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 I want to talk with you about two things that are always going to affect the way that you are managing people, but might not always be obvious. And my intention is that if I can help you to see that these things exist, then you actually have more agency in deciding how you want to engage with and
within these two things. So the first one is systems, the 2nd is environment. And what's interesting is that both systems and environment are things that can be rather invisible. And there are formal kinds and informal kinds. And I'll explain that a bit more as we go, but I want to start by sharing a quick story to help illustrate where we're going to go today. So in my neighborhood there is an ice cream shop. It is very, very popular. It smells so good.
It's the kind of place where it just walking by, you smell the waffle cone scent and you slow down and it just, it smells so good and there's all, you know, almost always a big line out the door. And I once had gone in there because I wanted to get some ice cream and there was a huge line out the door. This was over the summer, so lots of people feeling, you know, very excited and talking. And you know you're in line for ice cream. So you know, you're, you're not in too much stress.
You're just like, OK, I'm in line because I'm going to have some ice cream today. And I saw this big line and I thought, oh, I know what I can do. And I walked past everyone in the line. I walked directly into the shop and I went to kind of the backside of this ice cream shop because that is where they have a little freezer where they have pre packed pints of ice cream. And so I went right to inside, right to the freezer, and I opened it up and I found the flavor that I wanted.
And I, you know, close the freezer door. And then I kind of cut through the line and went straight up to the cashier. And I paid for the ice cream and I left. And this whole process took, I mean, just like a minute. And meanwhile, I'm seeing all of these people standing in line and they're kind of looking at me and I'm kind of looking at them.
And because I had been to this ice cream shop before I understood the system, I understood that if you want a scoop of ice cream, whether it's in a cup or in one of their fresh, delicious waffle cones, if that's what you want, then you have to wait in the line because you have to get to the counter. And then you have to talk to the person. And you might ask to taste some different flavors before you make your final decision.
And then they will hand scoop it, put it in the cup or cone, hand it to you and then you will go to the cash register with your ice cream in hand. However, if what you want is to buy a pre packed pint, then you do not need to stand in line at all. You can go straight to the freezer, grab what you want, jump right to the cash register and you will pay and you can leave.
So because I understood how the system worked, I was able to function in that space in a way that was highly effective for me, where I didn't waste any unnecessary time. And maybe some people were a little confused or thinking, you know, like, who is this lady? Is she cutting the line?
That's not OK. But I just got in there, I got my ice cream, I paid for it and I got out and it really made me realize how important it is to understand what are the systems that you are working in Now some of these will be unwritten. Like I don't think there was a sign anywhere that said, hey, if you just want a pint, just go buy a pint.
You know, I'm I'm sure I picked this up somewhere either, you know, I when I had purchased it in the past or when I had seen someone else do it. But it was just, it was a thing that I knew about how that system worked.
So when you think about being a manager and you think about your work, I want you to start getting really curious about what are some of the systems that are in place that are affecting what you do, how you do it, and also how it affects the people that you work with and have a measure of responsibility for. So you definitely want to know what is our performance review system, How formal is that? How informal is that? What are the important
timelines? Like, is it something that we all do at a certain time of year? Is it more related to, you know, when somebody starts, like if we do performance reviews at the end of the year, but this person started two months ago, what do we do? Like how does the system work? You will want to know. And it's the kind of thing that you know when you get promoted or when you step into a company. You might need to ask. People might not think to tell you.
So you want to find out how does our performance review system work. Related to that, find out how do promotion cycles work. Like the promotion cycle might happen at a very specific time. You might need to understand kind of like what does it take for someone to get promoted. If someone on your team is saying, hey, I want to get a promotion, you want to understand what that will take,
what it will mean for them. In order to do that, is it something where you need to, you know, like get approvals from other certain people? Like is there other information or other decision makers that will affect that? You want to understand what that is so that you can be most effective in how you manage that person, helping them to either, you know, do what they need to do to level up their skills to position them into that into that place.
Or, and this is actually something I've seen before, sometimes in an organization you'll have one open spot but multiple internal candidates who are qualified for that promotion. And in that situation, it might come down to the manager being able to advocate for why their team, you know, team member, should get that promotion instead of someone else's team member. So that's the kind of thing you you want to be able to anticipate, not be caught off guard or surprised by.
You just want to understand, like, how does this system work, What is the process? And then also understanding about raises and bonuses. Is that something your organization has, you know, a formal, structured policy around? Maybe they do, you know, maybe you do, maybe you don't. But you want to find out. You want to know. And again, sometimes that's the
kind of detail that you know. Your manager or HR might not think to tell you in advance and it might not be on your radar if you're the first time in this role, but you want to be thinking, OK, the people on my team will probably want to raise at some point and may you know, there might be curious about bonuses. I should find out, like what is the system around that? How does that work? Is there anything I need to be tracking or planning for now?
