Welcome to the new manager podcast.
I'm your host, Kim nickel. Hello and welcome.
I hope you're doing well and I hope that you enjoyed the last
episode with Michelle Carver. I so enjoyed having that
conversation and sharing her insights and knowledge with you.
And she has also inspired me to have additional guests.
So stay tuned and some of the future episodes I will be
sharing. Other perspectives About
Management from people that I really respect for the work that
they do in the world and that I think will help you as well.
So, I'm excited for that to happen today.
I wanted us to dive a little bit deeper with respect to how to
operationalize. This capture of value and the
understanding for yourself of what the value is that you bring
to your team into the workplace just as Michelle.
And I talked about in our last episode it's really easy for us
to forget or to lose sight of the things.
We do that bring value into the space and so it's helpful to
think about ways to make it easy for you to say.
Stay close to and to remember that.
And this will help you in your conversations with your manager.
It will help you to clarify for them.
The work that you're doing the value that you're bringing, but
also, it keeps your own brain connected to the value that you
bring. And if there is something that
you are especially good at you might Overlook and not
acknowledge and fully credit yourself.
For that, for example, what I shared in our last episode about
how because I have this ability to create a very calming and
relaxing space where the students and the clients in my
sessions felt more calm. Just because of the way that I
showed up, the way that I work with people tends to have that
effect Act. And it was a while before I
recognize that as something valuable because although it's
not something that would have been included as a performance
metric, it wasn't something that was on the job description that
was just something of value that I bring into whatever room I'm
in and being able to understand that for myself and see how
because that is true about me, it enabled my You didn't send my
clients to get more out of the time that we had together.
It enabled people to learn more fully and more deeply when they
felt less anxious and they felt more safe.
So making that connection with something that wasn't obvious to
me in the beginning. It's something I had to learn
how to see. And I see this, even with the
coaching that I do with some of my clients, especially, Lee when
they're feeling called in a direction that is a little bit
outside, the scope of what they currently do.
So aspetto. And especially if you're being
called to any kind of mentoring, any kind of teaching also
Business Development. So for example, let's say that
you're a lawyer and your, your performance is Rated on the
number of hours, you build, you have a certain goal of billable
hours and that is what you're supposed to do.
And let's say that, even though you are billing hours, you're
also really interested in business development.
You're really interested in finding these great clients and
selling the The Firm to your clients and you're really
interested also in Mentoring and helping to train and develop
newer Associates. You might feel drawn to that
work even though it's outside. The scope of what you're
specifically being measured on. And what I like to point out is
that, you know, you are responsible for really holding
your entire career with so much care with so much, respect and
love. And so, if what you're
interested in is kind of expanding beyond what you're
Now, and you're exploring. What that next level is then you
want to give yourself credit for all of those things.
And when you are in conversations with your manager
about performance, you want to be the one carrying that that
story of value into the conversation.
So you can say, yes, these are the hours I've build and I have
been giving this Many hours to client development, business
development. And I've also taken the
initiative to support our new hires with onboarding and
getting them up to speed. So they can work more
effectively with, you know, with the rest of us, you want to feel
comfortable naming those things and highlighting the value.
And if you are a manager, then you'll Really appreciate that.
The value of this, if you have an employee, who does this is
because as a manager, you have so much that's happening for
you, that you can't possibly track all of the things that
your team is doing. Especially if your team is
really big, especially if your team is remote and distributed
and it is bit more difficult, you have to be more specific and
precise about out hearing and learning what people are working
on all of the different things. So, you know, bringing this back
to you, continue to capture the things that you do that bring
value into your organization, even when it's something that
might be not included in your official job description and one
of the ways you can do that and this is Something that I have
also done in my own life, is once a month, open a document
and simply look at your calendar and then write down like, in a
bullet point form, what are all of the things you have
accomplished and be specific and you're not trying to make
yourself kind of puffed up? You know, or anything like that?
You're just being really specific.
I had no this this many meetings.
Things with this team in order to, you know, whatever, I had
this many client calls, I had, you know, this many
presentations of, you know, sharing out our ideas and
progress to these people. You want to count everything,
you want to count everything so that you see it.
And you remember it. I mean, if you're like me, it's
hard to remember what you did last week, so, Taking a time,
just once a month to pause like back, okay, like what actually
happened is really helpful and looking Beyond whatever.
The stated goals are look at what actually happened.
What did you actually do? What did you actually
accomplish? And I would even add to include
the things. You do that, help you to be a
good manager. So this includes coach Coaching
sessions that you do for yourself classes that you take
for yourself books or articles or online courses that you do
for yourself, and also have like having great boundaries, right?
Like, if you look over the last month and you say I was really
consistent about taking a real lunch break in the middle of the
day, powering down my computer, eating some food, going for a
walk. Give yourself credit for that
too. Because that is part of what
enables you to show up centered ready available to do great
work, and sometimes we can lose sight of that fact.
And think we only get credit for overextending ourselves, or for
going above and beyond all of the time, which is not
sustainable, and it will drain you, and it will set a poor
example. For your team.
So give yourself credit for those moments where you have a
boundary, where you practice some self-care to replenish and
refresh and reset yourself. I like to think of that document
as a value tracker. And it's just, you know, visit
it once in a while, once a month, twice a month, to just
track, all of the valuable things that you are doing that.
