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Mental Selling: The Sales Performance Podcast is a show for motivated problem solvers in sales, leadership and customer service. Each episode features a conversation with sales leaders and industry experts who understand the importance of the mindset and skill set needed to be exceptional at building trusted customer relationships. In this podcast, we get below the surface, tapping into the emotional and psychological drivers of lasting sales and service success. You’ll hear stories and insights about overcoming the self-limiting beliefs that hold salespeople back, how to unlock the full potential in every salesperson, the complexities of today’s B2B buying cycles, and the rise of today’s virtual selling environment. We help you understand the mental and emotional aspects of sales performance that will empower you to deliver amazing customer experiences and get the results you want.
Welcome to Mental Selling!
Danita High (00:00):
Why are we doing this? What's our why behind it? Is it to drive production? Well, that's probably not the best purpose behind a coaching program. Now, will it drive production? 100% right? But you have to do it from a way that I care about you and I truly want you to be the best leader you can be.
Hayley Parr (00:20):
This is Mental Selling, the sales podcast for people who are dedicated to making a difference in customer's lives. We're here to help you unlock sales talent, win more relationships, and transform your business with integrity. I'm your host, Hayley Parr. Let's get right into it. Welcome to the Mental Selling podcast, brought to you by Integrity Solutions, where today we'll be exploring the human side of performance, how values-based leadership, coaching, and trust fuel lasting business success. I'm your host, Hayley Parr, and today's episode is all about creating cultures where people thrive starting from the inside. Our guest today is Danita High, Senior Vice President of Culture and Employee Development at First Community Bank in Batesville, Arkansas. Danita has been instrumental in guiding her organization through a powerful culture shift, one rooted in empathy, connection and coaching at every level. In this episode, you'll hear how Danita recognized the need for a more intentional coaching mindset, how she tackled signs of burnout before they became barriers, and what it really takes to move from good intentions to sustainable action. From gaining executive buy-in to developing internal culture champions, Danita's story is filled with lessons for any organization seeking to align people development with business strategy. As always, we bring these conversations to you through the lens of Integrity Solutions' core belief that integrity isn't just a value, it's a performance driver. Danita's work is a testament to that. Let's jump in. Danita. Hello. It's so wonderful to have you here. How are you?
Danita High (02:11):
Hello, Hayley. I am good. I am good. It is so good to be here.
Hayley Parr (02:16):
Well, thank you so much for taking the time. I've been absolutely just giddy about this conversation. I hate to say it audience, but I got a little sneak peek of what we're going to cover today and we're absolutely just, it's going to be great. It's such a topic. Things like coaching, burnout, all of these buzzwords from every event that we go to. It's all of the things that everyone has been talking about and today more than ever, I couldn't think of a better guest to be leading the conversation. So to kick things off, I'd love to start with a little bit about your journey, Danita, because it's so unique. What led you into this world of culture and employee development?
Danita High (02:58):
I think the path that led me here was obviously so many different seasons and chapters in my life and in my career, but I spent a substantial amount of time as administrative assistant, as executive assistant to just some phenomenal leaders and some of which that led from an extremely high level. And what I quickly noticed just as I was observing and watching is the need for a leader to have someone to be able to keep their cup full, so to speak, because whatever level of leadership you're leading from, you're constantly pouring out, every day, you're pouring out, you're making decisions, you're doing all the things that great leaders do, and even the leaders that lead with excellence, they still require or they still benefit from, I'll say it that way, having someone that can help guide and just encourage and also pour into them. And so it led me to this thought of coaching and started researching that and just fell in love with the concept of coaching and what that means to leaders. And so then I went ahead and pursued my certification and coaching and just embarked on this journey and had no idea exactly where it was going to lead. And I still look back over the last three years and I'm just in awe of the things that have taken place, but it really just stems from a heart of wanting to help and pour in.
Hayley Parr (04:31):
That's such a pivotal moment in your career to have that recognition and to be able to take action on it. I feel like not everyone has that opportunity and to see what you've turned it into is really, really inspiring and so important. I want to key in on a few phrases you use to describe this phenomenon of the need for coaching and to slow down and focus on some professional development. You mentioned pouring into an empty cup. I've heard words like feeling burnt out. I had a conversation just over the weekend with a colleague of mine who's like, I'm so burnt out, I'm feeling crispy. And we laughed about it, but it's such a real thing and it can be really serious. It doesn't just happen at a certain level of an organization. It happens across the gamut of leaders at various stages of their career. What in your experience were some of the signs or signals that there might be a need for coaching or identifying this phenomenon of burnout, how did that jump out to you?