And if anyone is off track or if I'm sensing that maybe they think they're performing at a really high level, but I'm measuring them you know, against something else. And like my assessment is, you know, might not line up with how they're a self assessing. Then I need to be able to have a conversation with them early so that we're not so far down the process or into the system that suddenly you know, they're feeling like wait, like I didn't know this was happening.
I thought we were doing this. Not that like we just want to be mindful of what are the systems in which we are operating. And again, those can sometimes be invisible. So we want to ask questions and find out what they are. Sometimes it will be very formal. There will be a structure and maybe even specific tools and other people might be very well aware of it. But sometimes it will be a little bit more informal and we want to be mindful and aware of that too.
That's kind of like when there's not a policy written down anywhere, but there's a way that business is done or there's a way that things are done. And it's somewhat tacit, meaning it's just, oh, this is, you know, just how we do things. It's, you know, this person needs to approve the thing and they need to do it by this time. And we need to be aware that these other people are looped in.
Like we just want to understand what it is so that you have agency and can be intentional and strategic in how you operate within those systems. So the other piece that's kind of related to this is the idea of environment. And your environment, again, can be, you know, have invisible components, but it can also have visible components, right?
Like the environment might actually be the physical description of where you work and how that physical environment affects the way that people are able to work together. Like if you're all close to each other in proximity. And that might make you know,
conversations really easy. But on the other hand, if it's all very Openoffice plan and there's no place to have private conversations, then maybe there's a bit of a downside around that sense of privacy or the ability to have a, you know, a private conversation or meeting with people in a way that feels sort of casual, right, without it feeling super, super serious. So environment also often I see it as something that has a strong emotional quality to it.
And you know, a few years ago when I was working on site in lots of different companies and coming in to do trainings and coaching, it was so interesting because with some organizations it's like when you walk in the door, you can feel the energy of the room. And there's a difference between kind of a a low level tension where everyone is really excited and there's a, you know, a sense of aliveness.
Like, I'm thinking specifically of some work I did with a company in the entertainment industry. And there was a sense of aliveness, like people were just alert and engaged and really highly creative and the the energy was up. But it was a very creative and kind of curious, interested energy compared to another organization where it was very tense.
Like you could sense, oh, people are under pressure, people are anxious here, people are very worried about how they are appearing in front of their colleagues. There's a a strong sense of guardedness or there's a strong, you know, a strong sense of, you know, I really need people to see me in this way. And I really, you know, need to make sure that I, I preserve my image in front of my colleagues. Like you could sense the tension in the room.
And even though there was still that, you know, high energy, there was a lot less joy in it, a lot more fear.
And I mentioned this because this quality of what is the environment in which we're working, especially the emotional tone of, you know, sort of how you're working and where you're working, that can change over time depending on what's going on. So for example, if you're in an organization and you've gone through layoffs, the environment in which you're working may have a combination of kind of fear, a little bit of grief for having lost some of, you know, work
colleagues. There might even be a little bit of resentment because now it's like I still have my job, but now I have to do even more work because of the people that we've let go. That environment is going to have an effect on how folks work together, how much trust there is, how people are feeling where their focus is. And that might be really different than how it was, you know, two years ago when business was going great or when, you know you were on a growth spurt.
So you were hiring and there was lots of resources for all of the things that can change. And it's interesting too, that quality of environment and kind of the emotional feel can also change depending on where in an organization you are. And this is where I like to, you know, remind you that you create a little microclimate with the team that you have based on how you show up, how you work with your team, the way that you communicate, the energy that you bring into the work that can
create a little microclimate. And it's kind of like, you know, if you've ever heard the saying how people leave managers, not jobs, the reverse is also true. People stay because of their managers, even if the the bigger organization is struggling.
People will stay when they really feel like my manager has my back, my manager supports me. Yeah, maybe the other, you know, the organization as a whole is really struggling but aren't my manager and my team is so good and I feel so connected to them and I really want to stay in order to help us get through this hard time. Like you can be the one who's creating this little microclimate.
It's also really good to bear that in mind because if you are a new manager coming into an intact team, meaning they've worked together for a while and now you are the new person in this team, you also want to be mindful and just aware of kind of what is the emotional tone of this team that I'm coming into. You know, how are people feeling? What's, what's kind of going on? What's the unspoken kind of invisible thing that I can sense with how people are here?
