Seeing as how it is two weeks before the end of the semester and I have yet to do one of these, I decided to talk to my father who is an executive at a mid-sized, regional credit union serving Sheboygan, Wisconsin, and the surrounding area. First a little background about my dad: good ole Kev has been in management at some form of bank since before I was born. He started his banking career at HSBC Beneficial selling home loans. He was then promoted to Regional Manager of Souther and Central Indiana and Kentucky. On his final journey with HSBC, after already being relocated four different times, we relocated yet again to Tennessee where, in 2008, the home loan division of HSBC America was shut down. My father had lost his job which came as a shock to my whole family. Now, we live in beautiful Grafton, Wisconsin, and Dad works as the Chief Retail Officer for Kohler Credit Union, a $325 million CU.
I had a conversation with my dad about the importance of coaching. Being a smaller CU, Kohler does not want a ton of employee turnover. This is something he has had to learn after working at HSBC where if you did not perform, you were out of there. I think my dad and Jack Welch would get along just fine. Since his banking days, he has had to learn how to coach his employees to improve their performance. He has always been a great coach and he coached many of my little league sports teams when I was a kid. Obviously, he is continuing to coach me through my college career (hence this mentor blog being about him). My dad always says that coaching is one of those things that has many different methods to achieve the desired result. Think back to The Ideal Team Player. One of the characteristics was being people smart. My dad has had to learn how to be people smart in his coaching. What I mean by that is he uses different coaching styles for different people because he can read how they respond to certain styles and choose the most effective one. Not everyone will respond to my father just telling them what they need to do better. Some people respond more to encouraging words and that is what they need to improve. He has developed that skill over years in management positions and has expressed its importance to me time and time again. Coaching is a critical part of any business because it provides employees with direction and goals that they can work towards.
Jack, I think having your father as your mentor is really great. I also think that it is extremely helpful that your dad is currently working in a business where we can see the reflection of some of the ideas we discuss in class. I also like how you mentioned that being coach and being mentored is similar. I never really thought about it, but I think that both are similar but necessary to be a mentor or coach.
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