Welcome to the Bringing the Human back to Human Resources
podcast. I'm Tracy Chernoff, and I've
spent my entire professional career in HR.
Each week, we'll explore the delicate balance between people
and business with the aim to reconnect the two and create
meaningful outcomes. Listen in as I share my own
experiences, challenge the status quo, and chat with guests
from various industries about our mission to bring the human
back to human resources. Hi everyone, welcome back to the
podcast. Thanks so much for being here
for another week. This week I have an incredible
guest on actually who is going to give us a lot of insight into
his book. But I just want to quickly dive
into a little bit of like the overview here before I introduce
you to Eric. Today's episode is really going
to dive us into a book that is as cathartic as it is strategic.
It's called Have you ever had a boss that succeeding in a
dysfunctional workplace by Eric Sharon.
And if you've ever found yourself asking how did this
person get promoted, this episode is for you.
We'll explore toxic managerial archetypes, laugh or cry, maybe
through some real life scenarios, and most importantly,
arm you with practical ways not just to survive, but also
thrive. So let's get into it.
Eric Sharon is a visionary technology executive, author and
thought leader with over 25 years of experience in
transforming global enterprises through digital innovation,
data-driven strategy and AI driven solutions.
Known for his ability to bridge the gap between business
objectives and complex technology, Eric has spearheaded
transformative initiatives at major organizations including
Microsoft and Capital One, where he served as Chief Architect,
bringing substantial advances in cloud resilience, digital
transformation, and data infrastructure efficiency.
His strategic insights and leadership have driven high
impact changes across sectors, optimizing performance and
fostering resilience in industries from finance to
healthcare. And in this book that I
mentioned in Have You Ever Had a Boss?
That Eric draws on his extensive leadership experience and his
understanding of corporate dynamics to offer readers a
guide to navigating workplace challenges, enhancing personal
effectiveness, and fostering A balanced, fulfilling career.
With insights that resonate across industries, he empowers
readers to become more effective leaders and team players, which
is something that we all will love for sure to dive into.
And with a career shaped by a commitment to measurable impact
and a player coach leadership style, Eric is a sought after
speaker and advisor on topics like leadership, digital
innovation, and organizational change, where you'll see his
work continue to influence leaders and organizations
seeking sustainable, innovative solutions in a rapidly evolving
world. Eric, I'm so excited for our
conversation today. Thank you so much for joining
the podcast and for being here. Tracy, such a generous
introduction. Thank you so much.
I'm excited to be here. Of course, of course.
Hey, I always like to say as as much as we draft our own BIOS,
sometimes it's really important to hear someone read it back to
us because it's like, you know, you're living your life and
you're not necessarily looking back on all of the things that
you've accomplished, which is quite abundant.
So kudos to you. Thanks so much.
I have to admit to everybody that I certainly had help on
that. My publicist did a great job in
putting all that together. I don't think I could have
penned it as eloquently. I think we tend to underestimate
our own impact looking back. So it's kind of nice to have
somebody peeking over your shoulder saying that, hey, no,
you actually have done some stuff.
Yes, I agree as I help people with their resumes very often,
especially executives and I sometimes people will get hung
up on certain words and I'm like, no, but you're doing that.
Like that adjective is totally relevant.
Like you're doing that. And you're so right.
We we tend to underestimate ourselves with the exception of
the manager archetypes that we're going to talk about
because they totally overestimate themselves in.
Many cases they do. Right.
Oh my goodness. Well, we have a lot to talk
about, so maybe we just jump right in.
I mean, of course we're we're going to spend a lot of time
talking about why dysfunctional workplaces matter and the impact
that they have and how difficult managers impact employee
well-being in productivity. So I mean, we all, I'm sure,
have our own personal anecdotes on this, but I'm curious if
there was, you know, through your experience, if there was an
inspiration for this book, if there was a dysfunctional
experience that you had lived through.
Yeah, yeah. So I'm a Gen.
Xer, so I've been around for a while.
And when I came out of college and had my first professional
job, I had stars in my eyes, like many folks understandably
do, and they should. But what I quickly became to
began to realize is that the managers who I reported to these
leaders, these people who I ultimately aspired to be right
out of the gates, were flawed individuals that had all sorts
of negative and unhelpful behaviors that I was surprised
with, you know, just coming out of school that people could
ascend to these levels of leadership, but also have such
toxic and we didn't use that word back then, but such
destructive behaviors. And you kind of just if, if, if
I'm kind of remembered casting my mind back to come to my first
experiences, you kind of just are like, OK, this is how it is.