Like, is this a very guarded place? Is it kind of command and control? Is it a place where there's already a lot of trust and a lot of great, you know, open communication? Let's find out. Like, be curious and see what you can perceive when you think about it in those terms. I share this too, because I one time had a client. She was a new manager and she was stepping in to work with a team who had very unexpectedly lost their previous manager, who
had sadly died unexpectedly. And so she came in as this new manager for this team that was really going through a lot of grief, a lot of sadness, like a lot of, you know, difficulty emotionally. And so she had to be mindful of, OK, this is the environment of my team right now, and how can I be mindful of that as I work to help us accomplish what we're
here to accomplish together? So you want to have awareness of what is that environment because that also can affect you, you know, like how you're feeling, how effective you're feeling. You might find why would I'm so effective in a startup environment where everything is really loose and open and there's a lot of freedom because things are not that structured.
Maybe that's the kind of work environment you really thrive in. And if you go into an organization that's a bit more structured and a bit more, you know, kind of clear about who does what, maybe you realize like, oh, like, why is, why am I having such a hard time? Oh, it's because I'm not used to working in this environment.
The reverse can also be true. You might feel really confident about your skills and abilities when you're working in like a huge global, you know, legacy organization that's got a lot of very clear processes and systems established. And then you go into another organization that perhaps is a bit newer, it's a bit younger in IT in terms of its growth.
And so, you know, it's like, oh, they don't actually have an HR department or oh, they actually don't have clear policies about XY and Z. And now you are having to navigate a lot more ambiguity while also kind of like helping to create create it as you go. So being mindful, what is the environment that you're working within both emotionally and you know kind of structurally like how how is this organization?
And then as I mentioned before, become aware of the systems that you're also working with and working within so that you can be intentional about how you do that. And for both of these, the thing that will help you the most is to just be really curious. You know, like imagine that you just kind of walked into this new like a new place and you don't know how everything works and you're just curious and interested to learn, see what you observe.
This is also why it can be important to be intentional in building relationships with others in your organization. Because you want not just other people that can give you information who have may have been there longer, been in their role longer, but they can also provide you with perspective, with context to understand kind of what are we doing and why, like where is this coming from? What's really going on?
Is there something else happening, you know somewhere in this organization that is creating what is happening in front of me that I cannot see? I'll just give you know one example of this. So let's say that the the highest level of leadership goes through a couple of big changes, right? And this could this happens right? Like someone at a high level leaves, someone new comes in and the new person has a really different idea about how we're going to work here and they
start wanting to make changes. And then the folks who are on the receiving side of that, they might really struggle. Maybe that's not what they feel on board for. Maybe your boss doesn't want to be there anymore. You know, sometimes we assume the people that we work with also want to be there, but that's not always true. And so, you know, I I remember once I was working with someone really nice, nice person, but really struggled and I didn't
really understand why. I'm like, I don't, I feel like something is happening here, but I don't really understand what it was. And it was by having a conversation with someone else who had a different perspective of the organization and of the team and had a bit more context of kind of what was happening on the higher level with the organization. And they said, yeah, you know, like you're a manager. I don't think he wants to be
here anymore. I think he wanted to be there, you know, during this stage of the company. But now that the company is changing, I think he's, you know, kind of looking out the door. And when I heard that, I thought, Oh my gosh, that makes so much sense. You know, like that kind of unspoken tension where, you know, this person is such a kind person and it seems like they're struggling, but I don't really
know why. And it's like, oh, because the organization is changing and their manager has changed and they're actually maybe not happy here anymore. Makes so much sense. So I share that because a lot of these are relational and the more that you can be intentional about the way you build relationships, so you have other sources of information, other perspectives, so that you're able to get more context also so that you have additional allies in different places in the organization.
These are all good things and it will also help you to do your job better when you have that perspective and context. So be curious, you know, what are the systems in play that you're going to be working within, especially around performance reviews, promotion cycles, how raises and bonuses
happen or don't like. You want to understand how that works And then being mindful of the environment that you're working in, how that's going to affect you specifically as a human and the team that you're working with. Be curious about those, kind of put on like the lens to look for them so you can understand what they are and then work more intentionally with that understanding.
So that's what I wanted to share with you today if you want to work with me one-on-one good news, I've got room for some new clients. So go into the show notes, book a consult or go to my website kimnickel.com and you'll see where you can book some time to talk with me about one-on-one coaching and what how that works.
And you know, we work together for six months so that you've got lots of support, you've got lots of, you know, support to grow, to learn and to reach those goals that are going to be important for you in the next six months and into the next year. I also have my next group program is going to get ready to go pretty soon.
I mean, I'm nowhere in December, but the new year will be here before we know it. So to find out more about that, get on the mailing list, go to kimnickel.com, go to the new managers page and you'll see a link to get on the mailing list so that you know when I open up the next group program for enrollment. All right. Thanks so much for listening. I will see 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. It can get better.