Welcome to the New Manager Podcast. I'm your host, Kim Nicoll. Hello and welcome. I'm glad you're here and I hope you're doing well. Today's episode is all about Q4. We are now in Q4 of the year and it's time to pause and re evaluate. And I have a very simple checklist that I want to share that will help you to both stay on track with what your goals are so you don't feel lost or overwhelmed or also like you're not stuck at a plateau in your career in your work.
And it will also set you up for some of the conversations that you'll want to have with your manager as we get into the end of the year and also with your team as we get towards the end of the year. This episode will go live at the end of October and I am telling you the next two months will go by so quickly because of holidays and changes in people's schedules and just end of year wrap up.
And what's interesting is whether this is a busy time of year for you or a slow time of year in your business and the the business that you work in. Either way the last quarter of the year tends to go by really fast and all of a sudden it is January, we're in the new year. And I want to make sure you feel like your feet are on the ground, that you know where you are, you know where you're headed, you feel confident about what happened this year and that you have a clear sense of what's
next. So with that, welcome to this episode and the cue for checklist, the first question to ask yourself is, where am I? It sounds so simple, but it's easy to get heads down in the weeds and react to all of the things that happen every day, especially when you're bridging that gap between being an individual contributor and being
a manager. When you're a manager, especially a new manager, a lot of the time you're trying to negotiate between being really good at a specific function or task and the tension of realizing your job is not to be the best at that task, it's to manage the other people who will be doing that task. So it's a very different
perspective. There might be times when you have to wear both hats, so sometimes you roll up your sleeves, you get right in there and you actually do the work alongside your team, which is amazing. But there will be other times when your job is to pull back, take the big picture, make decisions about what is the priority, how to communicate that to your team, how to communicate that to other teams that you work with.
You might have the job of communicating with another manager about setting expectations around capacity or around response times. There are other kinds of conversations, other decisions that you're going to be making when you are a manager. So it's easy to get in a flow of doing things and you can look up in Q4 and look around and say, wait, where am I? Wait, what's going on? Where am I? What's happening?
That's a normal thing. And especially as we move towards the end of the year, one of the things that might be happening is performance reviews. Now every organization addresses this a little bit differently. For some organizations, they do their performance review cycle in September, others do it in July. Some do it multiple times a year. Some companies do not even have a formal review process. It's very ad hoc, very loosely structured.
There's not necessarily a singular correct way to do it. The most important for you as a new manager is to have an understanding of how this works and hopefully this is not a new idea. One of the things when I work with my clients one-on-one is we want to get a sense of what are some of those, those key checkpoints and milestones where you'll be expected to give feedback for your team and also for yourself so that you can build a plan and be prepared for
when that happens. And then not, you know, be staying up late in November and December trying to type in everybody's feedback and remember you know, gosh, what did we do this year. So you know at this stage we're we're in the beginning of Q4, we're in October. You want to pause and ask yourself where am I with respect to performance reviews? Is that something that is going to be coming up in the coming months, in the coming weeks?
And even if it isn't, it is something you might want to keep in mind as you're having your last team meetings of the year, your last one on ones of the year, Where am I? As you're coming into the end of the year with your team, you might also want to have time set aside in one of your team meetings to do like a big picture appreciation and lessons learned conversation with your team so that they both feel appreciated for all the things that they did well.
And we're getting some clarity about any changes or adjustments that we'll want to make in the future based on some of those rough spots that might have come up over the course of the year.
So that's the first question, Where am I realize where you are in the year and take stock of any conversations or specific end of year tasks that you know you'll want to be planning for so that you don't wake up one day and think, Oh my gosh, I completely forgot I had to do this before I went on holiday vacation. So my second question, what's happening? It's kind of similar, right? Well, first is just where am I in the year with all of the things? And then second, ask yourself
what's happening? What's happening? What are we doing? What have we accomplished? Like what is happening here? And this is also where you want to ask yourself, gosh, what did I do this year? What's happening now that maybe we didn't anticipate when we set our work plan at the beginning of the year, which is now almost 11 months ago? What's happening? Is anything happening now that is coming to bear as the results of an unanticipated change in your industry or in your your
organization? Maybe your organization went through a leadership change and it had this ripple effect that you're still feeling the effects of. We wanted no, we want to take that time to just check in and ask what's happening. This is also where I encourage you to look for the wins. It's so easy to become overly focused on the challenges, on the things that are not going to plan, on the places where we feel really uncertain or where
there might be some friction. And I do not want you to lose sight of what are the wins. Always be looking for the things that are going well, in part because you want to have an accurate perspective. And if you're only focused on the challenges and the things that don't feel like they're going well, then you will have an inaccurate perspective on what's going on. And this can have an adverse effect on you as well as on your team.
