Welcome to the New Manager Podcast.
I'm your host, Kim Nicoll. Hello and welcome.
I'm glad you're here and I hope you're doing well today.
You are going to want to have a pen and a notebook for this
episode because I am so pleased to share with you a conversation
that I had with my friend and fellow coach Maggie Reyes.
Now, Maggie is a marriage coach. She is an expert and knows so
much about relationships. But before she became a coach,
she worked in HR for many, many years.
She worked in HR for a law firm. She also worked in HR in the
hospitality industry, and she has a wealth of knowledge to
share about how to effectively work with HR and lots of
specific practical tips for all kinds of situations that will
come up in the course of your experience working with people.
So be ready to take some notes. This one is really good and
let's get into the conversation. Welcome, Maggie.
Thank you. Thank you for having me.
I'm so excited to talk all the HR things.
I'm really excited for you to be here too as we get started,
would you please introduce yourself?
Yeah, so I'm a big fan of Kim's, so I am a master certified life
coach. I'm a marriage coach, so I help
Type A women. High achieving women have better
relationships. And before I was a coach I
worked in human resources and I worked several years in
training, then several years in recruiting.
And at the end of my HR career before I started my business, I
did a little bit of both and I was involved in a lot of
different HR things. So I cannot wait to discuss
everything that's on your mind over the course of several of
all the different years that I worked in HRI.
Both hired new managers, I helped train new managers and I
just, I think I have a different perspective than a lot of
people. I was also kind of a rebellious
HR person in the sense that I felt like I was always an
advocate for the employee. And that was my number one job.
And that's like why I was paid was to be the advocate for the
employee. And so sometimes, you know, you
have to roll out things for the company or do whatever the
things you're doing. But I always did it through a
very particular and I think unique lens.
And so I can't wait to see what we dig into today.
I am really glad that you're here for so many reasons.
I'm also a huge fan of Maggie and I really appreciate that you
have the real world experience working in HR like out in the
industry, and that you also now have all of this depth of
experience in coaching and especially marriage because
that's all about relationships. And I know there's so much that
you know from your experience in HR, but also as a coach around
how do we create great relationships and how does
communication happen and what do we do when, you know, there
might be a a relationship that needs repair, How do we do that
with conversation? And because one of the reasons I
was so excited to have you here too is one of the things I see a
lot is often when there is friction between a manager and
their person. And this could be something the
manager is experiencing, like I've got this difficult person,
or it can be someone saying I don't like how my manager is
being. And a lot of the advice I see
just in the comments are, oh, you need to talk to HR.
And I have like feelings about that.
But I especially am curious for you, for the people who are
listening who actually don't know what HR is for because it's
different in different companies.
I am so curious to know your thoughts about like what is HR
for and what do new managers need to know about working with
HR? So maybe we paint a picture of
the what I think the best HR is for and what I think most HR is
for. So I think in an ideal world,
human resources like any other department, right, you have like
supply chain, you have design, you have marketing.
That department is in charge of of the resources to execute the
company's vision to change the world, to have an impact, to
sell their product, whatever it is that they do.
And HR is the steward of the most important thing, which is
the talent of the company. So that's what I think HR should
be for. And in some companies is for.
However, in many companies there's what I would view as a
reductionist view of HR, where HR is there to protect the
company from its own employees. And there's a lot of people
without scarcity mindset and leadership positions.
If that's how they view HR, that's how they lead HR and
that's how the HR leaders themselves act towards the
employees. And sometimes, no matter how
well meaning an HR professional might be, if the leadership of
the company is, is telling them no, your role is to just protect
us from them. That's when you hear sort of
adversarial kind of things like, oh, HR didn't help me or HR is
not, you know, I made an appointment.
It took them three months to help with like stuff like that
where you kind of hear the complaints about it.
I think that that that is something that happens more
often than any HR professional would like.
When a person works in HR, it's because they love people.
They want to help people. The person who goes into that
profession is 100% there for the people and sometimes your hands
are tied for what you can do for the people and and and what you
would like to do in an ideal world.
So I was a little rebellious in that sometimes I would just say
the things that nobody was saying or I would say, listen, I
can't put that in an e-mail, but come to my office and let's
discuss what's going on. So that's why I have a maybe a
little bit of, I don't know, I call it rebellious now point of
view, but I hope that gives you sort of an idea of how I
perceive how that works. Wow.
And so for a manager who's thinking like, what are the
kinds of things I should loop my HR person in for?
What does that look like? And.
And you go ahead, go. Ahead, Yeah.
So what are the kinds of things you should reach R?
First, you want to find out what kind of HR team do you have?
Do you have the kind of HR team that's there to support you 100%
behind you, that's open door. That's really like that kind of
HR team. Or do you have the HR team that
is more legalistic in their mindset?
