Welcome to the new manager podcast.
I'm your host, Kim nickel. Hello, and welcome.
I hope you're doing well, and that you had a very restful
holiday season, and you're now feeling replenished.
I feel like January always feels like a reset like it's a blank
sheet of paper. And what do you want to create
on it? So, I hope you're also enjoying
a Feeling. Have a fresh start, a new page.
It's time to begin. So when I was thinking of what I
wanted to share for this episode, two things came to mind
one. Is that a few of my clients who
have just started with me. Their companies are paying for
them to work with me. They are covering the cost out
of their professional development budget.
And so I wanted to to mention that and remind you that you
might have resources available to pay for coaching.
It may simply be a question of just asking and submitting a
request for approval and related to that.
I think there are a lot of companies, a lot of
organizations right now, who are looking for more ways to support
employees. Not just because it has been a
rough couple of years with the pandemic and a lot of companies.
I think are just trying to figure out like how how do we
keep people from quitting? How do we support people to get
the work done? We don't know anymore.
Maybe we'll just give them some some support through
professional development. Let's try that.
I think there's just a genuine desire to figure out like, how
can we support our people more? And this is something I see not
just with really big organizations, but also with
really A small ones, I think across Industries.
There's a growing awareness and recognition that people want to
learn. You want to learn how to do your
job better, you want to know how to manage people.
And so, rather than kind of bottleneck that learning within
the organization. It's actually a lot easier to
invite you to say, you know, what, find a coach find a
training and then just tell us how much it costs and will cover
the cost of it. It's just easier that way than
trying to get everybody into the same training.
It's just it's just easier. So there's that and also the
other piece of this I wanted to share with you is that in the
beginning of the year. This is a wonderful time to
begin to set out your roadmap, for your professional
development and growth. So whether you are a new manager
or Your team is going to be growing or maybe managing people
is the next stage for you, and you're trying to prepare for new
levels of responsibility. January is a really good time
because we come out of the year. We've typically done some
reflection. We've gone through the
performance review cycle. You might have even done a
little bit of soul-searching. Do you even want to stay in this
company? Do you want to stay in this
career? Are you looking for a change?
Is? Something that you want to do
differently. This is the time to think about
the year in front of you and to ask, what skills?
Will you need to develop or improve in order to get to where
you want to go? What are the skills or the
mindset, or the things you will need to grow in order to do the
work you want to do with the people?
All you want to do it with in the organization that you want
to work in because as you start thinking, now, you want to set
your plan, you want to start making things happen.
And you also want to begin to signal to your manager that you
have thought about this that you are taking full responsibility
for your professional development, for your career
growth, you know. How much that helps your boss, I
think, when I was managing a team had 18 people.
I didn't know what each of them wanted in their career.
It would have been so much work for me as their manager, to try
to understand. What does everybody want.
And what do they need to grow? And like, if my team members are
just come to me and said, hey Kim, this is what I wear.
I see myself in the Coming year. I want to get better at this.
So I'm going to be doing these things.
I wanted to let you know, you know, maybe you have some advice
for me. But if my team member had come
to me with that level of responsibility and ownership.
I would have said. Thank you so much.
Yes, how can I support you? So, I think sometimes there's
this myth or this misunderstanding that if someone
is a manager, if, you know, the person that you report to, they
must be in this higher. Level of responsibility because
they know what they're doing. And it's not always true.
And I mean, this in the most loving way and also for you if
you're a manager and you're feeling worried like I'm the
manager, I should know what I'm doing.
It's okay. If you don't a lot of managers
would like we're all making it up.
As we go along. We're all figuring it out one
step at a time. And I think that given the last
two years and with all of this working from home.
It's actually become more challenging for managers to
understand when people are struggling what they're
struggling with and how do they want to grow personally and
professionally a lot of folks. Rebalanced their priorities
around family or around passion projects or just deeply
re-evaluated What mattered to them.
And so are now making different decisions about that in the
workplace. It's hard for a manager to be
able to have that kind of insight because there are just
less points of contact and less visibility to what people are
doing and thinking. So it is January when You think
about what you're doing, what you want to be doing?
