200: The three skills that make managing easier

 We are in a moment right now where people are scared. Employees are scared about what's my future? Is there gonna be a reorg? Am I gonna be replaced by a robot? Am I gonna be laid off? Our leaders and our companies are scared about where the competition is going. What's the geopolitical situation?

Where's the economy going? And us as managers, we might be the most scared of all because we are sitting in the middle of these two pressures asked by both our higher ups and our team members, what is going on, what is next for me, what do I do? And we don't have all the answers. And that is what we're gonna talk about today.

This is episode 200 of the New Manager Playbook podcast. And I'm on a mission to make managing your team the easiest part of your job. And it certainly is not easy with all the fears out there, and that's why I'm so excited to be co-hosting my 200 episode with Megan Karsh, my partner in developing the new Manager Playbook digital program, which you've heard a little about, we'll talk about later in the show.

So definitely stay till the end. But we wanted to talk about this fear because this is something that is showing up. In every level of the workplace. So as all of you know, I do a lot of work with, with managers, with teams. Megan does a ton of work with senior leaders from Fortune 500 to government agencies to to non-profits, all the way, all over the world, senior leaders, and we're seeing it everywhere.

Mm-hmm. And so we wanna talk about how this is showing up, what are some of the patterns, but not just that, no one's here only about the fear, how we find hope in the situation, because that's all, that's all we can do. Right, and we don't wanna talk about idealistic hope. We're gonna talk about a new frame of hope, because this is really what's been the point of the show all along, right?

Formally managing made simple. Now the new manager playbook, I, I wanted to give you tools to make the fears, the hard stuff, feel a little bit easier, right? Because with that sense of hope, with that sense of guidance, like, okay, I've got something, it's, I, I have, I, I know what to say in the hard situations.

I know what to do. I, I know how to give a feedback. I know how to have a hard conversation. With that hope allows you to actually find what is most rewarding outta being a manager. Because the truth is when you look at what gives people a sense of purpose, it's doing things that are bigger than themselves, right?

We're never gonna find a sense of purpose, honestly, if we're not doing something bigger than ourselves. So you're in the right place. But when it's hard and you're on the, in the 52% plus manager that are feeling burned out in the 77 plus that haven't been trained, well, of course it's gonna be terrible.

Right. So, Megan, welcome to the show. Welcome to episode 200. Let's dive into this intersection between fear and Hope, what folks are dealing with right now, and how to come out the other side. 

I am so excited to be here. Thanks for having me back. Um, and I'll actually, I don't know if this is helpful to the viewers.

Uh, I'll just give a quick little acronym or framework that's helpful for thinking about these conditions that are causing so much fear. Um, so like Leah mentioned, I do a lot of work, uh, with intergovernmental institutions, governmental institutions, primarily with the United Nations. So I work a lot with senior leaders who are operating in incredibly complex environments where the stakes are really, really high.

Um, and we talk about VUCA conditions, so that's an acronym, BUCA Volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous. It's a term that comes outta the American War College. Um, and first it was used just geopolitically, but really early on, actually, as soon as like the term was coined, basically in the late eighties. So people started applying it to the corporate world.

It has only become more relevant, obviously, in the corporate world in the last particularly like eight years. So you'll maybe, maybe some of you managers have heard it before, but if you haven't, it's just a useful way to think about like what it is. Yeah. Is kind of large, these larger conditions we're operating in.

And likely I said, I mean, one of the biggest things that leaders like have to just own and as a premise is like, okay, there's gonna be kind of this, this. Gearing towards kind of fear. We, it, it's human nature, right? We're afraid of what we don't understand. We tend to wanna try to control it. We tend to get more reactive than strategically responsible.

So this is where like all those foundational leadership things become so important. Do I have the self-awareness to like, understand what's going on in me and do I have the ability to sort of overcome it with certain mindsets and strategies and skills? And those are the ones I know you want to talk about today, especially.

Two mindsets of sort of courage in spite of, or, you know, in addition to being afraid, not thinking that you're just courageous and not fearful, but then also how do you find this hope, um, and a really, like a meaningful hope that actually drives action. 

