The Modern Manager

Do you ever feel like you are sandwiched between upper management and your team members? Being a middle manager is tough, especially when you’re feeling the pressures from all sides. Learning to manage up as well as down will make your job much easier, and make you a rockstar middle manager. Donald Meador has survived mergers, promotions, re-organizations, and downsizing. He is an author, award-winning speaker and the host of the podcast “The Corporate Middle” where he answers the most common middle management questions. We talk about the challenges of being a middle manager, how to approach autonomy so that it builds confidence and not a sense of desertion, how to manage up when your boss isn’t giving you the support you want, what to do when you’re handed unrealistic expectations, and how to lead your team when you don't believe in the work you’re doing, and how to make your boss successful so that you’re successful.   Read the related blog article: Leading Successfully From The Middle.   Join the Modern Manager community (www.mamieks.com/join) win 1 of 5 copies of Surrounded by Insanity: How to execute bad decisions. You must be a member by April 21, 2020 to be eligible.  You can also win 1 of 5 copies of Start At The End: How to build products that create change. You must be a member by April 14, 2020 to be eligible.  If you work for a nonprofit or government agency, email me at mamie@mamieks.com for 20% off any membership level.   Subscribe to my newsletter to get episodes, articles and free mini-guides delivered to your inbox.    Help me write my new book! I’m researching what makes a manager great to work for. Share your story and experience at www.managerialgreatness.com Help spread the word, too! Share the link with friends and colleagues.    I want to work directly with you! Learn more about my one-on-one coaching services or complete this intake form to see if coaching is the right next step for you. (www.mamieks.com/coaching)   KEY TAKEAWAYS Being a middle manager is tough because there is no preparation for it and you’re responsible to people above and below you. Managers, especially senior ones, want you to bring them solutions, not problems. There will always be firsts for you as a manager (first time firing someone, sharing bad news, etc). If your manager isn’t helpful, find someone who can help you through these situations. Great managers facilitate their team members to find the answers. They ask questions like ‘what do you think we should do?’ or ‘what are your instincts telling you’. This shows support while providing autonomy. When going to your boss for advice, come in with a recommendation or options,  and ask for their input or perspective. This is a great form of managing up. If you’re given an assignment with an unrealistic deadline or goal and you’re unable to sway the decision-makers to modify it so that it's attainable, you need to communicate early and often on the status. Share challenges that will inhibit you from accomplishing the goal on time. People are not logical and we’re terrible at projecting timelines. So it's likely that no matter how often or how strongly you share that the goal will be missed, your boss will still be disappointed.  Sometimes you need to lead your team to do work that you don’t believe in. (unrealistic expectations, poor strategy, etc) Be candid with your team members about the issues you see, but also affirm that the team needs to do its best regardless. By pointing out flaws ahead of time, you minimize the chances that the group will disagree or be deflated. Look for the one or two perceived benefits of the work. Point out what the group will learn, develop, gain, etc and why it’s worth the effort. As a manager, it's likely you will make an unrealistic request of your team and some point. Give your team an opportunity to voice their concerns and truly listen. Take their ideas into consideration as they often know more than you do. Focus on making those around you successful - your team members and your boss. When you make them successful, you’ll be successful. Understand what your boss cares about so that you can align your work with what they need. Ask your boss what opportunities they see, what they’re excited about.    KEEP UP WITH DONALD Website: thecorporatemiddle.com/ Book: Surrounded by Insanity mamie@mamieks.com

