Investing in People and Culture: Aaliyah Haqq’s Leadership Blueprint

 In this episode of Career Coaching Secrets, host Rexhen sits down with Aaliyah Haqq, COO, strategist, and certified executive coach at the Academy for Advancing Excellence. With over two decades in leadership, people development, and organizational transformation, Aaliyah brings a human-centered and global perspective to executive coaching and culture design.


Connect with

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaliyahhaqq/
Website: https://www.advancing-excellence.com/

Transcript

Aaliyah Haqq: 0:00

So I don't think we have a shortage on talent. There are so many talented people out there. Um, so I definitely would not say that it's always important to be connected to the talent, of course. I started talking a little bit about the market that we're in and leading leadership development can be one of the first things that people, companies, organizations, enterprises sacrifice when they're making sure that the bottom line is shored up. And so, of course, we're facing the economic conditions as everyone else is, and that's probably one of our biggest barriers.

Davis Nguyen : 0:31

Welcome to Career Coaching Secrets, the podcast where we talk with successful career coaches on how they built their success and the hard lessons they learned along the way. My name is Davis Wynne, and I'm the founder of Purple Circle, where we help career coaches scale their business to $100,000 years, $100,000 months, and even $100,000 weeks. Before Purple Circle, I've grown several seven and eight-figure career coaching businesses myself and have been a consultant at two career coaching businesses that are doing over $100 million each. Whether you're an established coach or building your practice for the first time, you'll discover the secrets to elevating your coaching business.

Rexhen Doda: 1:02

Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of Career Coaching Series Podcast. I'm your host, Regin, and today's guest is Aliyah Hawk, a dynamic COO strategist and certified executive coach who helps organizations design inclusive, available, and high-performing cultures that drive real business outcomes. As the chief operating officer at the Academy for Advancing Excellence brings a unique blend of operational excellence, strategic foresight, and human-centered leadership to every organization she partners with. And it's a pleasure for me to have her on the podcast today. Welcome to the show, Aaliyah. Thank you. I'm really excited to be here. Thank you for coming, Aaliyah. I wanted to ask you when it comes to the coaching side of it, because we're going to focus a lot on it. First of all, what inspired you to become a coach, in this case, an executive coach, and then working with uh the Academy for Advancing Excellence?

Aaliyah Haqq: 2:00

I so appreciate the question. So I actually didn't know what coaching was about 20 something years ago. And I used to work in health and human services. And one of my colleagues observed me, well, she observed me coaching one of my employees, one of my direct reports, and she's like, wow, you are really a great coach. And the reason I was interacting that way is because I worked with health and human services programs. I worked with lots of social workers and social work type of programs. So lots of psychology-based interventions, if you will. So I took some of those tenants and actually started to interact with my employees in that way. And I didn't know that I was actually coaching. And this is like back in 2003. And she was like, Yeah, you just did such a great job coaching. And I'm like, well, what is that? And she started to send me all of this information from coaching compass. And I'm not even sure. I mean, just nod to them for great information that they used to send out. I started getting all of this information. And then I was like, wow, this is something that I actually do. So I started being much more intentional about how I coached my uh direct reports, how I even coached vendors that were reporting to me and I had some responsibility for. And it just became a part of what I did. And about 20 years ago, I started doing more coaching because I started working with the leadership development organization. And what kept me in this space was that if we think about the power that leaders have, right? And how much influence they have, if we are able to coach people to be better leaders, we can actually create a much better environment and a better world. So I was like, okay, got to stay with coaching. This is all for me. And I just find that there's so many different ways that you can implement coaching, not just in the workplace. I feel like it serves me at home, it serves me in community organizations. It really is a wonderful skill to have.

Rexhen Doda: 3:50

Absolutely. And right now with the Academy for Advancing Excellence, I know you've been there for almost three years, right? If I'm not mistaken. So when working with uh these clients, when when going through the coaching journey with them, what about it do you find most rewarding?

Aaliyah Haqq: 4:07

The aha moments and the transformation, being able to help open doors that people walk in and they are able to say, Wow, I didn't think of that, or thank you for asking that question, because then they have more insight. It truly is the transformation. It is a transformative process. And to know that people come to you in one state and they leave you in another better than the way that you found them is just incredible to me.

Rexhen Doda: 4:33

Yeah, especially like by breaking their rules as well. Oftentimes some of these conversations they don't get to have with just about anyone. So a coach does bring a lot of value there. And so to dive a little bit deeper, we do have two audiences, and I did not mention this earlier, but when it comes to the people who listen to us, there's two audiences. One of them is other coaches, and the other audience is a borrowed audience from every coach that we had on the show before. So we might have these leaders, these executives listening. How would you describe the ideal client profile if they're listening to this? Is there a certain industry, certain demographic, psychographic? Do they have some common goals or other commonalities?