Sometimes you can look at who HR reports to and some companies
they report into the legal team and then sometimes they report
into somewhere else or sometimes they have a whole like chief HR
or people officer or something like that.
So you want to just have a conversation.
You can ask your HR person. I would strongly recommend if
you're a brand new manager, do make an appointment with HR and
say I want to know how you can help me succeed at my role.
What are the things that I should come to you for?
You ask them what are the things I should come to you for?
What are the things you expect me to resolve on my own?
What are the resources I have? If you're a brand new manager
and you've never dealt with budgets, what's my training
budget? What's my training budget for my
people? What's my training budget for
myself? What kind of training do you
have for new managers? So larger companies will have
internal trainings for new managers and they'll just have a
process that put you through. Smaller companies may not even
have even thought of that. And I was in both situations
where I worked in a very large company with thousands of
employees and then I worked in a much smaller company where we
had to advocate for the training budget.
So that's where I would start is make your appointment and ask
them and then you can see from a more informed and strategic
place where you can get their support and where you should
like stay away. I love that answer so much
because what I'm really hearing is #1.
It's OK to not know, right? Like you don't need to just
magically know. And it's OK to ask.
Asking is not a bad thing. It's OK to ask.
Like, how do we work together? What are you for?
What? When should I reach out?
Yes. What are your expectations from
me? What do you need from me?
I think it would be so amazing if a new manager went to HR and
said what are the things you need from me that will make your
job easier or harder if I miss them or if I don't like.
First of all, that will impress the HR people and it's super
useful to have an advocate within HR when you're a new
manager if it's just super useful.
And so when you ask them stuff like that, like I used to in a
smaller company, people would have to sign off.
Each department head would have to sign off on like the time and
the payroll part of their people.
And it was incessantly late. So if we had a new manager come
in and like really take that seriously and have it all in on
time, it just makes five other people's jobs easier from them
just asking that one very simple question.
I love that too, because it also is a reminder that just because
you're a new manager and you're thinking clash, I'm new.
I've never done this before. I know there's often an
assumption. Surely someone will tell me what
I need to know. And I think that just doesn't
happen. And it's not because people are
bad or because they, you know, don't want you to do well, but
it, you know, people are busy. They forget they don't know what
you don't know because you're new.
And it can be easy to kind of get lost.
And what you said about taking that strategic perspective and
asking questions and finding out like, that's so important.
I'm so glad you shared that. Yeah, absolutely.
One of the biggest questions that people I know listen to the
podcast or. And I know this because I've
seen the numbers of what people listen to.
So for all my listeners, like this question is especially for
you, when there is friction and a manager doesn't know how to
handle it, what is your perspective, especially now that
you're a master certified coach, you are.
So you have so much expertise around relationships and
communication as one of your, you know, superpowers.
How might you help a manager with that?
Tell me if you can, if it comes to mind, a couple of the types
of friction that you have in mind and I'll just say a global
answer while you think about that, because the type of
friction will determine what your course of action might be.
So depending on what it is, you might not consult with HR, you
might go to a mentor, someone else in the company, maybe
someone in a different department or someone more
senior in your own department. Depending on what it is, you
might have to file a report and and log the situation and have
more of a paper trail about it. So it kind of does depend on a
case by case basis on what the nature of the friction is.
Sometimes it's underperformance. So I'll just give you that
example. If a person, let's say they're
brand new, they were within their 90 days, they got all the
training, everybody on the team came together, really set this
person up for success and now they're just not performing the
way we need to for whatever reason.
That might be a performance improvement plan.
That might be a conversation about these are our
expectations, this is what we want to see.
What's in your way, how can we support you, which would be very
different than friction of this person has a terrible attitude
when they get assignment or something like that, right.
So that's what I mean by depending on what it is, you
might have five different strategies that you use in order
to help yourself in that situation as a new manager.
So now that I said that a little bit, what comes to mind is sort
of stuff you see maybe a lot that we want to really give some
clear steps for. Yeah.
And I also just love that question of identifying what
kind of friction do we have, because we can have different
kinds and that will influence what we do.
So when is the situation where someone gets promoted and
they're now managing someone else who had applied for that
same role? Everyone works in the same
company. They might have even been on the
same team. They go for the promotion, one
person gets it, the other person doesn't.
And then it seems like the person who did not get the
promotion is maybe exhibiting some passive aggressive behavior
or just, you know, you can sense like something here is a little
like we've got some friction here.
So as a new manager, if I was in that situation the first thing I
would say is I would take ownership of the relationship as
if it was 1 sided. As if I could decide how it
went. Like, I'm going to own this
relationship with this person. And from a place of ownership, I
would say, what do I want to do with this person?
