Management Café

One of the pressures we can feel as a manager is the pressure of attention. We watch our managers closely. We analyse their behaviours and motivations. We guess at their intentions. And this informs our judgements about cultural norms and which behaviours are encouraged or discouraged. In fact, the attention of our team gives us the opportunity to be a positive influence through role modelling. We can use their attention to encourage people (including us!) to adopt behaviours that we think are important. TIME CODED SHOW NOTES 00:50 min All eyes are on you as a manager whether you want it or not. 2:30 There's a difference between acting as you think a manager should act vs role modelling the behaviour that you want the team to exhibit. Both scenarios can have us acting in ways that might feel unnatural or uncomfortable. In this conversation we are talking about consciously role modelling behaviours that we want to see in our teams. 4:45 Pilar shares a story of a manager who wanted a "team" but didn't contribute to team initiatives. 6:30 It's important for our team members and for us as individuals that there is consistency between how we tell people to act and how we act ourselves. Don't be Rishi Sunak trying to show his common touch by paying for petrol, when he'd never used a contactless card machine before. 8:30 Culture is established through our actions, not our aspirations. 9:30 People might not mimic a leader's bad behaviour, but Tim thinks it still moves the atmosphere of the team in a bad direction. 10:30 If we want to encourage something like collaboration, it's useful to think of the individual behaviours that contribute to collaboration and then role model those behaviours. 12:00 Role modelling behaviours that we find challenging can make us more aware and understanding of others who are also trying to be better. 14:00 Tim plagiarises Stephen Covey from The Speed of Trust. We often judge others by their actions but judge ourselves by our intent. 15:00 It's not just our actions that need to match what we are trying to role model. It's also how others are interpreting those actions. Pilar shares some examples from her acting career of how this can become disconnected. 16:00 We can start incorporating role modelling into our leadership practice just by thinking about what behaviours are important in our environment and whether we are a good example of those behaviours. What about you, dear listener? Have you used role modelling with your teams? Or seen examples of it going wrong? We'd love to hear about your experiences! Get in touch through our Contact Form https://managementcafepodcast.com/contact/ or tell us on Twitter - we are @managementcaf

For this episode we used a different format. Pilar and Tim spotted a question in a community they're members of, and with the permission of the poster, we've chosen to discuss it over coffee. This was the question: "Remote workers are faking enthusiasm. As a manager, I struggle to assess the motivation and engagement of my remote workers. Employees are very good are presenting a positive image during check-ins.This makes it very hard to identify issues and provide targeted interventions to improve productivity and job satisfaction. This makes me hesitant to allow working from home. I know that enthusiasm does not equal productivity. But I see lack of enthusiasm or faking enthusiasm as an early warning sign of quiet quitting. Do you have any advice?" 2:45 min Workers can fake enthusiasm in any environment, but it is easier to manage how you present yourself when your interaction is mostly online. 7:15 It sounds like this manager feels something might be going off track and that the disengagement is an early sign of it. 8:00 Does the manager need their team to feel engaged because it helps the manager feel good about their own performance? Or is it just about the team member's attitude and performance? 9:00 When we don't know what is happening our imagination fills in the gaps. Tim finds the reasons his brain makes up are much worse than the actual explanation. So he has to be careful about jumping to conclusions. 11:30 Having longer one-on-ones might make it harder for the person to fake their enthusiasm. And spending more time together can deepen the relationship. 14:20 Is there another space besides a one-on-one where the person can explain how they are feeling? 16:00 Lara Hogan has an excellent question for her first one-on-one meeting with someone: "How will I know when you're grumpy?". 17:45 When team context changes, like going remote or returning to working from an office, you almost have to treat it like a new team. 19:30 There is an underlying question about the workplace and culture where people are faking or suspected of faking: what is stopping people from behaving authentically? What about you, dear listener? Have you managed people who were faking it? What did you do? We'd love to hear about your experiences or if you have a question you'd like us to chat about! Get in touch through our Contact Form https://managementcafepodcast.com/contact/ or tell us on Twitter - we are @managementcaf

We reference this book all the time. In today's conversation we learn why Radical Candor resonates so much with us and how we've used it in our own work. The core principles of the book shouldn't really feel radical, it should be commonplace to care about the people we work with and tell them our honest thoughts and feelings. And yet for many of us this is hard to do. Radical Candor challenges us to be vulnerable with our emotions and more adaptable in our communication. This can be particularly uncomfortable for managers. We don't like to hurt or upset people, especially those we care about. But our job can require us to give critical feedback. Or even firing people. Many managers can be tempted down the "it's just business" path to protect themselves by maintaining strong boundaries and hiding their true feelings. One of the wonderful gifts of this book is that it gives managers license to care. And we applaud that in the Management Café. What about you, dear listener? Have you read Radical Candor? Did it resonate with you? We'd love to hear about your experiences! Get in touch through our Contact Form https://managementcafepodcast.com/contact/ or tell us on Twitter - we are @managementcaf