Aaliyah Haqq: 5:16

So for us, we are industry agnostic, and in my coaching practice, I've always been that way. And I think it's helpful to be that way because one, you keep yourself really open and available. And some people will say, well, people prefer experts. And that's true. Some people do prefer experts. There are some coaches that only coach healthcare, that only coach real estate, that only coach, you know, consumer package goods, whatever it is. And that's great. I've always prided myself in being a generalist because I feel like there's transferable information that you can share that if we're siloed, we don't actually get the advantage of. So we are industry agnostic and we get an opportunity to continue to learn and grow ourselves. So the second part of your question around like what people come with, people come with all types of challenges. And for me, the ideal client profile is someone who just wants to change, wants to evolve, wants to transform. We have clients who are functioning at different levels, who we have clients who are have bigger issues than others. And the common thread is people want something different for their lives and they're reaching out to get that. And that to me is an ideal client, the desire to change. What doesn't always work well is when coaching is put upon someone. And we work lots in the Fortune 500, and sometimes coaching can feel like it's punitive, right? You're doing XYZ, so we're gonna get you a coach to fix you. And that's when we talk to our client sponsors or our client partners, we ask the question, what has I'll just pick a name, Bob learned about um coaching? Like how is this brought to Bob's attention? And sometimes we have to have them go back and say, hey, let's reframe how you you're introducing us so that people really do see this as a benefit, a privilege, an opportunity to really unlock their career and not just like, I gotta get coached. There's something wrong with me. There truly is value in coaching. So the reason I bring that up, uh, because it to your question about who's an ideal client, really anyone who's ready to learn, engage, change, grow, et cetera, transform. And we have to also sometimes we work with clients who are not in that space. It's performance-based coaching. It's something that's really, if they don't do well in this space, they may be facing termination. And though that's not a bad client, it's just a more challenging client sometimes.

Rexhen Doda: 7:43

And how is it like to work with you? I'm assuming there's also other coaches within the Academy of Advising Excellence. What is the engagement like? Is there some sort of a program of a certain length that these clients go through? Is it one-on-one coaching, group coaching? How would you describe working with you?

Aaliyah Haqq: 8:00

Well, we have so many different solutions, and we're actually working on trademarking our proprietary methodology, which is called transform. And one, always we like to create and we like to complete an assessment. If we're doing individual coaching, we like to do some type of assessment because coaching really is about helping an individual getting to a place that they want to go, their destination. So we want to know what that is so that we can really understand the conditions of satisfaction. So it starts with an assessment. Depending on the leader, what's going on, we may have 360 reviews so that we may talk to their direct reports. We may sometimes observe them in meetings. We could sometimes participate in a team retreat. It just depends on the scope of the engagement. What's really wonderful about all of the work that we do is it's very flexible because we want to be able to meet the moment. We want to be able to respond to what our clients' needs are. We do also provide group coaching, and that looks different in different organizations. We also do group coaching through programs. So for example, if we have a leadership development program that someone's going through, group coaching may be a part of it. And we have an opportunity to group coach in that way. So there's really different ways that we engage. So yes, there's group coaching, there's group coaching within programs, and then there's individual executive coaching, which can look a lot of different ways.

Rexhen Doda: 9:19

And in terms of, and this is a question that mostly the coaches who are listening are going to find useful is when it comes to marketing, is there some marketing channel that is working really well? Or would you say there's a primary channel that is working really well for the business right now?

