Kris Buckham – Brain-based Coaching to Improve Performance

Derek: Hi and welcome to another episode of the Outsource Accelerator podcast. My name is Derek Gallimore and this is episode 159. So today we have Kris Buckham back of Cooee. We originally spoke to Kris in episode 156, if you want to go and listen to it’s origin story and his corporate background and how he got to be running, starting Cooee then go listen to that. In this episode we talk more specifically about Kris’ company which is called Cooee. We talked about why it’s called Cooee and explore the values that he offers to potential consultants. Now this isn’t an infomercial,i find real value in exploring what is out there in the outsourcing world for clients and kind of drilling down on the business model a bit so i really do find value in our conversation that we had with Kris. If you want any of the show notes or to get in touch with Kris then go to outsourceaccelerator.com/159 enjoy.

Derek: Hi and welcome back everybody. Today i am joined by Kris Buckham again of Cooee which is a high touch, high value kind of BPO here in Manila and also they do brain training and management training which i wanna hear more about from Kris directly, So hi Kris how are you and thanks for joining.

Kris: Hi Derek, Yep thanks for having me.

Derek: Pleasure. I suppose initially we have spoken to you previously so people wanna go and listen to that then of course please do. But do you wanna just give a brief introduction of yourself and how you came to be running Cooee.

Kris: Sure, so I spent many years in the finance industry, different parts of the world but the last 10 years here in Manila with Deutsche Bank working in shared services working in the BPO industry managing big teams, managing migrations of work, all sorts of different functions so kinda pretty wide exposure to the sector and the opportunity came up a year ago, my wife and i co-found a startup which is Cooee and we run brain based coaching programs for manager-team lead level with companies here and abroad, to talk more about that then we get the same time we have a small boutique BPO with a couple clients out of Australia with a couple more coming on board and that’s great. We love, we’ve always very passionate about managing people, developing people so by not only having these training programs, we were out running these programs you know the BPOs and other companies here we also have around team in Cooee HQ we were able to sort part our vision on everyday and help them realize their potential and help them on the path where they wanna go.

Derek: Fantastic. You know I’m based in Manila and actually we’re based in same suburb of Manila but it’s interesting to see more and more people were originally sent to Manila, it was a bit of a hardship destination and then over the last 10 years or so Manila is actually become a destination of people’s preference and people have a great quality of life here, which you’re one of those. But interestingly as well you know people you were involved in shared services for the big corporate and you’ve taken that aggregated knowledge and experience and instead of kind of leaving Manila you’re then building the economy and building the i suppose sophistication of the industry through your own startups and we’re really seeing a lot of that in the outsourcing space, a lot of people with budding businesses and new ideas. It’s interesting, i really like getting you know having a chat to people such as yourself because you’re not, you know there’s a lot of people starting BPOs but you are as well in the space of brain based coaching and i suppose kind of management enhancement because there’s a lot BPOs here, there’s a lot of clients here but people don’t realize quite how much work it takes to run a successful outsourced operation and is it right that you’re sort of focusing on outsourced operations and trying to increase efficiency, trying to increase the returns of those?

Kris: Yeah I mean we have our BPO. We probably pitch more as a boutique sort of higher up  the value chain. We spend a lot of time on site with our clients, we give them high quality kind of reporting governance, we have resiliency plans, so a lot of the things I kinda learn over the years working for Deutsche Bank. We tried impart that and make that sort of a really high quality offering to our clients rather than just you know throw your processes over the fence, we really try, we look at process improvements, we have a sit-down, we take them through government pack every month with metrics and some KPI and risk indicators and volumes and they started off and they appreciate us so we sort of pitching more as this is a partnership rather than which is the 3rd party provider that’s important for us on the BPO side. It gets back to our views on leadership, Pia and I are passionate about developing people, building long term partnerships and that’s really what kind of comes through in our coaching programs, trying to get out and impart in the wider sector particularly in BPO sector.

Derek:Right and people i think that are new to outsourcing don’t realize that it’s different running an outsourcing team, it’s different effectively managing a team of Filipinos for example there are, there’s a lot of, there’s kind of endless nuances and what do you see as some the value adds that you can add and what are some of the similarities and what are some the differences that you can maybe convey to people?

Kris: Well i think we always put people number 1, I know a lot of companies, you know it’s typical thing for organization to say i think in this market it’s paramount that you have to focus on developing your latest, and we’re seeing that the growth of this industry is you ended up in a situation where times you are very young mid 20s for example manages very very large teams how do they keep those teams motivated and fulfill with what they’re doing, it’s challenging, it’s definitely challenging but ultra important our programs are in there trying to unlock perhaps a different style of thinking, it’s typical supposed in organizations and that is unlocking people on the social side of the brains rather than just the pure analytical results driven KPI metrics etc. try looking to a little bit more the social side the part of the brain and if we can unlock that type of thinking in one on one conversations and team meetings. It’s been proven through science that you will ultimately see a more fulfilled team or team members who you’ve hired, they will enjoy to work more i think that is. Because the challenge in this industry where a lot of functions can be quite routine. You know processed driven etc how do you keep someone motivated and fulfilled if they coming and doing 8 hours a day data entry or running the same PNL process everyday. You need to be able to unlock and find what really drives and motivates people and our program in what they trying to teach. Give managers a few different tips on how to do that.

