Christopher Salem With CRS Group Holdings, LLC

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 fun one today on the show, we have Chris Salem with Chris Group Holdings. Welcome, Chris.

Christopher Salem: [00:00:43] Pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:45] Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about your practice. How are you serving, folks?

Christopher Salem: [00:00:49] Well, it’s great. It’s been an interesting year and a half, but it’s all been great. I’ve been as an executive coach in a corporate advisor trainer, also a professional speaker. We work with individuals one on one, both personal and professional development and helping them to scale their brands and businesses simultaneously and with companies. We really help work in building a winning team where we bring people together to leverage their strengths, offset their weaknesses, built an interdependent work environment where we use a growth mindset and core values as the foundation to bring that engagement at a higher level. And then we facilitate that through active listening, effective communication and transparent leadership. So this way it leads to not only higher engagement, higher retention, but more efficiency, productivity and, of course, profitability.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:41] Now you use the word interdependent. I’m sure that wasn’t an accident. Can you explain to the listeners why that’s beneficial?

Christopher Salem: [00:01:48] So what interdependent is? It’s the opposite of codependent. And unfortunately in our world, we live in a codependent society, meaning that we are dependent upon certain things or people to get things done. So what that means is that we fail in many ways to accept responsibility for our role in duties into making things more efficient. This can happen at the family level, at a community level and of course, at the business level. What interdependency means is that it’s like being independent where we own our role in duties, whatever that is in your business or your job title, or whatever that may be, and you maximize that. At the same token, you are also have a firm understanding of the other person or people you’re working with, their roles and duties. You have respect for yourself and theirs and how you can come together and leverage that at a higher level. So instead of that that you are dependent upon someone to just always be doing something for you, you can be the example and be a resource for others to do, do the same for them selves in their roles and duties. And this creates a higher level of engagement, and this leads to higher productivity and efficiency and any type of business situation.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:12] Now you mentioned earlier about the importance of active listening is the the level of empathy that is required in order to really kind of see the other, how the other side is benefiting or is feeling about something. How do you help folks with that? Because not everybody’s empathy gene is kind of working at the highest level.

Christopher Salem: [00:03:35] No, and you’re exactly right. Again, it’s conditions, right? We we we learn from what we learn from our environment. So a lot of these things go back to when we were children during our children development years. The reason why I know it was because I grew up in a codependent home and I learned being in a codependent home. I became a perfectionist. I also became passive and aggressive because of my own limiting beliefs. You know, these limited beliefs that went back to that disconnect with my father that wasn’t usually present in my life. And as a result of that, I went out of my way to please and enable people to do for them constantly. So I would get that validation. So, so in essence, empathy is something we have to be able to learn over time, and we learn this through others that are being the example and being a resource for us, meaning that they may refer us to watch a webinar refers to a certain article or blog, and through our our own communication and our behavior attitude, emotions that we keep in check and our course of action, people observe that just like a child observes their parent behavior and communication. And when we begin to make those shifts over time, so empathy is is being an example and being a resource for others to do the same for themselves, not pleasing and enabling someone. So empathy is something that we have to learn over time. And active listening is the result of really listening to relate and understand meeting people where they are in their current situations and be continuously to be that resource and that example to help them shift away from where they’re at to a better place where they could be more interdependent and then repeating that pattern that cycle to do for others in whatever capacity it is in your organization.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:25] Now, can you talk about your back story a little bit? You’ve mentioned some kind of aspects of it earlier, but how did you kind of build this methodology in this philosophy? It sounds like you have some scar tissue that helped that, but can you share a little bit about your journey to? Going from your your role, probably as a corporate or business person to now coaching others.

Christopher Salem: [00:05:50] Yeah, I mean, again, everything that I do as a coach and as a trainer and working with companies and business leaders individually. A lot of it goes back to not only my my own personal work experience, but also my just my experience, overcoming limiting beliefs and also being a perfectionist. I wrote an international best selling book in this particular area called Master Your Inner Critic. Resolve the root cause. Create Prosperity. And for me, I struggled for 30 years from operating from someone else’s values that were not my own. These core values that were somebody else’s, that was my father, because again, I needed his validation. They didn’t know that consciously. It was all subconscious. I was also, you know, my my way that my mindset was in the past, in the future. That was a fixed mindset. I operated from fear. It impacted my confidence level, my level of self-esteem, my ability to make swift decisions to take calculated risk and follow through with action. And because of that, I was always in this fight or flight state. And as a result, the only way I knew how to escape that over time was through certain addictive behaviors that also just compounded my issues. And being that passive aggressive and being a perfectionist didn’t help matters in terms of my relationship. So I constantly repeated this this vicious cycle of always being the victim of of of the expectations tied to outcomes that never came to fruition. So when I began, when I began to recognize that no matter what has happened in your life, even things that are beyond your control, it’s still our responsibility to own what we can control to make the changes to improve our own internal well-being.

