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.
You know, working with other humans, it's not always easy.
And especially when you are someone who is a high achiever
and who really Prides herself on doing a good job.
When you start to manage people, it can feel really challenging
because we forget, it says skill.
I'll that you haven't done before, it's a different kind of
job than whatever it is that you were doing before.
So back when I was an editor, I was a great editor and then I
became a manager of editors and that's a different job.
You might be really good at sales but then managing a team
of sales people that is a different job.
So I think sometimes we simply forget That just because you are
good at something. When you become a people
manager, we sometimes forget that is a different kind of job.
It has its own learning curve and because people very, and
cultures like the organizational culture that you're in or the
team culture that you're in that varies.
And so there are all kinds of things in play that will affect
how successful you're feeling in the job and how successful you
feel, you can be with your team and sometimes we simply forget
that. Another thing I see a lot is you
might be really great at managing one set of people like
it just works really well. People get along communication
skills are on point and then You go to a different team or you
change organizations, you have a different group of people and
the things that worked before are not working with this group,
and it can feel very scary, like, okay, I'm out of ideas,
you know, the, why isn't it working?
It worked really well over here. What's going on?
You can feel really disorienting or frustrating and just like,
ah, like what do I do? And the Other thing that
sometimes happens is if there's a big change in upper management
if there's a big leadership change and now the new leader
comes in and they have a different Vision, they have a
different style, they want different things from you and
from your team, it can also feel frustrating or weird or simply
disorienting to now. Try to adapt your management
style and your skills with your team too.
Comedy and work with a new leader, a new upper management
person. And so sometimes we also forget
that the skill of managing up becomes even more important as
we rise into lover levels of responsibility in our career.
Because also the people that are above you that you're managing,
that Dynamic also changes. So what I wanted to draw your
attention to today in our Our time together on this podcast,
is to point you to this idea of process over Perfection.
And right now, I am doing actually have two different
groups happening, one for a private client and then a group
of my listeners and my students. And we've been working together
over several weeks and one of the very first things that I
share with my students. That I want you to know is to
think about process over Perfection, because when we are
focused on Perfection that adds a lot of pressure that adds a
lot of self judgement. We start worrying about making
mistakes. We start worrying about making
decisions, you know, should I address this situation directly?
Should I give it more time will? It'd be micromanaging.
If I you know tell them to do it in this way or do I need to be
empathetic and just let them figure it out.
Like there are so many of these micro decisions that are
happening all of the time. And when we are worried about
doing it perfectly, we will often then hesitate to make
decisions because we kind of spin in the what ifs and we
don't actually commit to saying, okay, let's do this.
See what happens. And, you know, so we delay, we
delay, we delay and it, of course, ends up taking a lot of
time in your mind because you still thinking about it.
Even if you haven't decided and gone forward with that, so
Perfection can really get in the way when we're thinking that
that is the goal is to be a great manager.
I have to do this perfectly and I recently heard this brene
brown quote. She is a A researcher and does a
lot of work around, shame and Leadership and Perfection.
And this quote that I heard her. She was talking about the
difference between striving for excellence and this desire of
perfection. And she says, the idea that
fuels Perfection is this thought of if I look perfect and do
everything perfectly I can avoid or Mais the painful feelings of
blame judgment and shame. She says that so, simply and so
powerfully because we do have this thought, if I can do it
perfectly then I won't feel bad because I won't be blamed for
things. I won't be shamed for not doing
it right, I won't feel judgment. But the funny thing is, is that
when we are focused on Perfection, you're already E in
the blame and the shame and the Judgment because you're doing it
to yourself. You're already having the
thought of who this is this, right?
I don't think it's right. How do I get it, right?
We're already in this experience of self judgement and it can be
very contracted like this feeling of being kind of tents
and a little bit closed up and like, you have to be really
careful to not break anything. It just creates a really tense
and judgmental. Our environment.
So that's Perfection. And then on the other side we
have process and this is why I love to remind myself.
My students. My clients of process over
Perfection because when we do that, we're focused on learning
by doing. We're thinking about being
iterative the idea that it's not about getting it exactly.
Right. The very first time, But that
you will learn more as you go, it is an iterative process.
It is not like a one-and-done, final.
It is something that is dynamic, that you are in active
participation in when we think about process.
We're also welcoming curiosity. Not knowing is not a problem
when you're in process because your curiosity is what you will
use to grow. You're learning and that is a
normal thing, it's not a deficiency.