Behavioral psychology has typically been used to help therapists provide effective counseling and designers build better products. But we all can benefit from insights about how our brains work. When we apply these lessons to our own work, we can positively impact our teams and our organizations.  Matt Wallaert is a behavioral scientist working at the intersection of technology and human behavior. A multi-exit entrepreneur and product expert, he is passionate about focusing on behavior as the outcome of everything we build. He is the author of Start at the End: How to build products that create change and no matter where he is, Matt will be in cowboy boots and gesturing wildly.  Matt and I talk about behavioral psychology and what happens when you think about management as a service, how to use promoting and inhibiting pressures to guide behavior and create an ideal environment, how to set objectives and run pilots to measure process and outcomes, and gather learnings and so much more.    Read the related blog article: Try These Behavioral Science Strategies For Managing Team Behavior.   Join the Modern Manager community (www.mamieks.com/join) win 1 of 5 copies of Start At The End: How to build products that create change. You must be a member by April 14, 2020 to be eligible.  If you work for a nonprofit or government agency, email me at mamie@mamieks.com for 20% off any membership level.   Subscribe to my newsletter to get episodes, articles and free mini-guides delivered to your inbox.    Help me write my new book! I’m researching what makes a manager great to work for. Share your story and experience at www.managerialgreatness.com Help spread the word, too! Share the link with friends and colleagues.  I want to work directly with you! Learn more about my one-on-one coaching services or complete this intake form to see if coaching is the right next step for you. (www.mamieks.com/coaching)   KEY TAKEAWAYS It’s difficult to manage people if you haven’t articulated what behaviors are desired and why. Promoting pressures make something easier and more likely, while inhibiting pressures make something harder and less likely. As a manager, you can influence behavior by designing promoting and inhibiting pressures. Develop yourself and others to have both deep expertise and broad interests. Spend time learning in your area of specialty and learning in a wide variety of topics even if they’re unrelated to work.  Collaborate with your team to design tests or experiments for how you make the experience at work better. Be clear about the outcomes the team is responsible for to ensure the experiments support the outcome achievement.  Reflect on the experiments and iterate based on the learnings.  Use both outcome goals and process goals. Outcome goals describe the final state or achievement while process goals describe actions you take.  Measure performance based on outcome goals. Use process goals to help you understand why outcomes are being achieved (or not). Write a behavioral statement that explains the behavior you desire for which population under what circumstances (motivation and limitations).  Teams struggle to work with other teams when it’s unclear where the boundaries are and who is responsible for what. A behavioral statement can make it easier for everyone to understand your team’s role. Good standardized processes open up creativity and enable greater autonomy. It reduces the cognitive load on your brain and allows your mental energy to be focused on the important and valuable topics.   KEEP UP WITH MATT Website: mattwallaert.comTwitter: @mattwallaert mamie@mamieks.com

You’ve planned a thoughtful agenda, sent materials as pre-work, and done everything in your power to set the meeting up for success. But then...someone takes the conversation off track. Or keeps bringing up old business and wants to rehash a decision. Or won’t stop talking. These disruptive meeting behaviors can make it hard to accomplish even the best planned meeting objectives. Effective meeting leaders are prepared to facilitate through these moments of tension to keep the meeting on track.  The full episode guide includes an overview of five common disruptive behaviors and how to facilitate through them. Get it when you join the Modern Manager community or purchase the full guide atwww.mamieks.com/store.     Get the free mini-guide at www.mamieks.com/miniguides.   Subscribe to my newsletter to get episodes, articles and free mini-guides delivered to your inbox.    Learn more about one-on-one coaching at www.mamieks.com/coaching. I’d love to help you implement the learnings and unleash your potential as a rockstar manager.   Read the related blog article: Put an End to These Disruptive Meeting Behaviors.    Key Takeaways: Most people aren’t intentionally being disruptive. They’re simply unaware of the impact of their behavior. By making people self-aware or clarifying expectations, many people will begin to self-regulate. Disruptive behavior 1: going off on tangents. This happens because the agenda isn’t clear, they’re particularly excited about a topic, or something is on their mind that is holding their attention.  When the conversation goes off track, acknowledge the new topic and suggest returning to the agenda at hand. Offer to schedule a follow up specifically on the open topic and use a backburner to document off-agenda topics for future discussion. Disruptive behavior 2: hogging the mic. This happens because extraverts talk to think, people struggle with being succinct, and/or time does not feel urgent. When someone is taking up all the air space, offer to speak with them another time in order to ensure you hear from everyone during this meeting. Disruptive behavior 3: naysaying or revisiting old content. This happens when something feels unsettled or the person is emotionally distracted.  