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. I have been noticing I've started to get more listeners from Canada and so I want to welcome you. I'm specifically, I've got quite a number of new followers listening from Ontario. So hello to you there. But we also have Quebec represented.
After that we have British Columbia and Alberta and then a few folks listening in from Manitoba, also Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. There are a handful of you out there and so I just want to say hello and welcome and I'm glad you're here. You know, one thing I really have been appreciating in the work that I do with folks is how common challenges are when it comes to managing people. It really is an industry agnostic kind of thing.
In the course that I was just teaching, you know, everyone in that in that course worked in a different industry and even in a different size of organization. And yet, you know, the questions they were asking and what they were hearing each other share, there was so much connection and recognition like, oh, thank goodness it's not just me or you know, I'm not the only one. You know, everyone is asking questions around how do I know if I'm doing a good job? What do I do if I need to give
feedback to somebody? How do I know like the right way to manage my manager and do one on ones or how to schedule and plan for performance review conversations. And so I think it's just super interesting to notice how no matter where you're at, it can feel very lonely. Very slated and yet you are not alone.
I promise you that there are so many others who are asking really similar questions and one of the things I found too, you know, is when you care a lot like you care about doing a good job, you care about being a fair manager, a good manager. You want to, you know, step into this leadership role. There's not like a a a clear road map. It can feel a little bit rocky sometimes. And if you got that inner voice that says, am I doing this
right? I'm not sure what success looks like, then you've come to the right place. And if you want to get even more individual support, then you want to come and sign up for my next course, which is going to be in January. But I tell you, it will come sooner than you know it. So go into the show notes to learn more about my course. OK, Today let's talk about goals and intentions. This is something that has been coming up in some of my coaching conversations.
And it also, you know, shows up towards the end of the year when we're thinking about like, what happened this year? What did I accomplish? What were my goals? And also as you begin to think about 2025 and you will be setting goals for yourself, both personally in your own career and your life, but also professionally and in terms of how you work with your team and what the goals are going to be that you will be responsible for helping to shepherd and navigate
your team towards. And so, you know, one of the things that I've that I've found that's really helpful in getting more clarity and helping to feel less overwhelmed whenever you are thinking through a challenge or thinking through something you're trying to make happen on your team or through your team, like trying to make something on your team might be around. I want my team to collaborate better.
I want them to work better with each other, or I want them to work better with me or even, you know, I want my team to work better with, you know, their internal partners or external clients. Like something you want for your team versus something you want through your team, which is when you want your team to execute tasks specific way to generate a particular outcome. Like there's a goal that you want to have happen. And the way it will happen is by
working through your team. You know, by the way that you communicate and motivate and prioritize and organize all of that. So goals come top of mind. And then we have intentions. Those are a little bit different. So with goals, the thing, the question that you can ask yourself is what is my goal
here? And that is the question to ask when you find yourself getting a bit tangled up in feeling frustrated or overwhelmed or trying to think through like, what am I going to say to this person or what am I going to do about this situation? Take a breath, take a step back, look at this bigger picture and ask, well, what is my goal here? What is the outcome I'm looking for? What is the thing I want to have happen at the end of all this?
Like, what is my goal? Because depending on what your goal is, that might help clarify the decisions you want to make in that direction. And the other thing is that with a goal, there is distance between where you are now and where the goal is. So as you're thinking about, you know, what are the decisions I'm going to make now, then you will make those decisions, follow through and put them into ractice or like follow through and actually execute on them.
Go ahead and do the thing and then you will find out, does this get you closer to your goal or not? And you might need to adjust along the way. You might need to update your decisions now that you've got more information. You might realize, OK, this was the path towards my goal. And I'm realizing the more I move towards it, the more I realize I need to readjust. I need to adapt, change some things. So that goal is distant. It's in the future.
It's away from you and who you are right now. And when you have that goal in mind, it can help organize your thinking around how you're going to move towards that. It can help you focus on what's important, you know? So if that's your goal, maybe there are some other demands for your time and attention, but those are not really important right now because they're not in alignment with the goal. O ask yourself, what's what's the goal here?
Esecially now that I'm Sea King about it, esecially when it comes to giving feedback and performance reviews. You know, what's the goal you have for this person? Are you trying to, you know, build their confidence? Are you trying to, you know, reduce friction? Are you trying to build trust? Are you trying to change a behavior that you're seeing? Are you trying to shift their mindset? Are you trying to, you know, get them to see how they are part of the bigger picture and are
valued? Like, like, what is your goal? And that will help you determine what kind of feedback you want to give. And you know, rather than being like comprehensive, like, I'm going to give you all the feedback because I want to be very thorough.