I think sometimes especially you know if you have been very
successful in a formal education environment not knowing is bad,
the whole point is to know things that's what the tests are
for and all of the projects is you're trying to demonstrate and
show what you know and then you get rewarded for knowing things
but when you are are doing something for the first time or
managing a different group of people than you are not going to
know a lot of things. There are a lot of things, you
can't know until you know there are rising and so in that
situation you want to think of curiosity as part of the process
not knowing is part of the process.
We don't have to freak out about that.
We want to know. There will always be things, I
don't know. There will always be some blind
spots there. Will always be some things that
I am learning, and that's okay, that keeps us in curiosity.
That keeps us in a state where we can be more receptive to
learning or we can be more adaptable and more resilient and
it keeps us out of that really harsh inner critic voice that
harsh inner judgment, that tends to shut down and isolate us.
The other thing with process over Perfection is that it lets
us Orient and clarify around an internal measure of success or
an internal standard of success. And of course in the workplace,
there are always going to be the external measures.
So the specific metrics or the kpis, the key performance
indicators or however your organization calls them, there
will be the measurable things. That, you know, somebody else
establishes for you as a measure of success, but we cannot use
that alone. It is so important.
To also have Clarity around what are your internal measures of
success? What is your internal standard?
And that will include a couple of things that will include your
own values. So are you showing up and
behaving and being the person? Who is grounded in the values
that you hold as important, it might be kindness.
Are you showing up with kindness?
Are you showing up with compassion?
Are you showing up with being concerned?
Not just for individual success, but for team and Collective
success, another, internal measure can simply be, what does
success look like for today? Because remember, to a lot of
the things that we get measured on In a formal sense, those are
things that happen over time. So if we're looking at, you know
like a project that is successfully created and
launched, that is something that happens over time.
So you want to have for yourself and understanding of what are
the indicators that will lead up to that?
Ultimate goal that I'll be able to measure on the outside.
It might Might require conversations and strategic
planning and making decisions about Staffing and making
decisions about budget. There are lots of different
kinds of things that will have to happen before you get the
external reflection back of. Yes, I have accomplished that
and so you want to know for yourself, what are those things
in part? Because yes, it helps to create
that pathway to the That bigger goal but also you want to give
yourself credit for the successes along.
The way there will always be moments when we feel like we're
not doing enough or we should be doing more.
There's it's so easy to go into that head space but the longer
we stay there, the less energy we have and we Overlook the
things that are working and it's kind of like, you know, Oh,
you've got so much value in the things that are going well and
then things that are working you want to build on those and you
do that by noticing them. Just first of all, just simply
notice and acknowledge and give yourself credit for those
things. The last thing I want to share
with you in this conversation around process over Perfection
is also to remind you that you are good at Learning.
Have successfully learned a lot of things in the course of your
life. Some of them through formal
education, most of them simply by focusing on learning by doing
on being curious on having internal measures and standards
of success. And by being a dynamic, curious,
human, who is engaging with your world and the people that are in
it and learning. What we're Works learning how to
human in the world so reminding yourself, you know what okay
maybe this situation that you're facing as a manager is new but
you are good at learning things. You can learn how to effectively
manage the situation. These people these demands like
you can learn how to do that and I think that when we Member that
capability that you have inside, it helps to take some of the
pressure off because you remember.
Oh, right, I do know how to learn things.
I am actually good at learning and then you can start thinking
and reflecting about, when am I good at learning what things
helped me to learn and you can tap into that resourcefulness
for yourself. So that is what I wanted to
share with you today. This is idea of process over
Perfection. It's also a way to give a lot
more grace and compassion to yourself and as you do it
actually, then extends a little bit outward and it allows you to
not take things. So personally when things are
either not going the way you expected or you're feeling
frustrated with something that's happening at work because you
realize oh yes, these other people are also not perfect.
They're also human, they have their own process.
We can figure this out. It really helps us also to
pause, take a step back, take a deep breath.
And reset perspective. What are we really doing here?
What is the real issue here? Where am I in this process?
So remember that. Remember to celebrate your wins,
as you go. They all All count and it will
help you next time you're feeling that feeling of pressure
or judgment or like when you realize you're sort of delaying
something because you're trying to get it.
Perfect. And sometimes Perfection is
actually not the most useful approach.
So this is all work that I do more deeply with my clients and
in my group might have a new group that is starting in May so
go to my website. To learn about that and apply, I
would love to have you in this 12-week group.
We will work on all of the things that you want to bring.
You'll read more about it there, but, you know, you don't have to
do it alone. We can do it together.
So that's what I wanted to share with you today.
Thank you so much for listening, have a great week and I will
talk to you next time. 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.