When someone is naysaying, help them put their work in perspective of the larger effort. Acknowledge their concern and offer to address it outside of the meeting.  Reinforce that this meeting has a particular agenda or focus. Include a ‘devil’s advocate time’ on the agenda for everyone to share any concerns. Disruptive behavior 4: someone is distracted by their technology. This happens when people shouldn’t be in that meeting, they’re bored or have a lot on their mind. When people are distracted by technology, gently encourage them to put it away inn order to participate. Start by establishing norms for tech use.  If addressing the behavior during the meeting is not effective, talk to the person one-on-one to let them know how their behavior is disruptive to you and/or the team and engage them in finding an appropriate solution.   Additional Resources: Episode 10: Effective Meetings with Elise Keith mamie@mamieks.com

We live in a world of distractions. Between the endless buzzes and notifications, and the biological desire for dopamine, it’s almost impossible to expect anyone to concentrate and stay focused for more than 20 minutes. Yet that is exactly what is needed if we want to do deep, meaningful work. Jake Kahana believes that we can live a healthier life and do our best work by creating  structures and environments that combat digital distraction. He is a cofounder of Caveday, a company established to maximize productivity for individuals and corporations through facilitated focus sessions and deep work training. As a founding US faculty member with The School of Life, Jake teaches workshops in emotional intelligence for corporate teams. He speaks at conferences and companies around the world on creating a relationship to our work that is healthy so that our other relationships can thrive. Jake and I talk about the challenges of dealing with so many distractions, shallow work, good habits, the difference between productivity and accomplishment, creating a distraction-free environment to do deep work, and how to minimize disruptions and create deep work spaces as a team, even if you’re virtual.   Read the related blog article: Master the Lost Art of Concentration by Working Inside the Cave   Join the Modern Manager community (www.mamieks.com/join) to a 10-day free trial of Cave Day. If you work for a nonprofit or government agency, email me at mamie@mamieks.com for 20% off any membership level.   Subscribe to my newsletter to get episodes, articles and free mini-guides delivered to your inbox.    Help me write my new book! I’m researching what makes a manager great to work for. Share your story and experience at www.managerialgreatness.com Help spread the word, too! Share the link with friends and colleagues.    I want to work directly with you! Learn more about my one-on-one coaching services or complete this intake form to see if coaching is the right next step for you. (www.mamieks.com/coaching)   KEY TAKEAWAYS We touch our devices up to 5,000 times per day. It’s become habitual. But it’s OK to be bored. It’s OK to let your mind wander.  We spend too much time doing shallow work like checking email, slack, or quick tasks that make us feel like we’re being productive, but ultimately don’t make progress toward goals. Shallow work feels good in the moment but very unsatisfying at the end of a day, week, or month because nothing important has been accomplished. Sharon Salzberg offers this idea: Imagine your brain is your mental home. Just like your physical home has a door and you control who enters, you need to control who and what enters your mental home, and when.  Just as you go into your home and expect no one to bother you, you can go into your cave, put away devices, turn off notifications and give yourself the mental break from distractions and freedom to focus.  We actually do better work when we focus and take breaks from being ‘always on and always available.’ It’s not unprofessional to turn on away messages or close down your messaging app for a few hours.  Create your cave by setting up a distraction-free environment. Put your phone in airplane more and out of reach and out of sight. Turn off all notification or close down all non-essential apps. Clarify what work you will do during your cave time and what you won’t do such as check email. Work in 45 minute segments while in the cave.   Create caves with your team whether you’re in person or virtual. If virtual, get together via video conference during the cave time so you can help hold each other accountable.Share what you’ve accomplished at the end so you can celebrate together. We do better when we’re in community with others. That’s part of the power of a collective cave. We like being seen and acknowledged by others, and we want to do our best when being observed by others. Working is not equivalent to sitting in front of a computer. Know what you want to accomplish each day so that you can leave work and give you full attention to your family, self, etc. Because when you have a healthy relationship with your work, you can have healthy relationships in your life.   KEEP UP WITH JAKE Website: https://www.caveday.org/ Twitter: @jakekahana and @caveday mamie@mamieks.com