And I just have to deal with this.
There weren't terms like psychological safety back then
or bringing your whole self to work or culture was just like
something that was being thought of purposefully at that time.
And so it was either you put your nose to the grindstone, you
deal with your managers unhelpful behaviors, their
reactions, screaming and yelling at you or berating you.
Like those are things that were commonplace.
And for many leaders, that's how they believe that they got
results was, you know, just challenging people constantly
moving the bar in not a great way, but a negative way and
being being very sparing with praise and not coaching, but
commanding. And So what was interesting is
as I began to work in this these types of environments, it became
very difficult. And I was, I was actually trying
to figure out like, why is this person behaving this way?
And I can't believe this is happening to me.
And it must be me. I must be deficient in some way.
And I got to work harder to cover up for all these
deficiencies that these managers keep finding.
And then I began to realize as I got mid in career or close to
middle and career, which I guess is where I am now, is that these
behaviors tend to repeat across organizations, across teams,
across managers, across individuals.
And it would became very interesting because I'm sitting
in a conference room and I'm just stunned at this manager's
behavior. And I'm like, wait a second,
I've been here before, I've seen this before.
And now I somehow know what to do to kind of navigate through
this. It's no longer shock and horror
and like, Oh my gosh, I can't believe what's happening.
Let me get out of this room. It's I've seen this before.
Let me try to utilize some of the strategies that I've, I've
implemented before to navigate through this.
So that's kind of how I became became to realize that these
behaviors kind of repeat. And then, like, I think your
question was like around the the genesis of the book, like what
meant read me to write this is I think as you get to the period I
am in my career, you start to look back, you start to have a
team members full of like, you know, junior and and and mid
level folks and who are on their own journeys.
And you tend to say, like, if I if they could know what I know,
wouldn't it make their lives easier?
And that's really where the genesis of the book came from.
And it, it finally came to a head when a couple of the, my VP
colleagues and I were kind of sitting around commiserating
about some leaders. And we started kind of just
listing out the, the, the things that we were hates a strong
word, but we were challenged with around some of their
unhelpful behaviors. And we're like, yeah, I'm like,
oh, I've seen this before. And they were like, yeah, I've
seen this before too. Here's what I do.
And here's what I did to get around this.
And here's what she'll, here's what they'll do next.
And here's what you'll you'll need to do to cope with it.
And then we kind of said, somebody said, well, hey,
someone should write this stuff down.
This is great. And I said, you know what?
I'll write it down. And that's how the how the book
came to be. Wow, amazing.
You know, first of all, it's so on the nose because when we
think about dysfunctional workplaces, it is pretty like
it's pretty predictable in the sense that they're what creates
the dysfunction from a leadership standpoint, these
archetypes, which we'll go into are pretty like, again, like
predictable and consistent. Like there's there isn't this
like unknown about a leader that's dysfunctional or creates
a, you know, quote UN quote toxic workplace?
Like they generally fall into one or more of these kind of
categories or archetypes as, as you kind of call it, which is
really fitting considering your career.
Because you probably look at things with a, a focus on not
just like design, but also categorizing like, how do we
like take a look at these things and fit them into like a build
and an understanding of like what can then be replicated.
And so with that, like one of the things that I thought about
when I was reading, especially the first part of the book is
that when we asked ourselves, how the heck did that person get
promoted because they totally suck.
That then tell like sends a message throughout the
organization that that's what it takes to be successful.
And that's when things it's just a snowball effect.
Then other people start to think, oh, well, maybe I just
need to be that type of leader in order to achieve the career
growth that I'm looking for. I think it's probably more like
maybe it's not as celebrated as much like maybe workplaces are
starting to realize that's not what makes someone successful.
But still, we certainly see this.
You're that's so insightful because these behaviors, these
unhelpful behaviors that I ascribe to archetypes, not the
people themselves, are just a function of the wrong tools in
their toolbox. And these behaviors and these
unhelpful tools persist because almost exactly of what you just
said, in many, you know, organizations, a promotion is a
reward. It's the organization saying
that I'm confident that the results that you delivered were
fantastic. And I think if we give you a
team and we put you in a leader position, we can achieve a force
multiplication effect on your abilities.
