Episode 72 – Chris Miller | Strengths Coach, Consultant, Facilitator

In this episode I chat with Chris Miller, an experienced business, executive and personal coach, based in Wellington NZ, who consistently inspires exceptional results

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Transcript

Murray Guest  00:02

Welcome, Chris, to the podcast. Great to have you. How are you on this winter morning?

Christopher Miller  00:08

Very well. Thanks. Thanks for having me. It’s nice and sunny, but windy in Wellington.

Murray Guest  00:13

Yeah, Wellington has that that reputation for getting a bit windy and a bit cold, how’s it been?

Christopher Miller  00:20

Oh, it’s been alright. I mean, we’ve traveled winter reasonably well, it hasn’t been brutal as it can be some years. But it’s been certainly manageable, more than manageable.

Murray Guest  00:34

I’d like to invite anyone and everyone actually, if you haven’t been to Wellington, it’s one of my favorite cities, such a great part of the world. I love New Zealand. And I think Wellington is just such a great size, so much to do and see. It’s a beautiful part of the world. How long have you been in Wellington for?

Christopher Miller  00:52

So I’ve been here since 2007. So a good 13 years now, and Wellington has always been home. We haven’t moved around New Zealand. We started up the coast a little bit and then moved into the center of Wellington. And we’ve been here ever since.

Murray Guest  01:09

Yeah, and as I said, great place to visit. I’ve been there a few times. Love it over there. And obviously, this year 2020 has been a challenging year for so many people, COVID in so many different ways. Chris, how have you been? And how’s the business going after all we’ve been experiencing?

Christopher Miller  01:28

Yeah, it’s been interesting, it’s certainly had its challenges. And like you, there’s a lot of transition from quite a substantial amount of face to face work within Wellington, that I that I offset with a lot of telephone coaching work and kind of video consulting from from where I am. But all of my face to face, obviously during COVID had to transition to zoom sessions. And some of my clients were quite big and we’re juggling multiple people and facilitating coaching sessions with lots of input on the client side. And others were just one on one sessions that switch from face to face coaching in cafes or offices to face to face zoom call or even just a telephone call, which I’ve really enjoyed. There’s a little bit of freedom to just being on the phone with the client and being really focused on them and their needs in a way that that is perhaps different to the face to face relationship that I’ve had. So now that we’ve sort of we’ve started to come out, although we’ve gone back into a certain alert level, I’m kind of mixing up my client relationships with a bit of zoom, a bit of face to face, a bit of telephone. And I think clients are appreciating that variety. I mean, some have a preference but most are quite comfortable doing it quite differently now that we’ve all experienced working from home and what comes with it.

Murray Guest  02:58

I totally agree, I think the appetite for online training and you know, doing sessions over zoom and different formats for coaching. From my experience with my clients and other coaches I’ve been talking to, that appetite’s increased. And that desire to have everything face to face, I think, has changed. I’ve certainly moved forward with my business with a sort of hybrid model where there’s a mix of the online and the face to face because I still love that energy you get in the room. But I think the appetite’s changed.

Christopher Miller  03:31

Yeah, yeah, definitely. And, and I find it interesting. I think everybody kind of went Zoom mad. And we were all doing face to face zoom sessions, and everybody was getting exhausted by the end of a normal day or by Tuesday, you were wiped out. And I think we all learn from that. And I’m really enjoying, I guess, convincing clients the value of an old fashioned telephone call that doesn’t involve video, that doesn’t involve FaceTime, that doesn’t involve whatever. Because you can imagine where the client is. And you can have a very strong heart to heart conversation that doesn’t require seeing their facial mannerisms and being stuck to a screen.

Murray Guest  04:16

I had a leader, funny you say that, I had a leader, one of my clients in the past few weeks, say I’m sick of zoom, just pick up the phone and give me a phone call. 

Christopher Miller  04:24

Yeah, I think I think everybody has felt that. 

Murray Guest  04:27

Yeah. Now you’re doing some amazing work with organizations with a strengths based approach. And that’s one of the reasons I want to get you on the podcast because I love the work that you do and the impact that makes. Can we just go back a bit in your journey; why strengths for you, and how did you get introduced to this whole world of strengths?