Yeah, absolutely. And before we dive into that, I think why is this important, right?

It's not just important because, uh, it's uncomfortable to feel the fear de dealing with our employees. When we as managers are in this state and we haven't dealt with it and we haven't figured it out, we haven't leaned into the tools and we haven't gotten support. What starts to happen? Megan said we start micromanaging.

We start getting in the details. We're reactive, we're snippy. We bring all this stress back home to our families, our friends, our partners, our kids. We don't delegate. We start really hanging on to stuff because we're worried like, well, what if that person gets credit and I need to be relevant? We start showing up the worst possible way we can.

And then what happens to your team? They don't trust you. They don't respect you. They're trashing you when you step away, right? You become like, ugh. Like they, and, and the high performers, they quit, right? Because no high performer wants to be in that situation. So then what happens? It gets worse. Your job gets harder because your high performers have left, and you're left with the lower performers that are clinging to their jobs because they know they don't have other options.

So like. It's a big deal. Like I just wanna paint it for you because I think the reason we are talking with this is not like, Hey, like rah rah, we gotta make sure people are like, you know, getting a pat on the back. No, this is serious business impact because you are high performers, which we need delivering.

We need them resilient. We need them pulling the weight of folks that really are struggling right now. We need those people like in right? So that's why we gotta be doing this. 

Yeah. And the other such a great point. And the other reason why we need to be doing it is like. Things do need to evolve, like things that used to work are not working.

We are in this time of unprecedented change, volatility, a lot of uncertainty because the old has like in some ways ceased working, but the new has not been developed or isn't clear yet. We're in this like liminal space. Right? And one of the most important things for people who are leaders, like including managers right now, is to be contributing to like.

This, this thought about like what is the future and like, what are better ways of doing this? The problem is when you're afraid it, and in that sort of reactive, um, way of operating, it's often what you focus on then is just like these incredibly immediate tactical solutions. Yeah. You know? Yeah. It's harder to do that, like big picture.

Systemic reflective, strategic thinking. 

Yeah. And 

so what I am seeing right now when I go into companies is it's like we're just seeing this constellation of reactive, sort of narrow decisions rather than everyone being in sync from the executive level to the senior leader level, to the manager level, trying to think about, okay, what's the way the system sort of needs to evolve here?

Yeah. And it's, and everyone's paying the price. 

Yeah, exactly, and I mean, I think in a tactical sense, like the. It's of course natural to wanna hang on to what you can control. Mm-hmm. But again, I think what we're, what we're missing is that the reason why we have a team is so we can scale ourselves. Right?

So like, when you grab on more tightly, I mean, I'm thinking about an example in the beginning of COVID, I had a man, I, you know, working in corporate, I was a high performer. I was always on the higher end of things. And I only say that to say that like when I was micromanaged, it was like. It wasn't because of my performance.

Right. I'm not saying that toot my own horn, but it was my manager's fears around all the stuff we're talking about. And at the beginning of COVID, I had a manager who, that was the situation. There was so much uncertainty, you know, there was a lot of change within our team. You know, no one was, was happening.

We had some reorgs and she just held on as tight as possible. She would be in every single meeting. She had to double check every email that was sent would always be asking everyone on the team if they remember to do this, something that had already been done. And everybody on the team was like, what the hell is going on with this person?

Like, everything was fine like a week ago. And it, it, it, it, it actually chipped away at her own credibility as a leader. Right. Her marks went down on the company survey. Uh, people started looking for other, other teams to be on because it just killed morale. It did not increase the performance of the team.

And high performers like myself felt like, what am I doing here? Like, I don't need to be treated like I don't know what I'm doing when obviously I'm someone that's pulling a lot of the weight for this team. But that's the point, is like, that was her in the way that she did not deal with change by thinking about how am I showing up right now?

How am I managing my stress? Right? So a lot of management is about. Thinking in advance, like what happens to me when I don't have all the answers? What happens to me when I'm scared? What are these behaviors? And so like, that is a big piece of it too. 

This is kind of a silly metaphor, but what I often talk about when I'm, you know, working with leaders and we're talking about leading through uncertainty, is a bus.

