Welcome to the new Manager podcast.
I'm your host, Kim Nichol. Hello and welcome.
I'm glad you're here, and I hope you're doing well.
You know, I've been thinking a lot about how much
responsibility sits on a manager's shoulders.
And that's everything from expecting to just know how to do
the job even though maybe there's no guidance or no no
resources or training, as well as all of the pressure to take
care of your team. I've been seeing some reports
and articles, you know, floating across my feed lately about how
much a person's direct manager will affect their emotional
well-being and mental health. That if that relationship isn't
good, it can have really adverse effects on somebody.
Because, you know, your manager is someone who has power over
you. You often work closely with them
and the relationship will have a strong influence on how somebody
is feeling. And that can be a lot to to
carry, you know, especially a person who cares deeply about
how people are doing and you want them to be doing well and
you want to be doing a good job. So I just wanted to name that.
And, you know, it's kind of informing what I wanted to focus
on for today, which is to be easy on yourself.
Specifically. I'm thinking of this in terms
of, you know, having this generosity of spirit, of being
easy, of being patient with yourself as you're learning.
What does it look like to be really effective in managing
this particular group of people, of working with this particular
set of personalities, even of working?
You know, maybe in this particular environment, you
know, sometimes the challenges that we encounter in leadership
are not necessarily directly about the individual humans, but
it's more taking into account the broader environment in which
you're working. Maybe your organization is going
through some big changes, some shake UPS.
Either you know, different leaders coming in or moving out,
or some reorganization happening, or there might be
anxiety around budget challenges coming.
Or, you know, literally like the the physical environment in
which you're working might be affecting your team's ability to
work well together. And so, you know, in in light of
all of that, realizing that, you know, sometimes the things that
are hard, it's like, yeah, they are hard.
We can just kind of rest in the acknowledgement.
Like, Oh yes, like I can see very clearly what some of these
challenges are are coming from. So this idea of being easy on
yourself, and it's important because one thing I've noticed,
you know, both in my own life and also in the coaching I do
and in the teaching I do, is that when you're hard on
yourself, it makes it harder to learn.
When you have that internal judgment or that internal
perfectionist that's saying things like, why is this hard
for you? You're a smart person.
You should have figured this out by now.
You know, why is this difficult? When you have that soundtrack
running in the background, it makes it harder to actually be
curious. It makes it harder to try things
when you're afraid of making a mistake or you're afraid of
getting something wrong. And when you're also feeling
that pressure, it's also easy to then overlook the things that
are working. You know, it's easy to
undervalue the things that you are doing well.
And we want to train your attention to look for those
little glimmers because there's often a lot we can learn from
those. And that's also part of what
will help light the way as you continue to learn.
How can I best support these specific humans in this specific
time in this specific organization?
You know, there's a a lot of levels of relationships
interacting and, you know, responding to one another like
you're, you're a dynamic human. You work with dynamic humans in
a very dynamic world. So things can be in motion or
changing a lot. So if you have this fear of
making a mistake, of doing things wrong, if you're being
hard on yourself, you'll be less likely to try new things.
You'll be less likely to speak up.
You'll be less likely to, you know, simply be curious because
curiosity needs the space to not know and maybe be wrong because
that's how you'll learn things. So what I wanted to encourage
you to do this week, and this is kind of good practice, you know,
no, no matter what else is going on.
But this week, in that sense of being a little easy on yourself,
being a little gentle with your learning, I'd invite you to
reflect on and think about what's one thing that's going
well right now. And then when you have that,
think about one thing that is vexing you.
There might be a lot of things that are vexing you right now,
but for the moment, just choose one.
When we start to focus in on the one, that also helps to relieve
that feeling of overwhelm when things feel so big and it's like
every challenge is actually connected to three other
challenges, and it can just feel very unwieldly.
So for now, just choose one thing that's vexing you and to
the best of your ability, describe it as simply and
precisely as you can. So contain it, rather than
letting the story about explaining it, you know, spin
out into all these different threads.
Just describe the thing that's vexing you in as simple and
precise language as you can. And then ask yourself, what do I
think should be happening right now?
Because often when we're feeling frustrated, it's because we have
an idea of how things should be, and then the reality is not
meeting that and it can feel so frustrating.
So let's get clear on that picture.
What is it that you think should be happening right now?
And then you can ask, OK, so now what are some of my ideas about
why that's not happening? And we've talked about this in
some other episodes, right? Looking at not just the person,
right? That's the easy thing is to say
it's just this person, their personality, it's their
attitude. OK.
I mean, that's that's one particular direction.
But let's think more generatively.
So is that a process issue? Is it a tools issue?
Is it a maybe a resource issue or something happening in the
environment or in the systems we use?
Like what is it that I think is in play that is making it not go
the way I want to? Like what could that be?
And in the process of exploring that, of being curious about,
OK, I thought it would be like this.
