Welcome to the new manager podcast.
I'm your host, Kim nickel. Hello, and welcome.
I want to start today's episode by sending a virtual wave.
So this is me waving to my listener, Avis Avis, if you're
listening, hello, I'm waving to you and Avis messaged me a few
months ago with this note that said, I've listened to your
podcast and it's helped me as Manager.
Amidst this pandemic. Thank you.
And that just makes my heart feel so good.
I know it is not easy. Being a manager in the midst of
all of the things that 2020 offered and I am so glad if I
can help in a small way to just provide a little support, a
little encouragement, some fresh ideas to that.
You can show up as a manager for your team in your environment.
Mint and Bo greatest service to them.
So you are so welcome and thank you for listening and for caring
about your work and the people that you work.
With, in today's episode I want to explore this question.
What are you avoiding? And I wanted to sort of open the
year with this question. What are you avoiding?
Because it's such an interesting question.
Depending on what comes up. This is something that I include
when I'm teaching about feedback.
Like what is the feedback you are avoiding giving to someone
or what is the feedback you are avoiding asking for?
So I wanted to give this its own episode to expand on this topic
for you because I think it's really Really helpful,
especially at the beginning of the year.
So what are you avoiding? And it might be around feedback.
Like I was just talking about, there might be someone you work
with and you have been holding back.
You have not been giving them feedback because you are
uncomfortable or you're worried about how they'll react or you
might be worried that you won't do it right or there's you know
some reason why you have not given this feedback.
You might be avoiding a decision.
Maybe there's a decision that you need to make and you keep
putting it off. It might be a conversation.
Is there a conversation that you really need to have?
And this might be in your work life or your personal life you
know. This podcast is about the
workspace but who we are as people in our life outside of
work one, 100% influences the way that we show up at work.
So maybe there is a conversation that you have been avoiding that
you need to have outside of work but because you're think about
it a lot or it's causing stress or a sense of anxiety for you.
You're showing up at work and you're bringing that stress and
excited with you, there might be a goal.
Is there a goal that you have that you are avoiding?
That's an Interesting one, especially the time at this time
of year as we think about what are our goals or intentions both
in terms of the business but also in terms of you as a leader
you in your career, what are the goals that you have for
yourself? And is there something that you
are avoiding is? There may be some kind of
learning that you are avoiding. Oh, I know I need to learn how
to do this, but I'll get to it later.
I don't have time I don't know how to get started.
Added. So take a moment if you will.
And when presented with this question, what are you avoiding
notice what comes up And if there is more than one thing, I
mean make a little list. Oh my gosh, if you have like a
little, you know, a little ache in your body and you've been
avoiding going to the doctor and having it checked out.
That's a big one. If there's a letter And you
haven't opened it yet because you're just worried about what
that piece of mail. What that letter will say.
So, take a moment right down? You know, what are you avoiding?
And then make a list of what some of those things are, notice
what that is for you. And one of the reasons it's
important to get curious about this is it takes a lot of energy
to be in avoidance. We are avoiding Eating a
conversation, a decision, a person, and action, all of these
different things that we are avoiding, it really takes a lot
of energy and it ends up taking up space in our mind.
And that over time is just not helpful.
It becomes draining it creates even more resistance and it
takes up even more energy. So it's really important that we
have the awareness of what is it that I am avoiding. once you
have a sense of what you are, avoiding, My next question for
you, is what is your rationalization for that?
What are your reasons? And this is also a really fun
question, because if your brain is like, mine it go, it's going
to come up with lots of really smart reasons to justify why you
are avoiding a thing. Maybe the reason you're avoiding
is you because I'm just I'm too busy.
I don't have the time I'm overwhelmed or maybe it's from a
perceived lack of information. I don't have all the information
yet. I can't make a choice.
I can't decide or I don't know how I would do that.
So I'm avoiding it altogether. Maybe it's from a fear of
perfection. Like I have to have everything
be perfect before I'm able to Move forward on it or maybe it's
around of fear, like a fear of discomfort, oh, I'm so afraid
that this conversation will be so uncomfortable, so afraid that
this person won't take feedback in the right way.
I'm so afraid. If I ask my manager or ask my
boss for something that I want this year, and my growth, I'm
worried that they'll say no or that, I will feel bad.
Notice what is your internal rationale for why you are
avoiding it because you probably have a really good reason.
You know, a really good reason. It can be a simple as oh my gosh
when we are when we bring this more to home so when there's
something and I know I need to do but I feel uncomfortable
about it or I just feel like it's going to take so much time
or energy. I'll find something else to do.
That seems really urgent. Oh, you know what?
I really need to clean the kitchen right now.
Oh, I really should know. Do some laundry.
Oh, you know what? I really am.
You love little hungry. I'm gonna go get a snack.
