The Talent Forge: Shaping the Future of Training and Development with Jay Johnson

From Coding to Coaching: Navigating Growth and Leadership with Brian Walch

• Jay Johnson • Season 1 • Episode 17

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What happens when a seasoned software developer turns his talents to nurturing human potential? Join us for an insightful conversation with Brian Walch, who shares his unique journey from the tech world to becoming a leader in talent development. Over his 25-year career at a consulting firm, Brian discovered his passion for people, eventually creating the spiral development matrix—a transformative framework that guides individuals from expert roles into effective management. He shares the importance of understanding management responsibilities before diving into them, along with the mindset shifts necessary for successful leadership transitions, such as moving from sales to management.

Meet the Host
Jay Johnson works with people and organizations to empower teams, grow profits, and elevate leadership. He is a Co-Founder of Behavioral Elements®, a two-time TEDx speaker, and a designated Master Trainer by the Association for Talent Development. With a focus on behavioral intelligence, Jay has delivered transformational workshops to accelerate high-performance teams and cultures in more than 30 countries across four continents. For inquiries, contact jay@behavioralelements.com or connect below!

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayjohnsonccg/
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Speaker Website - https://jayjohnsonspeaks.com

Jay Johnson:

Welcome to this episode of the Talent Forge, where we are shaping the future of training and development. I'm excited to introduce our special guest today, Brian Walch. Welcome to the show, Brian. Thank you, excited to be here, Jay. So, Brian, can you tell us a little bit about yourself for our audience here? What got you into talent development? Where do you focus your energy these days?

Brian Walch:

Well, my background is actually in software development. I started as a software developer and started out working at a consulting firm that I ended up spending over 25 years of my career at, and so when we started, or when I started with them, we were at about 25 employees and over my career there we grew to over 200 employees.

Brian Walch:

We went from one office to at our peak was seven offices, and so as we grew, I just took on more diverse responsibilities. I pretty quickly started doing interviewing and recruiting and ended up leading recruiting for 20 plus years. I ran HR for several years I led offices, ran projects, was on the board of directors and helped kind of shape the company. So I got this really diverse experience working in all aspects of the business, but always in addition to my project work, always kind of focused on people, like I said, recruiting and HR. And that's what kind of led to when I was trying to decide what am I going to do for the rest of my life in the second half of career, really wanting to make more of an impact with people as opposed to just technical implementations, and so that's what led to coaching and consulting that really came out of all that work I did, helping to grow a consulting firm.

Jay Johnson:

So that's an interesting transition, Brian. I don't know that many that go from software development to people development. How was that? What was that experience like?

Brian Walch:

It was very much a discovery process, meaning you know I was eager. I always liked business, so I was eager to like contribute more and I started doing some interviewing. And you know that was a little bit. I was a little nervous starting doing that and just kind of got in the mode of doing it and started figuring out how do you get better at interviewing and how do you get better at hiring, get better at hiring, and I just kind of grew into owning that role and I remember like for many years I'd be like I'm not HR, like you know, as any self-respecting software developer tell you, like, no, we're not going into HR.

Brian Walch:

And then I realized like I really have a passion. Like when you could help somebody find a job, that is like something that's a really good fit for them, that you know you're going to be able to provide a good environment, they're going to grow and have a rewarding career. It's really satisfying. And so then I started like embracing it more as opposed to like holding it off, and it's like I'm just, you know, just doing it to help out the company. It was more like no, no, this is something I want to want to be great at and um, so, yeah, so I found some passion in that space.

Jay Johnson:

Yeah, yeah, all right so now, brian, one of the things that you look at is obviously the transition from with the recruiting background. It makes a lot sense, but you're also looking at things like, okay, how do we grow your career, you know, and the transition from, maybe, individual contributor to manager, and you've put together some pretty cool programming on how to essentially step up into that space. Can you talk just a little bit about that?