Aaliyah Haqq: 9:35

Something that's working well for our business is becoming a preferred coach with some larger organizations. It gives us lots of exposure. It helps us to get people who are really wanting to transform, and it works really well. Something that we're getting ready to experiment with is some like, you know, LinkedIn, social media, all we're getting ready to delve into that space. And I'm a Gen Xer and I have to admit, it's a little bit like out of my wheelhouse. So I'm giving my younger marketing team the space to really figure that out. But I'm excited about it. But what something else that works really well for us from a marketing standpoint is word of mouth. We like to make sure that we're getting testimonials. We like to make sure that we're collecting data so that we can really tell the story. Or we stay in contact with our all of our customers. So we'll send updates about programs that we're doing, et cetera. So we have different marketing channels that I think work really well. But again, the getting involved with the company where your preferred coach works really well for us, word of mouth. And then we're delving into social media marketing. Do you use external coaches? And some companies do, some companies don't. There are some companies that have a very well-developed learning and development team, and they've got coaches on staff, and it's wonderful. But there are a lot of companies who they need outside coaches. So we approach those companies, we reach out and we do a lot of business development because you have to in this business, especially with something like coaching and learning and development in this marketplace, and it's being described as a banny market. So brittle, anxious, nonlinear, and incomprehensible are the words that are describing the market that we're in. So with that type of market, you have to be very intentional about the touch points with whoever's on your list. And we're really intentional about that. We we we reach out to lots of different companies and just ask them the question hey, do you hire outside coaches? If they do, then we start to build those relationships, strategic networks, strategic partnerships so that we can get onto that list. And the process varies from company to company. Some companies, it's very simple. It's a literal memorandum of understanding. With some people, it's an SOW. With some people, you go through literally a six-month process to get to become one of their preferred coaches. And there's different controls that you have to have in place in order to, you know, protect data, et cetera. Absolutely. So we are, we do a pretty rigorous annual planning process. And we are working on a couple of different things. One, expanding our coaching practice because we do have, we're a global company. We have people located from Australia to Israel to the UK to India, et cetera. Of course, the United States. And we're wanting to continue to expand our reach and our network. So that's one big goal, really expanding the coaching practice. We are also working on a business to consumer offering on our leadership development side. We are part of a larger family of companies. So we're part of Sundial Media Technology Group, and they have an app called eSuite. So we are also working on building up that app to really democratize coaching and really get it into the hands of people who may not have access to it through their work and may not be able to just afford it on their own. So we're looking at, you know, people who may be a little bit less tenured in the workplace, any number of archetypes, but that's something else that we're working on. But yeah, we've got lots of big goals for the next three years.

Rexhen Doda: 13:10

I love that. And so what think about expanding right now. If you're thinking about like expanding also internationally, right now, how many coaches are there roughly within the academy?

Aaliyah Haqq: 13:22

We have about 40 right now.

Rexhen Doda: 13:24

Okay. Cool. So it that would also mean basically expanding the team. Absolutely. Cool. Think about expanding. What would you say are kind of like the main challenges that you guys are facing right now? Where would you say is the bottleneck mostly?

Aaliyah Haqq: 13:39

So I don't think we have a shortage on talent. There are so many talented people out there. Um, so I definitely would not say that it's always important to be connected to the talent, of course. I started talking a little bit about the market that we're in and leading leadership development can be one of the first things that people, companies, organizations, enterprises sacrifice when they're making sure that the bottom line is shored up. And so with we're of course we're facing the economic conditions as everyone else is. And that's probably one of our biggest barriers. Something else that I think is important for us to always be paying attention to is the just the sentiment around coaching. You know, some people feel like it's chit-chat because maybe they haven't had coaches that are, you know, transformational in nature or they don't really like, they may not follow the same type of rigor or frameworks, et cetera. So I think really making sure that coaching always has validity, strength, you know, it's seen as valuable is really, really important as well. And it's just something, again, the sentiment around coaching is something that we just always have to be mindful of.

Rexhen Doda: 14:44

That is actually so true. Um, especially it's been um an issue within the last year mostly. I don't know if that's because of the the the new or the current administration within the United States, or if that's actually an international problem. Obviously, in the US, coaching is much, much better than in other countries. I do speak also with coaches in UK, very rarely with coaches in Europe, but coaching as kind of like from from the cultural acceptance is much more common in the United States than it is in other countries. So would you say that kind of like this issue is more of like a recent issue or it has always been that way?

Aaliyah Haqq: 15:29

I think it's a cyclical issue, right? So as the if is really good, people tend to invest in talent. If the c economy is not so great, people tend to not invest in talent. And really, that's the time that you should invest in talent because it prepares you for what's next. And if you can't promote people, if you can't pay give pay raises, one great way to make sure that you're taking care of your people for retention, for uh just making sure that the culture is what you want it to be is really investing in their own development. So coaching is a really good way of doing that. So I would say it just it's it's cyclical. I remember being in this space in 2009 when the Great Recession hit, and how our company, the company I was with at the time, actually started to grow because we were very intentional about giving this message around this is the time that you invest in your people. This is you can't give them raises, you can't promote them, let's invest in them. And what happened is people were more satisfied in their work, people were more likely to be retained. And we know that retention, you know, people who uh it takes on average about $100,000 to replace someone who uh who exits a company. So retention is really important. And again, there was this cultural aspect where people felt a different sentiment around the environment they were in because they were being developed and really taken care of. The again direct answer to your question is it's cyclical when companies are looking for places to cut, learning and development, talent development is an is a unfortunately an easy target for people.

Rexhen Doda: 17:05

Cool. And so from the business perspective, that seems like a challenge that is hard to control. So it's not something that is directly in your control. If we were to look at things you can control, or like let's say from the marketing perspective, or from like either sales or breaking into the marketplace internationally, would you say there are challenges there as well? Or this is mostly like it's it's usually this cultural factor or factor around it?