Christopher Salem: [00:07:44] That’s going to allow us to be different to to become different, to then do different and then have better results. I had to change my way of thinking to be. And as a result of that, over time, I was able to shift away from codependent behavior to interdependent behavior and communications. I began to think in the moment rather than the past, in the future. It changed the way I was, was being to become to do and have. And of course, it led me from trusting the process of controlling what I can and what I know in the moment. Letting go of anything else that was beyond my control, that was somebody else’s emotions, behavior, attitude and course of action. Anything going on in the world that was in my happening in my industry, COVID, whatever that may be. And just focus in on what I could control and letting the results be a byproduct of that process. That change of thinking just really changed my entire life around in my business, and I began to see setbacks, challenges and obstacles as opportunities and blessings to become even more in my business and in my life. These are the things that I took, coupled with my skills and experience in working in other businesses that I take into my coaching and my training with organizations and business leaders alike.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:10] Now, if you were giving advice to other coaches, how do you kind of. Explain how you discern between therapy, coaching, consulting. Like, it sounds like there’s a lot of gray

Christopher Salem: [00:09:29] In the way. A little bit of gray, actually. Again, it comes down to the communication. People, I’m not saying therapy can’t help someone, but therapy is saying, OK, this is how you do it, you do this, this and this. But see, people aren’t necessarily going to listen when you tell them how, when or why to do something. Coaching. Effective coaching, again, everyone’s going to have a different definition of what coaching is, but effective coaching means that you are sharing, you’re not telling, you’re sharing. And empowering the person being coached to draw his or her conclusion, what that means to them in that moment. And they are learning to apply this for themselves over time. Through you being the example for them and being a resource as well. So it’s it’s a process that happens over time. So this is the difference between coaching and therapy in this viewpoint, and coaching is all about empathy and kindness. We’re not here. We’re not here to sympathize. To please and enable. We’re here to be a resource. Be the example and empowering people to learn to be accountable for where they are to move forward. So that’s how I approach my coaching, whether if I’m working with another coach to do that with developing their process to help their clients or if I’m working direct with a with a business leader or an organization. Same principles. It’s everything that we shared here.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:12] Now, having been in this business for a minute, can you share a little bit of how maybe the mindset of business leaders have evolved when it comes to coaching? At one point, coaching has been for a few a handful of people at the highest levels. Or maybe it was to fix somebody or thought to fix somebody that was having problems, but they were considered a high potential. Can you talk? Has it come to the point where coaching is now? Not nice to have, but almost a must have in in growth minded organizations?

Christopher Salem: [00:11:46] I think it’s imperative that coaching should be part of whether if you’re an individual or a business. I find that the organizations and people that have coaches that again are the example and a resource for them to grow are the ones that not only expand their personal lives and businesses to be the example, not in a resource for others, but it just helps them to achieve everything that they’ve aspired to do. We can’t necessarily do everything alone, but yet it’s still our responsibility to make that happen. But using the resources and systems and people that can help us to do that and we can learn to expand the way we think and to be more open, more transparent and and knowing that you know that you don’t have to be right in every situation. This is where we begin to learn and grow in how we again think differently, to be different, to become, to do and have different, better results. So and it’s also learning to have that consistency with developing a personal success foundation, having a set of daily disciplines and habits that are going to help not only change your way of thinking, but sustain it over time because it just like with anything, you do something more than ten thousand hours every day. It’s you’re going to get better at it. And these are the things that are going to help build that foundation to help sustain your, your personal success and as well as your business.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:21] Now, I don’t have any data to support this, but I would imagine, especially nowadays, when we’re going to a more remote work environment that having coaching as part of the culture of the organization would lead to organizations and people having kind of a just a more productive kind of work environment that’s helping everybody achieve what they have to achieve and also to help them get through something that they don’t feel like they’re on. In an island where, you know, when you’re remote, you’re not kind of having these serendipitous collisions that you might have in an office environment. But if you knew there was some threat of a coach that is helping people and trying to help you become the best you, I think you you’re going to have more loyalty to that organization and also probably perform at a higher level.