Christopher Miller  04:49

Yeah so I’ll backup, even pre strength, I trained, I’m Canadian by origin and I moved to the UK where I had a fairly substantial pharmaceutical career mostly in sales and marketing. And then towards the end of that career, I was a people leader. And I discovered the art of coaching as an extension of my management skill. And I fell in love with coaching. I fell in love with what it does, how it works, how it gets the best out of people. And so I trained as a corporate executive coach with the Coaching Academy in the UK. And then when my wife and I immigrated to New Zealand, I joined a business coaching company and I coached small businesses for about three years. And then I had the opportunity to join Gallup as an employee and if you join Gallup, you’re instantly converted to the strength movement, but if you don’t buy into the strength movement, don’t join Gallup! So that was a real joy for me. I mean, I’m input and learner in my top five, when I landed at Gallup it was like this avalanche of books to read and white papers and files that reference strengths and engagement and all of the science that Gallup does so well. So I trained as a Gallup coach within Gallup. So I was senior consultant for New Zealand, really leading culture change programs based on strengths and engagement. And really fell in love with the science of strengths at that time. And at the time, I kind of started to understand my own top five and my own top 10. And that was really relevant. But I suppose what, with time, and with the, I guess the, the emphasis on strengths within the Gallup family, the relevance of my strengths to my marriage, and my kids, and my hobbies, and my fitness, it just all kind of exploded about three to four years after I understood my profile for the first time. So that was really, that was really fascinating. And that’s one of the things that I really enjoy doing for clients is, this is not a workplace tool, this is a life tool that happens to work in the workplace.

Murray Guest  07:13

I introduced some new leaders to strengths this week, which was fantastic, those initial conversations, and you and I are so aligned, because my conversations were definitely around, this is the start of the journey about understanding your strengths. And if anyone that’s been through the strengths process, we talk about name it, claim it, aim it, and that aiming and even the claiming can take some time, can’t it?

Christopher Miller  07:37

Yeah, it can. One of the one of the things that I realized about my own coaching, though, because I do corporate executive coaching, mostly within Gallup with Gallup clients, and then I do my own private, small business clients within Wellington. My corporate coaching is normally a single session with a full 34 report. And I used to religiously go through the name it, claim it, aim it process. And unfortunately, as is the way, aiming it came in the last 10 to 15 minutes of the conversation, and I kind of went this is not working for executives who have limited time. So I actually turned it on its head and I now do aim it up front. I asked my clients very clearly at the very beginning of the rapport building of the session is what are some of your biggest goals for this year? And what are some of your biggest challenges, and then we do the walkthrough of their top 10 and their bottom five in the context of those challenges, and it brings it to life much, much more fully I find, than leaving aiming it till the end of a call.

Murray Guest  08:47

I love that, turning it around. And I think you’ve articulated something that I’ve been doing, but I haven’t articulated as well as, as what you just stepped us through. I’ve had clients say to me in my coaching sessions, they say, so tell me, what do I do with my strengths? And then my question back to them is, so what are you trying to achieve? Or what are your goals or what you’re trying to overcome? And we’ll talk about that. And then how do your strengths help you in one of those situations? So yeah, I love how you’ve really thought openly about let’s turn that around.

Christopher Miller  09:18

And don’t get me wrong. That was like a two year process. It didn’t happen overnight. But I kind of had a wake up call one day when I went, I’m coaching the C suite team. And they don’t have time for faffing around on kind of a bit of navel gazing. They really need it to have an impact very early.

Murray Guest  09:38

Yeah, that’s such a good point. And I think, again, thinking about what’s the partnership with a client or a coachee and how much time you have to then best serve them. Because if it’s like a 10 session partnership where you’re working through a number of processes, you might change that process around. So you mentioned strengths has impacted you personally and professionally. If you were to pick one of your top five that’s really made a difference in your life, or a couple, what ones stand out for you?

Christopher Miller  10:08

Yeah, they all have. My number one is interesting because Maximizer for me was kind of mid teens when I first did Strengths Finder, and when I first did Clifton strengths. And then I redid it when I became self employed, when I left the corporate world and became self employed, Maximizer moved from like 17 to number one. And I couldn’t figure out why it had made such a big switch but in time I’ve just fallen in love with it over and over and over again. And so that energy of constant never ending improvement when you are self employed, right, you have to be self motivated to keep improving your business every day, keep improving your client relationships every day. And even in my personal life, the energy of without going over the top with it, but the energy of improving my relationship with my wife and my relationship with my sons. It’s always in my mind, not in an overt way. But I know there’s a piece of me that wants to keep making things better. And several years when I first realized that when it first made the jump from kind of lower down my list to to number one, I kind of fell into the Maximizer trap, which is the perfectionist, making things perfect every step of the way. And I’ve softened on myself, right? My standards for myself were just too high. And I was creating a lot of pressure for myself that was unnecessary, and to be able to relax it and just enjoy the journey of tomorrow will be a little bit better than today. Just make that happen. That it’s been a great philosophy for me to adopt.