Right. I'm like, Matt, your employees are like a team and they're, your team members are on the bus. What do they want of the bus driver in that situation? Right? And it's like, what they just need to know is that the person who is driving the bus has their best interest at heart, is making every effort they can to find like the way, even though right now there isn't a clear map, right.

They wanna hear, they wanna know that that person. Like Cares is taking their responsibility seriously, is doing their best to figure out what the route is. While, right now, let's say the route is totally shrouded in fog, you know, and their, their phone is off offline and they don't have access to GPS. I mean, I'm killing the metaphor here, but it's like, what instead happens is people don't realize that that in and of it.

Self sort of is the job. If you're that person, what are you communicating back to them? How are you managing yourself in the seat? Like, how are you holding your seat? How are you giving them confidence that it is gonna be okay? Even though right now the fog is keeping you from scene exactly where you're going, and I think managers end up feeling sometimes like, that's not enough.

They think that just the way that they're being is not enough. So they start focusing on, all right, well these are the concrete things I can do. Yeah. And often it tends into it. It goes over the line then into micromanagement. 

Totally. Totally. I think also, and I, and I been doing a little bit of content on this lately.

It's like I think we start to make these assu like wild assumptions that like nobody else cares as much as we do. Like how Don't even know that. You know what I mean? Like, and hey, my business owners listening, like, your team members don't care as much as you do. So like I'll acknowledge that, but like if people miss something or make a mistake or, or like don't deliver something on time.

I think when we're at this heightened. Dress, you think like nobody cares and I'm the only one doing anything. And we get in this like extreme like, ah, and, and, and 'cause and I'm just saying this 'cause that's how I get, I know I get that way like when I, when I'm managing, you know? And, and it was really, really present.

Especially after, you know, when, I know when I was managing operations and, and programs on software teams where like. We had really, really demanding deadlines and a lot of different things happening at once. I would feel like, why am I the only one that's saying this or the only one that caring about this?

Or like, why is no one worried about this? And we get into this like absolute sort of like victim like murder thing. And that doesn't help you either as a leader. And I mean, I, I'm saying it because like if you're, if you've been there, I've been there too. It's like a default. 

So I, you were making a call out to me.

I need to make a call. If Jenny Hooligan in Scotland is listening to this name that like, I'm so sorry. That was definitely the way I handled some of the chaos when we were working together in Cambodia. But, um, yeah, I've got, I, I used to. Be big on the martyr complex for sure. Because it's hard like Right, and it, and it can feel like that.

Yeah. But I think it's control. It's another control way to try. It's it's, yeah, your like identity gets very uncertain in too, when you feel like you can't fix everything for everyone. So then to sit there and sort of like, yeah, assume it all yourself and be like, it's trying to give yourself self a sense that you could actually 

control 

all it by being Exactly.

I'm the only one that cares and I'm the one leaning hard into this. You're trying to tell yourself almost that like. It's cap. Like you could Yeah. If it on you and you could fix it and 'cause the reality is the thing is way bigger than you Yeah. Or bigger than any individual. And that's very hard for our like ego and our like Yeah.

You know, nervous system almost to handle. Yeah, 

exactly. Well, I mean, I think this is a perfect like segue into, okay, we know how bad this is and why it's a problem. Like what. What is the other side of it? And honestly, this is why we came together and why we created the New Manager Playbook program because we heard every single day in our respective areas not even working together.

You all over the world, me, all over the Fortune, five hundreds with small businesses beyond. We heard middle managers especially, but all kinds of leaders, like to be honest. Are really struggling and the current tools, the old tools, air quotes, aren't working. And we said we gotta make something new. And that's why when we talk about the new manager playbook, whether it's the book, the podcast, the program, it's not something for new managers, it's all managers in new situations.

Because that is where we are all at right now. We're facing 

these new things. Yeah. Yes. And it's also just a new type of playbook. It's a new way of approaching manager training. So just quickly, uh, for the listeners, um, I come out of academia, so I've always sort of bridged academia and practice. Um, and so I have a background in like curriculum design and learning and design and training and how we actually, like how adults meaningfully learn and change behavior and develop new skills.