Aaliyah Haqq: 17:32

So it depends on the company. If the company is international and their base is in the United States, so it's a global company, but they're based in the US, they tend to kind of follow the US trends pretty hard. If it's a company that's international but they're based in another country, they tend to be more independent. But what this is really showing all of us is how interconnected we are. We truly are in a global marketplace. So, you know, when things are impacted from a US perspective or a UK perspective or from an Asian perspective, like we are all impacted in some way. So that the simple answer to your question is yes, it doesn't matter where where you are, you will be impacted in some way. Now, the expression of whatever it thing is going on may be a little bit different, but yes, there is there's definitely the academy.

Rexhen Doda: 18:21

Uh how uh like in terms of investments, what have been some investments that you feel really good about and what have been some investments that you would prefer to have avoided if there's any bad investments as well?

Aaliyah Haqq: 18:34

Great question. So we've really invested in people, and that has been a really good return on investment, uh, making sure that our team we're hiring people who are really capable, people who are really passionate about this work, people who just really care. So I think that has been a huge investment. We've also made investments in our materials. When you think about coaching and leadership development, like your what you look like, you know, what your materials look like, it makes a difference with how people experience you. So we've made great investments in that space. And we are going to do some more investments in technology so that we can have like our own learning management system, et cetera. Some investments that did not work out so well. We invested in a CRM prematurely, and there was a very low adoption rate, and it just wasn't a good investment at the time. We've also, you know, teams are always really important. So you have to make sure that you're bringing the right people on teams. We've had pretty good luck there, but sometimes you, you know, there's a team higher that you're like, wow, that probably was not the best, the best investment. But, you know, you learn. What's so wonderful about being a learning organization is that those things that don't go so well, we really do utilize them as opportunities for learning and not just, you know, terrible, terrible, like, you know, earth-shattering mistakes. It's like, yeah, we made a mistake. What did we learn?

Rexhen Doda: 19:57

Yeah. And that is a very good mindset, so um, and and this brings to my final questions for other coaches who are listening that want to scale their business even further, actually scale their impact, because most coaches that I've interviewed are actually driven a lot by the impact they can make as a coach, especially in your case, working with leaders, your impact is massive because you're impacting these leaders' teams, their whole life, the whole company. For the coaches who want to scale their impact, is there any advice you'd like to share with them? Absolutely.

Aaliyah Haqq: 20:32

I'll say a couple of things. One, develop your own tools, thought leadership, frameworks, etc. Because I feel like those live beyond us, right? So that get those people's hands. So it starts to start business in a different way. Also, offer group coaching. It's wonderful when you can have more than one person in the room at the same time because you do start to have, you start to have that multiplier effect. Also, don't be afraid to work with other people. Syndication makes a big difference. So what's wonderful about that is if you're syndicating, you can go after bigger contracts. You can work with, you know, larger companies if that's what your desire is. But I would say work together. There's a lot of independent people who chose to be independent for a reason. So I'm not at all saying that if you want to be a solopreneur, don't do that anymore. But if you desire to scale, it's really hard to scale, you know, what an individual. Also consider those people who a lot of coaches work look up to. Like Marshall Ghost Goldsmith is an amazing example of how he's been able to really expand his reach through being a professor, through being an author, speaker, the one of the world's highest paid executive coaches, if not the world's highest paid executive coach. Like think about, follow those models as well, because we have models that we can actually follow. So, you know, reflect on that as well. And also, I think it's important for coaches. And when I was running my own coaching business, I had to really decide how large do I want to get what, if I want to become that large, what are some of the personal trade-offs that I have to have to make in order to be there? And that I think will also help people to frame that growth, the development, timing it, et cetera, et cetera.

Rexhen Doda: 22:20

Thank you, Aaliyah. Thanks so much for coming to our podcast. For anyone who wants to connect with you or find you, they can go into LinkedIn, look up Aliyah Hawk. They'll be able to find your profile. And for anyone that wants to find the academy, is there any website URL we can share with them?

Aaliyah Haqq: 22:39

Yep, it's advancing hyphen excellence.com.

Rexhen Doda: 22:42

Cool. And we'll put that in the description for people to find it. So thank you so much, Aliyah. It was a pleasure to have you on the podcast.

Aaliyah Haqq: 22:50

Thank you so much. Bye.

Davis Nguyen : 22:51

That's it for this episode of Career Coaching Secrets. If you enjoyed this conversation, you can subscribe on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to this episode to catch future episodes. This podcast was brought to you by Purple Circle, where we help career coaches scale their business to $100,000 years, $100,000 months, or even $100,000 weeks, all without burning out and making sure that you're making the impact and having the life that you want. To learn more about our community and how we can help you, visit join purplecircle.com.