Whether you’re leading a single team or an entire organization, you can’t deny that culture plays a critical role in your experience at work. The challenge is that culture is hard to design, cultivate, and sustain. It’s often the small things that make the most difference. So what can you do to shape a strong, healthy culture? Tristan White is the founder & CEO of The Physio Co, a unique healthcare business that ranked #1 on BRW’s list of Australia’s 50 Best Places to Work in 2014. The Physio Co has ranked as one of Australia’s 50 Best Places to Work for ten consecutive years (2009-2018), along with being named one of the Best Workplaces in Asia from 2015-2018. Tristan is also the author of Culture Is Everything: The Story And System Of A Start-Up That Became Australia's Best Place To Work. Tristan and I talk about the four secrets to powerful culture that Tristan has learned over more than a decade of leading and growing his own company. We take a deep dive into execution and appreciation - how to do those to critical activities in alignment with your values whether your leading one team or an entire organization.   Read the related blog article: How To Design and Implement The Optimal Workplace Culture   Join the Modern Manager community (www.mamieks.com/join) to get a free digital e-book of Culture Is Everything so you can discover even more of Tristan’s insights into building a strong, healthy culture. If you work for a nonprofit or government agency, email me at mamie@mamieks.com for 20% off any membership level.   Subscribe to my newsletter to get episodes, articles and free mini-guides delivered to your inbox.    Help me write my new book! I’m researching what makes a manager great to work for. Share your story and experience at www.managerialgreatness.com Help spread the word, too! Share the link with friends and colleagues.    I want to work directly with you! Learn more about my one-on-one coaching services or complete this intake form to see if coaching is the right next step for you.   KEY TAKEAWAYS Based on years of experience building his own company, Tristan developed the Culture is Everything system which is composed of four parts: (1) Discover the core, (2) Document the future, (3) Execute relentlessly, and (4) Show more love. Discover the core is all about having a clear purpose for why the organization exists. It should be short and sharp.  In addition, it includes identifying three - five core values that describe how the team behaves. These should be action statements not just words or phrases.  Document the future focuses on creating a vision for where the business is headed. It starts with a 10-year Obsession - what we will achieve in ten years - which acts as the North star. Create a 3-year Painted Picture Vision that is a stepping stone on the path to your 10-year Obsession. This enables you to start to see how you will get there in the long run and create an opportunity for celebration. Execute relentlessly is when you live your purpose, values and vision. You must have a robust recruiting process that attracts (and retains) the right people. Show more love is the final component which emphasizes the importance of leading humans by showing more love to your clients, team mates, and everyone around you. When you hire and retain the wrong people, it’s very hard to sustain (or build) the culture you aspire towards. Consider running a daily huddle as one way to keep your team connected to you and each other. Choose an unusual time for this meeting e.g. 9:27am and don’t let it run longer than 15 minutes. Ask two questions: What’s going on? Where are you stuck? And: nominate or share a story of one person who lived the core values. Don’t try to solve the problems during the huddle - that happens after in a follow up with the people who are involved. By sharing stories of people living the core values, we reinforce them, give praise and show love, and keep them top of mind for people. Be connected to your team members so when something is going in their life outside of work, you know about it, or when their behavior is unusual, you recognize it. This way, you can be there to support them by letting them know you’re there to help if/when they want it. Small acts can be really powerful. Include a budget to send flowers, handwritten cards, etc for special occasions and milestones, both joyful and sorrowful. If you’re a virtual team, be sure to use video meetings in addition to a chat or texting app. Share pictures of your weekend activities, vacations, family, etc to help feel more connected to each other.   KEEP UP WITH TRISTAN Twitter: @tristanjwhite  Instagram: @tristanjwhite Facebook: facebook.com/tristanjwhite/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/whitetristan/ Website + special bonuses: https://www.tristanwhite.com.au/modernmanager/   RESOURCES Special bonuses from Tristan: https://www.tristanwh...