Do I want to create more rapport with them?
Do I want to, like, invite them to a meeting?
Do I want to put that elephant in the room and say, hey, this
is how it shook out? How can I help you support you
in your career? There will be other
opportunities within our company, you know, how do we set
you up for success for the next time that you apply?
That could be like 1. So step one, take ownership.
Step 2 Potentially create more rapport with the person.
But let's say you tried to create rapport with the person
and that didn't work. The person is just bitter.
Then you get to decide as a manager what you take on.
Is that person still a good fit for your team?
Is their expertise still essential?
Are they performing to the level that they need to perform?
Sometimes it becomes a performance issue where they
they have this. I worked in hospitality, so our
attitudes are really important. We got measured on stuff like
that too. Like not in every profession, it
does that matter? I think it should, but not in
every company or profession does it?
So is it a performance issue where it's like, hey, do you
want to be part of the team? Do you want to be part of the
team, act like part of the team, right.
It could be a very direct conversation about that.
My #1 answer whenever I get asked HR questions is it
depends, which is not anybody's favorite, but it truly does
depend. Have you started, have you
started with trying to create rapport?
Did you give them the ability to sort of succeed in whatever they
were left with as a result of not getting that job?
So did you try that first? And it's kind of like carrots
and sticks. Did we try the carrot?
And then if the carrot didn't work, do we need to use a stick?
A stick should, in my opinion, always be like the last resort.
It's not what creates a poor, it's not what creates a great
place to work. It's not what creates the best
atmosphere. But sometimes you do need to use
them. What do you think about that,
Nicole? And what you see like, sorry
Kim, and what you see. I keep seeing your your whole.
I know it happens all the time. It's totally cool.
Yeah. No, I like, I think that that's
spot on. Like that really tracks with how
I think about things too. And especially the part around,
you know, humans are variable. And sometimes what I see is
people who are new managers will either tend to manage the way
that they wish that they were managed, which doesn't work for
every person, right? Sometimes it's that mistaken
empathy where you imagine the way that you want to be managed
is what everybody wants. So I see that as a blind spot
sometimes. And then there's the question
of, oh, like, why did this person not respond in the way
that I expected them to when I spoke to them or addressed them
in this way? Right.
Like, why did they not, you know, feel appreciative?
Or why did it not change things in a positive way?
And then the other thing I often see is people will manage in the
exact opposite of the worst experience they ever had.
So they'll think about, oh, I had this one manager and they
were really, you know, terrible in this way.
So I'll just do the exact opposite, right, Which also
cannot work for the exact same reasons, right.
Because it's also not coming kind of from this strategic
perspective and realizing, you know, humans vary.
And so we want to have that mindset of, OK, let me let me
try this for this reason and then see what happens.
And it doesn't mean that I'm a bad manager if I don't figure it
out on the first go. Or the 2nd or the 3rd or the?
4th set. That's just like it's being a
manager. Sounds in some ways simple, but
in some ways there's so much nuance involved in what you're
doing every day. Because you're managing humans,
you're managing projects, you're managing budget, like you're
managing things that, like me, knowing how to manage a human
has nothing to do with knowing how to manage a budget.
And so you have all these different skill sets that you
have to like, start doing sometimes for the very first
time just because you're a subject matter expert.
So they're like, yes, you take charge of this and then you have
to figure it all out and you get to decide what you prioritize
and how you prioritize those things.
And one thing I wanted to say about building rapport with your
team is my very first coach. Her name is Christine Kane.
She used to say that everybody has a radio station internal
playing 24/7 in their brain, and it's WI I FM WIIFM what's in it
for me. So when you're thinking about
how best do I manage someone, instead of thinking what your
old manager did or what they didn't do or what your
experience was, we want to tune you in to Wii FM.
What's like for me? For each one of your direct
reports, think about what matters to them.
So one of them might want to raise in a bonus, the other one
might want more time off. The other one might not care
about either of those things and wants to just work on creative
projects. So if you're giving them all the
bonus or all time off, that's often not helpful.
What's more helpful is to tune into each one of them.
I love that and two thoughts that happened in my brain just
now. One is if you're new to
listening to my podcast, go Scroll down to the bottom of the
episode list. I did it really early episode on
how people are selfish and this is not a bad thing.
It's just that we're always oriented towards ourselves.
And so I love that, like their visualization of everyone has
that radio station makes so much sense.
People want to know like how does this affect me?
What about me, right. And they have different
priorities and different interests.
And what also comes to mind is, this is so good to remember,
because every manager also has a manager.