What are the skills, you will need, how will you need to grow
in confidence, or in abilities? Like what is it that you want
for yourself? You actually do a great service
to your manager, by owning that conversation taking
responsibility for that. And consider, if you're in an
organization that has budget. Allocated for professional
development. It is a good thing.
When you come to your organization and say, I found a
coach that I want to work with. I found a training that will
help me get better at X, Y and Z, so I can be more effective.
Like it is good because there is money set aside for that and if
it's not used that actually becomes a problem.
So for many organizations the budget resets in January.
And if that is, you then this is also a really timely moment to
be thinking strategically about what you want.
Make it easy for your boss to say.
Yes, and then, you know go follow through and and have
that. So all of this brings me to the
main, the main point that I wanted to talk with you today.
I've been thinking so much. About the work that I did this
year. Both in growing, my coaching my
coaching business. But also when I was working
internally with this Global organization on their manager,
development team, building up programs for them and if I have
to distill You know, the way that I think about what is it
that managers need like, what are the skills you need?
If I wanted to make it as simple as possible.
What I've come to now, are these three things?
Strategic thinking. Communication.
And decision-making. These three skills meaning their
skills so you can get better at them.
If you don't think you're good at it right now.
That's okay. You can learn strategic,
thinking, communication and decision-making.
And what's great is that, when you look at these as like the
bones or the scaffolding of what it means to Be an Effective
manager, then it doesn't matter. What industry.
You're in, it really doesn't matter what size organization
you're in. It doesn't matter if you're in a
really conservative industry or a really I was gonna say
irreverent. Maybe that is the other side
like a very irreverent. Very fly by the seat of your
pants industry. It doesn't matter what
leadership is sitting at the top and I mentioned that
specifically. Because one thing I've seen is
that when you get a new leader sitting in at the very top of
the organization that can create ripples around the culture, the
mission, what are our core values?
And then all of the internal Learning and Development moves
to line up with that? So there's a lot of ambiguity
and a lot of arbitrariness like you can kind of flip a coin and
Whatever, you know, whatever the management book of the week, is
know that that is on the night table of the person sitting, at
the top will become the guidance for how we work as a company.
Like, if you kind of move out, like, strip all that away and
you get down to what are the essential things that any person
needs to be an effective manager?
No matter who's in the lead. Hip seed, no matter the
industry, no matter the size of the organization.
Like, what are those things? What are those core Essentials?
So when I talk about strategic thinking, we're talking about, A
systems level view. We're talking about a relational
view. How two things fit together.
And what I found is that a lot of times you won't give yourself
credit for the level of strategic thinking you already
do. Because you don't see it.
That way, you think? Well, I'm just a hard worker.
But when you look through the lens of strategy, like that's
been your strategy. I'll just work hard or your
strategy might be find out who are the successful people and be
like them and that might have worked for you throughout school
and throughout the first part of your career and then it stops
working and then, you know, you feel kind of lost and you don't
you don't know why it seems sort of difficult.
So with strategic thinking We're thinking about what is the
relationship between these different people, or Dynamics,
or forces? What is the, you know, the
system, how do, all these different things?
Relate to one another? That's what we mean when we talk
about strategic thinking, we're also looking through the lens of
time. So what are the decisions you're
making now? Because you want to create what
outcome at the end of the quarter, at the end of the half
at the end of the year. The understanding of how one
piece influences other pieces. How something you do here
affects an outcome. That is what we talk about.
When we talk strategic thinking communication.
You want to become more effective and this is across
formats. So whether you're speaking,
whether you are writing, whether You are listening, whether you
are giving feedback or asking for a feedback, whether you are
advocating for something. Maybe you are advocating for a
new hire or you are advocating for your team to get more
resources or you're advocating for yourself.
Communication is a tremendous part of that and it's one of the
easiest things for people to do poorly, especially when we're
tired or fatigued, or we don't have as many like, as many data
inputs, because much signal coming in when we are working in
person together, you're absorbing all of this
information about how two people communicate when we are more
remote. It really challenges us.