Brian Walch:

Yeah, it's multifaceted because you know, like my experience informed a lot of what I do which is like this idea of you have to kind of discover a little bit. And so first is providing people an opportunity to kind of learn what really management is before they fully step into management. And so, like, one of the core frameworks I have is called a spiral development matrix and it really outlines like three stages so as somebody starts getting good at their role and kind of masters that, then providing an opportunity for them to kind of take a step up into a higher level function without necessarily moving into a new role, and we call that the pioneer stage. So that can happen as an individual contributor being able to like step into understanding what does management entail? Kind of like I did.

Brian Walch:

Do I really like working with people? Do I like dealing with some of the messy problems? Am I willing to let go of some of the things that made my career, who I am? You know, which is what technical people face when they're moving into management, letting go of some of that technical expertise. Yeah, sometimes, sometimes the harder.

Jay Johnson:

the harder part sometimes is letting go of what you've done in order to pick up some of the things that you've not done before. I always see it in organizations you might have somebody who's just an absolute killer as a salesperson, and then they're moved into a sales management position or into a VP position and all of a sudden they're struggling. What's been your experience with something like that? That sort of mindset shift that's required when we take on something like a management role a management role.

Brian Walch:

Yeah, the one of the big ones is just that personal ownership of career. So you, you move from I mean, sales is kind of the classic example. You've got really good metrics in terms of like, what is performance, what is you know? What am I? When am I succeeding?

Jay Johnson:

And I had the same thing as a project manager and technical person.

Brian Walch:

You know we knew when a project was complete. We knew when a project was complete, we knew when a project was successful. You had all that kind of built in intrinsic or extrinsic rewards. When you move into management it's that all that dissipates really quickly. You don't really know and it's just kind of. One of the problems with management is we don't really clearly define what is success.

Brian Walch:

So the first thing, managers have to do is really take that ownership of their career, like what am I trying to do, where am I trying to go? What is success for me? And if they have that as the core, that kind of mindset shift, then it can propel some of the other conversations that they need to have with, like their boss, you know, peers, their relationship or their network, to continue advancing their career.

Jay Johnson:

I love that, brian. So when you're coaching, what's some of your approach and maybe helping people make that transition? You know our audience, their trainers, their coaches, their HR practitioners, and they're trying to get their people into those spaces. What are some of the things that maybe you do that help to accelerate or elevate some of those positions or some of those people in those positions to really get where they need to be to be successful?

Brian Walch:

Yeah, I think for your audience. You know, thinking about HR people or people that are in the kind of talent development. One of the things I do is we map out what is, you know, what is a career plan or development plan look like for this position? But then ask them, ask the employee to set their own goals, but then ask them, ask the employee to set their own goals, and then that becomes a structure for the manager having a one-on-one with them. They can talk about their goals and where they're at and how to support them. So that shift of having the employee set their goals can provide the structure and framework for those conversations. Their goals can provide the structure and framework for those conversations. And what I've found is that managers, you know, especially new managers, can be very intimidated by the title, the, you know, the expectations, and then you know the imposter syndrome or just feeling that they're inadequately prepared. And having a structure for that one-on-one conversation can kind of give them the confidence.

Brian Walch:

You know I'm not a big fan of fake it till you make it, but give them the confidence to go in and say I'm going to let this person speak and set their goals, and then I'm there to support. And they usually feel more confident being able to support as opposed to just jumping into a leadership role. I like that.

Jay Johnson:

Yeah. So what I'm hearing is you're actually giving more ownership almost right out of the gate, like no, you set the goals. You're going to take responsibility and accountability for these types of goals. Let's have your voice in the system, rather than here's what I expect of you. This is what you need to do and this is how you should be looking at things. So you sort of create almost like a roadmap and then allow them to fill in the milestones along the way. Is that accurate?

Brian Walch:

Yep exactly, and it gives them and you're exactly right gives them ownership, gives them agency in that, and then it provides the ability for the manager to be the supporter which they usually feel way more confident and comfortable in, and if they're the right manager, that's what they ultimately want. To be right Is to see their people succeed.

Jay Johnson:

Well, and I think that's wise, in so much as you know, when there's plenty of studies out there and there's one of my favorite ones, brian, is one that was done with children where they took two groups of children and they told one group, don't eat all the candy that's sitting on the table. And then they took the other group and they had like a coaching conversation with them and allowed them to sort of come to the conclusion that they shouldn't. Then, when the researchers left and left the kids to themselves, the group where there was a coaching conversation kids had agency and ownership. They kept themselves limited and you can probably guess what happened in the other group that was told don't do it, they devoured every piece of candy that was on the table.

