Ronny Shumaker With Intelligent Leadership Executive Coaching

Intro: [00:00:02] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta, Georgia, it’s time for Coach the Coach Radio brought to you by the Business RadioX ambassador program, the no cost business development strategy for coaches who want to spend more time serving local business clients and less time selling them. Go to brxambassador.com To learn more. Now here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:33] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Coach the Coach Radio, and this is going to be a good one. Today we have with us Ronny Shoemaker with Coach Shu Incorporated. Welcome, Ronny.

Ronny Shumaker: [00:00:44] Thank you very much, Lee. I’m excited to be here.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:46] Well, I am excited to learn what you’re up to. I am a big fan of leadership coaching, and I think it’s so important in today’s world. Tell us about your practice. How are you serving folks?

Ronny Shumaker: [00:00:57] Yeah, again, great question. So I’m in I’m in Dayton, Ohio, the great Midwest, and I am a franchisee and a coach with intelligent leadership. Executive coaching is the main thing that I do through my corporation of coach. So I am providing leadership training to executives from the C Suite down to emerging leaders.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:17] So how did you get into this line of work? What’s your back story?

Ronny Shumaker: [00:01:21] So I’ve got 40 years in leadership, the last 21 or 22 years in health care administration leadership. I started in health care in ninety. Is that as a chief financial officer, worked my way up as a CEO of a hospital, a physician owned surgical hospital here in my hometown in Ohio and have served in many roles CEO, CFO, CEO and health care over the last 20 some years, working with a lot of a lot of physicians and leaders in hospitals and physician practices.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:50] So let’s talk a little bit in a macro level about leadership in general. Do you find that leaders are born or they made? What’s your take on that?

Ronny Shumaker: [00:02:00] I think leaders are born with some with some God given ability, but they’re made through trial and error. They’re made through working with coaches. They’re made with working with their staff and other leaders to get feedback on their strengths and their gaps and their weaknesses. So it’s a little bit of both. I think we have the ability we just need some help. A lot of times leaders do. And taking that ability and using it better, using the strengths to it to experience a better leadership role for them and their staffs.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:30] Now, do you feel that if you took a random person, you’d be able to help them become a better leader? I’m not saying they’d be the greatest leader of all time, but they would just kind of maximize their abilities.

Ronny Shumaker: [00:02:42] Absolutely. I think everybody has some type of leadership ability within them and their inner core. We like to refer to it ILEC and as a coach, I have the the the assessments and the tools and the training and the ability to have them look in a vulnerable type of state inside and highlight through different tools and assessments of what their leadership abilities are. Again, they need to be vulnerable and then take those those strengths that we identify and put together a development plan and an individual leadership development plan to to highlight and strengthen those leadership skills that we have inside. So, yeah, I think everybody’s got leadership skills, some more than others. Some want to exhibit them and explore and more than others. And that comes with your personality. But I think we all go we all have some type of leadership abilities.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:32] Now, when you’re working with an organization, are you sometimes tasked with, hey, fix bill when Bill may not think there’s anything wrong with him?

Ronny Shumaker: [00:03:43] Yeah, I don’t I don’t like the terminology of fixing. I don’t think as a coach, we want to take on the responsibility of fixing somebody. What we what I do as a coach is, is work with the client, both asking the client to be vulnerable and me as a coach to be vulnerable with my experience and identify, again, those inner core strengths that they’ve got, get feedback from their staff, from their stakeholders, and figure out a way not to necessarily, as you say, fix the leader, but identify ways to make them a better and stronger leader.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:19] Now, you use the word vulnerable several times, I’m sure that’s not by accident, in order for this to be effective or coaching, I guess in any situation to be effective, it takes some level of self-awareness and humbleness and openness and kind of, you know, the person you’re working with raising their hand to say that I want to change. How do you kind of assess whether the person is saying, you know, they they want to change, but really meaning they want to change,