Good intentions just aren’t enough when it comes to being an inclusive leader and creating an environment that truly embraces diversity. I learned that the hard way. It requires a personal journey in which you learn about yourself and others, but by doing so, you are able to become an empathic and inclusive leader needed to build a thriving team in which all people flourish.  Jennifer Brown is a leading diversity and inclusion expert, dynamic keynote speaker, best-selling author, award-winning entrepreneur and host of The Will To Change podcast, which uncovers true stories of diversity and inclusion. As the founder, president and CEO of Jennifer Brown Consulting, her workplace strategies have been employed by some of the world’s top Fortune 500 companies and nonprofits to help employees bring their full selves to work and feel Welcomed, Valued, Respected and Heard℠. Jennifer and I talk about what diversity and inclusion really means, the personal journey of engaging in being a more inclusive leader, what you can do to support your learning, and a whole lot more. And, you’ll hear about my own learning journey when it comes to implicit bias and being an inclusive leader. This is deep and challenging work and it is so important.   Read the related blog article: Start Your Journey of Inclusive Leadership With Small Steps   Join the Modern Manager community (www.mamieks.com/join) to get 20% off JBC’s upcoming DEI Foundation’s course which will equip you with the knowledge you need to meet the challenges of this changing world of work so you don't get left behind. Learn more about the course at: https://jenniferbrownconsulting.lpages.co/   If you work for a nonprofit or government agency, email me at mamie@mamieks.com for 20% off any membership level.   Subscribe to my newsletter to get episodes, articles and free mini-guides delivered to your inbox.    Help me write my new book! I’m researching what makes a manager great to work for. Share your story and experience at www.managerialgreatness.com Help spread the word, too! Share the link with friends and colleagues.    KEY TAKEAWAYS Embracing diversity and inclusion is more like building a new muscle than putting on a pair of glasses. It requires noticing and making different choices. There are visible and invisible forms of diversity: Gender, Race, Ethnicity, Sexual Orientation, Disabilities, Mental Health, Neuro-Diversity, Veteran Status, Age, Parental Status.  Unconscious bias exists in everyone and it doesn't make us a bad person. Being well intentioned or holding morally just values is not enough because bias lives below the surface. The important thing is to admit to yourself that you have unconscious bias so that you can start to recognize your own thoughts and see how bias is showing up in the world around you. The business world was built by and to work for a small segment of the population, which is predominantly male and white. Bias is hardwired in the system and often leaders are perpetuating this biased system. The Inclusive Leader Continuum has 4 stages: (1) Unaware - people don’t think there is a problem, I’m not responsible, and/or I think diversity is important and that’s enough.  (2) Aware - understand that not everyone is bringing their full self to work, actively trying to learn about the experiences of others, putting yourself in new/uncomfortable situations. (3) Active - you chose to use your knowledge and learnings, make different decisions and use different language, be public about your journey and seek feedback, take risks and be willing to make mistakes, apologize when you do or say something that misses the mark. (4) Advocate - work towards system change, advocate for and lift up others, work publically and behind the scenes. When you activate your learnings, you will make mistakes and you need to hear the feedback and keep going. You cannot disengage for fear of offending people because by opting out, you are unwilling to learn and are therefore enabling the status quo to continue. We must all contribute to shifting the workplace culture. It cannot only be the responsibility of people who are in the minority.  Intent is not the same as impact - to have positive intent but not understand the actual impact of your behaviors and words is the same as being unaware. There is such a narrow vision of what a leader looks like that when we don’t see people “like us” in leadership roles or as our colleagues. Take the free Inclusive Leader Assessment for yourself and with your team:  Reflect on how often are you in a room in which you’re the only person who identifies or presents in a particular way? If rarely, we need to put ourselves in those positions more often so we can be a more empathic and inclusive leader. Select areas of diversity that you could learn more about and seek out spaces and sources of learning. Find a trusted ally who can give you feedback and help you reflect and grow on your own journey. Share stories with our colleagues, broaden our understanding of what diversity means, and start bringing more of our full selves to work so that we can live into what actually exists. As a manager, you must role model and be vulnerable in sharing who you are and your journey. You cannot expect others to do if you don’t lead by example.   KEEP UP WITH JENNIFER Twitter: https://twitter.com/jenniferbrown Instagram: @jenniferbrown...