So congratulations, here you go. And in many instances, having
gone through this myself, you're like, wow, look at look at what
I've been able to achieve. And then like the next day or
so, you're like, OK, now what do I do?
Well, the only frame of reference I have is the leaders
who led me. So I often say leaders lead how
they were led. And if the leader that you had
had a toolbox full of unhelpful tools and behaviors, you're
like, and as you said, you're like that, well, that must be
what it takes to be successful here and to be a leader.
So I'm just going to follow suit and do those things.
And in reality, what I've noticed is for for people,
organizations pay a lot of attention to people that are on
the executive end of things. So people like myself and others
that are managing teams of 500 or 1000 people, there's a lot of
leadership advice, formal training off sites and coaching
that help people in those positions manage that that that
big of a staff. And it's rightly so like that.
Managing that a number of people or greater is a art form in
itself. And it's a much different one
than if you were a early and career manager.
But what I think is underserved in a lot of organizations is
what are some helpful tools that we can give managers before they
start just wrote adoption of what their managers actually
did. I think that that's an
underserved area of investment for professional help.
And there's this constant obsession now in in the
corporate environment of hiring bar raisers, hiring people that
are fantastic individuals, but bringing them in and the talent
acquisition is significantly expensive.
And if you assign them to folks, one of the things I had the
opportunity when I sat with Satya Nadella as part of a
leadership program in my when I was at Microsoft, one thing that
he said that resonated with me is that if people don't quit
teams or organizations, they quit managers.
And if you are acquiring these top tier talented individuals
and you're assigning them to people that have a plethora of
unhelpful behaviors, those people are going to leave.
They're going to look for other opportunities, hopefully within
your organization or most likely outside your organization.
That's a really, really good point.
It makes me think of like how we break the cycle on like toxic
leadership, which is kind of a play on breaking the cycle and
generational issues, you know, like socially or familiarly.
But it it's, it's interesting how there is that crossover
between, you know, your personal life and your professional life
in the sense that we can understand like, oh, if we have
someone in our family that is maybe toxic, let's say, or
dysfunctional or is not necessarily adding positively to
our experience or vice versa, we will say, okay, well, I have to,
I have to cut them out. And similarly, when there's a
imbalance between good someone who's representing good
behaviors and someone who's representing, you know, poor
behaviors or dysfunctional behaviors, depending on the
organization's standards, there isn't a balance there.
And so it, it results in that like push and pull that you're
basically describing. And it's, it's so true, I think
that people do stay and leave because of leaders and that it
goes both ways. Like if someone wants someone
who leads them in a functional way, meaning like opposite of
dysfunctional in a way that's that's positive and progressive,
then you know they are probably going to respond better when
they have a leader who's matching that need for them.
Whereas if someone's like, oh, no, no, no, I see what's what
makes success and dysfunction, is it, even though they don't
see it that way, they're not thinking, oh, I'm a
dysfunctional member of this team.
I'm going to keep doing. They're just thinking like this
is what it takes to be successful.
If they have someone who's trying to help them get to a
different place, it's just not going to be a match.
And it's an interesting, like perplexing place, probably, for
an organization to find themselves in.
Yeah. It's what really resonated to
you about what you said is, like, for those of us that are
parents, you often say, hey, if I ever have kids, I'm never
going to be the same type of parent that my parents were.
And you do get a little bit older and you're like, well,
hey, they did the best they could with what they knew at the
time. But still there are things that
they did in which you're like, I'm not going to do that.
And you tend to soften your your appreciation of what your
parents did as you get older. But you also, I think with every
generation, you become smarter and more knowledge becomes
available. And you don't have to handle
things the way that your parents did, but you could still achieve
the same or better results. It's the same thing with
leadership. You have to, you know, be able
to say, listen, I'm in this position and I don't know
exactly what to do, but I do know that I didn't enjoy this
when I experienced it. And so now I'm going to try to
find a different way to do things.
Yes, I love that. That's a wonderful way to put
it. And I think this is probably a
good opportunity for us to dive into those manager archetypes
that we've been talking about. A few memorable ones for me were
the surprised, the emergency broadcaster, the firefighter,
the raw nerve and the Leafo are last in, first out.