It's actually like this. What are the reasons that might
explain that differential? What will happen is you'll also
start to uncover assumptions and hidden beliefs and maybe the
real issue that's underneath. So for example, I was actually
riding the bus a little while ago and I heard this woman
talking with some colleagues on the bus and she was saying, oh,
I felt so frustrated because my manager said that I didn't train
the team to do this thing, so they're doing it wrong.
But I did train them. I spent 4 hours explaining to
them exactly how to do it and they're not doing it.
And I listened to her and I just thought, Oh my gosh, I totally
get it right. Like what she thought would
happen was I will train you for four hours and then they will
simply execute the training. They will simply, you know, go
right ahead and do it. And it wasn't happening.
And I thought, Oh my gosh. She's probably holding some
assumptions that in order to create the behavior change in
the team, all that's required is 1/4 hour live training, when
actually maybe there's more to it.
Maybe it's about creating documentation.
Maybe it's about talking through what is the new process.
Maybe it's about designing the next steps after the training to
help build in the muscle memory so that you're able to make that
clear transition from I, you know, I'm, I'm a passive
recipient of the training to an active practitioner of doing
things in this new way, right? And it was, you know, so those
are the kinds of situations it's hard to hear because when you're
in it, you know, you're so in it and it seems so obvious.
And yet the blind spots can be really significant, and it can
be hard to see until you actually ask the question.
What am I assuming would happen and why?
And if I'm not seeing the outcome I wanted, maybe I'm
holding some hidden assumptions, or I've got a certain belief of
how people are supposed to be. Maybe we're making assumptions
based on how I would do it, you know, like I designed the
training for them, you know, in the way that I would learn and
practice. And I'm just, I'm astonished
that people haven't simply taken the initiative and, you know,
they're not owning it. Like, there are all these
different ways we can think about it.
But when we start to then uncover some of those
assumptions and we start to see, oh, maybe I have a hidden belief
here. Maybe the real issue is actually
something else. Then we can start to identify
different options to move forward.
And when you have different options to move forward, then
choose one. Don't imagine all of them and
try to do them all, but say, oh, you know what?
I wonder if it could be this. And then take a small step with
that choice, addressing that one thing.
And what I like about this approach, number one, is it
allows you to be really easy on yourself because it's not about
being right or being wrong. It's just like, OK, I thought
this would go this way and it's not.
Let's try to understand, like, what am I not seeing or what
else might be happening here that I'm not understanding?
OK, cool. So now what might I do to create
the change or create the outcome I want?
It allows us to stay more actively engaged without feeling
beat up or feeling like it's a heavy, heavy lift.
And it allows us to address something in a bite sized way,
which gets us moving faster, which gets us learning more
quickly. And all of that becomes more
useful than feeling, you know, overwhelmed or feeling like, you
know, I don't know where to start.
So, you know, this idea of of being easy on oneself is not
about gosh, like being complacent or not caring.
It's more about, you know, I think if I approach it in this
way with a little more gentleness to myself and if I
kind of just acknowledge, you know, being human is hard
sometimes. Working with humans definitely
challenging sometimes and it's a puzzle and I can, you know,
figure this out and let's just take some small bites and some
small steps here that can often do so much more for our feeling
of making progress and of learning and a really developing
your own leadership skills and abilities.
And remember, you know, the first thing that we did before
going into that path of inquiry was looking at what's going
well. We want to practice noticing and
looking for those glimmers and those signals.
We don't want to become so focused on the the vexing part
that we lose sight of the things that are going well.
So that is what I wanted to offer to you today.
I have to say, I'm also, I think we're just about halfway through
the group class that I'm teaching right now on
communication strategies and I'm really enjoying it.
It's so cool to have a longer format, a more space to teach
and to connect with my students and to see them connect with
each other and to see how many people are facing really common
situations, even if they're in very different industries, You
know? I mean, managing humans has some
common threads no matter what industry you're in, no matter
what kind of organization you work in.
I mean, humans are human and the ways that we can step on each
other's toes or just get confused about how to do it well
are are very similar. So I'm really enjoying that.
And the next class, the, the next time that class will be
offered will be in the new year. So be sure that you get on the
list to receive the announcement for that.
And also in the meantime, on November 1st, I'm teaching a
class. It's a lightning lesson.
So it's just a 45 minute class and it's on essential skills for
new managers. And in that one we're going to
talk about like where to start. You know, there's a lot to learn
when you're a new manager. It can be very overwhelming.
So to reduce the overwhelm, we need to focus on the essentials.
So I'll talk to you about that. We're also going to just
acknowledge what is it that no one told you about being a
manager. A lot of things are assumed and
sometimes it's more helpful to be very clear.
So we'll talk about that. And I'm also going to talk about
how to add the K for yourself, especially around professional
development. So that lightning lesson is
happening on Friday, November 1st.
I will put the link to sign up in the show notes and I would
love to see you there. It's going to be a lot of fun
and it's just another way to connect with me in a class live
before the the bigger class happens in the new year.
So that is what I have for you today.
Thank you so much for listening. Thank you for being here, and I
hope you have a great week. 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.