Danita High (05:38):
Well, I think one of the things I do want to say, just going right along with what you just said, and sometimes the word burnt is used as almost a negative. I'm burnt out, I'm struggling, I'm burnt out. But I like to flip that script because to me, to admit and to be courageous enough to say I am teeter-tottering on burnout, that is an indicator. It's just like your physical health. You cannot correct something. You cannot heal something if you are not listening or if those indicators are not there to let you know that something's not quite right. And so that's how I view burnout. When we start to see whether it's leaders, employees, who are showing some signs of burnout, that stress level is high. They just don't have their smile. I'll use the term, I'm like, where's your sparkle? Right? Where's your joy?
(06:30):
Sometimes we can see burnout before even someone else, but that's an indicator that, okay, we need to shift somehow. Something needs to change. We need to be able to diagnose this and actually develop a plan of action to get you from the other side of that. And so when we can do that, whether it's professionally, personally, either one, we are able then to really hone in on a plan to bring you back out of that. And so I think it's just you've got to be connected to your people. You need to be able to see and recognize from are they showing changes that maybe their personality is just different or they're just not bringing the energy into the room that they did at one time and just to then help to bring some healing to that. And again, pouring in can certainly help.
Hayley Parr (07:21):
Yeah, I really like how you mentioned that there are some misconceptions that it's just a negative thing and you only recognize it when it's really, really bad, but that there are actually leading indicators and just being intentional and aware of how it feels in your body and how that's presenting. I also really like how you mentioned others' observations being critical in that recognition of meeting a change in some capacity because we're all surrounded by the people that we spend a good chunk of our everyday time with. And so I'm totally taking that away because I feel like sometimes you're not always listening to your gut or you, you're pushing it aside in lieu of productivity and getting everything done, but your people can be a good signal for that as well. So tying this to the coaching aspect, how did you make that leap from recognizing these signs and symptoms of folks who may need a little bit fuller cups into maybe a coaching program, a culture overhaul could help address some of these challenges?
Danita High (08:34):
Well, we are gifted here at First Community. We have our chairman and CEO who is a visionary leader. He just has such a vision and it's so evident in our story, our entire story of our bank. But he had actually had caught word that I had completed my coaching certification, and he came to me one day and it was just out of the clear blue and I was not doing, I mean, I was doing something completely different in banking when we embarked on this journey. And he came to me and he said, how would you feel about establishing a management coaching program in house and bringing what you're doing externally? Because I was doing it on the side, bringing that in here and actually offering this to our leaders because he noticed, he was seeing that our leaders could benefit so greatly by having support on a deeper level.
(09:24):
We have had management training programs in the past. I have a great one that's going right now. I love management training, but coaching takes it to an entirely different level. It is a deeper level, and it is such a personal journey with every leader. And it's different for every leader too. It's not just everyone in a room getting the same message. It is your coaching journey will look different than mine, and that's what makes it so special, and that's what also makes it so effective. And so we set out, and we just designed this, I sat down and spent many, many, many hours designing a program that I felt would be well received, number one, and certainly beneficial to our leaders. And it was so important that we roll this out the right way. We might get into this a little bit later in the podcast, so I don't want to jump too quickly, but I do want to say it is all about the time you spend in creating, but then also how it is rolled out.
(10:24):
The perception is everything in rolling out a coaching program, especially an internal coaching program where you are doing it from internally, and so you want it to be rolled out in a way that is extremely positive, beneficial, and is presented to those gifts or those leaders as a gift. It's a gift and it's a benefit. It is not a punishment, it's not a disciplinary action. It's key that it is presented in a way, and I want to say this, it also has to present it from the right heart and the right motivation. And so before rolling this out, I certainly did a heart check, why are we doing this? What's our why behind it? Is it to drive production? Well, that's probably not the best purpose behind a coaching program. Now, will it drive production 100%, but you have to do it from a way that is extremely that I care about you and I truly want you to be the best leader you can be, and I want to help come alongside you and provide that.