Unless you're at the very, very top, which is a different, a
different set of problems. But you also might not realize
that your manager has not paused to ask you what is it that is
most meaningful to you and you know to to use the language you
used a moment ago. Own the relationship and you can
initiate that conversation. You can say, hey, here are what
my priorities are, here's what I'd like to focus on, and
perhaps partner more with your manager in a way that maybe you
that you haven't thought is possible.
Yeah, asking for what you need at every level.
Like asking your direct reports and asking whoever you report
to. We forget to do that sometimes,
and that just makes your job easier.
It makes your manager's job easier.
When you ask your manager for support for something that you'd
be stuck in, you're avoiding a problem they will have to solve
later if you don't address it at the beginning.
Yeah, and I love it too. I think sometimes we assume
we're supposed to know, right? Like if they promoted me, it
must be because I'm supposed to know how to do this, and that's
not actually how it works. It's OK to not know, and it's
better to ask questions and to, you know, like build those
relationships sooner rather than later.
And even as you move through your career, whether you're in a
managerial or leadership position, whether you're in the
same company or you move to a similar company that doesn't do
the exact same thing, you're always learning about that
specific situation and that specific thing and the idea to
lead with curiosity or to ask yourself, what don't I know,
what do I need to know in order to finish the project or to do
the thing? It's so incredibly useful and
honestly, it makes your job more fun.
So I worked in the cruise industry for many years, and I
was a recruiter, as I mentioned, and I would recruit for
departments that I like. It was so funny.
I used to recruit for the casino, and I had never stepped
foot in a casino. So what I needed to know was
everything I say, how does this work?
So what happened was I would go to my department heads, the
people hiring managers I was hiring for, and I'd say tell me
everything, who's your ideal person for this?
What should I look for? And that not knowing we see it
as a drawback because we just got promoted.
But it actually can help you build so much rapport with
whoever your internal clients are, with whoever you're working
with on projects, because Can you imagine, so everyone
listening right now, Can you imagine if someone came up to
you and said, how can I help you do your job and tell me
everything you really care about?
You would just be like, let me tell you, have a seat, right?
It's so refreshing. How many people do that?
Very few people. But what would happen is I had
so much report about hiring partners, the managers that made
those decisions that then when something would go wrong, when
we'd make a mistake, when we had something happen, they sort of
just saw my goodwill, my intention to help them and to do
the right thing over months and over years that when something
would go wrong they'd be like, yeah, it's a mistake.
They happened it it, it was like a non thing to brave my other
colleagues that wouldn't establish rapport with people
that would pretend like they knew everything, something would
go wrong. And there was no rapport.
So I'd be like, yeah, that was a big mistake.
What are you going to do to fix it?
Right. So different.
Yeah. And I think it's it is often
sometimes those things that can be overlooked that and that that
subtlety of being intentional around OK, now that I'm in a new
position, whether you're in a new company, a new industry or
in the same organization but at a different in a different
position. The the perspective of oh I'm
going to need to establish or even like re establish some
relationships here like being intentional about that.
I love what you said about establishing rapport and some
specific ways to do that. Like have conversations, be
curious, ask like how can I help your job be better?
All of those seem so doable and I think it sometimes overlooked.
Yeah, absolutely. And here's something that I'm
just going to say because it came to mind, is people have
different personalities, right? Just like imagine high school,
right? There's all of those different
personalities, and now everybody's 40 or or whatever,
but never take at face value what other people tell you about
superiors or about employees or about who you're working with.
I had a lot of people tell me so and so is difficult to work with
and so and so is impossible and so and so is this.
And I made myself a rule to like, listen to that and then to
create my own experience with that person from that place of
ownership, right. So I would have meetings with
people where everybody in the lunchroom would be saying oh
they're so terrible and this and that.
And I would say that's just never been my experience.
I I I understand that that happened.
Like I'm not negating that that happened or whatever they were
complaining about. I'm like I just have never had
that experience. And later when I left those
situations I was like, why was my experience so different?
It's because I did not make a pre judgement based on what
everybody told me, like the negative marketing that that
person had. I was just like showing up to do
the work we had to do so that we both got what we needed done.
So like nobody had to suffer in the process right?
And just that clean slate. They could have been terrible to
other people, but they just weren't to me.
And it's not because I'm some secret Unicorn person.
It was because of the lens that I would use when I'd be in
meetings with them. That also sounds like a really
like effective or useful way of dealing with gossip if you hear
it right or if someone comes to you.
Sometimes we don't mean to hear it, but we overhear it.
And the question of like, oh like what do I do if I hear
people gossiping? You always get to decide, right?
So I mean, I was totally imperfect at this.
I'm sure that I gossiped for sure.
However, has I learned more about myself as I got more into
personal development and just really became a more intentional
human? Especially towards the tail end
of my career, people wouldn't even come to me because they
just knew I wasn't like I wasn't going to bite, right?