And so we'll, I would love to maybe talk through some of
those. Of course the, the listeners
will have the opportunity to, to get a copy of your book, of
course, but just to kind of go through them.
Maybe we, we take a few and like do a little bit of a deep dive.
One of the ones that really stood out for me was the was the
emergency broadcaster and specifically because I think
that one is 1. That's like extremely, it feels
to me like it's extremely dysfunctional and we'll go
through it. Obviously, all of these are
archetypes of what dysfunctional leadership can look like.
For those of you who are maybe not any of these, that might
mean that you're not a dysfunctional leader.
So don't feel like you have to, you know, prescribe to these
like you shouldn't. Hopefully you're not finding
yourself in some of these, but if you are, then that just means
that maybe we can give you some solutions to overcoming some of
these archetypes. But anyway, the emergency
broadcaster is really like this. Drop everything.
We have a crisis and it's like this constant panic mode, often
disrupting personal time for last minute chaos.
Chaos has no place in my life. I can't, I'm always like, I
can't, it's chaotic. I can't, I'm backing out.
See you later. So can you walk us through that
archetype and and where it tends to come up?
Yeah, yeah, I, I will say before we dive in, I would as I was
writing this, one of the things that I've started to realize is
that, hey, you know what? There are there are some of
these in me, even though I'm actually writing down as I'm
writing, I'm a God. Gosh, I hope I'm not this.
Or maybe I am. Maybe I am the amnesiac which
is. I felt, I felt that when I was
reading, I was like, oh God, am I any of these?
And that's a good, a good stressor, right, to be able to
say that with self-awareness that, you know what, I'm not
perfect and I do have some of these things inside me and maybe
I need to do something different.
But the emergency broadcaster was one I think that we all kind
of live through. And I think is you get, you
know, get on in your career. You know, the the senior leaders
are often underwater overloaded. These folks are responsible for
delivering fiscal results, financial impact to the
business. They have hundreds of thousands
of emails unread in their inbox, Slack messages just blowing
themselves, blowing, blowing up every day.
And in the book, I try to follow a narrative format.
And so I try to use characters that we tell the stories about.
Each one of these stories happened to me.
So in this instance, you know, my manager got a Slack message
at 6:30 AM and that said, hey, you know, I'm looking forward to
your team's presentation today. This is going to be important
for the board to hear. And, you know, managers like
what? Wait a second.
I don't remember that at all. All right.
So now I need to bring everybody together to make sure that we're
we're prepared for this. I didn't know that this was
going to happen today. And so at that point in time,
everybody knows that a vice president's calendar is just jam
packed like days in advance. So the question becomes, well,
when is the only time we can get people together ad hoc?
It's obviously before or after hours.
So this particular manager I had was a fan of the 7:30 AM
emergency meeting. People are in Zoom shaky video
on their phones, their kids are screaming in the back seat as
they're being dropped off at daycare.
People are getting on and off trains, losing signals and
elevators, juggling their phone with their Starbucks cups,
trying to get to the office. And it's all about like, you
know, OK, who's on deck? What do we have to do?
You know, I'm going to need you to do this, Eric, or I'm going
to need you to do this. So and so.
And in many instances, we were like, yeah, we've known about
this for for months. We're prepared.
We sent you the deck last week and you know, it's like, well,
let me see this, let's go through it right now slide by
slide. And eventually you take from
that 7:30 to your 9:00 AM. Now you have no time to prepare
for your own 9 AMS because you are, you know, you know, kind of
scaling up and you know, kind of take the emergency out of this
this particular manager's, you know, awareness and so.
That becomes and by the way, throughout the day it kind of
resurges lunchtime. I have questions about this.
I don't think this slide belongs here.
And then starts the deconstruction of a very well
thought out and put together presentation that everybody's
worked on. And at the last minute you are
running into the meeting, editing slides on the fly,
disrupting very well thought out plans and presentations and then
making the overall stress of your employees and the
presentation and the work suffers.
So that's kind of the emergency broadcaster.
But what's important is to really realize that they're, if
they had a choice and many of these archetypes, if people had
a choice to say, yes, I behave that way or no, I'm not going
to, they would say, gosh, no, I don't want to behave that way.
But it's the only thing that they know how to do because of
all of the different motivations and pressures that they're
under. So it's very difficult as your
kids are screaming and you're on a 7:30 AM call to feel empathy
for somebody that orchestrated that chaos.
