Welcome to the new manager podcast. I'm your host, Kim nickel. Hello and welcome. I'm glad you're here and I hope you're doing well. I have a fun analogy to share with you. As we get started. I was talking with a client and we were just reflecting on how much they had grown and changed in the course of our work together.
And as we were exploring, why that had happened and what had really enabled them to To make the change, the analogy that came up was this thought of how coaching and being in a coaching space is like having noise cancelling headphones.
And when you come into the session, you've got all this noise in your mind and the fear and the doubt and the uncertainty and all of the catastrophizing, all of the stories that are spinning in your mind that you Eight in the course of, you know, being in the world and sometimes our mind gets really creative. But in a very negative Direction, and by coming into the coaching container every week, it gave them the space to filter out some of the noise.
So they could hear more carefully and more clearly their own signal. So, their own sense of what was important, their own sense of what they wanted to do their own. Perspective rather than getting kind of lost in the noise of other people's opinions and what will other people think and all of that? And as we work together, more and more and they learned how to hear their own inner voice. It became a lot easier to then navigate and deal with all of the other external things.
And I just love that that description of having noise cancelling headphones. They think that just very beautifully describes what a lot of folks go through when you're managing people for the first time and you're trying to do our right? And you might not know yet how to measure your sense of success. So I wanted to share that with you.
Like if you, if you notice that in your own mind, you feel sometimes overwhelmed by the stress or the anxiety or the worrying about if you're doing it, right and how other people are feeling about. Out the work that you're doing, then it could be a good signal that.
What we need to do is get a little more clear signal on, what the real issue is, how you really want to address it and start to look at at the pieces that matter the most, like I was coaching someone else she's thinking about doing this big change in her work and she's like, I don't know, you know, a lot of people say, X, Y and Z and I was like, yeah, a lot of people. We'll say that but so what, you know what? What do you what do you think
light? Let's talk about what you have seen and what you want, and what your goal is, let's start there, was this really funny moment because people are going to say, a lot of things they're going to have opinions and sometimes they don't even say it to you, but you kind of take it on because, you know, you're like oh this is what quote unquote, people generally think we do that, it's okay, okay? Just want to see it. So that we can get clear on what
we actually want to do here. So, that is what I wanted to share with you. As we get started. The main topic I want us to explore today. Is this idea of feeling caught in the middle and feeling like a failure? I see this a lot because especially when you're making the transition to being an individual contributor to being a people manager. There are a couple relationship things that change. Number one, your relationship with your work, Changes.
Because often the actual work you're doing is now different when you are an individual contributor. There is the thing that is your responsibility to do and very often. There's quite a lot of autonomy and Independence in how you do it, you have your tasks, your job is to execute on those tasks and off you go.
But when you're now managing a team and you are managing not doing the thing but in In fact, you are now managing how the thing gets done, it can feel very odd because you don't have direct control over how things are executed and that feeling of I don't have Direct Control can feel very disorienting when you're not used to it and it can leave you scrambling for a feeling of success and completion.
Like, how do you know When you are successfully doing the job, if you are not, the one who is in charge of executing the thing, it can also have that feeling of how do I know when something is complete? And how do I get that satisfaction of? Yes, this is complete. If it's kind of an ongoing thing that is not directly in your hands. It can feel very uncomfortable and unsettling and the other piece of this.
This feeling of Being kind of caught in the middle is you'll be receiving communication from your manager and you know from probably a couple levels up, you'll have more visibility into what's going on up there and more of that messaging. Now comes to you, it might be in the form of here. Are the things that we want your team to accomplish.
So you're trying to please and meet the requirements that are being asked of you of the people above you that will start to feel like pressure got a complete That and make sure all that gets done. And then when you look to your team, they may have their own challenges. It might be a really like new team like they're new to working together or it might be a team that is dealing with some new
challenges. Maybe people are out on leave or morale is really low because you've gone through layoffs or just just something else happening on the team where folks are not necessarily operating at their highest level and you're trying to figure out, how do I get my team to function and work together in the highest possible way with the greatest Effectiveness and efficiency and bring morale up all of a sudden that's a different kind of Challenge.
And it can feel like a squeeze because your people might feel really tapped out, really overextended. Maybe they've been working really hard for a On time without a lot of relief but at the same time, you're getting pressure and direction from the folks above you to have your team do more things so you can feel really stuck in the squeeze and sort of pushed in the middle between what your team needs.