And so they would have those conversations, but they wouldn't
invite me to them, and I was fine with that.
And then sometimes when they would invite me to them, I would
say things like, I understand that I just haven't experienced
that with this person. I just, I don't know what to
tell you. That's not what happened with
me. And so I think it's like you get
to decide. It's interesting how we would
frame gossip because also sometimes I'm a big fan for
myself and for anyone listening to us of old fashioned
management by walking around. Now a lot of us work virtually.
So management by walking around is having a zoom chat with
someone, is having one on ones is having updates.
It's asking hey, how you doing, what's going on.
Those really open-ended questions which sometimes could
sound like gossip, maybe will also reveal so and so is
struggling with the project so and so broke up with, you know
their girlfriend of 20 years. Like when you just say hey,
what's going on, how what's happening.
So many people would just tell me all these things, and then
that would help me help them or support them or change a
deadline or advocate for them in some way or stuff like that.
So I think that there's a gossip that you feel terrible, that you
need a shower when you get home, and then there's like being
interested in humans and being interested in what they're
struggling with. And if five people tell you
there's a problem with a specific person, do we need to
do something about that problem? I love that.
It's It's also that it depends. I'm thinking specifically so
many years ago when I first was promoted to a manager and I was
managing a team of people I had been peers with.
So I had to navigate that relationship change.
But it was also at a time when the company was going through
some organizational changes and kind of the like the the quote
UN quote gossip on the floor was around are we going to have
layoffs in the next quarter or not.
And so that was definitely the kind of thing where of course it
was, you know, distracting and everyone had a different opinion
and some people were really feisty about it and had a really
like big emotions around it. But I could also really
understand where it was coming from.
It's like, of course they're observing, you know, we're doing
this thing in this part of the company and this thing in that
part of the company. And again, like, how does this
affect me? Like everyone's radio station is
tuned because they're wondering like, this could be a really big
deal for me and for me as the manager at the time.
The other hard thing was that I did have some information about
what was going to happen in the future and I was like bound to
silence, right? Like I was not at liberty to say
anything about it. And for me, one of the, you
know, when I look back on on that version of me, I feel so
proud of her because I feel like I didn't have any guidance and I
had to decide what am I going to do with what I'm observing.
And So what I ended up doing was we had this big team meeting and
I acknowledge, like I know there's probably a lot of
concern about what's going to happen in this next quarter, you
know, and so first just acknowledging, right, like of
course we're going to have different emotions, different
opinions, We've got a lot of uncertainty.
And then where I I kind of took it was I I asked them, you know,
I know you're really good at change because you've been in
this company and you've been in this industry for so long and I
know you've seen a lot of change before.
So for me, my mindset as the manager was, you know, with
what's available to me, how can I help them to feel more calm
and kind of connected to their own capacity and strength and a
sense of, like, connection to each other so that the
uncertainty and the unknown wasn't like the biggest thing in
the room, right. It's like, yes, that is there.
And this is also here, right? Yeah.
And it actually like, there was this really funny moment where I
asked people to partner, like, tell everyone, like, tell your
partner what was this company like when you first started
working here? And then we came and shouted out
like, what's changed? And some of the people had been
there for over 20 years, like, they were there before e-mail.
They're like, remember before e-mail, you know, do you
remember when you could smoke in the office?
And so it also just like kind of put this, this bigger
perspective on what was happening in this moment.
So good. I love that a bigger perspective
is just always a good idea. Yeah, absolutely right.
And sometimes that is the role of the manager.
The leader is that you can sometimes have that bigger
perspective and help to guide your team in where their
attention is going, right? Whether it's around like, here's
our priority, we're going to focus on this and not that, Or
whether it's helping make sense of OK, like these are the things
that are changing and here's what this means for you or
here's what this means for us as a team.
I'm curious, you mentioned briefly about performance
improvement plans and Pips and I.
My experience has been that something that people often feel
very reluctant about and very awkward about.
And I'm curious if there's anything in your perspective or
your experience that people would need to know.
Like, I didn't even know about them.
I didn't know that they existed. I didn't know they were a thing.
So my guess is most people don't hear about them until things
have escalated to a point where it's now time to formalize some
kind of process. Yeah.
So my experience with them is mixed.
Usually by the time that you're doing that, you're often just
documenting what's going wrong. So if you have to terminate
someone, you're like we put it in writing.
We said everything. My kind of one of my
philosophies is like nothing should ever be a surprise.
So if you're a new manager and your team is surprised by
something that you think, that means you're under
communicating. Like if something is not
working, if they need to fix something, change something,
whatever, it should just not be a surprise look.