Murray Guest  12:01

I have Maximizer number 12. And I reckon early in my life would have been higher. Because as you’re talking through the way you see the world and the way the Maximizer shows up for you, I totally connect with that. I just want to check in you said you’ve done the assessment twice. Did you have much other changing in your dominant strengths and talents when you redid the assessment?

Christopher Miller  12:24

Yeah, that’s a great question. So I did my first assessment was when I joined Gallup, and that was in 2010. And then I set up my own business in September 2017. And in late 2017 or early 2018 I did it the second time. And I really did it on the premise that my mindset as an self employed entrepreneur was very different to my mindset as an employee. And that was my rationale for doing it twice. Now the interesting thing is nine out of my top 13 remain the same. So nine out of my top 13 remain the same, but the four that were added, were very relevant to life as a life in self employment. So Maximizer at number one, my connectedness also came up to number three, my self assurance came up. And that confidence, that ability, like I never would have, I probably grew into the courage to launch my own business. And it was reflected in the movement of my self assurance, which was really interesting.

Murray Guest  13:34

Well, I think those numbers that you just talked us through are consistent with the research of Don Clifton around that repeatability of the assessments. Which is great to hear. And, and certainly my journey, you know, five and a half years ago started my own business, isn’t just a switch overnight, you don’t just go, oh I’ll start a business. Yeah, there’s a journey there. But yeah, I love that that awareness that you’ve got. Can I ask though, is there anything that dropped out of your dominant talents that surprised you?

Christopher Miller  14:05

Well, the funny thing was my I had originally memorized and committed to growing my top 10. And communication was in my top five, in my old pattern, and communication dropped to 13. As as a result of that, I decided I was going to memorize my top 13. So they became my dominant themes. And interestingly enough my relator and strategic are at, sorry, strategic then relator at 14 and 15, I became more aware of the way I was using those in over the last couple of years and I just decided that 15 was a relevant threshold to to acknowledge my dominant themes, but communication dropping out of my top 10 and me being so wedded to being a good communicator, and being proud of having communication originally in my top five meant that I committed my dominant themes much lower down my list.

Murray Guest  15:07

Yeah, and I agree with you there in the the understanding of our dominant group is somewhere, honestly, over my years what I’ve experienced with people I work with it sort of sits somewhere around between 10, maybe 15, 16, where that sort of shifts from that dominant to that sort of, some of the time that I live those strengths. And I can hear your communication still there, Chris, don’t worry, it hasn’t dropped too much. So tell me a bit about how when you partner with a client, you leverage purpose values and strengths to shape their culture.

Christopher Miller  15:50

I love aiming strengths. But in particular, I love aiming strengths at culture as defined by purpose and values. So what a lot of organizations have been reasonably good at is kind of developing a commentary for themselves around purpose and values. But what it misses for me is the journey for the individual of defining their purpose and their values. So I do a lot of sequential facilitation processes that allow a client to discover purpose at an individual level, as well as a collective level, discover and acknowledge values at an individual level and the collective level, right? The values of someone who’s in your business who’s a parent, are different to the values of a millennial who isn’t a parent yet. They’re just different. But if you don’t acknowledge that before you write the values for the organization, then you come out with a list of commentary that half the room doesn’t get or doesn’t accept.

Murray Guest  16:59

And we’re trying to squeeze everyone into matching a set of values.

Christopher Miller  17:03

Well, that’s right. That’s right. And values are not a rule book to live by. They are a philosophy that we agree with. They’re an energy, right, that we all kind of go Yeah, that’s how we want to be seen. That’s how we want to be portrayed. That’s how we want to treat other people. And that formula of building purpose at the individual level, values at the individual level, and then purpose at the organizational level, values at the organizational level, and then asking, how does our strengths profile allow us to express our values and our purpose?

Murray Guest  17:45

Yeah, yeah. And I love what strengths brings from that self awareness of myself and others, and that values understanding for self and others. And that’s just another lens, isn’t it, for understanding how we see the world, how we want to show up and live in the world as well.

