Management Café

Virtual not Distant•www.managementcafepodcast.com

Season 4: Join co-hosts Tim Burgess and Pilar Orti as they chat about what they've learned through their time leading teams. Season 3: Oh No, My Team's Gone Remote! Seasons 1 and 2: Improve your management and leadership practice over a cup of coffee and get a book recommendation too. The role of the manager is evolving as technology helps us to self-organise and take more control of how and where we work from. In this podcast, Pilar Orti from Virtual not Distant, dissects modern management practice, not just for official managers, but for team members who want to make things happen too.

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Episodes

MC37 The multiple aspects of meetings

It's hard to imagine a manager without meetings. As leaders we don't just participate, we also need to run great meetings. All sorts of interesting and unique things can happen when people come together for a group discussion. And yet many of us have a love/hate relationship with meetings. 1:30mins Tim explains what he likes about meetings. 2:30 Pilar recalls the frustration that comes when the enthusiasm generated in a meeting doesn't actually result in actions. 5:00 We discuss how leaders can ...

Dec 12, 2022•22 min•Ep. 37

MC36 Manager or psychologist?

When do we stop being a manager and cross into therapy? Understanding and analysing human behaviour is an essential skill for managers. But most managers aren't professionally trained psychologists. How should managers be emotionally supporting their direct reports and what lines should they not cross? 0:50mins Where do we draw boundaries as an employer and employee? 3:30 Is it the manager's job to help people express their emotions? Pilar recalls this great scene from the show Superstore. Mateo...

Dec 05, 2022•15 min•Ep. 36

MC35 Developing people

Managers have a responsibility to help their people discover and sustain the best version of themselves. But is this just in the context of our specific role and responsibilities? Or can we use work as a place to practice being a better human being? Tim and Pilar dive into people development. 1:50mins What sort of environments are conducive to personal development? It can be different for each person 3:45 Pilar talks about the sort of person who thrives in high pressure and stressful situations....

Nov 28, 2022•23 min•Ep. 35

MC34 Is delegation hard?

Handing tasks and responsibility to others is at the core of management. This is easy in principle but sometimes hard in practice. Tim and Pilar discuss delegation over coffee. 2.00 mins. Does some of this loneliness come from feeling like we can't share as much with our team members as we'd like, and also they don't share as much with you as they might if you were a team member? Tim remembers the line "Complaints always go up, they never go down", from Saving Private Ryan. 4.27 mins. Is the rec...

Nov 21, 2022•19 min

MC33 The loneliness of leading

There's a degree of separation from your team members when you lead a team - and this sometimes can lead to feeling separated, and even lonely. Who should we rely on to get us through it? Pilar and Tim discuss this over coffee. 2.00 mins. Does some of this loneliness come from feeling like we can't share as much with our team members as we'd like, and also they don't share as much with you as they might if you were a team member? Tim remembers the line "Complaints always go up, they never go dow...

Oct 31, 2022•21 min

MC32 Finding our motivation to lead

Management is a tough job. It's not for everyone. Managers need motivation to get up and do their job day after day. Tim and Pilar explore what keeps them going. 2:40mins Pilar's secret sauce is the joy of collaboration. She explains why this is important to her and details the wonderful behaviours she sees when a team collaborates really well. 7:00 We talk about the relationship between the team's results and the manager's motivation. If the team doesn't deliver results then motivation is defin...

Oct 24, 2022•18 min

MC31 Dealing with poor performance

One of the least fun aspects of management is raising issues of poor performance with team members. Tim and Pilar share their own experiences and learnings along the way. 2:00mins Giving performance feedback to a friend, one of the few occasions Pilar needed to seek advice and the one piece of advice that helped her have a difficult conversation. 4:30 What we've learned from the book Radical Candor by Kim Scott 5:00 Tim shares why, if you value the relationship with the person, feedback can be h...