Ronny Shumaker: [00:04:50] Know vulnerabilities key for the client and and for me as a coach through just building a personal relationship, I spent a lot of time before really even dove into the actual coaching journey of forming a relationship with the with the potential client, making sure they understand that this is a journey is not a quick fix. And for it to be successful, they have to be vulnerable. We get feedback. We get feedback from many stakeholders during this journey, whether it’s their coworkers, whether it’s the people that report to them, whether it’s the people that they report to. And we get honest feedback from from those folks. So what I urge them is we’re going to find out one way or the other. And when we ask for positive and negative feedback that they need to be receptive enough to hear it, because everybody should be on the same page of making this leader a better leader and not as a personal attack and as a coach, I’m vulnerable as well. I let them know my failures as a business person, what I’ve learned and share with them any any of the any of the failures and the successes that I’ve experienced as a leader as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:03] Now, tell me about a little bit back onto your journey, having as much experience as you had at the executive leadership level. Why was it, a, why did you choose to go the franchisee route rather than just kind of Romney’s own consultancy route?

Ronny Shumaker: [00:06:20] Well, what ILEC brings to the table is a proven set of tools and assessments and training, part of what I like about the franchises in any way and coaching. There was a there was an arts and a science to it. So the franchise provides the science part of it and I provide the art part of it. I provide my personality, my story, my background, but I have a set of proven set of tools through assessment’s development plans, core purpose exercises that allow me to use a proven set of tools proven over 12000 individual leaders over over the the entire world that we that we’ve studied over the last 10 to 20 years. So I’m using those tools. So that’s why I went to franchise. If I went out on my own, I would be having to redevelop or recreate the wheel. And I didn’t feel like there was a need for me to recreate something that was already successfully proven.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:13] Now, when you went out on your own, did you immediately go into franchising or did you give it a go as an independent?

Ronny Shumaker: [00:07:21] No, I went I went straight into straight into franchising about 13 months ago.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:26] Wow. So then this was kind of part of your roadmap when you were figuring out what your next stage would be, was to kind of join this team?

Ronny Shumaker: [00:07:34] Well, when I was when I was 50 years old, I decided that it was 10 years later when I turned 60. I wanted to be working for myself. I turned sixty three days prior to signing my franchise agreement last summer. I did not know at that time if I wanted to go out strictly on my own or be a franchisee and improvement company through some discovery process and working with some business coaches. This opportunity, along with a couple of other opportunities, were presented to me and I felt like with my background, my desire. I’ve mentored a lot of a lot of young business people in my career. I’ve spoken to leadership and management to a lot of different professional organizations. So I have this is a perfect example, perfect time. And with covid in many other jobs not out there because of the covid pandemic and people’s budgets being tighter, I just thought it was a perfect time to jump in feet first in the franchise world and be able to again to use the arts of who I am and my background to do executive coaching.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:37] Now, a lot of your background was in health care. Is that where you’re spending your time coaching now? Are you kind of industry agnostic at this point?

Ronny Shumaker: [00:08:44] Well, I can be industry agnostic, but I am focusing on my contacts in the health care world and in the nonprofit world, in my in my community and not just in Midwest of Ohio, but all over Indiana, Kentucky. I have connections in Tennessee. I’m working with North Carolina and with our with our franchise. We had 12 coaches throughout the country. So we rely on each other’s input in working together. So health care nonprofit is my focal point, but it’s not my only focus.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:15] So what is the challenges that your potential clients? Are having where you’re a good fit to help them get through the whatever that challenge is or maybe take their business to a new level.