Decision-making can be one of the most challenging aspects of a manager’s job. You want to empower your team, but worry about whether they’ll make a decision that derails the project or negatively impacts your stakeholders. Finding the right balance is easier than you might think once you have a model for determining which decisions should be delegated and a clear method for identifying who will be engaged in the decision-making process and how.    In this episode, I’ll walk through a few different decision-making models that should help give you some frameworks to apply to your decision-making. We’ll cover how to think about who owns which decisions, different ways to be involved in decision-making, and different processes for making decisions.     The full episode guide includes an overview of each of the models. Get it when you join the Modern Manager community or purchase the full guide at www.mamieks.com/store.       Get the free mini-guide which includes the risk/changeability matrix at www.mamieks.com/miniguides.     Subscribe to my newsletter to get episodes, articles and free mini-guides delivered to your inbox.      Read the related blog article: Make Better Decisions Faster     Key Takeaways: When decisions are made by those closest to the work, decision quality and speed go up.  Research consistently shows that when decision-making authority is shared, productivity goes up, trust increases, and employees are more engaged. Fears around decision-making are essentially fears around risk. To determine what constitutes a risky decision, consider the impact (high/low) vs changeability (high/low). Decisions that are low impact/high changeability are very low risk and should be delegated. Decisions that are high impact/low changeability are very high risk and should generally be owned by the appropriate level of leadership. To ensure the best thinking in included in a decision, use the RAPIDS model: (R)eccomend - who is offering the options and making a recommendation? (A)gree - whose input must be included and who must agree with the decision in order for it to stand? (P)arameters - who sets the scope or boundaries of the decision and what’s acceptable? (I)nput - whose input is needed or who has an important perspective to consider? (D)ecide - who is actually making the decision? (S)hare - who must be informed of the decision after it’s been made?  Create a RAPIDS model before a project or decision is begun in order to avoid ambiguity or frustrations down the road. When making a decision as a group, there are generally 3 models: Concurring - everyone agrees to the decision, Majority Rules - a vote is taken and the majority wins regardless of the strength of the nay votes, Consensus - everyone is comfortable going forward and agrees not to block or undermine the decision even if they dont agree with it.  To gauge agreement, use a Fist of Five - Hold up the number of figners that correspond to your position: (5 / full hand up) I fully agree, (4) I’m 80% in agreement, (3) I’m neutral, (2) There are a few things I don’t agree with, (1) I’m against this decision, (0 / fist) I’m actively against this decision and would try to undermine it or walk out.  For Concurring decisions, everyone must be at least a 4. For Consensus, everyone must be at least at 3.  mamie@mamieks.com

Despite our best efforts, it's hard to ignore gender in the workplace. Gender roles and stereotypes have been reinforced in us since birth. Often, we don’t even realize our unconscious gender biases and their impact. If we truly want to create a work environment that rewards on merits, we must address gender with eyes wide open.  Andie Kramer and Al Harris, they are married practicing lawyers. They have been mentoring women and speaking and writing about gender communication for more than 30 years. They offer women unique, balanced, and highly practical advice they can use to prevent gender biases from slowing or derailing their careers. Andie and Al also present arresting information and compelling examples for male audiences to make them aware of and sensitive to the gender biases that hold women back—even in the most well-intentioned organizations. This power couple provides organizations with concrete, non-disruptive suggestions for workplace changes that will make women’s career opportunities more comparable to men’s.   Read the related blog article: The Surprising Truth About Gender Bias in the Workplace   Join the Modern Manager community (www.mamieks.com/join) to get 3 tip sheets from Andie and Al:  Gaslighting Tip Sheet: This guide offers nine tips on how to respond when women are told they are imagining gender bias.  Preventing Interruptions: This sheet provides tips on how to avoid being interrupted, and what to do when you are interrupted. Saying “No”: This guide walks you through the thought process of What to when you are asked to do something that won’t advance your career. Join by February 11, 2020 to be eligible to win a full behavioral, motivational, and axiological analysis and a 90-minute debriefing. These tools will gather information about your brain type, communication type, motivational orientation (what moves you), emotional consistencies (what emotions you rely on for decision making), effective nature, default instincts, emotional needs, self-esteem, self-direction, practical thinking, structured thinking, work/role-awareness, etc. One member will be drawn at random but you must join before February 11th, 2020 to be eligible.  