Q&A with Goodwill Industries of Michiana CEO Debie Coble
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Debie Coble started out as a store manager and worked her way up to the top. What she anticipated would last a year evolved into a three decade adventure at Goodwill.
Headquartered in South Bend, Goodwill Industries of Michiana Inc. serves northern Indiana, southwest Michigan and the southeast Chicagoland area providing retail, community, career and education services.
As we walk through some of the lessons she’s learned over the years, Coble highlights the benefits of employing a head/heart style of leadership in her role as CEO. This Q&A has been edited for clarity and brevity.
What has your career journey been like and what are some of your highest points so far?
My career journey has been very interesting. I came to Goodwill 34 years ago as a store manager basically just to get out of a job that I knew I wasn’t very good at. I was going to take this role as a store manager for a year and then I was going to be moving on to other things. Within that first year, I had a call from human resources asking if I’d be interested in being an employment specialist, which was helping people with disabilities find employment and being successful. It sounded interesting, so I said absolutely. And that’s where I fell in love with Goodwill.
What did HR see that made them ask you to come into this new role? Did they tell you that?
They did not. At that point in time, a lot of our store managers did not have bachelor’s degrees, so I believe that my director of sales recommended me for that role because she knew I was young, eager, caring and also had a bachelor’s. After that, I had the opportunity to open our first satellite office in Elkhart helping people with retail skills, training and finding employment. In ‘97, I became the vice president of workforce development services. I did that for 17 years and then when my predecessor of 40 years retired, I submitted my resume for the position. The board decided to give the homegrown girl a chance. So for 10 years now, I’ve been sitting in this role of CEO.
What does it entail being the CEO of Goodwill?
My primary function is to set the vision for the organization and to ensure that everybody has the tools necessary to do what they have to do and also to be the face in the community as well. So making sure that I’m developing partnerships and relationships with key people in the community, so that we can continue to increase the impact in the areas that we have the privilege of serving.
How do you think being a woman has impacted on your work and your leadership?
When I applied for the vice president position, my CEO asked if I manage with my head or my heart, and I’d never been asked that question before. As I thought about it, you know, I think I have a good mixture of both. I care very much about individuals but I also want to hold people accountable too. When you put those two together, then you create an opportunity for people to know that you care but that you also care about excelling and folks being the best that they can be.
What advice do you have for young women who may be struggling to get certain opportunities?
One thing I don’t talk about as much and I probably should talk about more are the things I didn’t get. I did not always get everything I wanted. I think there are times that we have to stop and look at what is the bigger prize we’re looking for. Sometimes, it just requires patience, and in my case, that’s what it was. With hindsight, there were a couple of situations where I was better off not getting what I had thought I wanted. I think it’s really about understanding what the expectations are to get to the next level. I think we have a tendency right now in this world to just think that we are automatically entitled to the next step and that’s not necessarily the case. We need to know, “what do I need to do to get there?”
When I moved from the VP role into the CEO role, I had gone through some pretty extensive training through our international office on executive development, because there’s no way I would have been ready for my present role without that, so I did the work. So you’ve got to do the work and you also need to make sure that you’re being seen. You need to be appropriately visible, depending upon that particular situation. And just understand that sometimes the answer is going to be “not now.” That doesn’t mean we quit working for it. We keep striving for it, but sometimes, it doesn’t happen the way we want it to happen.
And as a female leader, what are some of the perspectives or strengths that you think help you perform better at your job?.
I think it’s first and foremost a caring nature. I hope that people see that I genuinely care for everybody that is a part of Goodwill. The worst day of my career was the day we had to lay off over 650 individuals because of COVID. That was heart wrenching and we did everything we could to care for folks while we were in that time period. And the best day was when I got to call everybody back.
I’m gonna go back to that head/heart management style, I think a lot of us females have the gift for doing that, probably a little bit easier than our male counterparts. But when you can do that, and you can walk with folks and you can help them see what they have the potential to be, holding them accountable and realizing you are their biggest cheerleader, that’s important.
What roles has mentorship played in your journey?
I have done more informal mentoring than formal. It’s really about trying to help folks understand where they need to rethink their actions if they want to get to the next level or if they want to be successful in the level that they are at right now. I think about some recent conversations that I’ve had with some individuals about how they manage relationships with people and again, it’s just coming alongside of them, making sure that they are, first and foremost, are they willing to be mentored and then providing that guidance and that support for them and, and honestly, being willing to have the tough conversations with folks that you need to have sometimes because you truly have their best interest at heart.
And did you personally have any mentors yourself while you were coming up in your career?
I did. One of my biggest mentors was actually a board member. His name is Rolla Baumgartner and he was probably one of my biggest champions, along with my CEO, Larry Neff. They would both have hard conversations with me and would push me in the most loving and kind way. Rolla has retired off the board but he and I still have time together and I still share things with him and get his advice and listen to what he has to say.
How have you been able to balance work and family?
I would like to tell you I always have a balance, but that would be a lie. I read an article, probably a year or so ago, that talked about work-life balance really not being what we used to think of it. So, there are times where work needs to take priority and then there’s times where family needs to take priority. It’s being able to discern and being able to make those calls. You need to make sure you’re holding yourself accountable, so it’s really being perceptive. Checking in with the family to make sure they’re not feeling neglected, because at the end of the day, at some point in time when I retire it’s going to be my family who’s stuck with me.
Outside of COVID, do you recall any particular challenge you had to navigate and could you tell me how you went about it and lessons learned?
The governor of Indiana at the time decided to privatize its welfare to work program, so we lost our contract with the state. Well over 20 people were set to lose their jobs and so when the new agency responsible called for RFP from possible sub-grantees, it was probably the hardest response to a proposal that I had ever had to send out. Because I could not look my folks in the eye and say I did everything I could if I didn’t, and so I mean there were some overnights working on this, a lot of hours spent on it, and I really didn’t think we had a chance. But at the end of the day, I knew I had done my best on that proposal, and lo and behold, we didn’t get everything but we got a significant piece of it and then the other agency picked up a lot of my staff, but I could look at my staff in the eye and say, “I did everything I could.”
Generally, what lessons have you learned in your over three decades at Goodwill?
I have matured within this organization, I have become more confident, I am more vocal, more willing to advocate, to speak my mind. Serving as the CEO, I get to not only advocate for the wonderful things that we get to do to help people achieve their most abundant life, but also advocate for our employees as well and learn to care for them better every single day.
Do you have any thoughts on the turnover rate in today’s world?
It is our greatest challenge right now, to be honest with you. A lot of employers would love to have our tenure at Goodwill, I’m not the longest tenured employee. A lot of us have been here for five to 25 years. But at our more entry level, that is where we have our biggest turnover and, you know, it’s just part of where we’re at today. We’ve changed our onboarding process. We’ve changed what the first 90 days look like, we are offering training for everybody. We also have success coaches. So we have a group of people that are there for all of our employees to walk through those things that might be causing you issues outside of work, but they’re affecting your job or if you’re like me and you started in one area, but you don’t want to stay there, they help you get that career path going and show you the ropes and how to get that done.
Any final thoughts?
I’m very blessed to lead this organization. I have a fabulous board of directors that supports me and I have a fabulous team alongside me. We want to help folks in the community understand that we are more than a retail store. We are a mission driven organization helping people change teir lives every single day through the power of work.