Because if you are feeling like things are not going well, maybe I'm not doing a good job, maybe I should have done things differently. That can very easily erode your sense of confidence. And when that happens, we tend to get smaller. We tend to feel more reserved, more withdrawn, more hesitant to speak up and to ask for things. And that can mean that you end up keeping yourself smaller and not speaking up and advocating for yourself. And also, you might inadvertently do the same thing
for your team. And you might feel hesitant to advocate for your team and to ask for resources or to have tough conversations if your confidence is feeling eroded. So it's really important when you ask yourself, OK, wait, what's happening? Look for the wins, especially the small ones, because you also want to grow and learn from those and notice you know, not just the gaps.
And also you want to consider when you ask yourself, wait, what's happening, connect that with the broader context of what's happening in your organization, maybe even what's happening in your industry on a bigger level, maybe even in the context of wait, what it, what else is happening in the world that may also be affecting my team, myself, our clients. That is also influencing where you're working and how you're working. We are not separate from the
broader context. And so, you know, it's important that you remember to look at that because that helps inform what does it mean. So for example, maybe you look around, you say, wait, what's happening? Oh my gosh, my team is not performing at the level we expected them to be performing at, at this time of the year. But if you take that bird's eye view and you ask yourself, well, what is happening in the bigger picture, what's the broader
context? You might realize, well, we had a few people who left the company and we didn't replace them. So everyone's workload increased and you might say we had a really hard time handing off work because of this other, you know, system that got replaced. And so there was a a lag in how things were able to get
accomplished. Or you might say we have this one really big client and they went through a massive leadership change where they then you know were non responsive and they they re evaluated their budget and we really had to work hard to retain this client. Now that the, you know the the prior champion who loved working with us has no longer is no longer here and we had to rebuild relationships and so we want to really remember.
So part of your work is, yes, being able to understand and kind of get in the weeds from time to time. But when you're asking yourself what's happening, we're taking that bigger picture, that bird's eye view, to understand the broader context. That might also include how is what is happening on your team. How does that connect with the
bigger organizational goals? What are some of the other constraints or capacity changes or challenges that happened and affected your team over the course of the year? And you want to have an understanding of that so that you can present not just the kind of specific facts and metrics around the measurable dollars and time and headcount and you know where the, you know, the goals and targets met, but also understanding what else was influencing or affecting
that. That becomes so valuable because others in your organization may not have that perspective. And so you want to be prepared to not just say this is what happened in terms of the performance or the results of myself and my team, but you also can then provide meaning by understanding the broader context and helping to convey that to the, you know, your manager and to the other leaders who might not see that It's such an important part.
And this is so much of the the mindset, right, like understanding what are you looking at and what does it mean and then being able to convey and communicate that in the most useful and the most effective way. So the third question that we ask after where am I? And what's happening is we ask what's next? And this is something I want you to consider both for your team,
what's next for your team? Is there anything that you need to be thinking of for them and what will be called upon for them to do in the next couple of months And then transitioning into the new year, like what's next for you as a team? But also, this is a good time to think for yourself what's next for you in terms of your objectives and goals in your career and in your professional development.
This is the time of year where you can look back on the last, you know, 10 to 11 months and say to yourself, you know, based on my experience so far this year, this is the skill I want to develop next. These are my strengths and I want to learn to use them even more. Or wow, I really felt challenged in these kinds of situations. I want to get better so that they don't stress me out as much. And I feel a lot more confident in addressing this kind of challenge or this kind of
problem. And the reason why this is the time of year for you to reflect on that for yourself is because we are near the end of the year for some of our organizations, our fiscal year changes in January. That means that right now in Q4, there might be budget leftover that hasn't been used. And so if you go to your manager and you say, hey, let's talk about professional development, what's next for me is I want to get better at this.
I want to learn that there's a coach I want to work with. There's a a program I would, I would like to take. Your manager might be able to find budget for you now that maybe before had been allocated for something else, but that something else ended up not happening or it ended up costing less. And so, oh, we've got a couple of $1000 left over and we have to use it. And so this is such a good time to go to your manager and say, hey, can we talk about my professional development?