That is rarely the most useful approach because what ends up happening is the person receiving comprehensive feedback starts to feel overwhelmed, maybe just nitpicked on like, I can't believe they picked all these things that I'm not doing well, you know, or they can feel like, oh, I can't do anything right. You know, why even bother? And so when you're thinking about what is, what is the feedback you're going to give? When you think of the context of
what is the goal? What do you want that what do you want to happen as a result of giving that feedback that will inform, you know, what you decide to communicate and document and why. If it's an issue with someone where there's a, you know, maybe a question about is this still a good fit? Maybe you've seen some behaviors that are concerning and maybe you've seen a pattern of just like poor judgment or behaviors that are just not OK.
So your goal might be around, I just need to document things. I just need to create a record to document that, you know, we've seen a history of this behavior and here are the actions I've taken to try and correct or adjust. And they continue to decline that invitation over time, right? Like depending on what the goal is, that will inform what you decide to do. Then we have an intention, and an intention is a bit different.
You can think of the intention as a sense of directionality or a sense of activating energy that shapes your actions and decisions. And one of the biggest differences between the goal and the intention is that the intention happens right now. Your intention might be to be more curious. You're being curious right now, you know, in this moment, not in the future. You're not waiting, you know, to see if the actions roll up into that thing like we do with the goal, with the intention.
It's more the sense of what are the qualities that I am going to bring into this situation or conversation or challenge. You can think of it also as what is the perspective or the mindset. You know, my clients will say, you know, I'm I'm going into this meeting, It might be a little tense. And so my intention is to come with a willingness to hear their perspective. I want to show up really, as, you know, being on their side.
I have my clear point of view. But you know, my intention is to be willing to hear what they have to say, what their perspective is, because I, I feel like we are on the same team, even though sometimes I think we get, we get at odds with each other because, you know, we both want to be right about the way that we see things. So you can think about, OK, what is the energy you're going to bring into that situation? What is your intention?
You can use this too when you think about what it means to grow into your leadership self. So it might be, you know, my intention is not to show up like their close friend. My intention is to show up as a leader who is really looking out for the entire organization. Or my intention is to show up as the the person who's willing to say the hard thing.
I can say the hard thing in a kind way or from a kind place and the willingness to do that, like that's my intention is to show up willing to say the hard thing in a kind way, even if you know, it makes this person uncomfortable or even if you know they, they have a, a reaction to it. Think about what is the intention that you want to bring because you get to activate that every moment and with intentions too. They're not black and white.
They're not all or nothing. The intention that you bring might look different in the moment, depending on what's happening with you as a person. And that might look like, you know, even if you are tired, exhausted, sleep deprived, stress out, whatever else is going on in your life that might be making it hard to show up as your best, you can still choose. You know, this is the intention I want to bring into these
situations. Even when maybe I'm feeling like I'm at a six out of 10 in terms of energy, I'm still going to Orient my intention in this direction with this kind of energy. And that's what I am going to bring, right? And so when you think about what your intention is, it can match nicely with the goal. But those are two separate things. You can feel successful in achieving that intention to whatever degree is available to you right now, today, in this
moment. If you're doing hard things, your intention might be to be courageous. I'm going to show up with some courage today, and I like to remember that the word courage includes this word of core of heart, the sense of a centeredness, the sense of like that which is central to that internal grounding place. And there can be a sense of love and care. I think often the reason we show up with courage is because there is someone or something that we care about.
If we didn't care, whatever, we wouldn't need to be courageous. We just let it go. But when we choose this intention of I'm going to show up with some courage today, it can be nice to remember that it connects to this element of heart, of caring, of love that sits centrally within you just as a person. So those are some thoughts as we come into this week. And it's November now, which, wow, it's November now. We're moving towards the end of
the year. So take some time, you know, as you go through this week, as you think about what is going on in your personal life, in your work life, what it means for you to be a leader and a manager. What is the goal that you have ahead of you for this coming week or this coming season? And what is the intention that you will choose to bring to each moment? Have a think on that. If you want to, you can leave a comment in Spotify.
It's super cool feature. You can leave a comment in the in the episode and share with me, you know, what goal or what intention are you choosing or working with today. And again, like, thank you so much for being here. Being a manager, not always easy. Being a human, definitely not always easy. And working with humans, definitely not always easy. But here we are and I'm glad you're here. So thanks for listening and I hope you have a really great week. 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.