Welcome to the new manager podcast.
I'm your host, Kim nickel. Hello and welcome.
I'm glad you're here and I hope you're doing well.
I'm feeling amazing today in the last week, I've had a few of my
clients have some really incredible Transformations where
they are able to shift out of fear, that they didn't even
realize that they had and the way that they've noticed.
So, for example, one of my clients, Clients had been
feeling a lot of uncertainty and a lot of fear about what
decision to make and what might happen if she chose this
direction and what might happen if she chose that direction and
because of the coaching that we've done, we had this call
where she showed up and just realized, oh my gosh, I can feel
safe even in uncertainty. And she did described it as
being in The Cloud of Unknowing, which I Good.
Because I don't think she realized that but there is a
book like the spiritual book written by I think an anonymous
none or something from like 100 100 or 200 years ago called The
Cloud of Unknowing. And I thought it was a beautiful
way for my client to describe this.
Feeling of you can be in the unknown in the uncertainty and
you can either be in a panic about it.
And the fear gets Really activated and in starts to feel
anxious and rushy and just highly uncomfortable.
Like you're trying to get out of it as quickly as possible or you
can rest In This Cloud of Unknowing, feeling so safe in
yourself and feeling so grounded that you are capable that.
You make great decisions that you have all the support you
need and being in this period. Have uncertainty is actually not
a problem. It's just an experience of life
and I love that she was able to find that for herself in the
process of the work. We did together.
Another client of mine. Very recently told me, he said,
oh Mom. I'm I want to be more bold and I
want to trust myself more and he started to see how he was doing
that by having direct conversations with people.
By not holding back and kind of holding onto the self-doubt of.
Can I say this? Can I not will they take it the
wrong way? Instead, he was able to put that
aside and when he did what he discovered was that he could be
more bold and he could trust himself and it emerged as this
kind of very authentic confidence that felt good to be
in and then he had this incredible conversation with a
person out. Work and he's like wow that
actually worked really nicely. I prefer that I prefer to live
from that place instead and that always makes me feel so good
because I think often times at work the things we think are
work, things are really not there, really human things and
they are things in the way that we have relationships, the way
that we think about ourselves, the secret fears.
And by that, I mean, I mean sometimes we don't even realize
it, we don't even see it for ourselves that we have this
hidden fear about something that might happen.
And then it twists the way that we build relationships and
communicate and think about ourselves and it can really get
us in quite a tangle. And so when we start to solve
for that in the work context, it ends up solving for that in so
many other areas of your life. And let's face it.
Work is one part of life. It might be a really big part,
because we spend a lot of time there and it's directly
connected to livelihood and to Financial Security and all of
that. But life is always bigger than
work work. Is just one venue just one place
where as a human you get to experience your life and being
being alive with other humans and in relationship to that.
So today I wanted to talk with you about the importance of, how
you identify the problem. And this came up in a very clear
way. For me personally, very recently
where I was in a communication in a email communication with
someone that I am going to be learning from and I joined her
program. Very excited for it.
And she sent me an email with a link to the calendar.
It was like, if you click on this link, it will add this, you
know, calendar and all the information to my, you know,
personal calendar. And I got the email, I click the
link and I got an error message. And I was so frustrated, I'm
like what's going on here? And I tried it a couple of times
in the link didn't work and then I emailed her and then the email
bounced back, like what is going on?
So, I was able to message her through another social platform
that we're connected on and I said, hey, you know, I click the
calendar link, it didn't work. And I tried to email you, and it
didn't work, and I'm like, what's going on here?
And she wrote back to me, she said, oh my gosh, thank you for
letting me know. I had to update my credit card
for the you know, for Gmail because it up into it updated,
but it didn't update in all the places.
And so that's why. Email is bouncing back and it
still didn't though, it didn't fix the calendar thing.
She emailed me again, here's the link, click the link for the
calendar. I click the link.
It didn't work. I was getting kind of
frustrated. I couldn't figure out what was
going on. What is the problem?
And I was also feeling kind of impatient like, why is this link
not working? Like I'm doing what I'm supposed
to do. I'm clicking it.
But maybe like she Not doing something correctly like what's
going on here and what happened was I realized, like, oh wait a
minute, she's sending it to my gmail address, but when I click
it, it's opening it up like within Google and Gmail, you
know, you can have multiple accounts but your browser when
you open it, it'll be logged in, to your default account.
And so, what I realized was happening was that even though
she was sending it to one email account, My Gmail when I clicked
it to open it, it was opening it in a browser window that was
logged on to my default account, which is a different account.
