Welcome to the new Manager podcast. I'm your host, Kim Nichol. Hello and welcome. I'm glad you're here and I hope you're doing well. Two bits of housekeeping as we get started today. Sign up for my Essential skills for new managers, a lightning lesson. It is a 45 minute class. It is free. I am teaching it this coming Friday on November 1st. And if you can't join live, no problem. If you register, you will get a
link to the recording. So that's thing number one thing #2 is that the new dates for the upcoming cohort for my group course that is now been announced and it's open. It starts in January, but you can sign up now. So if you have budget from 2024 that you still need to use, you can sign up now and then be all set up to deepen your learning as soon as the new year gets underway. All of that info you'll find on my website, kimnickel.com or
down in the show notes below. And now we can get to the heart of our episode today. In the last month, I have been doing a lot more in person team building facilitation sessions. So teams are meeting in person again, they're going on off sites, they're flying in from all of their different places to
get together. And one of the reasons, you know, teams bring me in is to help facilitate a conversation around, you know, what are the values and what are the qualities that we want to create for ourselves as a team, right? Like what, what makes a great team? And one of the exercises that I walk my groups through is this practice around appreciative inquiry. And as I was, you know, facilitating this for a couple of teams, I thought, this is really good.
I want to bring it here because there's a very important difference between appreciative inquiry and toxic positivity. So appreciative inquiry is when we look at what's working and we even look outside our media environment and we say, who do I notice that is doing this well? What can I learn from what I'm observing of someone else doing this thing well or accomplishing the goal that I'm seeking to accomplish for myself or for my
team? How can I learn from the success of others as well as, you know, the success of yourself? But that is the question. We're seeking to learn about what's working, what are the clues and and the insights that we can learn by looking at the success of others. Toxic positivity, on the other hand, is the unwillingness to look at the hard thing. It's when we kind of force ourself to only look at positive things, to only look through a
positive lens. And the difficulty there when we do that is we actually miss out on what are the lessons or what are the very important flags or information to be gained by looking at the things that are hard and that aren't working. So again, appreciative inquiry, We're choosing to learn from the success of others as well as from the success of yourself. Toxic positivity is the unwillingness to look at the hard thing and to kind of be in denial and ignore the things
that aren't working. So they're, they're quite, quite different now. One of my favorite examples of appreciative inquiry is if you wanted to know how to have a really successful happy long term relationship, you would want to study and get curious about people who actually were doing that. Who are the people that are having successful happy long term relationships? What are they doing? What is it like in the beginning versus the middle versus towards the end?
Like what is the arc? How do they deal with conflict and challenge? And you know, just how do they, how do they do that? How do they navigate the highs and lows of life successfully? You would not learn the same thing if you only studied where do relationships go wrong.
You know, if you only studied, for example, divorced people or you only studied people that had a series of short term relationships, you might learn a lot about what brings a relationship to an end because you're studying people that are creating that, that are doing that. But you would not get the information that would be available by studying the people in happy long term relationships. And the same can apply to work.
So if you think about what your goals are for your team, for the the organization, if you're thinking about how do we work together in a way that will be successful so that we're thriving as individuals, thriving as a team, We're meeting our goals as an organization. And even when we're facing challenges and uncertainties and unexpected change, how can we navigate through all of that? It becomes helpful to then look to well, where are teams that
are doing that well? How can I learn from that? And sometimes those teams might be, you know, other other organizational teams. It might be an experience that you had in the past working on a really high performing, high functional team. It might be a team that's
represented in a story, right? So whether it's a fictional story and you think, wow, I'm watching this movie in the way that they are depicting, you know, the way that this team is working together, they're really demonstrating the kinds of qualities I wish that our team could cultivate or that our team could have. Or if you're thinking about sports or even the arts, thinking about musicians, you know, like a band or an orchestra.
Or if you're thinking about sports teams and saying, wow, the way that they are playing together, even though we've got all these different instruments or all these different kinds of players, and yet they're able to bring the best of their skills and a lot of communication and empathy and a lot of adaptability and trust. And wow, I see how they are more than the sum of their parts. I'm learning by observing some of the the things that I can see that they are doing.
We can look to, you know, our own experiences or external ones to start to find ideas that can help you in the day today. And sometimes it really is that role and responsibility as the manager, as the person in that leadership seat to have a vision of what's possible for your team and to then begin to communicate and make decisions that can help shape the. I want to say it's like you're shaping the culture, like you're shaping the way people are working, you're shaping the way
people are feeling. And all of this to say, like, it's not necessarily easy, but it won't happen at all unless we decide to get curious and intentional about it. And it's really neat when we start to realize, oh, there might actually be a lot of examples that you can pull from to give you ideas of what's needed. Now in this moment, as we're moving into the end of the year, how can I be thinking about what will be supportive for my team?