It is amazing. How creative the mind is.
When it wants to avoid something like you will find other things
to do and talk yourself into why being an avoidance is actually
fine. It's a way of delaying blue, and
another one that I want to share with you is especially around
learning because this Is one that I go through when I'm
learning new things and also I see my students and my clients
go through it. But when we're learning
something new, there's that period of discomfort where you
feel like you're not totally in control because you can't do it
just right. And so you put this pressure on
yourself and it also feels uncomfortable to feel not good
at things. Like this is true for a lot of
us especially If we work in a field where there's very high
scrutiny about being correct about doing things correctly,
doing things, right, it tends to reduce our willingness to learn
when we will have to appear or when we will feel incompetent at
something. That's one that can be really
tricky and that's important to notice because if you get stuck
feeling, like you always have to be the, the one who knows.
And the one who has all of Of the answers and does everything
correctly. It's really hard to grow and you
end up with holding from yourself.
A possibility of becoming better and of growing Beyond where
you're at right now. And I think one thing that the
last year has really shown us is that there will be times when
you will feel totally incompetent and you won't be
prepared and you won't know how to deal with something and
you're still called to respond in the best way that you can and
it's unavoidable. We've learned a lot about that
in the last year. So notice for yourself.
What is your minds rationalization for why you are
avoiding a thing? Once you've done that, the next
step is to ask yourself, okay? So what is the result of that?
What is the result when I avoid when I rationalize?
Why, what is the result? And this can become really
interesting. I've noticed in my own life when
this shows up for me and it what's interesting is I have
seen this come up with a lot of my students and a lot of my
clients also. So some of the things that come
up as a result of that avoidance and the rationalization
resentment, Shows up, you either feel resentment towards another
person. Like you blame them for putting
you. In this uncomfortable situation,
it might sound in your head. Like, I wish this colleague of
mine would just pull it together because they're going to make me
have to tell them that I've noticed, they're not doing a
good job and then we're going to have a big confrontation and,
you know if only they could just do their work correctly, we
wouldn't have to do this so you can get into a place of Feeling
resentment for another person, but you can also feel resentful
for yourself. Like, if you're a person and you
notice, I am avoiding something. I have been delaying, I have
been, do you know Finding other things to do?
Because it lets me not be in the discomfort of doing the thing.
You can direct that resentment to yourself. it also is
exhausting the result that arrives when we avoid and we
rationalize all of that takes a lot of energy and Meanwhile
we're not moving forward and so that starts to feel exhausting
other feelings that can come up as a result, we can start to
feel bitter or stuck or we compensate in other ways.
So if you're working with someone and you have avoided,
giving them feedback because you are uncomfortable about how that
conversation will go, you will compensate by either working
around them or trying to find a way to make what you know what
Where is the problem with their? With their work?
Like you'll find a way to kind of make things work and still be
good enough. Like it's amazing how we can
invest the energy and the creativity into the process of
avoiding because we are so uncomfortable with, like,
whatever that thing is. And once you can start to see
this, right? Like, what am I avoiding, what
is my rationalization for that? What is the result?
That comes up when I avoid and rationalize it, then I want you
to ask what alternatives do I have?
And also what do I need to move forward?
And this is where. You start to take back some of
the energy and some of your creativity and you start to use
it to find a path forward. And I just want to let you like
let that sink in for a moment. Because it's really easy to miss
like the power of these two questions.
What are your Alternatives? What else might you do?
What do you need to move forward?
And call upon your creativity and your energy to help you
answer those questions. All of it begins with asking.
What is it that you're avoiding? And at the root of it, it always
comes down to some form of discomfort.
There's something that you perceive, or, there's something
that you are imagining, is going to be uncomfortable.
And the truth is, it might be the thing you need to do might
feel risky, it might feel uncomfortable, but the more you
avoid it, the more you resist it, the more, it just stays
there and you then become even more stuck and you keep
investing all of this energy to work around it or to avoid it or
to resent it. And things begin to change.
When you can take a deep breath, kind of look at the situation
plainly and say, okay? This is going to be
uncomfortable. I'm okay with that because that
is how I move forward. I'm going to say this one more
time, but in a different way. So the question around, what do
you need to move forward? The answer might be.
I need to be okay with the discomfort.
Of this thing. I need to be okay with the
discomfort of this conversation. I need to be okay with the
uncertainty of making a decision without all the information.
I need to be okay with the discomfort of having a direct
conversation with somebody. I need to be okay with the
discomfort of not, knowing exactly how it's going to go.
I To be able to let go of needing to control all of the
outcomes. And to trust that I will find a
way that will work and that we will be better off as a result
of me. Moving forward.
So now I want to share two stories to illustrate how all of
this can work in your actual life.