This is what I'm interested in. This is why. Here's how it works. This is why it will help. What can we do? Do we have anything left over in the budget that I could use for professional development? And your manager might love this because it might also make them look good because on their performance review to their manager, they can say, oh, I have been supporting the development of my team. I have facilitated them getting professional development in these ways.
And so it might actually be really good for them. Like you might not realize that you could be solving a problem for them so that when their manager says, hey, you had all this budget but you didn't use it, now they say Oh no, no, we we did use it. We were really very thoughtful in the way that we used the budget that had been allocated to us. These are the kinds of of things that when I was first a manager, it never would have occurred to
me, right? Because my mindset at the time was, oh, I don't want to ask for things and I'll just do it on my own. And so many of my clients are like that too, like very hard working, very high achieving, very self reliant and you don't even realize that there might be budget available that needs to be used before the end of the year. So if that is happening in your organization, I want you to know about it because it's such a great opportunity for you and for some of us, OK.
If you're in an organization and your fiscal year runs July to July, then that means that when you transition into the new year, you're actually at your mid year. It's not the new year for you in terms of the fiscal year, right. You're kind of midpoint, but this is still a great time to ask because you are now midway through the fiscal year.
And so you can begin to think about what would you like to ask for that maybe had not occurred to you six months ago when they were you know, planning the budget. This is the time where you might say, OK, we're now halfway through the fiscal year. And as we're talking about the goals for the second part of our fiscal year from January to July, here are the things that I would like to, you know, learn and grow into. And here are the resources I would like what can we do? Is that available?
And when you present it like that, you're really presenting it as a thought partner. You are coming with a solution. You are demonstrating that you are taking real responsibility for your career growth and for your professional development. And this is a good thing. Not only is that signaling your, you know, inherent leadership qualities and the fact that you're really taking charge of your career, now, you're also working with your manager. So they don't have to.
They don't have to be the one who says, you know, I've been watching you and I've noticed you're really good at this and this thing needs a little help. So I've found it, you know, a training or I've found a program or a coach for you. I think so many of us, it takes us a while to realize that's
actually not how it works. If it does, amazing, but it's generally pretty rare because your manager is worried about their own career development and they have a lot of other things to do. They don't have that same visibility to understand what you want, where you want to go, what's difficult for you, what your uncertainties are. They just, they don't have that insight. But you do, 'cause you are the one who is in your life. You are the one experiencing yourself every day.
And so you are the one best positioned to identify, here's what I want, here's why can we do this? What's next? Be thinking of that and it can be so difficult when you're, you know, kind of overwhelmed by what's happening day-to-day. It can be so easy to lose sight of the big picture of your career and your life and what's possible. You know, we can get just very reactive in the moment trying to put out fires or just, you know, getting through a day. And I totally get that.
And that's why, you know, as we were coming into the end of October. I wanted to be sure that this was on your radar, asking yourself what's next, not just for your team and in this particular organization, but as you think about your career, your life. I mean, I really think that your career, your professional life is one of the most long term relationships that you have.
Even if you pivot careers or you change professions, you're working life is like this whole other relationship journey and it is really helpful when we're thinking about where am I, what's happening, what's next, right. We want to have those questions active in mind and the end of the year as we approach November and December, it's such a like a natural part of when to think about that. I actually met with a client today. We met in person for the first time.
She actually lives in Europe, but she was in San Francisco for a conference. So we we got to meet up in person. It was so cool. And one of the things we talked about that she described and I love this, she talked about the like the rhythm of life and the rhythm of her work and the rhythm of the business that she's in. And I love that, in part because it really does remind us and point to things are not supposed to be the same all the time. We are dynamic humans.
We live in a dynamic and changing world. Our careers are also dynamic. There is change. There's an ebb and a flow. There is a rhythm to all of this and that includes having time to be really engaged and active and also time to rest and reflect. To take that bird's eye view and kind of get a sense of like what next, you know, like based on where you are now and what's happening now, what's next, You wanna ask yourself that question? So that is what I wanted to offer to you today.
If you want to work with me one-on-one, then go into the show notes, book a consultation and we'll talk. The consult is free. We'll get a sense of what's going on with you, where you want to go next and how I can help. And I also have my next group program. You can join the wait list now. The next cohort will be happening in February of 2024, but you want to get on the wait list now to be sure that you know when enrollment opens. So you'll also find a link to
that in the show notes below. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you have a really great week and I will talk to you next time. When you're more effective at work, you're happier in your life, and when you're happier in your life, you're more effective at work. I can help. Go to my website kimnickel.com and sign up for a coaching consult.