And when I. First started dabbling in like corporate training, then getting outside of academia. I was like pretty shocked by what I found. 'cause I was like, we know better than this. Like we actually know how people learn and none of this is aligning with it. It would be these like very static trainings that would just be super knowledge heavy.

It would be a bunch of like theory and. Stats about managing on the screen. And I was like, they managers don't need the what of management they need the how. Yeah. And what we know about adults too is they learn the how by doing. Adults are experiential learners by and large. Like yeah, they need to get the information and you need to give them enough like knowledge and guidance that they can like then, you know, know what they're doing, put it in practice.

But yeah, adults retain like 40% more when they have a chance to try to do a thing than the 10% when they're just being told stuff. But I started seeing these corporate trainings and it would just be like, you know, like talking at people for 30 minutes with like a super old school, crappy, like, yeah, it sucks digital, you know, program or something.

And I just was like, wow. You're like, these companies are throwing good money after bad. This isn't gonna move the needle at all. What people need is they need information given to them in the way that they organically want to consume information. So really dynamic different ways, like listen to a podcast, watch a video.

Yeah. Practice and exercise. Go do it with your team. Come back, reflect on it. Yeah. You know, it needs to be really dynamic and it needs to be focused on those mindsets. And skills much more than like the knowledge. Yeah, statistics. 

Totally. And the thing too, and we both do a ton of live facilitation. We love it.

We travel all the way around the world. It's not always feasible for teams. And so I wanna say that too, because as we started talking about why we created digital solution. Is because we have an analog solution. We were asked for a digital solution because it scales, and especially with distributed teams, global teams hiring quickly, you've gotta have a solution for training, retraining, upscaling at scale.

Like it doesn't make sense to have one offsite once a year. When you're bringing more folks on and the rest of the people are like missing out, and you have everybody at all different levels, it doesn't make sense to have one event where, let's be honest, the worst managers, they always opt out. Like this is one of the biggest challenges that happens in every, the ones, because I ran manager development in, in a team I was on at Google, and, and actually across several teams, I, I knew all the people and I was like, huh.

This, this person decided they were good. They didn't, they didn't need always. I'm great, I'm good. I'm gonna skip this. It's the worst managers, they opt out. So I think that's also something that we're solving for, right, is that you have something you can drag attendance, you know, you can give 'em another nudge.

It only takes a few hours to complete so that you make sure you have baseline to everyone the same. Yeah. 'cause I'll tell you like the stuff that we talk about, the program, you know, giving feedback, setting expectations, navigating conflict, dealing with change, coaching. These are things that both, you are new and seasoned managers, we're all struggling with it.

Okay. So like, even if you're listening and you're like, I've been a leader for 15 years, it's really, really hard. But I, I don't know if I'm like, am I right? Yeah, you are. Because all of us could use refresher at all these things. It, it's, it's hard. You know, like it's so hard right now. And I think also with the new, with new generations, the workforce, new tensions, like we've said it, all these things that we've learned, we need to like relearn them for the now.

Yeah. 

Yeah, I mean, it's kind of, it's a little tough. 'cause I know the audience here is mostly managers, and in a way we're speaking more to the senior leadership and to HR right now. The people who are responsible for 

promoting 

people to managers and making sure those people are set up to be managers.

Yeah. So for those of you listening like. Yes, we hope this training is for you, but it's like I really want the message to be to HR and to executive leadership teams like you are. A lot of times you are paying to bring me in to like advise on trick speaking of throwing good money after bad to advise on issues where I'm like, if you had just run your managers through like a.

Very simple like foundational training. You would not be dealing with like this crisis right now, which is a very clear consequence of the fact that you never even told 'em what being a manager actually means. You never told them a breakdown of what the responsibilities were and you never made sure they knew how to do things like give constructive feedback.

Yeah. Like manage a conflict between two employees on their team, so everything's getting escalated or everything's becoming a crisis and then you're paying some, you know, yeah. Management consultant to come in. Like why? Why put everyone through that and why not just make sure that people have the foundation that they deserve?