Christopher Miller  18:03

That’s right. That’s right. Absolutely, absolutely. And I find it really fascinating that when people both start by separating and then integrating purpose, values and strengths, it takes a different life, it has a different flavor. So when you’ve decided what we care about most in life, and what we care about most at work. And you can overlay that with we are an influencing team or we are an executing team or we are a relationship building team, even after they’ve built the values, you can see the strengths reflected in the language they’ve chosen.

Murray Guest  18:41

Yeah.

Christopher Miller  18:42

Even when you do it without the team grid present in those sessions.

Murray Guest  18:47

For the organization’s you work with, is there a set sequence in which you explore this, that you think works better than others?

Christopher Miller  18:56

Yeah, it’s usually purpose for the individuals, purpose for the organization, values for the individuals, values for the organization. And then how do we aim our strengths at all of that?

Murray Guest  19:10

Yeah, great.

Christopher Miller  19:12

That’s usually it, varies sometimes, but that’s usually the sequence.

Murray Guest  19:16

Yeah. Okay. And at the moment, are you finding that there’s a reset? And we talked a little bit about this before we started recording today, a bit of a reset around values and purpose with all that’s happening in 2020 do you think?

Christopher Miller  19:35

Yeah, there is, it almost feels a bit early. I think people are, some individuals have the energy to bring that to the table like now and they want to change things now. Most organizations are still so uncertain of lockdown, no lockdown, partial lockdown. What does the future hold? Where are we going? Like they’re definitely, they’re there. They’ve definitely had kind of lightbulb moments at home, working from home going, we really should reconsider, think again, about our purpose and values. But I’m not convinced that they are. I’m not convinced that they have thought about the foundations or that they’re in the right emotional mindset to actually start articulating that well. And it depends. Geographically I know, there are things going on in Australia that are different to New Zealand, and different organizations are at different stages of readiness. But I just get the sense that there’s still so much uncertainty about the world, and even our countries, that people are not entirely convinced that a purpose and values exercise are going to bear fruit right now. Early 2021, I suspect may be a good place to start.

Murray Guest  20:57

Yeah, I totally agree. And I think it goes back to your process about we need to understand purpose and values at an individual level, because 2020’s journey for each person has been very, very different. And taking that into account right now is too early. We’re still in the midst of it in many areas.

Christopher Miller  21:20

Well, are people leaders brave enough to even tackle the topic of individual purpose, individual values, because that’s a very different, that’s a very different process to what most organizations follow. Most organizations are very good at putting everybody in the room and saying, why do we exist? What is our purpose as an organization, but nobody asked, what is your individual purpose as a people leader? What is your individual purpose as a contributor? What does that look like? How do we capture the organization? How do we make the organizational purpose resonate with your reason for being here?

Murray Guest  21:56

So if someone’s listening to our conversation, and they’re thinking, Well, I have no idea what my purpose is? What’s your advice to that?

Christopher Miller  22:09

It starts in a couple of different ways. I mean, it depends on what their talents are and what their strengths are. I went deep on the literature, right? So Simon Sinek’s publication, Start With Why, not just the purpose led, so Good To Great for example, the Jim Collins classic, talks about purpose at an organizational level, but I kind of extrapolated from that, and ask myself, okay, what coaching questions can I build that elicit a purpose response for me personally, like I did it for myself? And, and it was very much along the lines of just asking, Well, why, why am I here? And what am I here to contribute? And what I was able to do is crystallize, let’s say, it’s probably half a dozen questions along those lines that I’ve now put into a resource that I use with my clients. And it’s and I call it a purpose creator, which is a bit fancy, but the premise is just find the question that resonates with you most, right? What legacy do you want to leave? There are lots of different ways to ask a purpose led question. But your ability to find the right question after the right walk through nature, or sitting by the beach, or being at home with a cup of tea, like whatever the right moment is for you, ask yourself some purpose-led questions and see what comes up. Because somewhere inside you is your purpose. And you know what it is, you’ve just never asked yourself those questions.

Murray Guest  23:45

Yeah, and I think a critical part that you are exploring right now is it’s actually taking the preparation time, not just thinking, alright, I’m gonna work on my purpose right now. It’s, there’s the getting in the right mindset, getting in the right environment, and giving it the time it needs to actually explore it with some self reflection or with some coaching from someone like yourself to actually unpack that, you know, with the right questions. And I think you allude to something also, which I really think is important, is the purpose of someone at different life stages and life areas can be quite different. So someone that’s, you know, in their 60s, that’s been an executive for some time, they might be really focused on legacy versus someone in their 20s. They might be quite different. And that’s not wrong. It’s about Okay, let’s understand what that is for you right now.