If you work for a nonprofit or government agency, email me at mamie@mamieks.com for 20% off any membership level.   Subscribe to my newsletter to get episodes, articles and free mini-guides delivered to your inbox.    Help me write my new book! I’m researching what makes a manager great to work for. Share your story and experience at www.managerialgreatness.com Help spread the word, too! Share the link with friends and colleagues.    KEY TAKEAWAYS Gender stereotypes have no basis in fact. The differences among women are just as prevalent as the differences between men and women. Each person is their own unique being. People expect women to be kind, communally focused, and soft, so when they’re direct and results-oriented, we (men and women alike)  ‘punish’ them. Yet, women fight to not be held to traditional feminine expectations. The “Goldilocks dilemma” occurs when a woman experiences this challenge: (1) If I’m nice and kind, people like me and want to work with me, but don’t give me important work to do. (2) If I’m strong and assertive, I’m competent, but nobody wants me on their team. Gender stereotypes are ingrained in culture from the moment we’re born. They are reinforced throughout life which makes them very hard to even recognize or be aware of. Men need to recognize that women have it tougher than women in almost every work environment. Men need to pay extra attention to including women on their teams, giving them equally challenging assignments, and not treating women with extra sensitivity.   Because leadership of organizations is predominantly male, there is by default a culture in which the values, the norms, the expectations revolve around a masculine view of the workplace. This is challenging given home life is often gendered in most families too, with greater obligations on the women. The interplay makes it much harder on women than men. To help equal the playing field, managers can offer more flexible work policies. They can offer women opportunities despite any reservations about the woman’s family pressures, allowing the woman to decide for herself.    KEEP UP WITH ANDIE AND AL Twitter: https://twitter.com/AndieandAl;  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andreaskramer/ Website: http://andieandal.com/ mamie@mamieks.com

With so much emphasis on employee engagement programs, there is very little emphasis on the root cause of employee dis-engagement. Despite the overwhelming research on the negative effects of employee dis-engagement, very little is actually being done to move the needle. No amount of money or attention on employee reward programs, wellness efforts, or engagement programming will make a difference if we don’t address the underlying issue.   Tevis Trower helps organizations optimize their most precious assets: humans. As a “corporate mindfulness guru” she has served clients in over 70 markets, clients include HBR, YPO, PWC, KKR, Soros, Bloomberg, Viacom, Google and AOL/HuffPo on mindfulness, executive lifestyle, mastery, innovation, and sustainable success. She's a forever beginner guitarist, snowboarder and surfer. Tevis and I talk about the power of the beginner mindset, the root causes of employee dis-engagement, how to gain perspective on your own behaviors that could be contributing to a poor culture, and the challenges of trying to change the leadership above you.    Read the related blog article: Why Isn’t Your Employee Engagement Program Working?   Join the Modern Manager community (www.mamieks.com/join) by February 11, 2020 to be eligible to win a full behavioral, motivational, and axiological analysis and a 90-minute debriefing. These tools will gather information about your brain type, communication type, motivational orientation (what moves you), emotional consistencies (what emotions you rely on for decision making), effective nature, default instincts, emotional needs, self-esteem, self-direction, practical thinking, structured thinking, work/role-awareness, etc. One member will be drawn at random but you must join before February 11th, 2020 to be eligible.  If you work for a nonprofit or government agency, email me at mamie@mamieks.com for 20% off any membership level.   Subscribe to my newsletter to get episodes, articles and free mini-guides delivered to your inbox.    Help me write my new book! I’m researching what makes a manager great to work for. Share your story and experience at www.managerialgreatness.com Help spread the word, too! Share the link with friends and colleagues.    KEY TAKEAWAYS When you have high expectations of yourself and you’re in the beginning or early stages of your skill development, it can be hard not to judge yourself. Instead, especially in areas that are for fun (e.g. hobbies) and you won’t ever be an expert, give yourself permission to be an “always beginner.”  An “always beginner” has the mindset that I’m learning exactly what I should be, I’m as far along as I should be, and I’m enjoying this moment for what it is without the pressure of seeing it as a only a step to some desired future. It’s challenging to live the values we preach inside our organizations. Just knowing them and believing in them is not enough. As individuals, we’re not good at examining our own behaviors and how they are disconnected from the values we promote (e.g. respect, teamwork, appreciation for the whole self, etc) People get on board conceptually, but until there is a leader who is willing to do the work on themselves, and provide the resources for others to do that deep behavior-change work, the values won’t come to life. Beware of hiring a C-suite level role to ‘deal with’ the culture problems. These challenges below to the entire C-suite and shouldn’t be designated to one person.  