Jay Johnson:

So when we're creating those situations for people to take ownership, what's been your experience with, maybe, people that aren't used to that? How do you coach somebody that's maybe not had agency or ownership? Because I think that can be a big challenge in the training space. You know, a lot of times people don't feel like they have agency or ownership or, you know, the participants may not necessarily know what. Well, I don't know. I've never been asked what my goals are. I've always been told here's your metrics, here's your KPIs, here's your data. This is what you need to do and you know. Do it exactly this way. How is that experience in really kind of opening up space for ownership?

Brian Walch:

Yeah, it's been great. You know I'm a certified trained executive coach and that's something that I've done as part of this transition into a new career and it's been great to learn about coaching and the power of coaching and that when I'm working with a client we can easily get in that same kind of mentality. We were like I don't know what do you think? You know they look at my background and they go oh, you must have the answers. Just tell me what you think. And sometimes people just need some ideas to get their own ideas.

Brian Walch:

So that conversation with that employee that, like you said, is kind of like I've never done this, I can't just get a blank sheet of paper and all of a sudden change my thinking might look like something to the effect of here's some things that people, other people have chosen in your situation, like they might choose to set this goal or this goal or this goal, which one of those seems appealing to you, or is there something different? And then again you're not telling them but you can kind of suggest and coach as they get comfortable. And you know these are relationships that you're building, so you're going to set the goal or they're going to set the goal, but they're still going to be like nervous. So you're going to have one on one conversations to show them you're supporting them. And you're right, it's not just a, it's not just a paradigm shift. It's a mindset and a relationship building between the manager and the employee.

Jay Johnson:

I love that and when we start to see those interactions. One of the things that you talk about a bit is sort of continuous improvement and I'd love to kind of take that and go to that next step. So when you have that relationship, you've got that sort of game plan, that roadmap. What does, in continuous improvement, look like when you're in that process of sort of coaching? Obviously people learn and grow at different levels, at different speeds. My needs may be very different than somebody else that you're coaching needs. How do you, how do you adapt to all of those different complexities? And having a software background? I think is really fascinating to hear your answer on this. I don't have that software background, but I imagine that in software development you've got to be ready for a number of different permutations, needs et cetera. How do you manage that flexibility?

Brian Walch:

number of different permutations, needs, et cetera. How do you manage that flexibility? Yeah, so there's. It's funny, like the software development background I I'm always like surprised how much it just permeates everything I do.

Brian Walch:

So, like a big part of soft, modern software development is this idea of iterative, iterative permutations, or, you know, iterative process, and you know it's how I develop myself, it's how I kind of work with clients and how my methodologies all use that so continuous improvement one. We have a process for managers that are really looking to like make changes in their department, and how they can do that in iterative fashion. The principle, though, that you're referring to is the same, which is like when you go through an iteration, you have to have a point where you have some time of reflection, and it's not reflection, is not just evaluating yourself, it's it's learning about yourself, and so I guess I'll just make it a little more pointed. In our continuous improvement process, that point of reflection is we call it a judgment-free demo day, because you're looking back and you're saying what did I accomplish in the last quarter.

Brian Walch:

And that isn't about trying to set goals, to like drive performance, as much as learn about yourself or learn about the team and what they can accomplish. And so I'd apply that principle to people as well, like if you can look back and reflect a little bit and say, here's what I've learned about myself, here's how I'm going to apply it going forward. That's kind of the core of an iterative process and a continuous improvement process as well.

Jay Johnson:

And so it's super fascinating as I'm thinking about that iterative process. A lot of times I like to bring in the concept of design thinking. When I'm working with somebody or anything else, it's like, all right, let's prototype test and evaluate, prototype test and evaluate, prototype test and evaluate, prototype test and evaluate. And what I'm hearing you say is that in that evaluation it's not just evaluating did the technique work, but it's also evaluating how I felt about it, what my experience you know what maybe my emotional or cognitive experience is, and that adds value or deepens the sort of learning that they're getting.