To level up the quality of our communication because it's just
going to become more difficult when you don't have all of these
incidental moments, where you can simply observe, or cross
paths with someone. You have to be more.
Deliberate. Communication is what can make
everything easier and it's often the thing that makes everything
harder when you're not communicating clearly.
Or people are misunderstanding or there's just a lot of there's
a lot of messaging happening but not a lot of communication
happening. And then decision-making.
Oh my gosh, if you have ever worked with someone and they
just could not make a decision becomes so frustrating.
And when that's you, if you're either feeling overwhelmed, or
you're not sure what to decide. Because you can see the benefits
and the fallbacks to both or Any options when you're worried
about making the wrong decision, when you're not sure whose
decision is this to make here, you waste so much time and you
spend so much energy thinking, and thinking, and thinking and
thinking and not being able to come to a decision.
So these three things that strategic thinking effective,
communication decision making, I don't care how long Long, you've
been at your job. If you're the newest hire or the
most senior person if you're even the founder, I don't care
how big your company is. It could be like 20,000 people
worldwide. It could be two people.
Like these skills are so so necessary.
So and you know, I think honestly we tend to develop them
very intuitively without paying a lot of attention to them and
it changes when you start to focus intentionally and say,
okay, I need to understand like what is my current strategic
perspective? Is that still working?
How might I love all that up. What is my current communication
skill level. How is that working?
Where might I need to level that up.
How do I make? Since how do I make decisions
right now? And is that working?
Do I need to level that up like checking in with each of those
skill sets and then intentionally choosing to
develop them incredibly incredibly valuable like for the
entirety of your whole career and I will add for the entirety
of your life because those are skills that will serve.
You not just in the workplace. Ace.
But in your personal life as well.
I think it's one of the reasons I love the work that I do
because it's not just going to help you at work.
It's going to help you in your life.
So I want to share one specific example, connecting all the dots
that we've been talking about today.
So let's say, let's taking this example of your career and your
professional development, and we're going to walk through each
one of these skills and apply it to the question of your Career
in your professional development.
So strategic thinking we're looking at.
What is it that you want to improve?
It doesn't have to be a weakness.
So strategic thinking can include realizing that you will
get more bang for your buck when you focus on your strengths and
simply acknowledge. Yeah, there are some things I'm
not good at and that's okay. I understand that.
I'm not good at them and I am intentionally not going to put
My time there because I put my time and energy on this other
thing. There's a lot more value.
When I do that, you'll notice the higher rep people go.
The more they tend to surround themselves with other experts in
complementary Fields. You don't need to be good at
everything. And in fact, it's often to your
detriment and to the organization.
If you try, this is also where there's going to be huge going
pains. If it's a really small
organization where everyone's had to wear a lot of hats as the
company grows, you'll need to get more.
Specialized more process focused a little bit more Niche, down in
who's responsible for what, and this is where it learning how to
delegate comes in and it can be so hard to let go of
responsibilities. If you feel like you're the only
one, who knows how Do it the way that you want to do it.
So strategic level thinking for your professional development.
What is it that you want to improve this year?
What are the skills that you're going to need for where you want
to go? What is it that you will need to
develop and improve in order to get the outcomes for the
business or for your team or for your customers?
What will you want to develop this?
This year and when you might think strategically in terms of
when is your busy season? When do you tend to get
downtime? When are you going to be
onboarding new people and bringing people into your team
who might be able to then take on some of the responsibilities
that you're going to be handing off?
Like maybe part of your professional development is
getting ready to grow and scale and delegate and getting
everything ready so that when new people come on, they Get up
to speed really quickly, feel successful very quickly and
integrate with the least amount of friction and downtime.
With communication and your professional development.
You may need to research by asking questions or finding out
who do. I need to talk to to find out
about our professional development budget.
Does it cover coaching? Does it cover online programs?
How much money is available? How can I use it?
What's the process for submitting, a approval form?