Oct 17, 2022•27 min

MC30 Moving from an individual contributor to manager (part 2)

What changes when you become a manager? Pilar and Tim continue talking about how boundaries and relationships shift when you move into leadership . 1.10mins It feels different to be promoted in a team where people already know you, than being promoted into a new team, where you start with a clean slate. With a new team you can change your behaviour if it helps you, but in a new team, the change will be visible and might jar. Pilar has an example of someone behaving "like they thought a manager w...

Oct 10, 2022•17 min

MC29 From Individual Contributor to Manager - part 1

What changes when you become a manager? In this episode Pilar and Tim explore how boundaries and relationships shift when you move into leadership, amongst many other things. 1:30 Typical paths into leadership roles and Tim shares his own journey. 3:20 Can managers be an unnecessary layer? Do all teams need a manager? 4:20 We go deep on what are the actual responsibilities of a manager. 8:10 The benefit that can come from offloading some of our responsibilities to our manager. 9:50 Back to discu...

Oct 03, 2022•21 min

MC28 Imposter Syndrome for Managers

Are we as competent as people think we are? In this episode Pilar and Tim dive into imposter syndrome . 1:30 We try to define imposter syndrome in our own experience 3:20 The positive aspects of imposter syndrome. Referencing an HBR article Pilar shared about how Impostor Syndrome Has Its Advantages . 5:30 We explore how imposter syndrome is about how we perceive our own competency within the context of how others view our capability. Pilar quotes Adam Grant "I don't know what I'm doing. It's on...

Sep 26, 2022•19 min

MC27 How do We Learn about Management?

Pilar and Tim share how they learn and develop their leadership practice. 1:50 Tim's largely self-taught experience of management 3:00 Where to look for information about being a good manager 4:00 We discuss role models and whether our role models are aware of their influence on us 5:10 Promoting managers based on skill vs seniority, should management be the main goal for being promoted? 6:30 Tim shares his best sources for management inspiration 7:45 Tim mentions the book Powerful by Patti McCo...

Sep 19, 2022•20 min

MC26 What is our awareness of being a manager before we become one?

In this episode Pilar and Tim explore our first perceptions of management and how that influences the way we develop as leaders. To find your own style of management it helps to understand your beliefs about management and how they might change over time. For example even before we start working we form opinions about leadership via people like teachers and parents. We discuss how this translates to management within the workplace and how it impacts our core beliefs about concepts like relations...

Sep 12, 2022•19 min

MC25 First experiences of leading others

In this first episode of our new season, Pilar and Tim give some background to their professional history. We talk about how our age and experience has influenced our leadership practice. For Tim much of it was learning on the job at Shield GEO and Pilar had leadership responsibility from an early age through theatre. We both share the belief that leadership should be helping people to grow and develop. We try to understand the concept of management beyond a corporate environment. Humans organis...

Sep 05, 2022•19 min

MC24 A Swift Hello from our 2 Co-hosts

Management Café is back... with a new co-host! Meet Tim Burgess, reconnect with Pilar Orti and find out what we are planning for the new season of Management Café.

Jul 31, 2022•11 min

MC23 Applying Lean Thinking to your Leadership Practice

A first for this podcast, Pilar has a conversation with a guest! It was recorded a while ago, but like all the Management Café episodes, the content is evergreen, so we hope you’ll enjoy hearing from Anish HIndocha. This episode is brought to you by Virtual not Distant, where we help leaders and managers of remote teams. https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/ Anish Hindocha is a “lean consultant, with a slight bent towards culture transformation” Lean thinking takes the lean principles developed by ...

Feb 28, 2022•19 min

MC22 Preventing Isolation in Remote Teams

In today's episode, Pilar shares what she learned from the 21st Century Work Life series on Connection and Disconnection in Remote Teams. (Episodes WLP221, WLP223, WLP225, WLP228, WLP231, WLP233, WLP235 - summary here: https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/podcasts/reflection-connection-disconnection ) This episode is based on the article written for HRZone back in May 2020: Five Steps to Preventing Isolation and Disconnection in Your Remote Team The five steps for managers looking to reduce the ris...

Mar 29, 2021•17 min•Season 3Ep. 22