But in order for you to actually get through it, to cope with it,
you have to put yourself in their shoes.
So certainly experience the shock, horror and awe and you
know, just resentment. Let it wash over you as best you
can and then get into a position where you're like, all right,
well, how can I prevent the next one?
How can I actually work with my manager to say that, hey, you
know what? We are going to have this
presentation. I'm worried that you haven't
opened the deck. I'm worried that it's lost in
your inbox. How can I actually get in this
in front of you so that you're aware we can get your feedback,
so that we all walk in together, practiced and polished?
This, I'm telling you, this one, I really, it was taking me back.
It took me back to, to sometimes in my career, especially with
some retail leaders that I've worked with.
But honestly, it's like across every industry.
This is not specific to any industry.
It really took me back because I can remember feeling not only
infuriated, but the stress that it caused, like when I had an
emergency broadcaster archetype who I worked for.
And one of the things that I think you articulated really
perfectly is that is like the how to cope with.
Because earlier on in my career, I would just find myself getting
infuriated and I would be like, this person has a lot of nerve
doing this to me when I put all of this effort into something
really good. And then you start to you kind
of like unpack it personally, but to your point, in order to
cope with it in a way that's more positive and more
productive is to really think about, OK, what did that person
go through that created that like sense of chaos for them?
And something that I talk about often, not only in my own
professional life, but also on this podcast is, are really two
things. One, that when people have an
inflammatory response, be the anti-inflammatory, be the NSAID
in this case, like when someone is acting that way, do your best
to deemphasize whatever is causing that chaos.
So like in that situation now, knowing what I know now 10 plus
years later in my career, I would say, Hey, hey, let's slow
down. We went.
We, we, we put a lot of effort into this.
We met a ton of times. Like why don't we just go
through it? And as a matter of fact, if
you're if in many cases, what ends up happening, I feel like
is that leader of the department brings in all of the levels and
rather than, you know, like leveraging or leaning into their
next level leader who can then kind of protect the rest of the
team from that type of chaos. It's just like everybody feels
it. So I would say that
anti-inflammatory there is like, hey, why don't we just meet
offline? Like the team put a lot of good
work into this, like let's just meet.
It's a lot easier than like disrupting 10 people's days, so
to speak. And then the other thing that I
talk about often is managing up and it's kind of this, you know,
it's a, it's a less tangible example of like this
anti-inflammatory analogy that I use.
But when you manage up and you went to your point, when you
think about how you prevent that from happening again, to me,
there's like a closing the loop on feedback and there's a how do
I manage my manager so that they don't annoy me again and they
don't disrupt my day the way they did in that moment. 100%
managing up is actually a lot of the advice that I give that I
actually talk about how to do it diplomatically without engaging
in CLMS, as we used to call them, career limiting moves.
But what's that? What's that saying that people
say when, when couples break up, it's not you, it's me, it's the
reverse. It's not, it's not you, it's
them, right? They are the ones in, in many
cases, right? Not all of them, but in many
cases, these behaviors have nothing to do with you.
It has everything to do with them and the pressures that
they're under and the, the, the, the stress involved in walking
in their shoes. But you are 100% right in that
managing up is a skill that is an absolute necessity.
The question becomes, and how do I do that?
And that's really what I talk through in the book, not just by
telling people what I think makes made me successful, but
how you can actually do it through illustrated examples.
But one of the things that I think early and career folks are
often challenged by is the concept of managing up.
These people are kind of like The Avengers of the Justice
League, right? Like they are, they have been
anointed and by the organization with these powerful positions
of, of, of leadership and influence.
And you are at the other end of that.
You're one to two years in, you're maybe a few months in and
you're like, well, I, I, there's obviously I need to learn.
The learning goes one way here. And that means that whatever
they do, I need to learn from. There's not anything that I
could possibly teach this person, which is 100% false.
Everybody can learn from everybody and having a growth
mindset enough to realize that is what's super important.
The other thing is you have to be able to not descend into what
I call like the negative spiral. So I'm sure for those of us that
have been around for a while, you just everything just becomes
a self, self enforcing prophecy in which the world is out to get
you. And I often tell people like if
you seek negativity, seek an instance where somebody's
against you, you'll find it. Whether it's real or not, you'll
find it. But if you make the choice, and
this is not on the non clinical end of things, of course, if you
make the choice to be positive and you say that not what do I
have to do today? What do I get to do today?