You might even ask around. And hey, you know, I want to get
really good at my manager. Effective manager skills who in
my organization has done that, they might recommend somebody or
hey, I know this woman chemical, she's amazing.
And I want to work with her. How can I find out what that
looks like how she works? And then how can I find out if
my company will cover that cost the other part of Communication
around professional development is when you have a plan or
wonder you have something that you want, you've identified.
Okay. There's this person.
I want to work with, it's going to cost this much.
We would you know, I want to start at this time.
Here's how it's going to fit in with my other work commitments.
So it won't get in the way of all of my other
responsibilities. Then you will want to present
your idea in a way that makes it easy for the other person to
say. Yes, to you.
And this is both a little bit of strategic thinking.
Like, how are you thinking about, what this person cares
about? Can you present your idea in a
way that is good for them and makes it easy for them to say.
Yes. Can you think through what their
questions will be? Can you think through why this
is going to be an obvious? Yes.
Why it's going to be a great reason.
Do you all have that thinking? So that when you then
communicate and you present, your idea, you do it with
confidence. You've thought through the
different potential questions. They might ask, and you're
prepared with answers so that you can move forward and then
decision making for your professional development.
Watch out. If you're the person who wants
to do all the research, you can spend so much time.
And sometimes you need to be very honest with yourself.
And say, am I truly doing research?
Or am I delaying making a decision?
Now? I tell you this, as a person
who, when I go to buy toothpaste.
I want to look at every kind of toothpaste.
I want to see Are all of my options and then I want to
choose the very best one. So I understand if this is like
you you want to do all the research first.
Yes, but also be honest with yourself and realize is all this
research and going down the rabbit hole of options.
Am I really doing this in order to make a decision or am I doing
this? Because I am afraid of making
the wrong decision. And it is easier to stay in the
research stage because then I avoid making a clear decision
and then committing to going forward.
This is so valuable to know about yourself because part of
being a manager, part of working with these other humans is you
will need to make decisions. You will not always have perfect
information or all the right resources.
You will sometimes need to make the best decision.
You can given the current constraints and the available
information. You make that decision, you go
forward, rather than Les, delay, delay delay, crowdsource, the
answer? Find out what everybody else
thinks it often doesn't help to get more clear.
It actually just makes you feel more conflicted and more
confused because of course everyone has different opinions
and different ideas. So this is what I wanted to
leave you with is as we're moving into the new year.
Take time to think through what will your professional
development roadmap? Look like this year, give some
strategic thought to what you want and why give some time to
the communication piece, both, having conversations and
figuring out who you need to talk to you, to get information
about professional development budget, and the approvals
process, and how all that works and to communicating your
desire. To have a coach or to put your
professional development plan into action.
And practice being intentional around making decisions.
When will you have made your decisions or which decisions you
need to make by when it is really easy to say, I'll just
decide this later and then time just goes by and you'll other
forget about it or you'll become Hasty or you'll just say, oh,
whatever. I'll just do this, you know, you
sort of do it without it being a very intentional and thoughtful
choice. So, think about when you're
going to do what for your, professional development this
year, and I'll close with this. You know, it's the beginning of
the year. It's 2022.
There is a lot of opportunity, not just within Industries.
I think every industry has been going through a pandemic
adjustment, pandemic, shake-up of some kind.
And but also within your own organization.
If you really like where you work, if you really like the
people that you work with, this is still a good time to take a
fresh look at who you want to be, what you want to do and how
you want to do it in this coming year within this organization.
There may be new opportunities that you don't fully see yet,
but they Might be just outside your peripheral vision.
That in fact they may come into existence because you have an
idea and you make a request or you pitch your team or your boss
on an idea that you have. I think one of the things with
the pandemic it softened so many of our assumptions about what
work looks like and this is so advantageous for.
For you, for me for all of us right now.
So consider that as you begin to move into your ear.
All right. Thank you so much for listening
and I'll talk to you again next time 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.
Kim nickel.com and sign up for a coaching console.
It can get better. It can get better.