It's like, it's like, I don't know, getting your cancer
checked or something like like we're women, we have breast, you
know, cancer checks every year. It's like the earlier you catch
something, the more likely it's going to be less of a problem.
And that's just true on like every level.
But if you get to the point where you do need to do a
performance improvement plan, that's an opportunity to partner
with HR to ask like, what are the most effective ones, What
have you seen before? Like, really to if they're open
and available because you already assessed that before,
right? To really see how they can guide
you to help you do something that's really effective and
really useful. And that's what I would say just
about them, is to make them concrete, to have things that
you check off a list. You can tell whether it happened
or it didn't. The more vague it is, the more
vague your results are going to be.
The more precise and concrete it is, the more precise and
concrete you're evaluating things that are measurable.
Sometimes we work on projects and things that are a little bit
nebulous and we have to decide like what does it mean?
Like what is measurable here, And that's something to run by a
colleague or to run by someone else or your own manager.
So that would be my initial thoughts about it.
I love it. Nothing should be a surprise.
Yeah, that's something I talk about too around performance
reviews. Nobody wants to be surprised or
like ambushed on their performance review.
It's like if this was an issue, you should have told me six
months ago so I could have addressed it and that sense too.
So yes. So in order to be having those
conversations sooner, some of them will be uncomfortable and
that is OK We can learn how to have uncomfortable conversations
and how to how to get better at them.
And how to feel and how to feel more comfortable in them, Right.
So, So I've been in different situations where I've either had
someone helping me or like now I have a team in my own coaching
company and I had to give feedback all the time.
And what I would invite anyone who's in your manager to do is
to sit back and decide like, what are the values that you
want to lead with when you're giving feedback.
So I'm a big fan of collaboration.
That's one of my values of clarity, like precise, like this
happened on Tuesday and this is happening on Monday or whatever.
The more precise the better. And it's like what is the kind
of feedback that I think will make a difference.
It's often ignoring what happened today in service of how
it's going to be handled in the future.
So it's like I'm not going to get mad at you about today.
Today is just alerting us that if we keep doing this, we're not
going to get what we want tomorrow and the next day and
the next day. So it's like, listen, mistakes
happen this. I noticed this today.
Moving forward, I'm thinking this and this.
Oftentimes when we become managers, we're also removed
from the front lines by biggest pet peeve breaking.
In a huge company where people were making decisions, you know,
let's say the VP makes a decision that then goes down to
the director, to the manager and then to the specialist doing the
job. And the VP has no idea what it
takes on a day-to-day basis for that instruction to be executed.
That was my biggest Pepe. He was like, why don't they ask
us? We know what it takes to do,
right? So taking that into
consideration when you're giving feedback is asking the person, I
think we should do this, Can this be done by the end of the
month? What would it take to do it?
Can you walk me through it? You understanding you don't have
to understand every single little detail, but you just
understanding the basics of what it takes.
First of all your team will love you forever and then you'll also
be able to give better instructions and better
leadership and better guidance when other things like that come
up. You already know oh it takes
three weeks to get this from purchasing.
So you know, if we want that by this time we got to put in the
order now, but how would you even know that?
Because you asked the person on the front lines, How does it
work for you? What's doable for you when you
were giving feedback? About something, I love it.
So again, like building those relationships, finding out how
things work, having those clear and specific conversations,
being very values based, very values lead.
And this also makes me want to ask you about trust building.
My sense is that everything that you're talking about is also a
way of building trust. But what else do you know that
could help new managers or actually honestly, like any
human who works with a human about how we foster or, you
know, create trust with the people we work with?
That's such an interesting question because sometimes there
will be people who will be resistant to trust no matter
what you do, and I just want to call that out.
There will be people who've been burned by previous bosses or
previous colleagues where they're just their like Shields
are up to think about like a sci-fi way to think about it is
like they are just not available to trust and you have to give
yourself a break about that as a new manager to be like, oh this
person, this is how they are and this is the level of rapport I
can have with them, right. So that's one part of it.
I think that building trust, but if we think about something like
psychological safety on a team and Google has done such great
work and there's such that like we actually have some data and
some evidence based kind of things to pull from when we're
telling people about this. I think that transparency, hey
we're making this change. This is why we're making it.
This is what's happening. This is what's going on.
This is why this is our goal. Anything around transparency
build helps to build. It doesn't.
It's not the only thing that builds trust, but it's a big
help in building trust. And then another thing that I
think that's important when you're building trust is don't
over promise. Don't say, oh, I'm going to get
you a promotion next year or I'm going to whatever.
But you know, we as managers think that person deserves A
promotion. But if it's not in your hands to
sign the check or to put it into practice, I've seen people get
really disappointed because managers have made promises that
they didn't have the control over executing.