Derek: Right and with your training men do you see yourself as a bit of conduit between the management styles in the west and facilitation of things in the Philippines because you know it takes a certain, it’s a different understanding isn’t it. And so is it sort of translating things to get good results or is it standardize completely international approach would you say?

Kris: I think what we do is, we haven’t just come up with this, these industries around the globe in certain locations that have been practicing neuro-leadership and this other sort of take on developing leaders for many years like Google for example, real heavy into mindfulness and empathy and a lot of these topics PWC, it’s definitely happening and we see an opportunity  here in a market i think really needs it and what we’re saying we kinda look at as a ,we call it neuro see saw, one end is your analytical, your problem solving, that’s what we operate day to day in office cause it’s metrics driven, it’s deadlines, its projects. We typically groom our leaders to operate at that level, it’s very analytical. What were trying to say is can we just try and balance that with a little bit more thinking around empathy, growth mindset etc. If we can find balance, The studies have shown you will find better engagement at work, motivation and that ultimately rewards the whole organizations which we’re really trying to really push those topics out make people more aware of the brain, our coaching program start with the first three sessions just explaining the brain, explaining the social part of the brain, all the drivers and why you act the way you are, no two brains are alike and then it starts to get into how can you use this in your conversations with your team, with your one on ones, how do you strengthen trust using your empathy and growth mindset. Improve your impact as a leader and then the final bit is we get into what is, why you do what you do, how do align to your organization that sort of program can be very powerful particularly in BPO and Call Center industry where we have some clients.

Derek:Yeah absolutely. They’re very sort of community based people in the Philippines and i think it’s so important that people recognize the work environment as communities and i think quite often in the west people can forget that and just want people to produce deliverables and it’s really good to bring it back.

Kris:That’s really interesting points actually I’m going to give example we spoke to a client late last year and they done one of this surveys and they came back with motivational levels down, people aren’t getting fulfillment from what they’re doing but then they say we don’t understand it because our attrition levels are good and our KPIs are all green and we’re hitting all our targets. Well the answer is Filipinos are fantastic workers, they will come in, they will hit their KPIs and the metrics they will get things done but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re motivated and enjoying what they’re doing so there’s often that in this one of the challenges in the sector someone will put a report out in Sydney or in London or wherever the onshore is and go ‘well, we’re hitting all our targets but why people are not happy?’

Derek: And i think one real wins for the Philippines is to get people using initiatives. It’s to get people free thinking, it’s to get people to act kind of autonomously and develop the role themselves, there’s potentially people can downplay the value of those things and then it’s  the organization that suffers if you don’t really get kind of a conscious contribution to the roles it’s suddenly a win win. What do you see over, you know you’ve been involved in the sector for 10 plus years but where do you see evolving? Are you seeing it is improving, are you seeing people are being acknowledged more as individuals and they’re also getting better at using their own intuition and assertiveness or is it kind of regressing as things are falling more back towards kind of KPI tracking and automation?

Kris: Yeah i mean it’s obviously a range of different structures, whether they are captive or go through BPOs, there’s companies that have been here a lot longer than us i think there’s definitely some really good examples of companies coming in the Manila operations included in big global change programs that are around culture in these type of things. But i tend to think we still do lean a little bit towards the analytical, that we’re grooming leaders to think at that level a little bit to much on my mind.

Derek: I do say actually, i really do think that the Philippines they are the world specialist in kind of process optimization and KPIs. Now that’s either kind of a good thing or bad thing because they can just kind of, a process used to be pretty organic but now it can just be drilled down to such a granular level and trace KPIs now. There’s an argument that that’s not such good thing.

Kris: Yeah to your question I’m so very bullish on the sector, now I’ve come out being in the corporation and looking at our clients in SME market and i see huge upside really. There’s ton of BPOs over here certainly from conversations we had in different geographies there’s a huge amount of upside.

Derek: Yeah and massive potential. And of course you as you mentioned you run this high value BPO and of course if people engage with you and your BPO and they get all of this oversight, they get all these sophistications or certainly there’s involvement there so this is what i preach to people it’s not just getting a bum on a seat but there’s incredible kind of associated sophistication when you’re outsourcing. If someone wants to learn more or someone wants to get in touch with you, Kris how can they do that?

Kris :Through our website mycooee.biz and we’re on facebook, all the details are there, we’d love to have a conversation.

Derek: Thank you so much Kris and of course we’ll leave all of those details in the show notes.

Kris: Many thanks, thanks Derek.

Ok that was Kris Buckham of Cooee. If you wanna get in touch with Kris or want to know anymore about this episode go to outsourceaccelerator.com/159 and as always if you want get in touch with us or ask us anything just drop us an email to ask.outsourceaccelerator.com see you next time.