Ask people for feedback - directly or anonymously - on your behaviors to help build self awareness. Do an inventory of your life over the past 1-5 years of all the things that have gone wrong and all the worst interactions you’ve had at work. Look at each of them as if it was a movie: look for how your actions or choices contributed to the issue or interaction. What themes emerge? Hire an external person that you are paying for in a formal relationship to be your source of truth and wisdom because we can never fully see ourselves honestly. That formality forces you to take it seriously, show up, and know they’re doing their job to the best of their ability. When you do this for yourself, it will trickle down to the people on your team, but likely won’t trickle upward. To manage up, it often takes an external consultant to work with leadership. Too often, we avoid speaking hard truths to those above us in order to protect ourselves, but change cant happen if we’re all functioning from a place of fear.   KEEP UP WITH TEVIS Twitter: https://twitter.com/CorporateYogi LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tevistrower/ FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/BalanceIntegration/ mamie@mamieks.com

Motivation is a complicated beast. Almost every manager questions how to best motivate their team members at some point. External motivators can only take us so far. The real magic happens when we align internal motivators with the work context. Then, you don’t have to motivate people at all - they’ll motivate themselves. Steve Sisler is a Behavioral Analyst, speaker and author. Steve's consultation involves personality difference, leadership strategy, cultural differences, and temperament strategy. Working with clients in more than 18 countries, Steve gathers behavioral and attitudinal information on individuals within corporate settings and develops strategies for effective leadership, teamwork, and entrepreneurial success Steve and I talk about motivation, how to position your job and those you hire so that the way you naturally think is what will make you successful in the role, the sad reality of self-esteem, simple things you can do to be a rock star manager, and what to avoid doing.   Read the related blog article: How Motivation And Self-Esteem Influence Performance And Success    Join the Modern Manager community (www.mamieks.com/join) by February 11, 2020 to be eligible to win a full behavioral, motivational, and axiological analysis and a 90-minute debriefing. These tools will gather information about your brain type, communication type, motivational orientation (what moves you), emotional consistencies (what emotions you rely on for decision making), effective nature, default instincts, emotional needs, self-esteem, self-direction, practical thinking, structured thinking, work/role-awareness, etc. One member will be drawn at random but you must join before February 11th, 2020 to be eligible.  If you work for a nonprofit or government agency, email me at mamie@mamieks.com for 20% off any membership level.   Subscribe to my newsletter to get episodes, articles and free mini-guides delivered to your inbox.    Help me write my new book! I’m researching what makes a manager great to work for. Share your story and experience at www.managerialgreatness.com Help spread the word, too! Share the link with friends and colleagues.    KEY TAKEAWAYS The optimal way to motivate people is to align their internal drive with the work setting so that they are self-motivated. It’s almost impossible to get someone to consistently think or act in ways that don’t feel natural to them. Your job as a manager is to figure out each person’s motivators and help create the context for them to thrive. When you put people in a situation in which their natural inclinations align with what the circumstances call for, they will automatically be motivated. There are 7 motivational spectrum: (1) Originality, (2) Individualism, (3) Efficiency, (4) Power, (5) Sacrifice, (6) Regulation, (7) Theoretics. People who succeed at management roles tend to be those who have already displayed the behaviors of great leaders. Great managers spot those leadership behaviors and elevate those employees rather than offering a promotion and hoping the person will be a good leader. 84.6% of the population has low self-esteem. Many managers use their role as a coping mechanism. Having power or being in a role of authority makes them feel better about themselves.  To rewire your brain so that self-esteem does not inhibit your success, focus on celebrating the positives and accepting praise without internal negative commentary. One thing that almost always trumps motivation is whether you believe your manager cares about you. If you do, you’ll bend over backwards to meet their needs and expectations. If you don't, no amount of motivation will inspire you.   RESOURCES: Book - Nine Lies About Work by Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall    KEEP UP WITH STEVE Twitter: https://twitter.com/stevesisler Website: https://www.stevesisler.org/  mamie@mamieks.com