And what they're telling you that they want and then what your manager needs, and what they're telling you that you want and you might feel like it's this impossible conundrum like Heather's. Is no possible way to make everybody happy. And then we can feel like a failure and that just feels terrible. And besides feeling terrible. It also takes us out of the perspective that is actually useful, right?
Because the perspective that is not useful, as I'm just stuck in the squeeze and there's nothing I can do because everyone's going to be unhappy, no matter what, that's kind of the posture and perspective that leads us to feel completely without options.
And kind of like we're already defeated and, you know, we go there from time to time, but I just want to name that specifically, because when were there what helps is to start to shift our perspective and kind of look at things a little bit differently and also to understand why we're feeling this way. So a couple of things one is that if you're a person who is used to succeeding at things, this can be a very uncomfortable place especially when you don't
know how to Mark, what success. Looks like you also might be thinking, you know, I've never done this before. I've never been in this specific situation before or like this is not working out how I thought. You might feel like you're failing because everyone is unhappy and one of your markers for success is our people happy. Sometimes, this is so subtle, we don't even fully realize it, but when we feel like I'm not doing,
Sing it, right? And we start to understand why it's like, oh, it's because no one around me is happy. And when people are unhappy, I feel like I'm doing something wrong. I should be able to fix it. What can I do to make people feel happy? Because that makes me feel like we're doing. Okay, and I'm being successful here. So we just want to make sure that you're paying attention to what some of these. These other kind of elements are
going on around you. The other thing I wanted to point out too is that we tend to also fall into this recency bias, which simply means that the things that have happened most recently are the things that take up the most space in our mind. And the way this plays into our sense of feeling confident in addressing a challenge is, if the most recent experience you had is one where Your manager is feeling a lot of pressure so they're now putting pressure on
you. You're going to feel like you're not doing enough even when we look at your track record and can see. Look at all of the things that you've successfully brought to fruition. Look at all of the evidence of the way that you have been successful in navigating or, you know, accomplishing things in the moment. What I A lot is none of that matters that was then. I was successful at those things then but that doesn't matter because right now leadership is
breathing down my neck. My manager is stressed out and now they are putting extra pressure on me and now they want me to put pressure on my team and I'm so worried that my team is just going to not be able to handle it. So this feeling of recency bias, we can. Forget or simply diminish. All of the things in the past that have been successful and helpful and effective.
And one of the reasons why that matters, why we don't want to release or kind of abandon the past successes is, we do want to pull from them, anything that will help you in this moment even if it's simply the perspective of. Okay so I'm in a really tough. Situation right now, I'm not seeing what the path is yet, but I do know that I have gotten
through tough things. Before I do know that I have resilience and that I care deeply and I do know that I am creative and like, there's there's, there's got to be a way to think through this, in a way that gives me a path forward and remembering to that a path forward does. Not always mean. Everyone is happy and gets what they want. Sometimes there are no solutions that. Make everyone happy and get
everybody what they want. Sometimes there are no Solutions. There are only decisions that sense of this is the decision. I'm making, this is the Judgment call. I am making in this situation for these reasons. And this is where we want to really understand what are the reasons behind the decisions you make. So that it's not simply being reactive or feeling like you know you're just like I don't know what to do, I'll just do this.
This seems available but actually it's coming from this place that can be really grounded and really principled so that if you need to have a conversation and give someone some bad news, Whether it's, you know, to your manager and saying, okay, we are not going to meet that deadline. Let me break it down for you and show you why. And if there's a way that you can help me find an alternate path, let's talk about that, right?
We address it straight on, from this perspective of like we're in this together or on the other side, you might need to have a conversation with your team or someone on your team and say, okay, here's what we're going to do now. Now, I know this isn't what you wanted, or this isn't ideal, but here's why we're doing this. We're going to go in this direction and you know, let's talk about that, right?
Sometimes the choices that are made above will trickle down to your team and your job is to deliver the news in a way that helps people understand what to do with that and how to continue
forward in the best. A and depending on your organization, this can actually be a really big job because there might be a lot of distance between upper management and Leadership like the folks that are making decisions and then where you are with your team, the people who are feeling the effect and needing to implement or make changes based on those decisions. And those people may not really talk and they may not even realize really understand each
other. I think that sometimes one of the frustrating things that we start to realize as we raise ourselves in our career paths is start to realize, wow. The people making decisions up there might not really understand, or even have a lot of empathy or appreciation for the folks who are doing like that very Hands-On implementation. I'm thinking specifically of a situation where there were some internal tools that Upper management had decided we would use.
