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Welcome to the New Manager 
Podcast. 

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I'm your host Kim Nickel. 
Hello and welcome. 

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I'm glad you're here and I hope 
you're doing well for me today. 

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I am a little bit congested. 
I don't know if you can hear it,

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but it is now, that time of year
when the cherry blossoms and the

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plum blossoms are blooming. 
They are beautiful, but also it 

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activates my allergies. 
And so I'm a little congested 

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not feeling super great. 
But you know, that's part of 

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being a human, is having a human
body that responds to different 

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changes over the course of the 
year. 

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And it actually made me think 
about one of the fundamental 

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things when I was first teaching
my essential skills for new 

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managers class back in 2017. 
The two parts of that class, The

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first one is self-awareness. 
The second one was 

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communication. 
And the reason self-awareness is

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so necessary when you want to 
manage people effectively is 

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because the more you become 
aware of yourself, your own 

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preferences, your particular 
strengths, even noticing. 

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What do you do when you feel 
under the weather? 

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Are you the kind of person that 
retreats? 

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Are you the kind of person that 
goes into grumpy kitten mode? 

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Are you the kind of person who 
powers through? 

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Are you the kind of person who 
gets irritable and just takes it

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out on everyone else because 
you're having a hard time? 

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When you understand what you do 
as a human, what your 

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preferences are, how you tend to
operate best, when you 

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understand that for yourself, 
you then begin to realize, oh, 

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not every human is like me, and 
you start to understand. 

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If you want to manage other 
humans effectively, then it 

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becomes helpful to think about 
it from that perspective. 

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Of course people will have 
different preferences and 

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different priorities, and people
will deal with stress 

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differently. 
People will deal with physical 

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discomfort differently. 
And so the more you start to 

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grow your own self-awareness, 
the more you start to realize, 

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oh right, I can't manage my team
the way I would like to be 

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managed. 
I need to be effective by 

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understanding what some of the 
differences and the nuances are,

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and as you start expanding your 
perspective, you will begin to 

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find what it looks like to be 
more effective managing the 

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specific people in the specific 
organization that you find 

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yourself in. 
And that will change also over 

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time. 
You might start in a small 

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organization and as it grows you
realize, wow, this is not the 

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same company that I started in. 
The company has changed. 

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It also happens if you're 
working in a large organization.

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Maybe there is a reorg or a, you
know, some kind of big internal 

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shake up and you realize, wow, 
I'm having to do so much more 

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with fewer resources, with maybe
less people, things will change.

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And so the more that you have 
this ability to notice for 

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yourself how are you in your own
relationship with your 

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experience and your perspectives
and understanding your 

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preferences, The better able you
will be to then make decisions 

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with the understanding of how 
the team and the the context 

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you're working in varies for 
yourself as well. 

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When you understand more about 
how you work and how you work 

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well, then you can begin to not 
only make decisions, but also 

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make requests and communicate 
with others so that they know. 

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That's where the communication 
part comes in. 

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What are you saying and how and 
to whom and when? 

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And instead of doing all of this
from a default reactive 

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position, now we start to think 
more strategically, more 

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deliberately, and bring more 
intentionality into the way that

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you do this. 
You know, I used to always tell 

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my students that you already 
have great communication skills 

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because you have survived to 
adulthood and it is not possible

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to live into adulthood unless 
you also develop some very 

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effective communication skills, 
because that is how we survive 

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living and working and just 
being on the planet with other 

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humans. 
You know, I've often thought 

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when people talk about how 
humans evolved to survive and 

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you'll hear them say, you know, 
oh, we had to survive the the 

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lions and the tigers and the 
Saber toothed tigers. 

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We had to develop these really 
keen skills in order to survive 

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them. 
My personal perspective is I 

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don't think it was the other 
kind of creatures. 

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I think we developed all these 
skills in order to effectively 

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survive each other. 
I think that we really evolved, 

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you know, to communicate and 
cooperate, to learn how to work 

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with other humans. 
And so, you know now in the 

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workplace and in and in our 
lives, you have developed great 

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communication skills. 
Please give yourself a full 

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credit for that. 
You had to observe how do these 

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humans operate? 
How can I be effective in 

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communicating with them so that 
your needs get met. 

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You figured all of that out, 
most of it, without even 

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consciously making decisions 
about it. 

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You you're just like wired. 
You're just built for 

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communication and collaboration 
and cooperation and learning how

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to work with other humans. 
But then as we grow into our 

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roles at, you know, when you 
become a leader, when you become

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a manager, now we want to become
more intentional and more 

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skillful in the way that you 
communicate. 