What's in my ability to influence and control that has
put you in a much better mindset so that you can approach these
reverent figures and these people have our economic and our
their our career potential in their hands.
But that doesn't mean that you can't gently steer and guide
them to to grow as along with you.
So they're on their own journey as well.
And so it is fully within the realm of your capability to say,
listen, I think there's a smarter way to do this.
The key is, though, getting them to a position where they're
willing to hear your advice. I often say that being right is
maybe like 50% of the battle. The other 50% is emotionally
identifying with the person so that they feel that you
understand and so that they are in a position to accept your
advice. I've been at the other end of
that. I have a howitzer full of data
and examples of how you're, you're about to run this team
off a Cliff. And I'm 100% right.
But if they are not interested in hearing that, they're going
to bind to the emotion that they used in making the decision.
They will go deeper and they will tune out any logic or data
associated with with, you know, the opposing view.
Yeah. Protect your peace, folks.
I mean, I think this is something that I've really, I've
kind of learned this the hard way.
Frankly, I would invest so much energy into like as an HR
partner saying, hey, we've got to do things differently.
This was not okay. And taking the I'm right
approach first rather than how are you?
Like, where did this come from asking questions?
Why did you make this decision? Why did you react that way to
build that kind of the to your point like that, that connection
based on trust and understanding.
And I learned the hard way. And, and if it didn't, it wasn't
like, Oh, I learned it once and then like I applied a different
practice. I had to like learn it a few
times before realizing or go through it a few times before
realizing, Oh, wait a second. If someone just told me that,
you know, or just came to me and was like, oh, you did this, You
didn't do this the right way like this.
These are all the things that you caused.
I wouldn't be so thrilled either.
So it's like, how do you, even if you have great relationships
with people, it doesn't mean that they're going to be open
immediately just because of that.
So building the rapport to your point where you create you like
allow them to drop their guard and you create an environment
where openness is felt and appreciated.
Then it's much easier to share your feedback or your advice
without it coming off like, you know better and that they know
worse and that they've done a poor job.
Even if that is the case. And I'm, I'm glad I learned
that. But I think that this is where
like with this, with this podcast, for example, if we can
teach people in a way where they don't have to learn the hard
way, we're going to, we're going to cut right to the chase like
so much faster. And I actually had a leader who
would say to me, hey, if you don't have to spend years
learning this and you can just like, take what I'm saying and
apply it, you're going to save yourself a lot of headaches.
And so now you know that that really helped me to think about,
oh, like, I'd rather not learn the hard way, actually.
Like, let me figure out what I can do differently so that I'm
not like constantly faced with this uphill battle where to your
point, when someone has an emotional reaction, you are
being dragged down into this deep, deep hole and you're like,
wait, how did we get here? But it's like you kind of
contributed to that because you didn't think, you know, 5 steps
ahead into what this person's reaction would be and avoiding
that whole spiral. Yeah, you're so right.
It's, it's the way I think about it is you achieve understanding
through empathy and then you can convince somebody of something.
And that's that's really the thread that runs through the
entire book. Yeah, it's so true.
It's A and I like the narrative approach that you take because
of that. It's like, Oh yeah, I had a
leader that was kind of like that.
They did something similar. And then when you get to that
second part of the book where you really talk about the coping
skills and building resilience and growing your manager, which
is what we're really talking about here, and managing up as a
career skill. It's like, oh, wait, yeah, there
are things that that are in my control, as a matter of fact,
that can improve or reduce the chaos or the dysfunction or the
that feeling of stress that the, the receiving party, so to
speak, or that I in this case, or someone else is feeling as a
result of some of these more dysfunctional archetypes.
And then one of the other archetypes that really stood out
to me was the surprised. I think, you know what?
Of course, these are probably some of the more common ones
considering, I mean, I've actually there's some archetypes
that I've never experienced, like for example, the last and
first out. I've never experienced that.
Whoever the surprise, I definitely have the like, why am
I just hearing about this now? Like always being blindsided and
you're like, what are you talking about?
I sent you like 3000 and emails about this.
You confirmed receipt. We talked about this in our
one-on-one the other day. Why are you wasting my time?
That's the emotional response that at least I've had before.