Jay Johnson:

Now my question for this, brian, is software code scares me. I know just a little bit to be dangerous enough to maybe manage a WordPress page, but nothing in actual real hard tech. But I can imagine that there's some frustration sometimes when you know what you want the software code to do, you know what the program needs to be, you know the outcome or the result of it, but no matter what, even these little tiny tweaks aren't getting you to where you need to be. I want to relate that to maybe your experience as a coach, because I think as a trainer and as a coach, we've all experienced those moments where maybe we know what would be great for our participant or what would be great for the person that we're coaching and yet for some reason, no matter the tweaks or anything else, they're just not executing. Or maybe they're not necessarily, maybe it's not landing with them.

Jay Johnson:

How have you managed your own experience in that? So, when things aren't going your way in that coaching or anything else, I think it's really important for all of us trainers to really recognize hey, we're human too. You know, we might be the coach, the guru, the guide to whoever it is, but we're human too and we're going to experience frustration when projects aren't going the way that we go. How do you manage that in yourself, brian?

Brian Walch:

It's funny. I mean you're talking and I'm like, oh yeah, the parallels like if you were a developer you'd be like, oh, the parallels are all the same. You know, like you work really hard on a piece of code or a bug and you're like banging your head and then all of a sudden, the like, the answer becomes clear and and it seems so easy. And then you look back at all the work that you did and you can kind of beat yourself up about it. Right, like gosh, it was so easy. I wasted all that time working on it and and it was really like a five minute fix.

Jay Johnson:

And as a consultant.

Brian Walch:

We always had this problem because you know, they'd be like why did you spend 10 hours working on this feature? That should have only taken them, you know, 10 minutes. And it's like in retrospect, it only took 10 minutes but it took 10 hours to get to that fix. So you know that I mean some people call it self self care. That's why we talk about like a judgment free demo day, because as developers, we you know we had to do that. We knew that was the process, but as people, that's the exact same thing. That happens, like when we make a breakthrough. We're like I still feel this today. Why did that take so long? That was so obvious. And I think that that that supportive environment is needed where we say what did I learn through that process? And that's kind of what I. I keep asking myself what you myself, what did I learn through that process? And I ask my clients what did you learn through that process? Not just the results.

Jay Johnson:

Well, and I think that's such an insightful approach, right Like when we think about Thomas Edison didn't fail to create the light bulb 10,000 times. He learned 10,000 ways not to create the light bulb, and it's really a part of that journey. How, how do you kind of keep that into the mindset of the people that you're coaching? You know, because we've all been in this situation where maybe we wanted to change, maybe we wanted to lose weight, maybe we wanted to grow our skill, maybe we wanted to learn piano, and you know, week three, week four, week five comes along and I'm still playing chopsticks. You know, how do you keep them motivated to kind of keep going when we do experience that adversity? Because I think that's a really important part of a coach or a trainer is to really empower the pathway. They have to take the steps, they have to walk the journey. But how do we keep somebody motivated as they're navigating that journey?

Brian Walch:

But how do we keep somebody motivated as they're navigating that journey? Yeah, when I guess there would be lots of ways. The you know one of my favorite books. Maybe you've read it.

Brian Walch:

It's called the Progress Principle and and it was a bunch of research about how making progress on meaningful goals is really the number one determinant of how we feel about work.

Brian Walch:

And so when we're talking about an employee making progress, you know they can set goals. We talked about that kind of self-determination and agency but then having a log or something that's tracking that so they can see, because what happens is, you know we make some progress and then we kind of forget all the work that get done, whether it's the 10 hours of banging my head or just the work I did to actually progress. And so keeping a log of seeing like I set this goal and I set this goal and I set this goal, and then looking back three months, six months, two years, and saying, gosh, I was, I was back here setting these goals, look how, look how far I've come. So they actually you gotta have some some, not just a reflection, but some mile posts or some things to look at, to go like, well, I've actually made a lot of progress. I think that is a really informative thing for employees.