As a manager our success is really dependent on the success of our teams. Yet there is something a bit topsy-turvy about the idea that managers are responsible for the motivation of our people. Much of motivation is intrinsic, most people inherently want to do good work. In fact often times work, even the work of the manager, can get in the way of people's natural motivation. If the manager's responsibility is to remove obstacles for the team... are there times when we should remove ourselves? 00:00 min Pilar has always wanted to write a book about motivation at work and the role of the manager. The title of the book? "Get out of the way". 1:30 Tim misinterprets this and starts worrying about his own motivation. 3:00 Pilar quotes Bob Glazer from episode 323 of the 21st Century Work Life Podcast: "Becoming a leader means changing all your reward centres, from getting rewarded for what you do to getting rewarded for the performance of your team." 4:30 It is important that our manager cares about us. 5:50 Pilar notes the big difference between trying to directly motivate people versus creating the conditions where someone's intrinsic motivation can thrive. 7:45 Motivation can come from many different sources and is very fluid. So maybe instead of trying to create motivation, we should start with being curious about their current motivations. 9:30 Managers can help put things into a different perspective. Reframing can be an effective tool in helping people unblock their intrinsic motivation. 10:00 We don't always have to fix motivation. Motivation can dip and it's ok. Managers can help with reframing. 12:30 Self-determination theory says if we don't have autonomy, competence and relatedness then motivation will suffer. Managers should identify what might be impacting these attributes and try to change it. There are many actions that the manager alone can perform because of their role and influence. For example, advocating more broadly across the organisation or changing the success metrics on a project. 14:45 Pilar and Tim believe that most people genuinely want to do their best at work. This is an important starting point because if you trust that someone has that basic mindset, you don't need to create motivation. It's already there, you just need to encourage it. 16:45 Pilar references the head, heart and hand framework. This can help dig into why someone might be struggling and what could unblock them. 18:00 One of our greatest sources of motivation occurs when we master something that we used to find difficult. The period of struggle is important because it provides context to our achievement. 19:45 Ultimately we agree that managers should use a coaching approach towards motivating their people. What about you, dear listener? How do you motivate your teams? Does your manager have ways to motivate you? We'd love to hear about your experiences! Get in touch through our Contact Form https://managementcafepodcast.com/contact/ or tell us on Twitter - we are @managementcaf

Jeff Bezos called the one-pager the "smartest thing we ever did at Amazon". And everywhere we look there are best practices and frameworks which worked wonders for big & successful organisations. So why do they often fail when we apply them in our organisations? We propose that best practices are not something to "lift and shift". Adopting practices without a proper assessment is risky. But going too far the other way can be it's own trap. We can dismiss something too quickly if we haven't bothered to understand the context behind it. Instead they can be a starting point for finding the solution that works best for your organisation. 1:30 min We start with a healthy degree of skepticism about the one-pager. If people weren't doing their homework before a meeting, is the best solution to force them to do their homework in the meeting? 2:30 We like, in principle, the idea of people starting a meeting with the same understanding about the context. 4:15 Pilar points out that this practice prioritises one way of consuming information. It doesn't work for everyone. 6:45 We speculate what problems this solution was designed to solve and what the culture was like to create those problems. 8:15 Tim references Sarah Cooper's satirical book "100 Tricks to Appear Smart in Meetings: How to Get By Without Even Trying". 9:00 Tim talks about how many times he failed when applying someone else's process. And he shares the approach that ultimately worked for his company. 11:15 We might experience the same issue but it's important to understand any differences between the "best practice" organisations and ours. Their solution might only be suited to a similar context or company culture. 16:00 Tim shares how they changed the atmosphere and improved engagement at the leadership meetings at Shield GEO. 20:15 If people aren't preparing for the meeting because they didn't have time beforehand, maybe that needs to be addressed? What about you, dear listener? Have you had success introducing other people's best practices? We'd love to hear about your experiences!

A quick voice note to let you know that we'll be back in a couple of weeks. Until then, let us know if you have any questions you'd like us to answer on the show, or any topics you'd like us to tackle. Get in touch through our Contact Form https://managementcafepodcast.com/contact/

The notion of a manager as a protector of the team is deeply embedded. After all, a primary part of any manager's job is to remove roadblocks and distractions so their team can stay focussed on their objectives. But it's not always easy to decide what will distract the team versus what might be helpful to them. Should the team know when a storm is forecast? When a storm is happening? And how much context do they need about the storm itself? Pilar and Tim explore some of their experiences with sharing or withholding information. 0:40 min Choosing what to filter information and what to share is hard! 4:30 Tim talks about keeping a big secret from his employees. 6:15 Sometimes additional information just makes the situation worse. 9:20 Pilar shares an example of protecting someone by withholding negative feedback. 11:40 Tim references Patty McCord's fantastic book "Powerful", in particular her saying "humans can hear anything if it's true". He shares a time that he successfully practiced this with his daughter. But when Pilar imagines the situation with an escalation... Tim becomes very unsure what to do. 14:20 Pilar shares a terrific story of a theatre group taking extreme lengths to withhold information. 16:30 The manager's role is to judge the situation and what the impact might be on the team and individuals. 18:10 Tim talks about one of his managers who was particularly good at shielding him from the rest of the organisation. What about you, dear listener? Do you have a framework for deciding what you share with or withhold from your team? We'd love to hear about your experiences! Get in touch through our Contact Form https://managementcafepodcast.com/contact/ or tell us on Twitter - we are @managementcaf