And ultimately, like the impact is that it undermines the teams
trust and it's just like it creates all these breakdowns.
And then there's like this blame game and it's this whole thing.
And one of the OR two of the coping strategies that I really
liked that you shared were the proactive verbal communication
followed by documentation. And this is a great example of
managing up because we know that especially as HR partners, we
encourage managers to do that with their teams.
So when you flip it and you're the, the team member managing up
and you talk it out with the person, this is the proactive
verbal communication followed by the write it down or
documentation approach. Then you are proactive about
preventing something like that in the future.
And it's very easy to just like forward an e-mail and say, see,
we, we talked about this like you want to take some time to
review it before we meet, you know, and then it, it kind of
keeps you not in the driver's seat, but it keeps you in the
position where you can not feel so out of control.
That's exactly right. Like I when I was when I was
writing this and I had a couple of executive colleagues of mine
kind of read this. They're like, this is like being
in an Uber with your family and the driver just at the stoplight
gets out of the car and leaves and you're all in the car and
you're like, wait. What the hell is it or not
that's. That's really what the surprise
manager archetype makes you feel like from a team perspective and
working for this individual. And you're 100% right.
It's like, how can you not know this?
How can you? And the answer is, again, they
are under extreme pressure. They could have personal things
going on in their lives that's upsetting the apple cart.
And it's that empathy and then these techniques that you can
use to manage up. The one thing I will say is that
for all these archetypes, it's very important to diplomatically
inform your manager that these behaviors are impacting the team
in not so terrific ways. And that I think together, what
we can do is XY and Z, after you've empathized, after you've
got them to a point where they're willing to listen, then
you can say, listen, this is, this is not the best for the
team. And any manager is going to be
interested in making sure that the team is happy.
And and that's certainly altruistically important, but
it's also because at many organizations, they do these
pulse surveys in which manager compensation is based on how
well you are re rated by your team.
So there's a, there's a financial, fiscal and career
interest in managers making sure that the team is happy with the,
with the jobs that they're doing in their leadership.
So those two things are are kind of critical in in making sure
that you find the right way to dispel some of these behaviors
which persist in silence from leader to leader.
Totally, totally. I, you know, when I think about
the surprised archetype and I, I think we'll, I, I want to make
sure we also get to some of the takeaways because I could talk
about these archetypes probably for another 40 minutes just
because it's really so fascinating.
And when I think about the surprised archetype, it's there
is an element here where I think when we think about like the the
emotional reaction that that causes for someone who's
extremely committed and highly responsible, it feels like their
work doesn't matter. It feels like they put in hours
of effort, all of this energy for someone not to notice.
And certainly there are members of the team who really just
don't don't care and they're like, yeah, whatever.
Like I'll just kick the can down the road.
And we know that this is also an archetype where you're like, ah,
we'll deal with it when it's on fire.
But I think like, especially considering there are when we
think about larger teams, or frankly, I guess it's really
applicable to smaller teams to where you might have people who
are really focused on their career growth that is so
impactful. And when we think about going
back to your point that people stay and leave for managers, if
they consistently have that type of manager leading them, and
maybe they're newer in their career and they haven't
developed those coping skills yet, they're out.
They're not staying because they're like, oh, well, you're
not. You don't feel any commitment or
responsibility to me. You don't actually care what I'm
doing, even if that's not the case, but that's the emotional
response. And so rather than coping with
it and making improvements to prevent it in the future, they
just leave and they find a different place.
Yeah, there there's this unwritten contract, I think
between a manager and employees that the manager should amplify
and provide visibility to a team's great work, whether
that's individual team members or it's, it's, it's the team as
a whole. Your job is to have your team
members stand on your shoulders and then be able to kind of help
you, you push them up. And when that doesn't happen,
like you said, career minded individuals that are focused on
career velocity are going to say, not only am I dissatisfied
with these unhelpful behaviors and these archetypical
challenges, I don't actually find it the interesting to stay
here because this person is not amplifying my efforts.
And in fact, they're doing the opposite.
They're constantly switching things like in the LIFO case,
which is the last thing that that manager hears becomes the
most important thing that the team does, drop everything else.
And the people are kind of like, what?
This was going to be something that was going to be impactful,
something that was going to deliver results.
And now you're telling me that I have to switch to this thing.
And listen, that happens in business.