And I would say that's a place to just be a little bit careful
because maybe you had a lot of trust and then it imploded in
just one shot. And so that over promising.
You want to just be really careful.
What do I actually have control over that I can do for my team?
Again, taking ownership of like what can I do?
And then sometimes you go to HR and you say what do I have
control over? Can I approve this?
How many approvals does it need to for this to pass, that kind
of thing. There's many other things we can
do to build trust. We can end meetings on time,
right? We can do stuff like not call
meetings. We don't need to call and only
do stuff that needs to be done. That's essential for the project
that builds trust and that you're not wasting my time,
you're honoring my expertise, asking for peoples who are
subject matter experts. We're thinking of doing this.
Do you think about that can build so much trust or erode so
much trust when we don't ask those questions?
What do you think? I love all of that, and it makes
me also want to loop back to something you said at the very
beginning of our conversation around when you talk with HR.
Find out what the training budget is for yourself and for
your people. Because sometimes as a manager,
you don't have the authority to grant someone a promotion or a
raise or even a bonus. But you might have it within
your means to approve of them, to go to a training, to work
with a coach, to do a program, to do something that will still
help them in their career and to grow.
And so I think sometimes the professional development budget
is something that also gets overlooked, but it's a really
valuable point of leverage, right?
Because also as a manager you might have the discretion to
like like I have, I've seen this happen so many times like a a
manager will say, well, I was able to find the budget for
this, right. Like sometimes it's like oh, and
especially now end of the year, it's like oh we had all this
extra money because we we thought this project would
require this and it didn't. But now we have this funds that
we can use for professional development or something else
that will help, you know, that will help the person.
So yeah. I love it.
Yeah. OK, I thought of something you
haven't asked me yet that I want to say please.
So one of my different trainings that I've given over the years
is on e-mail, the appropriate use of e-mail.
I want to know, OK. So first of all, as a new
manager, think about you know, you may chit, chat, an e-mail or
say things or whatever that just amongst the team, right?
It's fine. But as a new manager, here's the
visual that I want to give you is if you wouldn't want to see
that e-mail in New York Times Square blown up to 1000 times
its size, then don't send it. So any e-mail that you send
could be forwarded to your boss, could be forwarded to your
employee, could be forwarded to HR.
And so as a new manager, it's like you have a heightened level
of responsibility for your, like public communication.
And so it's kind of like you're your own PR, you're your own
advocate for what your communication is.
And we can be in where, you know, we work with the whole the
same team maybe for five years or something.
We're very chummy or very, you know, we just write whatever to
each other. And when you're a manager, it's
like there's a heightened level of responsibility of you setting
the example and some of the things you might say like off
hand or something like that, you may not want to say.
Furthermore, before I worked in the cruise industry, I worked in
a law firm for almost 10 years and think about depending on the
industry that you're in, could you be sued, Could your emails
be pulled for evidence purposes about anything?
What do you want to have in that e-mail?
What do you not want to have in that e-mail?
In HR situation, sometimes people would want to ask me
about something with an employee or something like that and my
reply would be call me, that's it.
My reply would be call me because I didn't want to put in
an e-mail while we had this issue and that issue and the
other issue, right. So who knows who could forward
that, who knows who to talk about it.
They'd be like, listen, you asked me about this thing,
here's what I wouldn't put on an e-mail, but you probably want to
know whatever, whatever, whatever The thing is like it
can be that simple. But just being intentional about
your e-mail is very important. And then coming back to clarity,
just for the the emails of getting the work done emails,
it's like is there 1 clear message, 1 clear action item
When you finish reading that e-mail, do you know everybody's
a media next step? If you don't it's unclear it's
pointless to send it. Those are just some thoughts on
e-mail that will make everybody's life easier.
What are your thoughts, Kim? I think 100%, especially that
awareness of of how your conduct can travel and what it can mean
and how it can be received by right.
I mean, I feel like that's something we see a lot is oh you
know, screenshots of emails and text messages or videos of the
team meeting that you know, out of context can really have
significant repercussions. So being mindful of that and I
think that's part of actually the journey of how do you
develop your own authentic leadership style and do it being
mindful of like we don't operate in a vacuum.
We're very interconnected in the ecosystem and in the company.
So there is this other level of like emotional labor that you're
going to do as a manager? Yeah, that you didn't have
before. You don't have to worry about
others feelings or like you were just doing your thing right.
Whatever it is that you were doing and now it's it's really,
I don't know, like being a movie director, you have to take into
consideration all of these other factors that you didn't have to
take into consideration before, right?
And it's like how is it going to land?
Who's going to get it? What will their impression of it
be? Yeah.
And I think that also just normalizes it, right?