(11:27):
And also that it's presented as a benefit in that every leader can benefit from this. Our top executive leaders benefit from a coach, and it's how it's presented that it's not, oh, you're not doing a good job, so we're going to enroll you in this coaching program. It will die on the vine if it's rolled out in that manner. But if you roll it out, and we did this, we presented this at our strategic planning meeting and we rolled it out as we are providing this to you as a benefit, you'll receive executive-level leadership coaching at no cost to you internally because we want to put action behind our purpose, and that is to truly help you be the best that you can be and to build your strong teams. And so we rolled it out in a positive way and we had 100% buy-in, and I'm talking right off the bat, 95 managers bought in. It was so well received and we're three years into this thing, and I'm still preaching that same message. I call it the gift of coaching that you're giving your leadership. And so we rolled it out and it's been transformational.
Hayley Parr (12:44):
That's absolutely incredible. As a marketer, your rollout and positioning the impact of that in a successful initiative, you're speaking my language, so that's really, really cool to hear. And again, so impressive. That amount of buy-in at the executive level and beyond is unheard of. Kudos to you and what you've built. So clearly how you get it started is a complete foundational element of a successful culture. But what are some of those other elements or considerations that you use to really embed coaching in the everyday rhythm of your organization for a successful initiative overall?
Danita High (13:26):
There's three components to my department, so culture coaching and training. So I'm so blessed to lead all three of those areas. And what that does is it gave us the opportunity to communicate the benefits of coaching in every single whatever training we were using, the meetings that we were doing, it became just a common word of communication. We used it in everything. We just started talking that language of coaching and because really it is about, it's about educating your employees. It's about them understanding what coaching is. I did just a little article in our, we have a newsletter that goes out and I did an article in it, what coaching is and what coaching is not, and just for them to really understand what it is, and then you get the buy-in of your leaders and they start sharing what it is with their employees and their team, and there's just a ripple effect that takes place.
(14:30):
And so it is about communication. It's about explaining what it is, it's about clearly defining what the benefits of coach coaching. And I will say this, it is sometimes about shifting a mindset because in 15 years ago, 10 years ago when we talked about coaching in the workplace, many times it had a negative connection. It was HR, you're going to be coached because you're doing something wrong. And so for me, that has been the biggest challenge with introducing this program. It's shifting a mindset that it is not negative. It is the absolute most wonderful thing on the planet when it comes to developing employees, and it's also one of the greatest investments you can do within yourself to give yourself the gift of coaching. You've given yourself the best investment, and so you must communicate it and you must share what it is and what it is not, and then just start talking about it. Just start using it in your everyday trainings, your meetings, your staff meetings. Let it be a part of your strategic planning. I'm so blessed that we have a CEO that it's part of our strategic planning each year now, and so it's about communication at every single level.
Hayley Parr (15:54):
Hi there. If you're listening to this show, it means you believe in making a difference in your customer's lives and are looking for tools to grow in your career. At the same time, at Integrity Solutions, we're changing the stereotypes about sales training in ways your customers will feel and experience every day. If you want to learn more about how we could help you and your team, go to integritysolutions.com.
(16:21):
That repetition of the message, the reminder of the why, those are all incredibly critical. It reminded me of something we say at Integrity Solutions, and this is with a sales angle, but the mindset of sales isn't something you do to people, it's something you do for people. And I see your journey in a similar way of having to kind of reframe the mindset around coaching. It's not a punitive action. It really is a gift for you to take full advantage of. I'd like to touch on what's kind of coming out as one of the most critical elements of a successful rollout of this type of program. It's like a cult champion around this initiative that is a support system to you. It can't just be you alone as the leader of this initiative and your role, but how did you find those folks? How did you identify the right culture champion, and what were some of those strategies to help build that advocacy?
Danita High (17:22):
I guess it was probably, it was before the coaching program was established when we really decided that we were going to get extremely intentional and serious about a healthy workplace culture and maintaining a healthy culture. We had a great culture we've always had at First Community Bank, but we, like a lot of companies, we have faced just this tremendous growth, which is wonderful, but with any company, any size, any business, as you grow, you're going to be faced with that challenge of maintaining and developing healthy, healthy, healthy culture throughout that growth. And so we have had tremendous growth. We decided that what we call our brand council, but essentially it is a culture champion basically within the company. We actually sat down with our chairman and CEO, our president and COO and all of our market leaders, our market president, and we got just some different information.