And so it was confused because it was opening up the calendar,
which was on which was, you know, the link was had been
granted permission through my gmail address but it opened in a
different browser login and so Google was confused.
I didn't realize that they were all the same.
And I realized that in order for this to work, I had to log out
of everything and then login again.
So that I could make the browser window, the same email
Associated, login as the email as the link, like I had to
streamline all of that and it was happening.
So seamlessly, I didn't realize it.
And then when I did I logged out of everything log back in, click
the link, it worked perfectly. And so I messaged her and I
said, oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. It was my browser window.
I figured it out. You know, thank you for being
patient with me and she replied. Oh my gosh.
Thank you for telling me. I've had that happen to and I
have been very confused about that and my guess is.
She also will have clients either in the present moment or
in the future that might have a similar challenge that might
have that same problem and they won't understand why, and now
she knows. Knows what is going on.
So now she knows another way to troubleshoot it.
So the reason I wanted to share this with you is because when we
come up against a challenger a problem, the way you identify,
what the problem is, is incredibly important because the
way you identify and Define, the problem will limit the way you
seek to address it. So, for example, when I was
clicking on the link and it wasn't working and I thought,
oh, maybe she sent the link wrong or maybe there's something
that she's not doing correctly. It turned all of my attention to
her and it turned all of my attention away from what the
actual problem was. And notice, the problem wasn't
something that I was doing. It wasn't something that she was
doing. It was about the way the process
worked in the background. It was the system of how the
browser window and the different.
You know, profiles all worked and they're designed to work
seamlessly. So you don't see them which is
normally fine until it's not and then it became problematic and
so often times Times in the workplace, something happens
that we don't understand why are we feel friction confusion
frustration? And when we Define the problem
in terms of a person or their personality that limits our
thinking, and our solution set tremendously because think about
it, if we go to the place in our mind or we think this person,
their Tonality just it's like, that's the problem.
It's what they're doing are not doing.
They must be doing something wrong because their personality
is just like this, then what happens is?
It gets us in trenched into, I'm right?
They're wrong it completely let's go of any agency or
authority because you don't have agency or authority over who a
person is or what their personality is and it's
eliminates us being curious. Reyes, it kind of puts us in
this direction of blame, where we stop being curious about
what's going on, which means that we're not able to actually
identify and solve for what the real issue is.
Instead when you are faced with a problem or frustration, go
first to the lens of process. Go first to the lens of system.
Of context. Like, what is the bigger picture
here? That might explain why.
I'm seeing this result. Why?
I'm seeing this situation unfolding in this way?
If it wasn't a personal personal issue if it wasn't about
personality, then how else could I look at this?
Because that will keep you in the place of curiosity, which
will get you more insight. More Knowledge, more
perspective, more information, and it allows you to see the
blind spots more easily, like with me in the browser, that was
a blind spot. I would not have seen that if I
was only focused on like, what is she doing?
Oh, well, why is this not working?
And then what's really cool is because I was able to actually
see it and solve for it, then we learn together.
So sometimes when things are not going well or Like, what is
happening here? If you see it as process, you
see it as ecosystem, you see it as the bigger picture, then you
can actually partner and solve it together, which gets us out
of that, opposing conflict, working against each other, kind
of energy. And that's the easiest place for
our brains to go. We tend to jump to blame pretty
quickly and often it takes intentional practice too.
Slow down to take a breath. And ask what's actually
happening here? What could be behind this?
What am I not seeing? Or what is so hidden in?
Plain sight. I'm glossing over it.
If you've been listening to this podcast for a while you can't
you might be familiar with the who broke the toaster episode.
I did, oh gosh. Maybe a year ago.
It's back there if you dig for it.
But essentially it was the same kind of thing where someone
thought the Mr. Was broken because when he put the bread in
it and they pushed the button down, it didn't work and he
thought somebody broke the toaster.
That was his first guess to identify the problem.
He thought the toaster is broken.
Somebody broke it. And I tell you I could already
see the wheels turning in his mind as he was imagining which
of his colleagues had broken the toaster and then just left it on
the counter could see him getting heated.