You are bringing into the space. Now, the other practice that you
can do to kind of operationalize, this capture of
value, is something that I've heard described by others as a
brag doc or like a like a, like a brag file.
And for me, I actually think of it more like a love file because
you know, bragging is is not necessarily a word that that I
that I embrace. Myself but I do raise this idea
of love. And why that?
I mean in the workplace when I get feedback from a client or
from a colleague about something I've done that has made a
positive difference. I will take a screenshot and
I'll put it in this file because every time I look at it, I'll
just feel so much love. I'll feel so much pride for the
work that I'm doing. I'll feel so much appreciation
and gratitude so it's kind of like this collection.
Of evidence that you're seeing reflected back to you of the
positive difference that you're making and this becomes valuable
to. Because sometimes in the course
of our work, you might receive some really fantastic positive
feedback but your manager may not have any visibility on that.
And so it is good for you to capture that.
Sometimes you might even want to share it with your man.
Chair and say, hey, look what this person said.
I just wanted to share this with you, you know, I so appreciate
the work I get to do here and it's like, this is what makes
the difficult days completely worth it is when I get feedback
like this. So, take that time to capture
that. Positive feedback or that
feeling of success, the thing that you launched, the problem,
you solve the presentation, you deliver the thing, you design,
the client relationship that you are able to repair, whatever it
is, where you feel a sense of accomplishment.
Like, yes, I did this and it feels really good.
Keep a file of those because we number one, we all have
difficult days when we think, what am I doing?
Like I feel like I'm failing. I feel like, I don't know what
I'm doing. This is so frustrating.
We all have days like that, and that's not a problem.
That's just what it means to be alive in human on the planet.
But it can be really helpful to have this collection to both
remind yourself. You know what?
Do do good work. I do feel proud about the work
I'm doing and it will also help you.
When again, you're having conversations with your manager
when you're managing up, when you are are wanting to pursue a
promotion or a, a different role, you want to have evidence
of the great work that you're doing.
And the way that you're bringing value into the Ization.
And if you ever work with somebody like Michelle who can
help to create more clarity around your career story, those
are the kinds of things that are so helpful to talk about because
it can illuminate for you the blind spots that you might not
have even realized. So when I was was coaching in
all of these different companies around public speaking skills
and I did this for about Years at the end of every training, we
would do this feedback survey and what was so interesting.
Is that consistently I always got the same kind of feedback
and it was always around how I was able to create this really
calming welcoming relaxing space, and people could feel
safe to do scary things like speaking in public in front of
their peers. And so it was quite astonishing
as over time, I began to to see this pattern and I began to
understand that. Wow, this this is a thing that I
bring into the space and so for you to when you create a file, a
love file, a brag file, whatever you want to call it, but it's
the place where you collect the screenshots or the emails, the
messages from people expressing appreciation, or, you know, or
Polly, you know the things that you accomplished right?
Like solving a problem serving a client when you have a place
where you can look at all of those out ones.
You might be surprised by what emerges, what pattern shows up
as you look at that. So those are my thoughts for you
today, around value and really coming to a place where you can
understand really own and hold with so much confidence the
sense of. Yeah, like this is the value
that I bring into the space and, you know, oh my gosh.
Okay. So one final thought related to
this so you know, as a human you're growing, your interests
are growing your Eels are growing, your desires are
growing and there may come a time when you feel that you have
outgrown the place that you're that you're at or the role that
you're in or the even the the industry or the field, you might
want to grow beyond that. And, you know, one of the things
that was so hard for me for a long time, was I thought, you
know, this thing that I'm good at.
It doesn't seem to matter. I don't think it really counts
and I mean, I'm going back like 20 years, like, A back into the
beginning of my career and feeling like, you know, there's
something that I think is true about me that I think is, is
valuable about me, but it doesn't seem to be recognized as
valuable in the company I'm in or in the industry.
I meant. And so, it just felt very sad
because I thought, oh, I'm not valued in the way, you know,
people with this kind of background or valued or so,
people don't really appreciate our value.
You this quality that I bring because they really like, you
know, these other kinds of people and what it took me a
while to learn. And so what I want to share with
you on this is that it is so important to really trust and
respect that the value that you bring exists and it matters,
even when other people around, you might not see it or I might
not value it too. Always trust and hold with the
greatest respect and the greatest confidence, the value
that is you and the value that is yours and what's fun is you
can you know what I realized? And what's fun that I want to
share is when you do that you can say you know what?
It's okay. If they don't value me, I value
me. And I'd like to bring myself and
this value to a place that wants this kind of value.
You like it's okay. You don't have to stay in a
place that you have outgrown. You don't have to stay in a role
or in an organization. Like you can explore and find
and ask, huh, you know, where else might?
I like to use this value, or to bring this value.
It's okay to grow Beyond where you're at now, it doesn't mean
that you're not grateful, it doesn't mean that you're not a
Rishi itive. You can be grateful and
appreciative and feel excited for what is next in your career,
and in your life. So, I wanted to share that with
you. Thank you so much for listening.
I hope you have a wonderful day and I will talk to you next
time. 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.