That managers exactly. Are set up for success. 

Yeah. I mean, it's so true. You know, we've been speaking in HR conferences as well, and it's the same thing, right? HR or HR managers, HR directors are. Inundated with complaints, the things that, like, I don't know what my job is. I don't know if I have a future here.

Like, and that's called career conversations one-on-one. Like, it's fun, it's fundamental things that I think when we don't have manager training, it falls into hr, like who is supposed to deal with it, right? But a lot of it is, it, it truly is a responsibility, the manager. And so we're, we're actually, we're trying to create relief across all of these different audiences, right?

The senior leaders for things escalating. HR from having these complaints that are not in their court managers from not feeling like, oh my God, like how do I deal with this? And business owners as well, like, I think so many of us, we are, we started business because we're great at this skill. We're great at this thing, we have this awesome idea, and then we need to scale ourselves.

So we bring on team members. We don't realize we are now a manager, like newsflash, we're a manager and we aren't given any of these, any of these foundational skills. And it breaks my heart because a lot of business owners come to me and say. I don't wanna be a bad leader. I don't wanna let people down, but I don't, I didn't get any of this training.

And, and you're like very, very established. You've crushed it in your business. You're making millions of dollars, but you don't have the foundational skills. That's not your fault. It's because like, we don't get taught that in school. Like we actually need a place to go. And that's why, you know, we have all of these different kinds of resources because it's, it's.

Like both of us are just so passionate about making it accessible because it's, it shouldn't be the way. 'cause now to kind of bring us home around, around hope, it's whether you bring in a consultant, whether you bring in a coach, whether you bring in the new manager Playbook, digital program, read the book, listen to this podcast.

It is truly. Your responsibility as a leader to do something to upskill yourself so you can handle with handle VUCA and all the stuff we're talking about. Because if you're not gonna deal with that, no one's gonna stick around you. You're gonna have a terrible experience in manager. You're gonna burn out.

And it's just like, you know, it's one of the reasons however many percentage of small businesses close. Right. It's the reason startups fail. Like, because they, it's all the people stuff that gets us. So let's talk like how with this, let's say we got that foundation, we're starting to get the skills. Where do we kind of find that hope in all of this?

Well, first, I mean, yeah, on a couple levels. I think a lot of what you do, Leah, um, and, and what I do too is to give people hope, right? Like, I think hope comes, I think it's easier to feel hopeful when you feel like you have the resources and the capacity. Yeah. Meet the moment, right? 

Yeah. So 

that's this whole idea of tress versus eustress.

Uh, eustress being like a good form of stress. Oh, 

interesting. 

Um, yeah. So eustress is this idea of like, we don't actually want a life of no stress. Like, 

yeah, 

you, you want. Some dynamicism you want to sort of feel sometimes like motivated kind of towards change, but that's a good form of stress. Eustress is when you feel like you have the capability to sort of meet the challenge in the environment.

And so then it's, it's motivating, right? To have sort of all that like adrenaline and cortisol to distress is when it's like there's this challenge being presented by the environment and you don't feel like you have the capacity. And we almost immediately put managers into a district. Situation from day one.

Right? Here you go. Yeah. Hard feel hopeful when you're in distress, but when you, it's tress, which is like, this is a challenge I'm going to be confronting with. Yeah. I haven't experienced before, but I have the knowledge, mindset, skills and capacity to meet it. You can feel hopeful and optimistic. Yeah. So that's one source of hope and I think that's what drives you and me is like, let's give them, yeah, let's give those resources in like one of the most efficient and like easily digestible ways.

Another source of hope. You know, I've been having a lot of. Discussions. Um, I leadership goes over into the world of sort of like self-actualization, right? Yeah. A lot of leadership is sort of about how do we find meaning, how do we find purpose, how do we live our values? And so I've been having discussions recently about hope and to a lot of leaders being like, where do you find it?

And. Connection. Yeah. And like trying to achieve something bigger, right? And so managers actually have the potential to really focus in on that, on their team. How do I explain to people like how this all fits together, where we're going? How do I create that sense of connection and that we're doing something together?