Thinking somebody broke this, who is it and starting to blame
and accuse people in his mind? And so when I was in that
kitchen with him and I said, oh that's really interesting like
what does that even mean? What is happening and I glanced
down the counter and I sought on microwave and I noticed that the
digital display on the microwave wasn't on, Ah, that's kind of
weird. And then I walked down to the
refrigerator and I opened the refrigerator and normally
There's a light that turns on when you open the refrigerator
door, but this time there was no light and I realized I think the
problem is not with the toaster. I think maybe there's no power
coming into the entire wall and it turns out, that's exactly
what happened. The circuit breaker had blown
and there was no electricity coming into the entire wall of
the kitchen. So he had Miss identified, the
problem. We do this all the time and we
feel so Justified. That's the thing I really want
to direct you to is to notice when you feel really Justified
really defensive for me, I despair I describe it as feeling
very by T like there's a part of me I think about like a little
dog. I just want to bite somebody
because I'm feeling very frustrated and upset and that
tends to be what what it Feels like for me, I get a little bit
by T and frustrated and impatient but you want to notice
for yourself. What is that look like?
What does that feel? Like when you're in it and
realize to, this is not bad. Like I'm not saying that's a bad
thing, you're a bad person. You're a very human person.
It's a very human response. But what you want to be aware of
is when you feel that in your body when you feel the
frustration tightness in the throat, You feel that little
tension headache, start behind your eyes and you think, ah, why
is this happening? You feel that heavy sigh.
I can't believe this like what is going on here?
Use that as a signal. To pay attention and become
curious. You want to access your
curiosity because that keeps you in a state of open, Discovery
investigation, and exploration. And that will help you to pull
your attention up out from this very specific granular moment to
looking at the bigger picture, which is what is the process
that is happening here. Sometimes it's around
difference. Of expectations differences in
communication Styles misunderstandings in what the
priorities are. There can be so many different
ways to understand. Like why is this happening
sometimes it's about I'm thinking of another client who
had a situation where there was a document that was changed and
it was changed not in the correct way and when she went
back, she realized oh the track changes feature ER, what like we
haven't been using that correctly and rather than
blaming her teammate for not being, you know, detail-oriented
enough or not catching all the errors or whatever she said.
Okay, as a team, we need to really clean up the way that we
use the track changes feature, because if we're not precise
about it, it can lead to unforced errors.
Can lead us to make mistakes that we Me too.
If only we tune up our process for document review revision and
how we use the tracked changes tool in our document system as a
manager and leader. This also helps you to build
trust with people when they make mistakes especially if you have
folks who are very high-performing and take it
super personally as at like a personal failure.
If They're not perfect and we're not perfect and especially as
you are growing and doing things for the first time or stretching
beyond the comfort zone, and expanding your skillset doing
new things. It's more valuable to build in
that feeling of trust. I've got your back, we learn
things together, nobody gets attacked or or a heavy blame
like you like, you're not going to be a heavy blame Target.
If something doesn't go absolutely perfectly according
to plan or smoothly and all of that comes from the way that you
identify and describe the problem building in that kind of
trust to, for how do we as a team addressed problems
challenges and Mistakes by looking at process rather than
personality and individuals, it really does create a more robust
and a more resilient team the way that you learn together
means that you will learn faster and that is valuable and it will
also keep more trust in the team as opposed to feeling like I
need to either hide things until they're Just Right Where I Need
to you know, slow things down until they're just right?
Because you know we none of us like to feel blamed and
especially if you think of yourself as being really do
Urgent and a hard worker and doing great work.
It can feel so paralyzing. If you're feeling worried about
all like, what if I do this wrong, sometimes it will happen.
But the way that we describe the problem and then move to
address, it makes all the difference.
So that is what I wanted to share with you today when you
learn how to think differently about defining the problem.
And when you get out of the blaming frame, when you get more
into curiosity and when you're able to feel emotion
intentionally without a Target, then you will use your energy
better, you will use your attention more effectively, you
will use your time in a much more useful way.
It is a huge time-saver not just in the moment but So in terms of
as you build that trust and as you build that feeling of I've
got your back, it's okay to not be perfect because we we know
how to learn it ends up. Saving you so much time and it
just creates a better experience, honestly.
Like, it feels better to live in that headspace then in the head
space of blame and fear and frustration and impatience, I
know because I've done both. Now I've learned so much about
how to take a better approach and I want you to have that too.
So, thank you so much for listening.
If you want to do more of this work in a more specifically
detailed supported way then reach out to me from one-on-one
coaching. Or you can also get on my email
list to learn about the next time I offer a group which we're
kicking off on Tuesday. It's going.
Be really great. Cannot wait.
All right, have an amazing week. I will talk to you next time.
Bye. Hey, before you go, if you like
this podcast, leave a review. Tell me why you listen and what
has helped you? Thanks so much.
I'll see you next time.