And sort of my job was to communicate, help to communicate that to my team and my team. At the time, was pretty exhausted. Was already stretched thin, because there was a hiring freeze and there had been people who left, but we couldn't rehire.
So everyone's workload had increased and people were just generally in a bad mood and I could totally understand that, like it, It wasn't even a question, you know, you have more work now, and nobody's really saying thank you about it. Like there's so much I can do. But overall, it was this general feeling of distrust towards management. Like management doesn't understand us. They don't really care about us. They're making these decisions about this new tool that we now
have to implement. That's going to take more of my time. So there was a lot of unrest, and a lot of just general discomfort. With my team. And the way that I saw my role in that situation was, it's my job to both. Give them this accurate information about what's happening. We're going to learn this new tool along this timeframe and for me as a manager, my perspective to was I want to understand like who they are as humans and what like how this is going to land for them.
So it really was just the acknowledgement of. I know there's a lot. Going on, and this is not ideal. But here's what we're going to do. And here's the way that I think we can do this in the most useful way. And when people were frustrated or unhappy about it, and express that to me, I didn't have to explain or defend like leaderships decision. I really responded simply with compassion and empathy and also a sense of clarity about Direction.
So, what that looked like, was sort of hearing this person out and saying, I hear you, I totally get it. I understand. Yeah, that makes perfect sense to me. Thank you for telling me. Thank you for coming directly to me and telling me this. I appreciate it. And this is the direction that we're going. So let's figure out how to do this in the best way and the most useful way. And my intention there was to both hear them.
And also as a manager might philosophy was that I would rather have my team come to me directly and tell me something, even if I didn't have the Power to change it. I would rather have them tell me instead of either kind of being grumbly about it at the water cooler or kind of carrying it inside like this growing resentment and Grudge because though the that has a way of kind of showing up in unexpected ways just in terms of kind of being disengaged and withdrawn.
And so as a manager part of what I was paying attention to was what is our relationship? Can I Knowledge that this might not be awesome for people and here's how we can move forward as a team, right? Like, let's have that conversation, it doesn't mean that everybody's happy.
But, sometimes even simply being heard and understood even when nothing can come directly of that, it is still a very meaningful thing because it's a way of signaling respect and appreciation and I can kind of see you as the This whole person in a whole picture and also for you as the manager, it becomes valuable to understand what is the effect of some of the decisions that happen elsewhere because that might be information that you will need to communicate at some point
down the line, right to document like what actually happened, did this rollout work as planned? If not, what do we need to do differently? Are there other things you can ask for to help facilitate? With your team or is it simply going back to your manager and saying? Okay here's an issue that's coming up. Here's how I'm trying to address it and I might need some help with this. Can you help me think through
how to do this? Now of course, that depends a lot on your relationship with your manager. Not everybody has a great, you know, a lot of trust and a sense of you can go to your manager for help, especially if your manager has a different philosophy. Fee. They might say, you know what, you just tell people it has to be this way. I mean, that's an option. Some people do that. They find it useful. I tend to not take that approach, but all of, which is to say, I want to invite you to
think about. How can you see this in a way that gives you some options in a way that brings you back to your sense of agency and in a way where you're not, In the heaviness of feeling like a failure because people aren't happy, you feel caught in the middle and you forgotten all of the great qualities and strengths that you have even when you're in this difficult place.
So, that's what I wanted to offer you today and the reminder to you that sometimes there isn't a nice neat solution, sometimes it really is just a Asian, what is the decision? I'm going to make here. And why? And then, how will I communicate that out? So as we wrap up, I also want to invite you to come work with me. What we do on the consult, is we take a look at where you are.
What's going on? Then we look at where you want to get to what you want to have be different and I'll tell you how I can help you with that and then you can make a decision if you want to do that. Work with me or not. Ultimately I want to get you to a place. Are you don't feel like you're having to play whack-a-mole and just be reactive and overwhelmed.
I really want to help you feel like you have more control in your career in your life at work and really honor and respect the way that you are showing up as a leader as you grow. So if that sounds interesting to you, I would love to chat. You can go into the show notes, you will find a link to my calendar and I hope you have a really great week. I'll talk to you next time. Hey, before you go if you like this podcast, leave a review. Tell me why you listen and what
has helped you? Thanks so much. I'll see you next time. Hey, before you go if you like this podcast, leave a review. Tell me why you listen and what has helped you? Thanks so much. I'll see you next time.