Christopher Miller  24:42

Yes, yes, absolutely. Well, and I like to highlight for people mostly when I’m in a workshop environment, rather than one on one. But it’s that spirit of human beings, we are the only living creature on the planet who’s been given the privilege. Being able to rewrite their purpose every single day. So if you want to rewrite your purpose every single day, or create a unique purpose for that day, you can. Now there are lots of people who advocate, you need a purpose for a certain season in your life, or you need a purpose that transcends your entire life. There’s lots of different ways to do it. But the really powerful bit about it is the fact that we are capable of articulating our own purpose, however long you want to live with it.

Murray Guest  25:31

Yeah, and that sounds exciting. To then think about, well, then what’s possible. And I love that, again, want to draw attention to get some clarity in that, invest in that and then start to think about Okay, how can I live my purpose through my strengths?

Christopher Miller  25:48

Yes, yes. Because you and I know that a typically brilliant execution specialist will express a purpose and will live their purpose very differently to a strategic thinker. So your purpose will always be right. But the way you transact that purpose or pursue that purpose may look very different depending on your strength profile.

Murray Guest  26:15

Yeah, yeah. Awesome, awesome. So I also know that you’ve got some great resources on your website, we’ll make sure in the show notes of the podcast that draw people to that. And I think that’s going to also help them explore this a bit more as well. I also want to ask you, Chris, about a love most matrix. I mean, I love the name of it to start with. Tell us about that.

Christopher Miller  26:44

Yeah, sure. So the love most matrix came from my belief, my fundamental belief in strengths philosophy, and knowing that not everybody jumps to knowing their profile overnight, right? So because there are so many people who haven’t been exposed to Clifton strengths, or they’ve done these assessments before and they haven’t bought into it, or there’s something as a, there’s a mental barrier for them to even engage in the strength language. I thought to myself, wouldn’t it be cool if I could design a tool that allowed people to talk strengths without necessarily needing their own profile? And, and that’s where the love matrix came about. And so the love most matrix is, is very simple. It’s only four quadrants, but it’s sitting in a room with an individual or a team and asking them, what do you love most at work or life? What do you love least at work or life? What do you do best? And what do you do worst? At an individual level, it’s really enlightening, because an individual can start owning what they love least and do worst and going, I need to get rid of those. I got to negotiate my way out of those. But at a team level, at team sessions I love because I’ll do it on a whiteboard. And I’ll put everybody’s names down the left hand side, and I’ll put the love most matrix across the top. And I’ll capture everybody’s responses as they give them to each box, right? And it only works when there’s a lot of trust in the team because you have to be willing to really put it out there that you hate something that you’re paid to do. But when you look at the grid, and you start seeing people going, I can’t believe you love that. I hate doing that. Would you mind doing more of that for me? And they start like horse trading in the room based on the love most love least pattern, right? Or the do worse/do best pattern. And it’s just really, it’s a joy to watch people walk through it. Because they kind of go I’m allowed, I’m allowed to admit. And I’m allowed to acknowledge with my boss in the room, that I hate that aspect of my job.

Murray Guest  28:58

Sorry, I’m getting excited. I’m picturing it on the whiteboard. I’m picturing that energy in the room when people are sharing and bring to the surface, maybe some of those things that they may be in the past or just going I have to do this. I don’t want to do it. Now I’ve got the permission to say, you know what, I really just don’t like doing that at all.

Christopher Miller  29:16

Yeah. And and it allows a really valuable next conversation, which is okay, you don’t like that aspect of your job? How do we negotiate that? Can we outsource it? Can we hand it to another member of the team? Can the boss do it? What is our strategy? Or if it has to remain with that individual, how do you leverage your strengths to make that side more palatable, more enjoyable?

Murray Guest  29:43

I love that, Chris, because, again, one of the things I make sure I talk to everyone about when we talk about strengths is it’s not an excuse. So you’ve got this awareness that that’s where my dominant strengths and talents lie, but that doesn’t mean that you don’t, you know, for example, I’ve got a report that’s due, disciplines low, so I just do the report whenever I get around to it. No, no, it’s due on its due date. I’m actually thinking this is a powerful tool for families as well.