So if it's like you got the promotion or you got the new
job, amazing. And then you can feel kind of
overwhelmed or lost, Like, wait, why does this feel so different?
And it's for all of the things that you've shared, Yeah,
because it is different. Yeah.
Right. And it would be nice, like if
when you got promoted or you got a new job, you got a little
letter with a gold seal that said congratulations, here are
the things that you should know about what's different now.
Yeah. But I've never seen a company do
that. Have you?
No, I might need to make make such a thing.
I think that would be amazing. OK, we're giving.
Kim, An assignment. I know Kim gives her nice
coaching homework and stuff. It's like, do this or whatever.
Thank you, Kim. We want to hear it.
We want to know. Yeah, you know, because it's.
I think it feels better. Especially when you're like used
to being an overachiever and you're really good at
accomplishing things, it can be easy to suddenly feel like the
ground has shifted in a way that is not obvious, you know?
So, yeah, well, is there anything else that I haven't
asked you that you would like to share or that I don't know
anything else I? Think if you're a new manager
and you're listening to this or you're like working on getting
promoted and like, we don't want to talk you out of becoming a
manager, It could be amazing, right?
Like we want you to know these are things for you to think
about. Take into consideration they're
all doable. They're all achievable.
And I would say the way we change how business is done is
by changing how business is done.
So I do have one like last story to tell everybody.
So when I was a recruiter at that time, recruiters had a
really bad rap. I don't know how it is now, I've
been haven't been doing that for several years.
But it was like recruiters would lie and they would tell it was
just like a profession that really was was not well
regarded. And I decided that I was not
going to be the stereotypical person who did that job.
So I would come in and you know, at the level at which I was at
that time. And when I had a candidate, I
would literally send an e-mail where the subject line was this
the non update update. And I'd say, hey, person who's
been waiting a week to hear back, I just want you to know I
haven't met with the team yet. I'm still waiting to hear back.
The minute I have any news, I will let you know.
Little things like that created so much of A better experience
for the candidate and so much of A better, like, persona for the
company. Because people felt like, oh,
the company cares about me. I was the ambassador of the
company, right? The company cares about me.
They update me, they tell me. And I just decided that how I
did things would be in accordance with with what I felt
was the highest of the company values and my personal values.
So I would give realistic job previews.
Sometimes I'd hire people that were coming into a difficult
team where the previous manager was awful and just terrible and
everybody was like afraid or stuff like that.
And I'd say, hey, this company has amazing things and you're
going to get to do this and you have the budget for that.
And this person on your team is an expert in this thing and are
all really tender right now. And they had this experience.
And how will you handle that? And some of my colleagues were
like, why do you go into that level of detail?
I'm like, because they're going to get here on Tuesday and have
to deal with it. So I want someone who wants to
deal with it, who's ready to deal with it, knowing all the
other great things that they get in their job.
And so whatever role you're in now and whatever role you are in
leadership, you can take that role and be the one little sort
of Pebble in the ocean that's that does it different, that
does it better. And that would be my invitation
to everyone who's listening now. Thank you so much.
That is brilliant and I love everything about it and I'm
really glad that you're able to take some time to talk today and
share all of that perspective and wisdom with us.
My pleasure. Thank you for having me.
You're so welcome. Where can people find you if
they want to know more about what you're doing and how to
connect with you so? This is so much fun for me
because it's like all my HR stuff.
Actually, I'm talking about marriage and relationships.
So you can find me at maggiereyes.com.
I have a podcast. It's called the Marriage Life
Coach Podcast. If you want to hear me talk
about how to have, you know, amazing relationships, you can
hear me talk there. And if you love Instagram, you
can find me there at the Maggie Reyes.
And can we also tell them that you have a book, Like a really
amazing, good book? Thank you for reminding me.
I wrote a book. Hi everyone.
I'm also an author. So I wrote a book.
It's called The Questions for Couples Journal.
And it's 400 questions. So it's not a book you read.
It's a book you do. It's 400 questions.
And it has different categories. Your goals, your dreams, sexy
times, all kinds of stuff like that, Your values.
And it's really designed to help you get closer to your partner
asking things that would never come up otherwise.
I'm going to put links to all of that in the show notes so it'll
it'll make it even easier for my people to find you.
Because yeah, more of Maggie is always a good thing.
Thank you. I love it And put in.
I have another request for Kim put in.
The show notes that episode about people being selfish.
Yes, I will do that. OK, awesome.
All right. Thank you so much, Maggie.
Thank you. Bye.
When you're more effective at work, you're happier in your
life. And when you're happier in your
life, you're more effective at work.
I can help. Go to my website, kimnickel.com
and sign up for a coaching consult.
It can get better.