We tend to miss the smaller moments of achievement. Our focus is often on big organisational or team goals, huge milestones where we come together to celebrate (like the 50th episode of Management Cafe!). But in today's coffee catchup we are talking about more personal achievements. The sort of things which seem less consequential on the surface but can have an outsize impact on our performance. "Small-c celebrations" can tap into our deepest personal motivations as a manager, highlighting the behaviours which matter most, sustaining us during hard times and protecting us against burnout. 0:40 min A lot of progress is too gradual to notice and big wins are wonderful, but also ephemeral. As managers this can leave us struggling to find things to celebrate. 4:40 As leaders we are often focused on team success and tend to ignore our own achievements. 7:00 Managers, like everyone else, benefit from recognition. Recognising and reinforcing good behaviours helps us improve. And remembering the good times and our good qualities can help us when things aren't going so well. 10:40 Pilar suggests personal celebrations can be a strategy to protect against burnout. 13:00 This practice helps us understand which parts of work give us the greatest satisfaction or motivation. This can be very handy when navigating difficult situations. 15:50 These moments might be more personal or more frequent. But that doesn't mean they are small to you. What about you, dear listener? Do you have "small" moments that you treasure? How do you celebrate them? We'd love to hear about your experiences! Get in touch through our Contact Form https://managementcafepodcast.com/contact/ or tell us on Twitter - we are @managementcaf

Is it just us, or does it feel like the last few years have been a particularly torrid time for managers? Managers have always been the interface between employees and their organisation. They act as a kind of translator between the two. In recent years there have been extraordinary challenges in both directions of those relationships. And all this against a backdrop of pandemics, social polarisation, economic uncertainty, tight labour markets and of course the remote work / back to office / hybrid merry-go-around. It's been a lot and managers have been caught in the middle time and again... 0:30 min We reference an article by Gallup showing +20% of all managers are experiencing burnout. 3:30 "Managers are constantly stuck between frustrated leaders and team members. They are the translators and scapegoats." 5:15 How can you lead effectively when you yourself feel detached from your organisation? 7:15 Experimenting with new practices like the 4-day work week can be an additional load for managers. 9:00 It's particularly difficult for managers who are tasked with addressing the symptoms of problems in their teams (e.g. burnout) but denied support in fixing the cause of those problems (e.g. unrealistic deadlines). 10:45 A lot of manager support was informal and linked to the "in-office" experience. In a remote or hybrid setup, what has taken it's place? 14:00 Going along with something that you disagree with can be really painful. 16:30 Sometimes as managers we have to "sell ourselves" on the story first so we can then deliver an effective message to our teams. But it can be a slippery slope. 18:15 We send our sympathy, support and solidarity to all those managers feeling tired and burnt out. Pilar references how our burden can be lightened just through knowing that we are not alone in our struggles (from the book Chatter: The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters, and How to Harness by Ethan Kross). What about you, dear listener? How are you coping? Have you been feeling burnt out? We'd love to hear about your experiences! Get in touch through our Contact Form https://managementcafepodcast.com/contact/ or tell us on Twitter - we are @managementcaf

Many leadership journeys start with a natural career progression: we get promoted to manager and leadership is viewed as just another work task. Over time this evolves into a broader understanding. It's a challenging job. We will get tested in all sorts of ways. And it can be an opportunity to learn so much about ourselves, to grow as a person and build invaluable skills. But we all have to start from somewhere. And the way we manage is heavily influenced, even constrained, by the culture and expectations of our organisation. When we change organisations we often have to adapt the way that we lead. So in all this complexity how do we develop our own leadership style? 00:00 min Pilar's leadership journey began at a very young age but has evolved a lot in later years as she wrestled with the tension of getting her way versus bringing everyone along together. 5:00 Tim wonders what his experience of leadership would have been like if he had known it was going to be a journey and an opportunity for personal growth. 6:20 Our level of skill as a leader is linked to our level of self awareness. We should always be working on our own leadership practice at the same time as we are working towards our team goals. 8:00 Leadership provides us with a unique opportunity to learn about ourself and others. 9:30 Should organisations have an homogenous style of leadership? It can be hard to develop our own style when so much of how we act is defined by the conditions of our organisation. 15:25 New managers are more likely to role model the behaviour they see in other managers. 16:30 Michael Lopp's "blue tape" approach to starting a new job. 19:00 We discuss a structured way to develop leaders through different learning phases. Noticing something that they want to act on, thinking through the outcome they want and how they will approach it, taking those actions and then afterwards to reflect on how it went. What about you, dear listener? Have you found a style of leadership that works for you? How did you come to it? We'd love to hear about your experiences! Get in touch through our Contact Form https://managementcafepodcast.com/contact/ or tell us on Twitter - we are @managementcaf