Ronny Shumaker: [00:09:29] So, you know, the pandemic covid is present a lot of challenges that 15 months ago nobody even knew was coming, let alone be prepared. Some of my clients I’m working with now, one is an emerging leader whose company is owns a another other types of franchise franchise companies, and they’re expanding. And they want this individual to get some leadership training so that she will be better prepared to deal with the expansion in their business. More locations working with a physician who hire a new a new manager that needed some leadership training on not on the health care side itself. As far as the billing and what comes in running a practice, but working with people, working with the staff, working with the physician. And so that’s that’s what we’re looking at, is it’s a new world out here with post covid people aren’t going back to work in the health care in the health care arena. There’s a lot of now telehealth medicine. So there’s different leadership skills needed and communication skills needed when you’re talking to a patient over a Zoome call versus seeing them face to face in the exam room. So just helping that leader have a sounding board and myself having somebody with 20 plus years in health care look at new and different ways. My my master’s degree is in management, innovation and change. So I think with my experience, my education, I can help leaders of today look at the changes that have been forced on them through covid and look at have them look at a different ways to attack, maybe the same problems with looking at it a different way.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:05] Now, I would imagine, like you mentioned, that since the world has kind of gone remote and is accepting of this new kind of remote communications and remote interactions with their service providers, that it’s a challenge for a lot of folks to maintain that culture that they had previously when everybody was in the same location. And they can see people and shake their hand and hug them and and interact with them face to face. How do you help your clients kind of maintain a culture? I’m sure it has to be tweaked a little bit. It can’t be the same exact culture. But I would imagine the big why in the mission can’t really change that much. But maybe the execution on how they interact and communicate has to be adjusted.

Ronny Shumaker: [00:11:53] Like the change in culture right now is probably our biggest opportunity because it’s the biggest challenge because of what I have friends that work work in the health care world on the insurance side, who went home in March of last year to start working from home and have been told they may come back in January of twenty twenty two, they may not come back at all. And this is a large, large insurance company, the the, the relationship building. A lot of them, if you’ve already got those relationships pre covered, a little bit easier to maintain, especially as the world’s loosening up a little bit with some of the some of the constraints we had. It’s really tough when you hire a new person, you’ve never met them in person. So what I tell my leaders that I’m working with my managers is they’ve got to be able to spend some time, whether it’s on the phone or on the Xoom or teams or whatever, and asking personal questions about that employee and their family, not just about what can you bring to me to make to make you a good employee.

Ronny Shumaker: [00:12:51] But what can we do to form this relationship? Because people strive and yearn for that opportunity to walk down the hallway, like you say, with a cup of coffee and drop it a coworkers office and say, hey, let’s talk about this little problem I got. You’ve got to create that personal relationship, at least in my belief. You’ve got to create that personal relationship first and foremost, so that your staff, whether it’s a coworker or somebody that report to you, is willing to be vulnerable and open up and say, here’s the problem I’m having. So we need to be able to use technology the best we can and look for opportunities to get together face to face, whether it’s at a coffee shop, whether it’s meeting them. And literally, I’ve had people meet in the parking lot of the grocery store because they ran into one another and they’re an hour later talking about what they’ve had to deal with at work. So it is a challenge. But again, it’s it’s looking at different ways of doing things in a different, different world that we’re in now.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:44] And it’s like you said, it’s got to be done kind of intentionally and proactively. This is not something like I believe culture is something that’s going to happen whether you work on it or not. There’s going to be a culture. So you might as well create some intention behind it in some way and be mindful about how this is going to play out and carve out specific times where people can interact in this kind of a more casual way that maybe historically that wasn’t the case in LA.

Ronny Shumaker: [00:14:12] You’re 100 percent right. Every workplace has a culture, whether it’s good or bad, they have a culture. And the leaders, in my opinion, the leaders, are the ones that are responsible for setting the path to create a good culture. So for a leader to, like you say, to be in. It’s easy to be intentional if you can walk down the hallway, it’s a whole lot more difficult to be intentional in today’s world. So they do have to set out time. They do have to carve out time in their schedule and ask their staff to carve out time because you just can’t drop in and have that conversation like it used to be. So, again, to me, all the responsibility is on the leader and the leadership team to create the culture that wants people to continue to to come to work on a daily basis, even if coming to work is walking from their kitchen to their office in their condo, like I’m doing today and talking with somebody on the phone.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:03] Now, when you’re working with a leader about this. Is this something that’s like an aha moment for them that they’re like, well, look, I got a million things on my plate. This is now just one more thing that I got to deal with, or is this something that they’re like, OK, I know this is important. I got to really lean into this in order to really grow my company and really serve my people.

