Welcome to the new manager podcast.
I'm your host, Kim nickel. Welcome, it's Kim.
I'm glad that you're here and just as start I would like to
invite you to reach your arms out.
Wide. Just take a breath, take a
little bit of a stretch. Yeah, you know, it's so easy to
get caught up in our head in our thought space and forget that we
have a body and especially when you're under pressure and under
stress and you're facing a lot of uncertainty which happens
always. You know, let's be honest.
I mean just the course of life is like that.
Just now it's like everything is being Amplified and we're really
being stretched to confront some really unexpected changes.
So you're going to need every skill and every strength and
every resource and every tool that you have and remembering to
breathe. It's so simple, but it really
helps. And part of the reason why is
when we are under pressure under stress when In a state of
consistent alertness and a state of anxiety.
Then we tend to contract in our body.
We tend to breathe very shallow. And the mind is in this alert.
A state of, you know, looking for all the possible things that
can go wrong and try to deal with that and that's wonderful,
but it also becomes exhausting and it's not a very sustainable
way to live your life in any Ants and especially right now,
we want you to be at your most grounded, your most adaptable,
your most responsive or most resourceful and creative and to
let you tap into your energy that will let you bring the best
of who you are to all of these uncertainties and changing
situations. So simple starting point.
Just every once in a while. Please extend your arms out
wide. You know, like a bigoted
bigoted, make yourself like a big starfish, just stretch out,
your body wide, take a deep breath and let it all go.
When we take a full, exhale. It helps the body to calm down
and then your brain can think a little bit more clearly and be a
little bit more creative. Now, the reason I'm actually
sharing all of this with you right now is because I just
finished leading a well-being class for a friend of mine.
She has this team that she manages and maybe half the team
is across the u.s. And the other half of the team
is in India, and she said, Kim, my team is so stressed right
now. I would love for you to come in
and lead a well-being session just to help them feel more
grounded, more calm. And so I included some of these
movements in that class and I thought, oh, yeah, this is
really great. Should share this with you, my
dear listener. So, please remember to stretch
your body and there are a few other things that I learned and
this is around the idea of how when you're in a manager role or
in a leadership role. How can you support your team as
humans? You know, one thing that I think
we're all really seeing is that the human part of us is much
more visible. And by that it's kind of Like,
for example, some pot, some people are, you know, I work at
work. I'm home at home, those two
things are separate. I organize my life.
So that, those two things don't intersect, there might be your
professional self, your family self, your personal self, and
each one of those different parts of who you are operates in
different kinds of places. So there's the home place.
There's the workplace there's wherever it is that you Go to to
explore and experience other parts of yourself, whether it's
a yoga class or going out for to walk your dog or whatever.
That is. Now.
What's interesting now is that all of those boundaries, all of
those separate places where we would show up to live life.
They're now being like, the boundaries are being blurred
because so many of us are required or simply choosing to
shelter at home and to stay inside and to work from home.
And so now we're losing some of that mind space because we don't
have those transitional moments. Like, we don't have the same
kind of breathing room to transition our mind.
From, here's my brain at home with my family.
Here's my brain at work with my colleagues.
Here's my brain in, you know, a fitness class or doing something
outside. Everything's happening under the
same roof. And so that can create all
different kinds of Stress or discomfort or just a weird sort
of feeling of all of these things.
Now kind of smoosh together. So a few things from the session
that I just taught that I wanted to share with you and this is
for both you from the managerial leader perspective, but also for
you is a who is a human is to number one.
It's a remember, a couple of things.
And so number one is remember that for some of the folks on
your team, having their home and personal.
Personal life available or kind of visible through online.
Meetings can be really uncomfortable.
Everyone has different family, situations, different, living
situations, and for some of us. And for some of the people on
your team, just the transition to now doing Meetings online is
going to create this whole level of stress or pressure or just
awkwardness that they might want their private life.
And Personal life to be very separate from work, and now
there might not be a quiet corner for them to work and to
get their things done. That just might be something
that creates anxiety or stress for them.
And number two related to that is also realizing that not
everyone has a really robust Wi-Fi or data plan.
Not everyone will be able to have as much much access to
video streaming and all of these online activities.
And so one of the things that you can do as a manager and as
you're planning, meetings is to realize.
Okay. Maybe I don't need to have
everyone on video for this. Maybe we can just make this an
audio meeting an audio call. So people can just listen in or
just use the chat or just talk, but maybe we don't actually need
to use video right now. I found two that with all of the
video that we're doing. There's this weird thing where
it's like, all of the constant eye contact has been exhausting
because if you think about in a day, when you might, you know,
go to the office and you work with people and then you go home
when you're in meetings and talking with people, you're not
facing them, straight on for the entire conversation.
A lot of times you might be in conversation side-by-side
shoulder-to-shoulder. Or if there's a big group
gathered in a meeting, you know, you're looking from one person
to the other from one person together, you're looking down
and doing notes, you're looking up and and, and thinking deeply
about something. And so there's this really
interesting experience. I've been noticing that on group
Zoom calls where you see all the little boxes.
It's very disorienting to actually have all of these faces
and all of these eyes. What feels like all these I was
looking at you and they're all the same size.
So there's no sense of proportion.
There's no sense of being distant or, or close.
Just everyone is equidistant away, and everybody's looking
and the desire to create I contact through the screen, is
so powerful, but it can also be really, really exhausting.
So when you can give your eyes a break and give your Your team's
eyes a break and say, you know what we're going to do this
check in. Let's just do it by Audio.