Jay Johnson:

It's so funny. You kind of like sparked this thought in my head of, like the person climbing the mountain that you know, maybe they're making progress, they're taking steps, they're taking action and they keep looking at that sort of peak when, if they turned around and looked behind them, they'd see how far they've actually come, even though they still may have a long way to go. And you know, it kind of reminds me of me as myself, like when I was, I was so smart at the age of 18. And then, when I turned 21, I looked back and said, oh my gosh, I didn't know anything. And then, you know, when I'm 25, I look back. And so I am certain that, despite my growth and looking back at what I've accomplished over the course of my time and career and everything else, I am certain that in the next five years I'm going to look back and be like, wow, jay, you didn't really know anything at that time, did you? And sort of acknowledging what that journey has been.

Jay Johnson:

Is there any specific tactics? I mean, do you have them like journal this, do you have them keep this in a profile or a vision board? Like how do you help them to sort of codify that in their brain. What's maybe an approach or a process that you have them do to kind of really deeply reflect on those wins, those struggles, the adversities, the learning pieces? Is there any tools or approaches that you take that really seem to work well for you?

Brian Walch:

So within a role, that spiral development matrix, where you provide kind of the roadmap or the map and they're setting those goals. That's kind of the tool. You know, I encourage clients to have a quarterly process but also an annual review process and that's more of like a journal. You know, there's some sort of like, I guess, categories or kind of a worksheet they can use, but it tends to be more like free writing and and things like that. And you know, I don't know how many clients keep that and reflect back on it. But you know, if they've worked with me like I have a client that I've worked with for a couple of years almost a couple of years now and and you know she can almost mark her career steps just through our relationship, like, oh yeah, I remember when we started talking about this, remember when I moved to this position, and you know, and those are almost the markers. So I think clients do it differently, but providing a little bit of a structure to help them do that has been useful.

Jay Johnson:

Yeah, and I think that that structure and it's funny because I never really actually considered this but I do quarterly check-ins with my own team, so I've got a team of 14 and every quarter we have a one-to-one. So as the CEO, they meet with their managers. They meet with their managers and their VPs much more frequently, but as CEO, I meet with every single person on his team quarterly and I've documented and I share the documents. So it's not like I'm writing something that they don't know. I share the document with them. But I, you know, you've got me thinking.

Jay Johnson:

Now I kind of want to go back and look through, like the program and say, okay, year end, we're going to reflect on where you've been the last beginning, where are you at now and what's your experience. Do you think that that would be something that could maybe inspire some sort of motivation or drive to keep going? Like, how do you think that would? How does that play out when you've had somebody with you for a long time, or maybe you've been working with them for a long time? How do you, how do you think that would play in sort of bringing that conversation to light?

Brian Walch:

Well, yeah, I think it'd be very beneficial. The other place that plays out and maybe you've experienced this in your career, I have, I know others have is how does that? You know the reflection piece, and then how does that inform you going forward? And so you know people a year ago. Well, I'll just tell you, like people when I'd interview and I would train other interviewers, you know a lot of people ask me what do you want to do in your career? And and you know the person would say whatever.

Brian Walch:

And I'd had, I'd have interviewers and hiring managers come back and say, well, they said they wanted to be this and we don't support that career, so they're not a good fit. And and you know I'd have to coach them and say look at they are. They are saying that because that's what they know. But when they get to this level, that may change for them. They may have different ambitions, like what does, what does their ambition say about their character and their, their drive and their, their motivation? So the same thing for employees, as they gain skills and competencies and and get wins, what they want to do is going to change, and so I think it's. I think that you know your idea of using those quarterly check-ins to reflect back and then switch it and say what does this mean for you going forward, now that maybe they've gotten better communication skills? And now all of a sudden they think, oh, maybe I could be a manager, or maybe I could be the front face of my team, so it might enable bigger career opportunities for them as well.

Jay Johnson:

I really appreciate that, brian, and part of the reason is I don't do much individual coaching anymore For now. I really kind of focus on org or team or group etc. But when I was doing individual coaching I had a very strict rule that coaching would only go for 90 days and then we would stop and we would reassess, reevaluate If they wanted to continue. It was essentially like we were starting over and part of my philosophy, at least from the behavioral science side, was in 90 days through this coaching you should be a different person, or at least on the pathway to being a different person. You should have new knowledge, new skills, you should have a different approach, a different mindset. And when we're starting again, we're starting again from the basis of kind of like scratch.