(18:21):
I'm really big on before I roll anything out, I'm going to listen first. And so I spent a lot of time just meeting with those individuals and asking them, who are the people in your area, in your markets in our bank who just embody the culture and the core values of First Community Bank? They believe in it. They believe in what we're doing. They work with them every day so they know who these people are based on that feedback. We then sat down and we put together our council, and it is made up of members of every market. So I've got representation of every single branch as well as every department for here at home office, and those people are what we call our brand council, and they are the boots on the ground. They are the culture ambassadors for our bank. And they were so instrumental in what we did with coaching because they were able to take back the message that we were sharing from a culture perspective back into their locations, into their branches.
(19:25):
Many of them joined in on the coaching. They wanted to be a part of the leadership coaching because many of them are managers and leaders in our bank and then some who wanted to be emerging leaders, and I've got a really special story on that they bought in. And so now you've not only got the buy-in of all levels of leadership, now you've got a buy-in of your culture ambassadors or your group that's actually out talking about it amongst their peers, amongst their coworkers. They're able to share the benefits. And during our brand council meetings, I always give an update. I tell them they know what's going on probably before anyone knows what, we give them an update on what's happening, and then they can go back and share that good news in their branches and be that mouthpiece that sprints that. And so again, it's all about perspective. And so if you can have enough folks that believe in it and not only believe in it, but they see the benefits of it and they'll talk about it, the ripple, I love to talk about the ripple, but the ripple, it's just amazing what happens with that.
Hayley Parr (20:33):
What a positive impact that participation is having at all levels, not just the benefit from the learnings and the professional growth and development of the coaching itself, but just the connections that you're helping facilitate across probably fairly geographically spread areas that might not be able to have that face-to-face time either way. I see that as such a huge important benefit and impact of these types of programs is just making the connections, drawing on what makes us human and learning from each other. What are some other impacts, lessons learned, benefits, outcomes of this program that you've built from the ground up so well?
Danita High (21:12):
We have employees, Hayley, that I get choked up talking about it. Two and a half years ago, they never left their workstation. They would sit there and just, they were very quiet, they struggled, maybe a little bit insecure. I mean, we all struggle with that at times and I had one of them left. She was in my office last week and she went to walk out and she turned around and she said, this program has changed my life. And I was like, oh, that's so sweet. And she said, no, you need to understand this has changed my life. And I'm like, mic drop right there. It doesn't matter what else we do. If I can help one person and they can see that kind of a benefit in their lives, and I'm talking professional and personal because here's what happens in the workplace. When you truly implement a coaching culture, you are not only making better people within the workplace, they are going to be better humans, like their entire lives are transformed.
(22:22):
They're better in their families, they're better in the communities. It's amazing what kind of an impact that can have, and we don't have enough time on this podcast for me to share with you the stories that we have witnessed, lives that have been literally changed and miracles that have taken place with folks through our efforts to truly invest in them. Again, going back to the motivation, it's about work performance 100% better. This particular employee I just shared with you would not leave her cubicle two and a half years ago. She's now one of our leading, she leads efforts on our brand council. She's leading a department of her own now, and I'm watching her come to life in ways that I just have to stop. I'm just like, is this the same person? How can this be the same person? Someone is like, well, what's the benefit of a coaching program? Do you have a few days for me to sit down and share the stories that can happen when you do this and you do it right, you do it with the right heart and the right motivation? You can't afford not to.
Hayley Parr (23:31):
Mic drop. Indeed, I've got chills all over my body and I love something. This was something you and I talked about earlier, but the fact that you're a community bank, it's not just the impact on your branches and your locations, but you are so community-focused that they're going into their homes and their personal lives, but they're also going out into their communities and making positive impacts. So just astonishing what you've been able to accomplish. Danita, I want to just learn so much from you and your professional journey. What advice would you have for someone trying to bring coaching deeper into their organization? Are there any lessons you've learned or things you'd wish you'd known when you started this journey?
Danita High (24:13):
I think number one, just be prepared for any kind of negative, for a hesitation. Maybe in the beginning, especially if you do encounter someone, well, I don't really need coaching or I don't have time for coaching. Learn how to really respond to those things, and that could be another topic for another day, but learning how to respond to those hesitancy the right way. Just be prepared for it, but then be able to respond in a way that helps them to understand and see the value. Also, I do want to say this because doing it from an internal perspective, external coaches, and I'm not here to either. Whatever works for you, just get a program started. If you don't have someone internally that can spearhead this 100%, you find a trusted company that you can outsource and do it 100%. But if you...