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So not just from default, but 
being more intentional, doing 

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more communication by design and
with a sense of purpose so that 

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you are clear about what you're 
communicating and why. 

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What is the effect you want to 
have and how will you attempt to

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do that? 
What's really interesting too 

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is, you know, you'll see this 
especially if you're changing 

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organizations. 
So going from a big company to a

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small company, maybe going from 
public sector to private sector,

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maybe changing industries. 
So, you know, part of my 

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background is in the legal 
profession. 

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And there are different norms, 
like different communication 

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norms, different professional, 
cultural norms in, you know, in 

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that profession compared to, for
example, you know, my my brother

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and sister-in-law are both 
teachers. 

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And they, you know, they work in
a school, they work with little 

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kids. 
They work with the parents, the 

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cultural norms and the 
professional communication norms

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in working with their students, 
their professional colleagues, 

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the parents of their students is
different, right? 

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And so for you, you know when 
you're thinking about 

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communication, we want to 
consider that bigger 

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perspective, that context. 
And if you've recently changed 

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companies or changed industries 
or you know, change your work 

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environment, then you know like 
you have a tacit understanding 

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that this is a real thing. 
So that is the short of what I 

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wanted to share with you, just 
bringing some more light and 

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attention to the value of 
self-awareness, how that sets 

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you up to then communicate more 
intentionally and more 

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effectively. 
I am going to keep this episode 

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a little bit short so that you 
don't have to listen to me being

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congested in your ear today. 
But you know, like it's such a 

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good reminder you are a human, 
you have a body, take care of 

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it. 
And when you have people on your

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team, they have physical bodies 
too. 

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And when they're not feeling 
good, it might show up in some 

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interesting ways. 
You might have the team member 

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who retreats and just buckles 
down. 

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You might have the team member 
who loudly complaints about 

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their discomfort to everybody. 
You might have the person who 

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takes it out on everyone like 
they're not feeling good and 

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instead of taking care of 
themselves and managing it, they

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just kind of lash out because 
that's just what works for them.

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So it it starts to get really 
interesting when we shift the 

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way that we look at ourselves 
and the people that we work 

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with. 
As I start to wrap today, a 

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couple of announcements I want 
to share with you. 

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One is that I am taking new 
clients and if you want to talk 

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with me about working together, 
if you want that one-on-one 

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support and time every week to 
really kind of pull back out of 

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the weeds and take a higher 
level perspective on your 

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leadership style, your career 
growth, and you know kind of 

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what you want for your work in 
your life, then coaching is a 

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really good option for that. 
And the way to get started is to

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book time to talk with me on a 
consultation. 

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It's free, you'll find a link on
my website, kimnicholl.com, or 

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you can go into the show notes 
and I'll put a link to my 

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calendar there. 
So if you can find a time for us

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to talk and I'll tell you more 
about how it works and learn 

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more about what you want to get 
out of it and we'll make a plan 

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for that. 
The other two things to know is 

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that if you happen to be in 
California, in the Bay Area this

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coming Thursday, I will be at 
the California Conference for 

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Women. 
It's on Thursday, February 29th 

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at the Santa Clara Convention 
Center and I will be there. 

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And not only will I be there, 
but there will be a number of 

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coaches offering free career 
coaching, leadership coaching, 

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life coaching and I will be one 
of those coaches. 

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So you can not only just come 
say hi, but we can actually do a

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little bit of free coaching 
during that conference. 

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So I know that you know, you're,
you might be listening from far,

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far away, but in case you happen
to be attending this conference,

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find me, come say hi. 
And then the last announcement 

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is that in two weeks I will be 
at the Transform Conference in 

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Las Vegas. 
I'll be there March 11th through

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13. 
I haven't been to this 

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conference before, but I'm 
really excited about it because 

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it from what I can tell, it's 
going to be a lots of 

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conversations about how do we 
transform the workplace, how do 

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we transform the way that we 
support career growth and 

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learning and culture and the way
that we work together, can we 

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work Better Together? 
And I'm really looking forward 

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to having a lot of conversations
around that. 

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So come if you're coming to that
then let me know cuz we should 

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definitely meet up. 
It would be so cool to meet in 

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person at this conference where 
we're learning and talking all 

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about the workplace. 
So that's coming up. 

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That is March 11th through 13th 
in Las Vegas and that that is it

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for me today. 
I hope that you're having a 

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great day. 
Thanks for listening and I will 

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talk to you next time. 
When you're more effective at 

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work, you're happier in your 
life, and when you're happier in

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your life, you're more effective
at work. 

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I can help. 
Go to my website, kimnickel.com 

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and sign up for a coaching 
consult. 

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It can get better.