Christopher Miller  30:17

Yeah, definitely. Definitely. Well, because in a lot of cases, the kids especially will feel, I guess, a little bit trapped, if they’re faced with a loved least activity or a do worst activity. And they’re kinda like, I know, Mom and Dad want me to do this better. But I don’t have the energy or I don’t have the talent, or I don’t have the desire to get any better at it. So as a parent, you look at the love most and do best stuff and say, Well, how do we fill 99% of your week with those activities? Because you’re going to have a happier child instantly.

Murray Guest  30:58

So Chris, I’ll get back to you within a week about the impact this has on my family. So kids watch out we’re going to be exploring, who’s going to do the dishes and, and mop the floor. Okay.

Christopher Miller  31:13

Well, but the other the other way that I that I look at the tasks that everybody loves least is, what do we have to inject to make it enjoyable, right? Put the music on, dance with the mop, do something fun, tell jokes, have the TV on in the background, whatever, like do something that makes it a more enjoyable process. Because nobody likes doing that activity. Potentially.

Murray Guest  31:37

Yeah, yeah. I’m also obviously seeing the impact this can have for an intact team, where there is work that’s allocated, or work that needs to be done, and just again, bring to the surface around how do we get that work done with a real strengths based and love based approach.

Christopher Miller  31:57

Yes. Yeah, absolutely. Or, or my motivation for doing something I don’t like changes if I can, if I can do it through the lens of one of my top five, for example, like if I see it as, if I have high competition, and I see it as beating my brother or sister, well, it becomes a very different activity to have to do the dishes.

Murray Guest  32:20

Yes. And that’s the again, the essence of aiming your strengths to achieve something versus how do I just go about living my strengths? Thank you. That’s a great walkthrough of the love most matrix. And I’d love to know if anyone takes the initiative from what Chris just talked through and applies that with their team. And if you do, please let Chris and I know, tag us on social media, because it sounds like a powerful thing. And of course, reach out to Chris, I’m sure we can help you work with your team on that as well. So Chris, tell me what’s on your plate right now, what are some of the things you’re working on currently?

Christopher Miller  33:02

So I am in the process during lockdown in New Zealand, I knew I kind of solidified my local clients, and I moved them all to phone and zoom. And that all went well. But I lost a lot of my international clients because their markets were so disrupted by COVID-19. And so I had some extra time on my hands. And I used it to really look at my own practice development, right? How am I going to change as a business, in terms of putting myself into the marketplace. So I have been investing in a new website, and have also invested in a magazine that will come out within the next six weeks or so. So that’s been, that’s been a huge amount of work, because the magazine itself is a booklet of client stories, impact on clients, tools that have been used, how those tools have been used with those clients, and then examples of the resources themselves in the magazine itself. So that’s been a big part of my energy lately. What’s been nice in the last, I would say three or four weeks is that some, because the world has gotten a little more stable or a little more used to COVID-19 that my international executive coaching has started to drift back. I’ve also had more leads for my local clients or potentially more new local clients. So my business development effort and my engagement with international clients has has gone up a little bit on top of kind of executing the final throes of the website and the insights magazine. So that’s been really rewarding and I’m going to be, I’m really proud of it. It’s not quite finished yet, but I’m really proud of how it looks at the moment.

Murray Guest  34:58

I’m really excited for that magazine and I look forward to reading that. I mean, that’s a great piece to do, to invest in time to really capture the impact of what you’ve done with your clients. So yeah, really look forward to that coming out in the coming weeks. And of course, your new website, I know what that can be like, that’s a bit of a journey. Sometimes it is. Yeah, so well done on investing the time in that as well. On your website, though, at the moment, you’ve got some work you’ve invested in, your purpose and values, which I think is fantastic, the way you’ve done that, and you’re living and breathing, the type of work you do with your clients. So if anyone wants to check out Chris’s website, either now or the new version, you’re going to see that which I think is great. But something else you’ve got, which to be honest, I haven’t seen on a website before is your greatest imaginable challenges. You got these three things outlined there. And again, I love this. Tell me where that came from. And if you can talk us through those, that’d be great.