Hayley Parr (25:13):
I've got someone in mind over here, just saying.
Danita High (25:17):
You, if you do decide to start something internally, put some clear boundaries in place first and foremost, that it is a coaching. It is a safe coaching environment in place. If there are issues that do arise in coaching conversations that need to be taken from more of an HR perspective, then know when to shift that and put that in the right hands of your HR department or keep your coaching atmosphere very safe and make sure that it is. And I've been blessed in that our leadership and even our chairman and CEO, he guards me very closely. When I say that I don't get pulled in. If I'm coaching someone and I'm working with that leader, I'm not going to be pulled in on meetings that would cause a conflict. And so a lot of times, and early on, I didn't understand this, and I had a very wonderful mentor that shared this with me, and it was just so wonderful to hear, but she said, guard it closely. Guard it closely and make sure that it is truly used for the purpose of coaching, and do not get pulled in to areas that could taint it. So just establish it, but also have a clear, that's why I am not housed under HR. I am not housed under, I'm not even housed under marketing. It kind of started under marketing at the time, but we quickly saw that I needed to be in my own area just for the protection of the program.
(26:55):
It is very key in how it is set up. And so if your company wants to set something like this up, reach out. I'm happy to share with you the things that we did and the things that I've learned through this to help you make sure that it's structured and established correctly, because it will make or break the program.
Hayley Parr (27:16):
Boundaries, structure, and keeping it guarded. I absolutely love that. Integrity Solutions, we say you tune out to tune in and keeping the topic or conversation or the research at hand and tuning out all other distractions, which is so easy to do to get distracted. I mean, it's not easy to tune out. So that's a real discipline, and I love that you called that out because I think everyone could use that reminder in all facets of their professional and personal lives, right?
Danita High (27:49):
Yes.
Hayley Parr (27:50):
Oh my goodness. So many stories, so many different directions we could go. We could talk all day Danita, but unfortunately we're reaching that point where we need to wrap. I'd love to end with just a fun trend or something in the leadership culture development, HR space that's intriguing you or maybe making you a little skeptical. What are some things that you're hearing or that's got your attention right now?
Danita High (28:17):
Well, I'm always intrigued to see what others are doing. I love to learn. I love to just sit in different platforms in different industries even, and listen to what others are doing. And there are a lot of trends right now around what we're talking about. I think for me, the one thing that causes me to become skeptical is I always look for what is the purpose behind it? And so we want to make sure that the trends and the ideas, all of the things are wonderful, but always bring it back to what is my purpose behind this? Why am I creating this? What is the reason? And make sure that those motivations are truly about employee development and helping others, certainly within your workplace. And so just the heart of helping others grow. And so whenever I see a new idea, a new trend, I always look at, okay, what's the heart behind it? And then I'll just ask myself. But I absolutely love right now that we are trending in this area of coaching. It's really becoming, it is the trend right now, but also just raising awareness more to mental health, obviously work-life balance, all of the things I think more than ever in the workplace, we are being invited into conversations that years ago were not allowed, and that is so good because we are able then to really help people. And so I am thankful for that and just the opportunity to be able to do that.
Hayley Parr (29:56):
I'm thankful for you on this conversation. I'm just so grateful you were coming on today. This human-centric element of the workplace, like I mentioned earlier, all these shows, buzzwords around AI and tech, and the Integrity Solutions team is always bringing it back to the human centricity and aligning with your values. And this conversation has fit so well in with everything that we're hearing and is so important as employees have, they're faced with higher expectations than ever with limited resources, burnout or empty cups are more common than ever, and just finding those resources and getting connected with the folks that truly have everyone's hearts in mind. And that's you. Danita, this was absolutely lovely. Thank you again for coming on Mental Selling. You're welcome back anytime.
Danita High (30:46):
Thank you, Hayley. What an honor to be here today.
Hayley Parr (30:50):
Thank you for joining us on Mental Selling. If today's conversation resonated with you, be sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with your network. For more insights on how to go beyond winning deals and build real customer relationships, visit integritysolutions.com. See you next time.