching. So the gap had got even bigger.

There's also a slight increase in the amount of time they managed on the programme were leading. Again, that was less in the control group that had gone backwards, not forwards. And the managing was less of a shift, but a little bit less time managing for those in the control groups. The big shift was, if you've been on STAR Manager, you're doing loads more coaching and leading, and you're doing a lot less doing and a little bit less managing. And if you haven't been on the programme, you're just doing what you're doing before, which is a bit worse.  

And as some other outcomes as well that were really measurable, one of them is we looked at nine management competencies throughout this study as well. And the managers who've been on the programme had increased their skills in all nine management competencies. And we regularly see somewhere between a 25 and 30% improvement in six months across all management capability and competencies which again is if you can move that needle that quickly, that can be really fantastic. 

Now, LSE did not expect in six months the organisational trends or shifts because it's quite a short period. So they were really, really surprised that there were some very strong and positive organisational trends that also came out of the study. One of the ones I think is probably really interesting is that the organisations who were on STAR Manager improved retention by a factor of six. And actually really interesting and something that I don't think any of us are expecting is that the organisations on the STAR manager also were able to increase the number of people in the company. So they increased employment over this period. So they grew the number of people in the company, but they didn't have more managers. So the managers were able to take on more people and lead more people in a much more relaxed way. 

And most of them reported they were getting about 20% of their time back. And this is the whole chapter in the book actually about how of getting time back. We talked a little bit about the shift from doing to coaching. That move typically buys you a day, a week back if you're a full-time manager or leader and just think what you might do in terms of higher value work with that extra day. 

And in terms of other data that get collected in the study and again gets collected across the programme is we measure successes as in the flow of work as they're working through the programme and that gets captured in the platform. And in the study period, £19 million of benefits were recorded during the six -month window by the managers, which drove a 74 times learner ROI. And that included all the fully built up costs of the programme. And those improvements and those benefits were across a whole range of things like cost savings, revenue generation, operations and service improvements, technical process improvements, and engagement and productivity. And they all get categorised as well.

So really, really robust data that came out of this study. And actually when the study came out, the results were so good that the government turned around and said, it's too good to be true. We don't believe you. And they made LSE, we cut the data, take the big companies out, take the small companies out, take the senior leaders out, take the junior managers off, cut it again, cut the sectors differently. And they came back three months later and said, honestly, it's universal. And they said, we don't believe you. And they gave it to their brain box statisticians and the Government. They cut it and then three months later they came back and said, no, it really is universal. So they declared the results robust. 

Siân Harrington (33:35)

Well, they are very impressive results and a very nice clear line of sight from that, the beginning of it to those stats you were given about the productivity increases and things like that. And you've been a really early advocate of coaching because you've had an interest in being involved in international sport for a long time. And then of course you followed up with helping business for a few decades. Was there a particular moment in your career when you thought it's actually all about the questions that I ask? 

Laura Ashley-Timms (34:15)

Oh gosh, there's probably four moments that have had the biggest impact. And when I reflect back on each of those moments, there probably was a question that was asked at the heart of it. And even he talked about international sport, I think when I was eight and I reflect on the question I asked my father, that led to him not just finding me the local club to go to, but actually, you know, the coach that was also coaching the top internationals in the UK at the time, because I was trying to mimic a kid's comic where the girl had played for England. And I think when I set that question up, even as a young child, it changed the outcome of what my father did effectively. And without that, I probably wouldn't have even had a sports career. So I kind of reflect on that. That's quite interesting. 

Certainly in my early career, one of the biggest moments I had was when I asked a really challenging question. I was at Marks and Spencer's running buying departments. And I asked a challenging question to my four largest suppliers, who were also competitors in the space. And the question I asked got them to actually agree to share their best practices and let the competitors into their factories and share the one good thing they were all doing, which I was aware they were all doing. And that actually reduced the manufacturing process by four weeks to three weeks across all of those sites. So that was an amazing impact, but that came from a sort of really challenging question I asked as a young upstart in my earlier career. 

But certainly more recently, I think, you know, some of what we've been discussing today is really relevant in terms of me personally asking questions around what was preventing coaching from working in organisations. And that was a massive pivotal moment to actually ask questions that got us to do that deep thinking that made us realise that we were teaching the wrong stuff, that organisations were teaching the wrong thing. And that's why it wasn't working. You can't teach managers to be coaches. It's never going to work.

Siân Harrington (36:10)

Just before we wrap up, let me just throw you one real curve ball here. I've been having conversations with a lot of HR leaders talking about the impact of AI, machine learning, generative AI, etc. One of the outcomes of those discussions have been a few people have said it will be the end of the manager, the end of the middle manager, or we might be working more closely with AI as a manager. Have you considered that at all? 

Laura Ashley-Timms (35:40)

It's a good question. I think there's two ways of looking for it. I don't think AI can ever replace the human element of a line manager. So when we're thinking about, you know, how someone's actually feeling, you know, how, what's on their face when you, what you notice about someone's behaviour and their expressions, I think the importance of having managers who really understand how to enable and unleash the potential of the people around them that can't be replaced by AI. So I think AI can take so much weight off of us in terms of processes and improvements and accelerating the capability of getting more tasks done. But I don't think they can ever replace the engagement at a human level. So having the managers with higher skills around having an inquiry led approach and really supporting and enabling the people that are in the organisations, I think it's going to be more critical, not less critical as AI becomes more important. So that's one side of that coin. 

The other side of the coin is to get the most out of AI, you have to ask it the most powerful questions. So actually, the art of asking questions is going to become more important, not less important for all of us. And you only have to think about how you can change the nuance of a question to get better outcomes out of AI. 

And I know that when a few years ago when AI started being used by A-level students at schools, I know my son was involved in this, they actually were looking at when they were making decisions like would they allow it, the quality of the questions that were being asked to generate the research. So actually if you're asking great questions they're really helping to dive into the research and to pull out the research that's critical. Yeah, so instead of having to read the entire paper you can pull out the essence of it, but you've still got to know the right question to ask and you still got to then look at and assess that information and how it then gets pulled into the essay, for example. And it was on the basis of that that they decided they would allow it for research purposes in school. 

So I think it does come down to the quality of the questions, the power of the questions you're asking. And I think that's going to be so important with AI. 

Siân Harrington (38:48)

Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. And of course, critical thinking and therefore being able to ask the questions and make decisions on the back of the right inquiry is going to be key throughout everything to do with AI and data going forward. So thank you very much for that. We've run through a lot there, some great actionable advice and really good insights. And I believe operational coaching is a major step forward in the way that we look at our management in companies. 

That's Laura Ashley-Timms COO of Notion on operational coaching and how to ask better questions. By the way, Laura told me that she worked with one company, UK building retailer Jewson, to move from a command and control model to operational coaching across 600 sites. Not only did taking an inquiry-led approach help drive net employee promoter scores from minus 10 to plus 30 in just two years, but they also achieved positive improvements in safety outcomes. The key, says Jewson’s HR director, is the simplicity of the STAR model.

So thanks so much for listening to the show this week. You can subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. If you want to send a tweet, it's @TPSHub or @sianharrington. And you can follow me on LinkedIn. That's at Sian Harrington-The People's Space. And if you want more insights and resources on the future of work, check out www.thepeoplespace.com. This episode was produced by Nigel Pritchard. I'm Siân Harrington and you've been listening to Works Not Working… Let's fix it! Goodbye.