Christopher Salem: [00:14:14] No doubt about it. It’s so imperative again, if whether, if it’s virtual or in person, you know, a great coach understands that being the example of being a resource is to help another business leader, regardless of title, to become a coach within themselves to to be that example and resource for others. So it’s it is teaching others to become coaches in their own way, for others to then become coaches and then do the same and repeat that cycle. So coaching is an effective form of leadership. I mean, even to this day, that’s actually a leadership style. And many, many companies and organizations and individuals that are opening up are beginning to adopt that type of style. And, you know, sometimes it can be coupled with servant leadership and so on. And servant leadership isn’t about just going out of your way to please others first. No, because we don’t want to please anybody. We have to serve ourselves. You’re filling up your cup. So then you can then spill that over to others to do the same for themselves. So coaching is an effective way to. Help others become coaches in some capacity to keep creating more coaches. And it just keeps, you know, spreading the magic along the way, and I think every organization should have a coaching program that’s ongoing that’s going to help create, in this case, higher retention. And that’s going to lead to higher engagement, creating more interdependency, which will lead to higher production efficiency and of course, profitability long term.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:49] Now can you share a story? Maybe you work with somebody and explain the challenge they were having and that how you were able to intervene and help them get to a new level. Obviously, don’t name the name of the company or anything like that, but explain the kind of the challenge that they were facing and then how the actions you took and then where they ended up.

Christopher Salem: [00:16:09] Absolutely. Well, there was an organization that was in the health care space and this was about, you know, a company of about three thousand people. And we begin, you know, at the time, the person that I was working with was already bought into this process. This is a person that had had a strong discipline and a strong foundation of of of his own back to his military days. And as a result of that, we began to work with their management team because at the time there was a disconnect, there was miscommunication, very little engagement. There was a conflict that was brewing at various levels in different departments because of this lack of communication and lack of leadership. There was it was heavily codependent, by the way, and as a result of that, we had to start with one business unit at a time, starting with the management. And as we began to work with the management over time, we began to see the changes personally at that level. See, nothing will change unless somebody can personally experience it for him or herself. And as we began to do that and they began to see these personal changes, this began to reflect in their communication. They began to not base their communication on assumption and speculation and being judgmental and bias.

Christopher Salem: [00:17:28] They began to learn how to relate, to listen, to relate and understand versus respond. And they and as a result of that, that began to change the way people perceived things of what was being said through that communication, through that change in behavior. And they began to make those changes. So we began to see these changes happen in small doses and that we began to spread this from one business unit then to another and another and another where they began to see those changes. And as a result, we had KPIs key performance indicators that were in place to measure this. These changes, but also reflect how this was showing up in productivity, retention and profitability. And as a result, they began to see those changes over time and began to see the benefits of investing in this process over time. Because again, this doesn’t happen overnight. It’s like, you know, it’s like you have to undo things you’ve been doing all of your life, both personally and professionally. Then to kind of rewire, reprogram the way you think, then to be, to become, to do, to have. And this is as it has a ripple effect. That’s when you begin to see the changes and the results as a part of it.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:42] Now in your work, do you have a niche that you specialize in an industry or is your work kind of industry agnostic?

Christopher Salem: [00:18:49] It’s industry agnostic, but I tend to work with a lot of CPA firms because we have those issues that could be law firms that could be physician facilities like, you know, TSOs, dental offices and of course, small to midsize corporations where when you have about, you know, three thousand employees or less. Those are very manageable now when I’ve worked with a Fortune 500 company in this area. There’s going to be usually more layers, more red tape and a lot of times we may work with one business unit, but to kind of do an entire company would be a daunting task. I mean, I would have to bring in a huge team of people to do that, almost like the McKinsey’s of the world, but they’re the consultants. But at this level, I’ve had great success with small to midsize companies, right down to small businesses where we’ve been able to make those changes over time that committed to the process.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:42] Well, Chris, thank you so much for sharing your story today. If somebody wants to learn more, what is the website?

Christopher Salem: [00:19:48] My website is Christopher Salem. One word that’s Chris Top H.E.R. Essays. Please feel free to reach out there. You can also reach me an email at Chris Christopher Salem or feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn. I’d love to get to know you and and learn about you and your business.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:11] Good step! Well, thank you again for sharing your story. You’re doing important work, and we appreciate you.

Christopher Salem: [00:20:16] Thank you so much for having me.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:18] All right, this is Lee Kantor. We’ll see, y’all next time on Coach the Coach radio.