And so this practice of appreciative inquiry, it's, it's one that I had been doing with the teams that I've been working with the last month or so. And one specific practice that we did that I wanted to tell you about is I start by asking, you know, think about the, the year behind you. So all of the things that you've accomplished this year, all of the achievements you've reached, all of the challenges that you've had to face, all of the hard things, as well as all of
the really positive things. And when you think about yourself in the last year, what's something that you feel proud of? And it might be an accomplishment. It might be how you handled a really big problem or an unexpected change. It might be feeling proud that even when things were really hard, you feel proud about the way that you showed up with a lot of respect and integrity and empathy.
But think about something that you feel proud of, something that you yourself feel proud of in the last 12 months or so. And then when you have that, then tell someone. And if you're thinking about, oh, how do I do that in the workplace? That might be kind of weird the way you can weave this in since I'm not there to facilitate the actual activity for you and your team right now.
You can either, you know, bring this as a prompt at a meeting like a, you know, when you bring your team all together or even in your one on ones, you can say when you come to the, you know, you're one-on-one. I'd like you to think about something you feel proud of over the last year and let's talk about it. What can we learn from that?
And what's great is that when we intentionally do this practice, we're directing our attention towards this moment where there's something valuable to be learned. What is the thing that you feel proud of, whether it was, you know, addressing something difficult, responding to a failure or a challenge, or whether it was an accomplishment of some kind? What is it that we can learn from that? And sometimes the thing we learn is, wow, I didn't realize I was, I'm really good at this.
You know that it might reveal a particular strength that you weren't aware of or that you simply overlook. It can also reveal insights and lessons that otherwise we might not have noticed. Because one of the things about having a human brain is you are going to tend to drift towards the negative. Oh, it could have been better.
Oh, I need to deal with this other challenge that's coming up. You know, we tend to move so quickly away from those bright spots and we tend to over focus on the challenges, the negative experiences. They're a little bit more stickier in our memory and in our, you know, emotional landscape.
And so by doing this practice, what's something you feel proud of over the last year, it helps to bring your perspective a little into balance so that you're not overlooking some really valuable insights and learnings. So it's not about, you know, patting yourself on the back and saying, like, I am just the best person, although of course do
that from time to time. You know, it's, it's, it's good for the spirit, but on a very practical level, if you're not noticing and if you're not communicating the work that you feel proud of or the accomplishments or the qualities and skills that are valuable, if you're not noticing them and communicating them, it's possible that they might go unseen. They might go unnoticed, especially if you are working remotely or hybrid.
It's possible that not other people have noticed and it's good for them to notice, especially on a team. It's helpful when we have an understanding of what are the strengths and skills that this team holds. And, you know, sometimes we forget because we're in the grind or we're focused on the work that hasn't been done yet, or we're feeling frustrated by, you know, the resources that we don't have or how we wish things would be different.
So taking that time to pause, putting on that lens of appreciative inquiry, asking what's something I feel proud of. Oh, yeah, it's this. And then finding or creating an opportunity to include that as a discussion topic, whether it's in your one on ones. And you can even bring this to your manager, you know, in your one on ones. You might say, you know, I was thinking about the year and there's this one thing I feel really proud of that I wanted to, you know, share with you.
You can weave that into your conversation with your manager as well, especially as we move towards the end of the year, especially as we're thinking about 2025 planning, right? You might even also connect it to your desire direction for professional development. And I felt really proud of the way I was able to do that. And I'm thinking in the next year, I want to hone that skill even more, or I want to bring that skill and take on this kind of work. You can start to connect those dots.
And that can then be really satisfying for your own career growth and career progression. But also thinking just, you know, how do we work effectively as a team? Well, it helps when we're aware of all of the different skills, gifts, talents, strengths and experience that's on the team. And those things might change over time. So if we don't slow down to ask, then we might not actually find out. So consider trying that in the coming weeks. See if you can do this
appreciative inquiry practice. Find a way to weave it in either, you know, kind of subtly or if it's your meeting, you might tell people in advance, hey, we're going to do this reflection and share out as we move towards the end of the year. Try that and see how it goes. And of course, hey, if you've got some team off sites coming up and you are looking for an outside facilitator to help you and your people have that kind of conversation, then you should
definitely get in touch. It's a lot of fun and I love to do it. All right, thank you so much for listening. Have a 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. It can get better.