Christopher Miller  35:58

I was really, one of my favorite business development books that I actively used extensively in business coaching was Good To Great by Jim Collins, and in Good To Great Jim Collins talks a lot about organizations having a big hairy audacious goal. And everybody, kind of most people, in the business will know that term now. He coined it. It’s very relevant and very special. But I found that a couple of things. One, the big, hairy, audacious goal felt organizational, not individual. And also the word audacious felt very North American to me, and I’m a Canadian, so I kind of went that just irks me sometimes using that language. So I reflected on the three pillars that Jim advocated building a big, hairy, audacious goal and adapted it to an individual. So it is still all about passion. What are you most passionate about? What do you do best in life? What are you best at? And where can you add most value to yourself? Or others? Right? So those are the three principles. And that’s how I coach greatest manageable challenge, I ask those three questions, and I get people to answer them individually to start with. And then I ask them to look at them collectively. And ask yourself, how did they come together? What is your Mount Everest for the next 10 to 20 years of your life? And you can have many, you don’t have to have one, you can have several. But I’ll give you an example in my life. My wife loves cycling, she loves cycling, but she cycles on her own, she doesn’t cycle in a club, she just goes out on her own and cycles. She also, what she does best is she always finishes what she starts, she always finishes what she starts. And in terms of adding value, she knew she wanted to have a meaningful achievement before we left the UK, in this kind of domain. And so she woke up one morning and said, I’m going to cycle the length of Great Britain. And I said, pardon. I said what?! And at the time we had a three year old at home, and she was cycling, but not all that aggressively. And I thought, well, how are you going to do that? Like, how are you going to train for that? And then how are you actually going to execute it. And we learned within four weeks, she had worked out a training plan, she had booked all the bed and breakfasts, eight to 10 weeks later, we were down in Cornwall, starting at Land’s End. And she got on her bike and myself and my three year old son, our eldest son at the time, sat in the car and we picked her up at the end of every day. And we dropped her off at the beginning of every day. And she solo cycled 17 days, up the length of Great Britain. And that was her greatest imaginable challenge. So it can be work related, it can be fitness related, it can be academic, it can be whatever, but just find something you’re passionate about. Find something that plays to your strengths, and find something that you know will add value to you or your family or your community. And see where it leads you because that’s what great lives are made of. I figure we can all get caught in the normalcy of a nine to five just doing stuff. Whereas the greatest imaginable challenge is like a light at the end of the tunnel that says okay, that’s the big thing I’m going to accomplish in the next 10 years.

Murray Guest  39:45

So what’s one of your great imaginable challenges that you’d love to share right now?

Christopher Miller  39:51

Ah, so yeah, thanks, Murray. Probably the most relevant one at the moment. I’m really, I kind of left, I very much moved back from the corporate world into small business coaching with an intention, I had a real reason behind it. I love small businesses, I love owning one. I love helping other owners of small businesses. I love the fact that in most countries around the world, small businesses are like the engine of the economy when you get right down to it. And so I’ve set myself an objective of meaningfully influencing the GDP of New Zealand by investing in the small to medium sized enterprise sector. And, and I have a role model in mind. There, there was a guy named Edward Deming, who was quite famous in the two decades after World War Two. And he went to Japan and helped Japan recover from World War Two. And he was the father of total quality management and continuous quality improvement, like he changed a country. Not single handed. There were a lot of other people who contributed, but he was a catalyst for that.

Murray Guest  41:07

And can I just say, in a real legacy, I mean, Deming is still referred to today for that impact around TQM and continuous improvement.

Christopher Miller  41:16

Yeah, absolutely. And so my own investment in small business coaching, but more than that, it’s more than coaching. It’s me developing intellectual property, like the love most matrix and tools that people can use that are useful and transform a business quite quickly. That’s, that’s where my heart is. And I, again, it’s a 10 to 15 year vision for me, I have, I love what I do. And I see myself working at least that long, if not longer. And so our intention as a family is to be in New Zealand, and for my target market to be very much New Zealand small businesses. And that’s a real dream of mine, if I can, if I can make it happen.

Murray Guest  42:05

I love that, Chris, and thank you for letting me put you on the spot. And thank you for sharing that. Because I think that’s very inspiring to to myself and to other people that do work like we do about getting real clarity in the impact and the why of what you do, and having that long term vision. So you’ve got me thinking more deeply, and how I can get greater clarity in that for myself. So I’ve got a bit of homework out of this podcast, which is awesome, I got to get back to you on that. 

Christopher Miller  42:35

Good. I know a good coach who can help you. 

Murray Guest  42:39

I’ll be in contact, don’t worry. I want to ask a few rapid fire questions. And then we’ll just wrap up with a few more things. But I hope you’re can strap in for a few rapid fire questions. So as someone high in input and learner, if you were to recommend a few books for a leader, what would you recommend?