And how do I tell, how do I help people be in a state of not. Distress at like the challenges that face us at a team, but like excited almost to tackle it together. So, you know, kind of how you frame the challenges Yeah. That the team is facing and sort of saying, this is gonna require us to kind of like get innovative, get gritty, like Yeah.

You know, sort of lean in and we're in this together. Yeah. The one thing I wanna say about that, I do think right now I'm seeing a lot of leaders, um. They're trying to give hope in a way that I like very strongly advise against, which is teams are saying, you know, employees are saying to them, oh, I feel kind of hopeless around this, or I'm scared around this, or, how is this gonna work out?

And frankly, when I'm seeing borders on gaslighting, they're like, no, it's gonna be totally fine. Or like, AI's not gonna impact jobs. Yeah, nothing's gonna change 'cause of it. Or like, oh no, you know, given these like, like, don't worry about another pandemic. We're never gonna face a big challenge like that again.

You can't promise that. Yeah, you can't say that. And what you're not doing that you're not actually, that's not hope. That's just delusion. Mm-hmm. And like gaslighting, what is way better is to say to people like, yes, we are faced with these unprecedented challenges and I'm gonna make sure our team has the resources to meet the moment.

Yeah, exactly. And like, here's what 

we're gonna do. Yeah. And here's how we're gonna like actually grow better as a team and grow better as individuals by like how we face these challenges. 

Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And actually spoiler next week on the pod, I talk about the right way and the wrong way to talk about change.

Where I share many of these can't just say it's not happening. Yeah. So there's more to come on that. But I love how you coined it. You said the word gritty. And I know in our, you know, and I think before we started, you used the frame gritty hope. I loved that. Like, say more about that. Yeah. 

Yeah. That's this idea of like, how,

how are we, how do we remain hopeful? In spite of, but not in spite of. Sounds bad. 'cause it sounds almost like you shouldn't be able to be hopeful with, but how do we remain hopeful alongside, yeah. All the other things we may feel about the challenges. Yeah. So we may feel fearful, we may feel intimidated sometimes we may feel a bit like exhausted by it, and how do we stay hopeful?

And some of it is not denying those feelings. Yeah. And as a manager, it's not denying those feelings of your team. It's making space for them and being like, okay, like let's acknowledge where we're at. But then it's like, and what is in our control or what is in our influence to like do what we can with this challenging situation.

And then just like I said, the grittiness, I think, I mean, comes from this thing of like, we're not gonna look perfect. Yeah. It's not always gonna be pretty. Yeah. We're just like, we're gonna get in there and we're gonna face it and we're gonna learn what we can from it. Right? Yeah. It's not. And it's not necessarily like rainbows and unicorns, right?

It's like a very lived sort of like learning kind of by doing and by like trying and by being in it all together. 

Yeah. 

I love that this is 

a perfect place to wrap and we gotta say we are bursting at the seams to give you a demo of the new Manager Playbook digital program. Whether it's for your own team or you know, a team that could need it, or you're an HR team, whatever.

Like if it sounded interesting to you, head to new manager playbook.com to schedule a demo. We also have an awesome ambassador program, so it's, if it's not for your company, but you know folks who could use it. Get in touch because same thing, we just really wanna spread the word about it. We cannot wait to support managers at scale.

So that's new manager playbook.com. And thank you so much, Megan, for joining me. You will become a frequent guest as to talk more about this. Um, because I just love your perspective on everything. I mean, I think you really help us look at it from kind of a bigger, more macro way, which I think really helps, especially when you're just stuck in it, like kind of contextualize it.

So thank you for all of your insights today. 

No, and thanks for having me, Leah. And I, speaking of, I mean, I just, you know, the reason why we partnered together is 'cause I love your resources and I love how practical they are. And speaking of hope, I mean, again, I think hope comes from feeling like you have the capacity to meet the moment.

And I think between the podcast and the book and now the program and then all of the live facilitation you do, that's what you're doing. You're giving managers hope. And I think that is such a critical contribution. Like in this moment when managers are in a really tough. Spot. 

Thank you so much. 

Well, 

happy 200th episode and we will see you next time.