Ronny Shumaker: [00:15:24] It’s not an overnight it’s not a quick fix. It’s not a is not a they may they may realize. They may get a hint or an indication that it’s important, but it’s a process of, again, being vulnerable, having conversations with their coworkers and with the people that the stakeholders that they report to and then setting a plan or a process in place, developing a plan to identify the new hurdles we have in today’s workplace and get feedback on how how this works best. One of my management styles is if I’ve got 10 people that report to me, it’s important for me to understand how those 10 individuals are wired, how they communicate, how they work, and then for me to react accordingly based on who I’m talking to. So if I got an employee that works best at eight o’clock in the morning, I want to be on the phone with that employee at eight o’clock in the morning. Whether I work best a date or a o’clock or not, which I do, I work better at 6:00 AM than I do at 6:00 p.m. So it’s the effort that the leader must take to make themself accessible and vulnerable to their staff as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:33] Well, Ronnie, what has been the most rewarding part of this adventure, this new chapter in your career thus far?

Ronny Shumaker: [00:16:43] Seeing a successful singer, successful journey, working with clients and learning more about him, I’ve had a couple of clients that already had a personal relationship with I’ve had clients that I did not know prior to and seeing success, seeing them come back to me when I meet with them on a weekly or every other week basis and say, you know what? This worked. And I felt I felt a win. A small win is better than no win at all. And I can walk out of out of that meeting no matter where it’s at. Confident that what I was able to bring to the table to help them was successful because it’s all about helping each other. It’s all about forming those relationships and having them be successful. I mentored a number of young business people to see where they’re staying. And I have one that I can think of to see where he’s at now eight years later is not because necessarily what I’ve done, but because he opened himself up to input from a lot of different people in our community. That’s what makes me happy and makes me want to continue doing what I’m doing now.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:43] Any advice for other people that were maybe going through that transition that you went through, working for a large corporate entity and now kind of carving your own path? Any advice for them on how to kind of smooth that learning curve?

Ronny Shumaker: [00:17:58] Yeah, be vulnerable and ask a lot of questions. When I went into this, I reached out to a number of other franchise owners, but not in coaching, but in different, different industries. I reached out to people that I worked with in the health care industry that I that I respected their input and I asked him for in my family and I asked him for honest input on what they thought if I if I could be successful doing this. So anybody that is in health care, there’s a lot of there’s a lot of coaches out there. We all can differentiate ourselves from one another, ask for honest feedback before you make before you dove in feet first. And that’s what I would suggest, is not everybody is necessarily cut out to be a coach. And you may think you are. And I think you need honest input from those people around you that know you personally and professionally. Ask for their honest feedback before you make that decision.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:53] Well, congratulations on all the success. If somebody wants to connect with you and maybe have a conversation, what is the best way to do that?

Ronny Shumaker: [00:19:03] So you can reach me through my website, which is Ronnie Shoemaker Dotcom. Or you can reach me. You can you can reach me on my cell phone, which is nine three seven nine to five five zero zero five. Either way, I’ll be glad to take your call. You can reach me through an email, through my website. So that’s probably the best. The best two ways.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:24] And that’s R.O.. And then why S.H. you may KSR dot com.

Ronny Shumaker: [00:19:29] Absolutely.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:30] Well, thank you again for sharing your story. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you, Leigh.

Ronny Shumaker: [00:19:35] I appreciate the opportunity to be speaking with you today.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:37] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you next time on Coach the Coach Radio.