Christopher Miller  43:10

I would start with Strengths Based Leadership, just because it combines the philosophy of strengths with leadership styles so well. And it articulates the needs of followers in the context of that leadership style. So all of that book is fantastic by Tom Rath, that would be a really good place to start. I think from an organizational point of view, I’d go back to Good to Great, even though it’s dated now. And many of the companies that were assessed, they’ve all gone through lots of change since the book was published, but the principles of the chapters, right, ‘the power of and’, the ‘bhag’, ‘core purpose’, ‘core values’, all of them are principles that a small business or a big business should be following, because they have stood the test of time, and they have created some of the best organizations in the world. So those would be a couple that I’d start with. 

Murray Guest  44:17

Okay so Strengths Based Leadership and Good To Great, fantastic. What’s your definition of culture?

Christopher Miller  44:23

Culture, for me, is how we treat each other and how we treat all of our stakeholders. So internally, it’s leadership and followers. It’s individual contributors with each other. It’s team atmosphere. It’s the how we treat each other as human beings, and what principles do we use to treat our clients and to treat our strategic partners? That for me is what culture is.

Murray Guest  44:57

Yeah, fantastic. If there was one place you could travel in the world right now, if there was no restrictions. Where would you love to go? 

Christopher Miller  45:08

Home to Halifax, Nova Scotia. 

Murray Guest  45:10

Well, that was pretty quick. Yep. Okay, gotcha. If there was anything you could eat right now, without any trouble, if there was like this go to meal that you just wish you could have. What would that be? 

Christopher Miller  45:24

Atlantic lobster. 

Murray Guest  45:25

Oh, in Nova Scotia? I guess? 

Christopher Miller  45:27

That’s right. 

Murray Guest  45:31

Okay. And what’s one of your strengths that’s right down the bottom of your 34 that you are just totally okay with it sitting there.

Christopher Miller  45:46

Yeah, my discipline is pretty low. And I find it really hilarious because a lot of people see me as incredibly productive and very reliable. But I do it without discipline. I do it without routine and structure. I just, I use other strengths to prioritize. But I don’t need a schedule necessarily. So yeah, I’m not, I’m not bothered that it’s at the bottom of my list. It just is what it is. 

Murray Guest  46:14

Understand. Totally got that. And last question, if someone was visiting Wellington, where do you think would be one of the first places they should go?

Christopher Miller  46:27

Te Papa. Te Papa is the National Museum and it’s extraordinary. I mean, even I’ve seen a number of great museums around the world, and Te Papa ranks right up there with what’s the best.

Murray Guest  46:41

So for someone as high in relator, relator number one, I throw questions at people about a whole range of areas of their life, and you’ve answered those quite well. So thank you for opening up, Chris, really appreciate that. And in my trips to Wellington, I haven’t been to the museum. So that’s going up to top of my list. So thank you for that. This is the inspired energy podcast. And I ask everyone this question, What is your definition of inspired energy?

Christopher Miller  47:14

Inspired energy, to me, is built on fulfillment. And fulfillment for me is living your purpose every single day. So inspired energy is your opportunity to live your purpose and feel fulfilled with your life. And that’s a choice thing. That’s not a circumstance thing. That’s a choice. You can choose to feel fulfilled every single day.

Murray Guest  47:42

Love it, love it. Thank you so much. I totally resonate with the power of choice in that. And obviously, there’s a great link there to mindset and the way we approach our situation. And again, links back to your exploration of purpose today, and how important that is. So thank you. And I’ve loved this chat. I’ve been watching you, stalking you online for a while. The great work you do and we’ve met through meetups, and it’s just been so great to just have this conversation today and take the opportunity to share your knowledge and wisdom. So Chris, thank you so much for your generosity in this conversation. 

Christopher Miller  48:26

Oh, my pleasure. Thanks for having me. 

Murray Guest  48:29

If you want to find out more about Chris, check out his website, Christophermiller.co.nz and there’ll be a link to that in the show notes. And if you’ve got something from this conversation, which I’m sure you did, Christopher covered so much great examples, resources and strategies you can do. So please, if you’ve got something out of any of this conversation, share it on social media, particularly LinkedIn and tag Christopher and myself, because we’d love to know about that. Chris, all the best for the remainder of 2020, the launch of your magazine, your new website, keep doing the awesome work you do and I look forward to staying in touch. 

Christopher Miller  49:08

Fantastic. Thanks, Murray. 

Murray Guest  49:09

Thanks, mate.

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