You do not have to be looking at the screen.
Maybe your, you know, standing up, or maybe you are just give
your eyes a break. Let people have some time away
from the eye contact. And then when you do have people
on video, it becomes more effective and it becomes more
powerful because people aren't already oversaturated with that.
We all have different capacities, so you Very, how
often you do video, and how much you just do, audio and chat.
All right. Another tip is that, when you're
also doing your meetings and Gatherings on, Zoom, definitely
do use the chat function or Q&A if you're using the webinar
function because you want to let everyone be engaged and
participate and kind of connect with each other and doing that
through chat as a really elegant.
Giant way to do that. Sometimes you'll have to remind
people of when, and how to use it because otherwise they just
get caught in the screen or caught in the work that they're
doing and they will forget and it can be a little bit trickier
for it, to be, as organic in, adding a comment, or asking a
question when you're online versus in person and especially
if you're doing audio, so maybe screens are dark.
You're just doing audio. If you have a chat that lets you
stay connected to everybody. And it gives them a really easy,
way to contribute to ask questions, to share their
thoughts without the awkward, life interrupting, or trying to
find a path in. Another suggestion for you.
Remember to support, your team as humans.
Support your team as humans. And one way to do that, is to
have online Gatherings that are not about work.
But that are instead about care. Now, that might happen in a
one-on-one. You might simply say, hey, how
are you doing as a human today and keeping it that narrow
scope. How are you today?
How are you in this moment? Because everything could change,
we want to help guide people. Will to connect with what's
happening in this moment because that's the place where you can
help and sometimes helping is really just about being willing
to listen. You don't have to solve a
problem in order to help. Yeah, let that sink in a little
bit because sometimes it's easy to believe.
The only way I help is by solving things.
You know, we live in such a culture that is kind of obsessed
with being solutions-oriented and that can feel like a lot of
pressure and a lot of effort. But remember, sometimes the
greatest support and the greatest gift, you can offer to
someone is to simply be present with them to witness them to
listen without. Erupting.
And to even just to say that sounds really hard.
I get it. That sounds like a tough spot
and you're not trying to fix it. You're not trying to solve it.
You're not giving advice very often.
I will also share is that when we are in a state of feeling
overwhelmed or just feeling really stuck, sometimes the last
thing that helps is someone saying, well, you know what you
should do. Have you tried this?
We're not always able to receive that kind of eager.
In a useful way, it can just feel like piling on the list of
things that I already have to do.
And now, you're giving me all this other stuff and I feel lame
because, of course, I thought of that, but I'm just still feeling
stuck about it. So if you're asking yourself,
how can I support people? Create a little bit of space to
connect with people just as humans.
How are you as a human today? You can do that in your
one-on-ones, or you can also do that in.
Group, Gatherings not always a meeting.
I think of meetings as things where we have to get something
done. But sometimes a gathering the
purpose of that is to just connect touch base, receive
support, get grounded, share. It's a very human, emotional
support kind of a thing. So that's an option to related
to that though. Also be inclusive and make this
safe for people. So for example, not everyone has
great bandwidth or Quiet workspace at home.
So if you are trying to create a supportive Gathering and you
say, hey Wednesday morning is our check-in jump on zoom and
we'll have a quick talk realize that that might be creating
barriers for people if it's required to be online with
video. So give people options and say,
okay, if you don't have great bandwidth, that's okay.
You can join it by Audio Only and and related to that.
Realize that everyone has different ways that they like to
feel supported. So as you are looking for ways
to offer support to your team as humans offer options, make it
available variable and optional. So that people can choose for
themselves. And that's part of what a great
manager does to provides some directions.
Some clear communication, but also empowers people to make a
judgment call, that will be best for them.
You don't have to tell people what they need.
I know, sometimes it might feel like that's what you want to do.
But instead, you can simply make it as an offer, the way that it
was. The the class I led this morning
was phrase was hey, Tim. I know we've been going through
a lot of stress and a lot of anxiety.
So I wanted to offer this well-being class.
It's completely optional. So join us, if you would like
and if you don't want to, that's okay to go ahead and use that
time for whatever will best support you today.
And that's a way of letting people know that you're there
for them. You support them, you
understand? And that they will choose what
they need and this is available. So that's something you can try
to. And one of the things I really
want to remind you. Is that small things really do
matter, you know, it's so hard right now.
Everyone's patience is being stretched.
Everyone's attention is being you know called for and everyone
is kind of figuring out as we go, you know, like what is what
is this? Situation mean for me.
What does it mean for my family? What does it mean for my career?
What does it mean for my work? And a lot of ways things that
had felt stable in the past are feeling very uncertain and very
uncomfortable and how they're moving right now.
And what you can do is number one really care for and maintain
your own inner self your own inner, whether the more that you
can Says that kind of calm creative, grounded, human part
of yourself the better, you'll show up for your team.
And for everybody around you. So be mindful to care for
yourself. One of the tricky things to with
Stress, and Anxiety is that it can start to feel so normal that
we don't even realize that were so contracted or that were
feeling so much. We're feeling so much of it.
So every once in a while, go ahead and take a stretch, take a
breath, bring yourself back down into this moment.
And remember that, no matter what happens.
It's all going to be one breath at a time.
So support yourself support your team, humans need care and that
can look a lot of different ways.
Alright. I hope this has been helpful for
you. Take really great care of
yourself and those around you today and all days.
I'll talk to you later. 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.