An advisor feels overlooked. A peer resists feedback. A meeting ends in frustration. Leadership can get messy when emotion enters the room.

Many leaders rush to correct these situations. Augustine Seah, BSc, learned to pause instead.

Seah is a thoughtful, visionary leader who leads a fast-growing agency with 25 advisors, most of whom are Gen Z or millennials. Known for his systems-driven approach and clear communication, he believes structure is what sustains empathy — not the other way around.

That mindset inspired the ESS framework, a simple sequence that stands for emotion, situation, solution. His team uses ESS to guide reflection and resolve conflict.

Start with emotion

Younger advisors often struggle to name or process what they feel, he said, because they grew up in a digital world where tough conversations could be muted, exited or avoided. Yet performance pressure doesn’t disappear — it just resurfaces in disengagement or turnover.

That’s why his first coaching step is emotional awareness. Instead of starting with performance metrics, he begins with a simple, open question: “What are you feeling right now?”

From there, he listens for clues about fear, frustration or fatigue. When emotions are acknowledged, tension drops and advisors become more receptive, he said. Seah reminds his managers that emotion is data, too.

“When you understand what’s driving a reaction, you can guide growth instead of forcing compliance,” he said.

Clarify the situation

After identifying emotions, Seah moves to context. “What happened?” and “What part of that triggered you?” are his go-to prompts. The point is to separate what occurred from how it felt.

Often, a missed sale or a miscommunication is less about incompetence than about expectation gaps. By clarifying the situation, Seah uncovers small environmental fixes — clearer scripts, better prep time, improved meeting cadence — that relieve recurring stress.

He likes to say his goal is to “move the environment, not the person.” Adjusting systems prevents constant firefighting and keeps advisors focused on progress.

Co-create the solution

Once the feeling and situation are clear, Seah invites advisors to define the fix. Instead of prescribing answers, he asks, “What do you think would help next time?”

Seah encourages his leaders to document two things from every ESS conversation: one specific action step and one personal insight. The pair meet again within a week to revisit both. These short follow-ups reinforce that accountability and empathy coexist.

Over time, advisors start using ESS on each other, turning the approach into a shared language for feedback, he said.

Culture through conversations

The ESS framework has quietly reshaped Seah’s agency. Performance reviews feel less like verdicts and more like joint problem-solving, he said. Weekly meetings incorporate peer check-ins where members ask ESS-style questions:

• “What emotion are we seeing on the team right now?”

• “What situation caused it?”

• “What’s our next move?”

That openness has improved retention, sped up development of new advisors and strengthened overall cohesion.

“When coaching shifts from command to conversation, the team grows together,” Seah said.

Augustine Seah shared this advice during the MDRT Annual Meeting session, “Converting your advisors to MDRT using data and empathy.”

Darin Painter is a freelance writer and editor in Strongsville, Ohio, USA, and owner of the content development business Writing Matters (www.writingmatters.com).