But at the same time, if it happens every time there's an
executive meeting, then it becomes something that's more
fatiguing, right? And you don't get that
opportunity to deliver things and to be amplified.
Totally, totally with that, I think, I'm sure that there are
listeners who are like, oh man, I have to read this book because
my manager falls into one of these.
What are some takeaways that people can walk away with?
Like, of course, there's part of this which is like identifying
what archetype their leader might fall into if they are
dysfunctional or even maybe some of the the opportunities that
their leader has might fall into an art.
Like, they might be a great leader, but they might have, you
know, we all are not perfect as we've talked about.
But it's like, of course, I'm sure there's part of that is
identifying what that looks like.
But in terms of like really being able to apply coping
strategies, like what would your recommendation be for listeners
who really want to have an actionable take away?
Yeah, I think there's, there's two lenses that I, I think about
the answering that question through the 1st is if you are a
leader and you are in charge of folks and you do have to deliver
results and you are underwater in terms of, you know,
communication and, and you know, what you have to, to work on and
what you have to deliver. Definitely read through the book
through the lens of like, am I, you know, is this me in some
element? And if it is, then say, you know
what? I need to own up to that.
And this is how it impacts people and I need to get better
at it. And this is the strategies that
I can use to get better at those things while at the same time
utilizing these very strategies to manage upwards.
If you are somebody that's subject to some of these
archetypes, the interesting thing to realize is that it's
not has very probably has very little to do with you as a
person, even though it feels that way or you as a
professional. It has everything to do with
them and the stresses that they're under.
Achieve understanding through empathy so that you can grow
your manager that you can utilize these techniques to
provide a preparedness to like you said, I'd like your your the
phrase you used earlier, protect your piece.
That's super important, but ultimately you're going to reach
a tipping point where you might recognize that even though
you're trying to implement all of these important strategies
and they're the exact right thing to do, you're doing the
exact right way, it's just not being effective or it's just not
being effective in a time frame that you're willing to invest
in. So to that, to folks in that
situation, I say know your worth.
Make sure that you understand that when it is time to leave
that you do so not running from a situation.
But looking towards additional opportunities and knowing your
worth, meaning that not necessarily financially,
although that's important, but knowing your worth and what
you're capable of doing and what your talent is and that you can
say, listen, I'm going to make a conscious choice to look for
something because I'm going to leave this manager.
That's super important. Yeah, thank you so much for
that. I think it it's totally relevant
and hopefully the listeners will really feel inspired by looking
at these things with a a less inflammatory response because we
all can be inflamed by these things.
And in terms of where listeners can find the book, of course,
we'll link everything, but where could they pick up a copy of
your book and start to break down how they are as leaders or
maybe some things that they want to ensure they are paying
attention to or how they can apply some of those coping
strategies that you've talked about?
Yeah, absolutely. From a logistical perspective,
it's available on Amazon, of course.
Have you ever had a boss that it's available at all major
booksellers and retailers? If you don't see it, ask for it.
It's either there or they can get it for you.
Love to hear what folks have to say about it and really looking
forward to understanding if it if it helps people.
From what I've heard so far, people are gravitating towards
the archetypes and the coping strategies.
And what I really tried to do is to write it in a way in which I
demonstrate how the coping strategies can be implemented
through a narrative frame and then what the potential results
can be. But ultimately, my hope is that
people walk away from this feeling empowered, feeling that
they are not subject to these behaviors, that they can observe
them and respond to them and grow their managers.
Amazing. Well, Eric, thank you so much
for not only writing this book, but also for sharing your
insights on my podcast this week.
I think it's going to make a huge impact.
Dysfunction and workplaces is something that I am DM D and
emailed about constantly. So I think that this will really
help to give people solutions and kind of give them a little
bit of control back in their lives, which always feels good
for anyone so. Excellent, Tracy.
Thanks for having me on. Of course.
Thank you so much. And for the listeners, you'll
find everything in the show notes.
You can click links very easily there.
Eric, thank you so much. Thanks so much.
Hey, just before you go, don't forget to subscribe to the show
so that you are the first to hear when an episode drops each
week and maybe leave a five star review and a comment about how
much you love this episode. Plus, if you have someone in
mind who would really enjoy this episode, make sure you share it
with them. Thank you so much for tuning in
and I'll see you next week.