Jay Johnson:

Because 90 days, if you don't have any kind of growth in 90 days from that coaching, well we need to reevaluate whether we're going to continue coaching or not. So I like that. I like that sort of thought process of as I'm continuing to improve. It really does make a big difference in how I'm going to show up when the next set of problems come. Longer term coaching programs what's been your experience in when you get to that second, third, fourth quarter or even set of months. What do you start to see that tells you that you are on the path of success for coaching this individual.

Brian Walch:

Um, you know, I think one of the things I don't, I don't know, it's a hard question. Um, I, I, one of the things that I listen for is whether they're they're talking that way, meaning they're talking sort of bigger, bigger dreams and ambitions.

Brian Walch:

Um, if they're, you know, if their concerns or their challenges have changed you know, so like for instance, somebody starts coaching, they're like I don't know how to lead a team and and now they're talking you know about like I don't know how to, how to um win over this, this ceo or this boss into, into my way of thinking, you know, like kind of elevating their influence, elevating their leadership.

Brian Walch:

So I guess I'm listening for those kinds of things and and then you know they've got a big component in terms of validating it as well. Like you know, I'm listening for like are they getting sort of some deep insights? Or ahas, we're coaching in a Zoom environment but I can see them and you just know if somebody sort of stands up a little straighter and those sorts of things. So I don't know, I'd say it's a lot of little things and kind of the bigger picture, your 90 days, six months thing is where you look back and you go how have you changed? So anyway, it's some of those things. It's not a great, you know specific answer, but it's a lot of little things that contribute to it.

Jay Johnson:

No, but I think there's a lot of insight in there, brian, because the way that we communicate really does give an insight into our mindset, into you know, if I'm talking about gosh, my biggest problem this week, you know, my biggest problem this week is whether or not I'm going to be able to get this person to attend a meeting. And then my bigger problem six months from now is how can I set the vision for my team that's going to. That's going to give you a lot of insight into what level of growth that person's. No longer am I thinking about this one small aspect, but now I'm thinking about a visionary aspect, or a larger aspect, or a future focused aspect. So I think there's a lot of insight into that. Brian, if you were to give one powerful tip to our audience, for how can they elevate their coaching, their training or their experience in the talent development space, what might that be?

Brian Walch:

I think, the number one thing well, there's probably several number one things, but the number one thing that I would give to your listeners is take care of yourself. Meaning, like you know, we are focused so much in helping other people's careers that we tend to not apply these same things to ourselves. And our careers are very important, our ambitions are very important, and so taking some time to think how can I increase my influence, how can I find more reward in my job, how can I find more passion, what am I doing that I want to do? I think that's so critical for your audience because they aren't giving to so many people, but the same principle applies we got to be good examples.

Brian Walch:

We got to have our excitement and our energy high, and that comes from intrinsic motivation. So that'd be my tip for your audience. For me too is you got to be excited about your own journey before you can really help somebody else succeed in theirs.

Jay Johnson:

Well, that's a great point. We need to lead by example, but we also need to make sure that our cup is filled, because a big part of everything we do is filling other people's. So really, really great point, brian. Brian, how would our audience be able to connect with you or get in touch with you if they wanted to reach out?

Brian Walch:

The best way is through my website. It's shiftfocuscom S-H-I-F-T-F-O-C-U-S shiftfocuscom. I'm also very active on LinkedIn and would be happy to connect with any people there that want to connect on LinkedIn. Those two ways are the best ways.

Jay Johnson:

Well, amazing and audience get out there and connect with Brian. Brian, thank you so much for taking the time to be with us on the Talent Forge today and for sharing such powerful insights.

Brian Walch:

My pleasure, Jay. This was an awesome conversation. I appreciate your time.

Jay Johnson:

And thank you, audience, for taking the time to listen and tune into this episode of the Talent Forge, where we are shaping the future of training and development.

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Jay Johnson, CEO and Co-Founder of Behavioral Elements

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