061: How reflecting on wins makes you a better manager

Your team can tell when your vibe's off, even when you're faking it really good in a great way to get that vibe back on track to get in that high vibe space is to be practicing appreciation, celebrating the wind, a little bit of gratitude and asking yourself, what is something I did well? What is one win I can celebrate as a manager today, or this week.

Welcome to the managing made simple podcast, where I bring a decade of experience working in some of the most influential companies in tech to help you navigate the ins and outs of being a people manager from conflicts to feedback to delegating and more. We will leave no stone unturned when it comes to what makes us love managing kind of hate it and everything in between.

Doesn't matter if you're a new manager looking for some tips or a seasoned manager looking to up their game? Everyone is welcome to hang out with Managing Made Simple. Let's go. 

As a team leader or business owner, you're no stranger to wrestling with some of the toughest situations that come up as a manager. But sometimes you need a little bit more support and you don't have the time to spend researching on the internet or taking a bunch of canned trainings. That is why I am so excited to share the Managing Made Simple Hub.

Your one stop shop to everything you need to be a great manager. The Hub is an interactive community offering a monthly live Q&A Ask Me Anything call where you can bring up anything that's top of mind. Along with curated resources and tools, monthly challenges, exclusive discounts on my services, and conversations with experts.

Best thing is, there's no long term commitment and you can hop in and out anytime. Sign up today at liahgarvin.com/hub and I cannot wait to see you in our next live Q&A session.

Welcome back to the show. It is the middle of summer, the birds are chirping, the sun is shining, we have record heat waves all over the country and world, and today, I wanted to talk about something a little bit more upbeat.

Okay, a lot of times we talk about things that we're wrestling with as managers and there's a time and a place for that. But there's also a time and a place to talk about what is going well. And today I want to talk about the importance of recognizing wins, of, of continually making space to acknowledge the things that are going well.

Because as managers, we're always getting it like from both ends, right? If we are in the corporate world, we got our team members and maybe we have our own managers, our stakeholders, our executives, changing priorities, asking for different things all the time. If we're small business owners, entrepreneurs, we have our team members and then our clients and our investors and whoever else that's breathing down our necks for things.

So it can always feel like you're in this pressure cooker. And when you're in a pressure cooker, well, let's be honest, it can feel like nothing you ever do is enough, nothing's ever right. And it's in thinking in these absolutes, always, never, everything, nothing, that, that get us stuck because we don't see what else is possible.

So today I want to remind us of one of the most powerful tools that I use in my work. It is the central theme of my book, Unstuck, which is the power of reframing or looking at a challenge through a new perspective and just asking yourself the question, what else is possible? What else might be true?

What else is out there for me? And today I want us to use those open ended questions to ask ourselves, what is going well right now? So that's the question I want you to stop. Close your eyes. If you're driving, do this later. But I want you to stop today at some point and ask yourself, what is something that's going well right now on my team?

And hopefully it's something that you are involved in. Okay. So let's turn up the heat a little bit. And I want you to ask yourself, what is something that I did well this week as a manager? Ooh, that feels kind of good thinking about, right? It reminds us there's something, even if it is something little, like responded to my team member within 24 hours, when usually it takes me like three days.

Or maybe it's had a really, really great feedback conversation or maybe it's took some space for myself, took a day off when I was feeling run out. That was the best thing I could do for myself as a manager and really for my team reflect on something. And I want you to build this into your every day reflecting on what is something that I did well as a manager.

And this is not just kind of building up some like delusional reality if things aren't going that great. It's about reminding ourselves that even when stuff is tough, there is always more to the story. And this more to the story, this is going to serve as data of giving you a fuller picture so that when things are hard, it doesn't feel like nothing's ever right.

And I'll tell you like right now in a time of, you know, doing more with less, we're understaffed, budgets are tight, all the things, cutbacks, layoffs, blah, blah, blah. Like all that stuff, all that uncertainty, all that stress. It can feel sometimes like literally what is going right. I need a win right now.

And I want you to get in the habit of recognizing the small wins because it's the collection of small wins. That's going to make you feel stronger and it's going to help you bring more of a sort of stable, positive, optimistic front to your team because that's part of being a team manager. That's part of being a leader is being that stability.

It's not having rose colored glasses or telling everybody, everybody, everything's fine. If it's not, no, we don't do that. But we do want to show that there's hope and hope is very, very powerful in driving motivation. It's very, very powerful in driving engagement on teams because people read how you're feeling.

Just like, I don't know if you have kids at home and you, you're one day you have a really rough day and that kid, they can tell your vibes off. Same thing with your team. Your team can tell when your vibes off, even when you're faking it really good and a great way to get that vibe back on track to get in that high vibe space.

It's to be practicing appreciation, celebrating the wins, a little bit of gratitude and asking yourself, what is something I did well? What is one win I can celebrate as a manager today or this week? So that's all I have. This was a shorty for this week because this is really on you. I want you to go and practice right now, wherever you're at, take a minute to think about it because this practice building this into every single day.

This is going to be transformational in how you show up for your team. I assure you it allows you to actually better celebrate your own teams and recognize wins across other parts of your life and in your work. So this is going to be really game changing. If you are feeling stuck, we're going to reframe that question, that thought.

Nothing's going right. This always happens to me. This never goes well. Stop those thoughts in that tracks. And we're going to say, what else is true? What is possible? What is something that I did well as a manager? Get after it, my friends, and I will see you next time. That's all I have for today. Thank you so much for tuning in to the Managing Made Simple podcast, where my goal is to demystify the job of people management so that together we can make the workplace somewhere everyone can thrive.

I always love to hear from you, so please reach out at LiaGarvin.com or message me on LinkedIn. See you next time.