And the first story is from my personal life and it's about how
I am learning a new language. I set a goal for myself, of
learning a new language and I've been using an app and I use it a
little bit every day and I'm starting to learn some things.
And I'll, I saw That there were in addition to the app.
There were events hosted by different people in the
community and you could join. It was free, it was on zoom and
they were these conversation groups.
And I thought, oh well, that will really help me to improve
my skill with this language. If I join one of these online
meetups. So I signed up for it, I had it
in my calendar and I noticed that as the time of the event,
got closer. I started to feel anxious.
I thought, oh, what if, what if everyone is better than me, what
if I am the worst speaker in the group?
What if people are mean, what if I don't, what if everything is
over my head and I can't keep up and I started to get a little
anxious and I thought maybe this isn't the best time maybe Should
work on something else. Maybe, you know, I'll do one
like later. You know, I really do have a lot
happening today, like I maybe I don't need to do this, so that
was me. Being both in avoidance, and
then starting to find that rationalization, right?
And as a result, I started to feel very anxious.
So in my body, my heart started pounding, I started to feel a
little tightness. In my throat, all of the
physiological signs of Stress and Anxiety.
Those were happening for sure, in my physical self and I was
really on the brink of canceling when I thought to myself.
You know what? Kim, just get over yourself.
What if it's fine? What if it's great like, give
this a go just show up. And so I went ahead, I joined
the event. It turns out people were really
nice, the instructor was great. A lot of people didn't know more
than me, we're much more fluent, but that was okay.
Because what I wanted to do is I wanted to learn to speak more
and I actually started to do that.
It's one thing to learn in the quiet privacy and control of the
app on your phone. It's Another thing entirely to
get into a virtual conversation with people to get onto a zoom
call and to actually be in dialogue and trying to find the
words and find the vocabulary in the moment that I needed it.
So small example, but very real and believe me in the moment.
It felt very, very true and very, very serious.
Now I have one more story for you.
This actually really is more about the workplace and it is
from several years ago. I was managing a team of 18
people, and there was a lot of unrest morale was not very good.
People were feeling concerned about the company and there were
some rumors about potential layoffs, coming up, and also
about some potential reorg. That might change how the
organization was structured. So there was a lot of unrest and
a lot of uncertainty about that. People would ask me what I knew
and I was not allowed to say. And so I as their manager was in
this interesting position of feeling like I have to avoid
this topic because I'm not allowed to talk about what.
I know it will be communicated in the time and in the way that
the leadership team had decided But I was also in the place of
avoiding what people were going through and all of the
discomfort and the unrest and my rationalization was so it's not
my place to talk about this. You know, my rationalization was
well, you know, I can't give them an answer so I just won't
say anything at all. The result of that was that
resentment continued to grow this low-level grumbling and it
wasn't even necessarily resentment directed towards me
personally, but it was towards leadership and management and
feeling not appreciated and there was a lot of distraction.
There are lots of rumors. There was a lot of you know just
the energy of things are not happening.
Smoothly here, people were not in a in a good space.
And what I ended up choosing what I saw as my alternative was
I thought, well, you know what I can't do is I can't give them
the answer. I can't give them confidential
information. I still have a duty to keep that
information confidential. But what I can do to move
forward is I can acknowledge how difficult things are.
I can acknowledge that people are frustrated and validate that
even just acknowledging that people were frustrated that
things were difficult that they were being asked to do a lot,
even when circumstances were uncertain and people were really
uncomfortable and I think that we sometimes Overlook how
valuable that is, not just at work, but really like in all of
our relationships when we want trust, part of what kind of
like, part of what creates trust is feeling like we are
understood that our discomfort that our frustration is
understood. so, In that situation, with me with my team
that starting place of moving forward of stopping the
avoidance. Of seeing through the
rationalization of finding a way to move forward, that helped to
let my team feel seen and appreciated.
That helped me to also step into like the role of manager that
was going to be able to be a greater service to them.
That's also how this process worked.
So my hope for you is that as you finish this Into this
episode, take some time for yourself and think through what
am I avoiding. What is my rationalization?
And I'm sure you'll have very good reasons.
What is the result of all of that?
And then, what alternatives do you have?
And finally, what do you need to move forward?
And sometimes the answer is as simple as I need to trust
myself. I need to trust this person.
I need to trust my team, I need some patience.
I need some compassion. I need a little bit of Grace for
all of us because you know, working with humans.
It's not always easy. So thank you so much for
listening. I hope your Year is off to a
wonderful start and I will see you in our next episode.
Bye. Do you want personal
confidential help with your situation at work?
I offer one-on-one coaching and can help you overcome challenges
reach your goals and become a more effective leader to
schedule a consult. Go to my website, Kim nickel.com
coaching and we'll schedule time to talk about what's going on
with you and how I can help talk to you soon.