Welcome to the new manager podcast. I'm your host, Kim nickel. Hello and welcome. I hope you're doing well and I hope that you enjoyed the last episode with Michelle Carver. I so enjoyed having that conversation and sharing her insights and knowledge with you. And she has also inspired me to have additional guests. So stay tuned and some of the future episodes I will be
sharing. Other perspectives About Management from people that I really respect for the work that they do in the world and that I think will help you as well. So, I'm excited for that to happen today. I wanted us to dive a little bit deeper with respect to how to operationalize. This capture of value and the understanding for yourself of what the value is that you bring to your team into the workplace just as Michelle.
And I talked about in our last episode it's really easy for us to forget or to lose sight of the things. We do that bring value into the space and so it's helpful to think about ways to make it easy for you to say. Stay close to and to remember that. And this will help you in your conversations with your manager. It will help you to clarify for them. The work that you're doing the value that you're bringing, but also, it keeps your own brain connected to the value that you
bring. And if there is something that you are especially good at you might Overlook and not acknowledge and fully credit yourself. For that, for example, what I shared in our last episode about how because I have this ability to create a very calming and relaxing space where the students and the clients in my
sessions felt more calm. Just because of the way that I showed up, the way that I work with people tends to have that effect Act. And it was a while before I recognize that as something valuable because although it's not something that would have been included as a performance metric, it wasn't something that was on the job description that was just something of value that I bring into whatever room I'm in and being able to understand that for myself and see how
because that is true about me, it enabled my You didn't send my clients to get more out of the time that we had together. It enabled people to learn more fully and more deeply when they felt less anxious and they felt more safe. So making that connection with something that wasn't obvious to me in the beginning. It's something I had to learn
how to see. And I see this, even with the coaching that I do with some of my clients, especially, Lee when they're feeling called in a direction that is a little bit outside, the scope of what they currently do.
So aspetto. And especially if you're being called to any kind of mentoring, any kind of teaching also Business Development. So for example, let's say that you're a lawyer and your, your performance is Rated on the number of hours, you build, you have a certain goal of billable hours and that is what you're supposed to do. And let's say that, even though you are billing hours, you're also really interested in business development.
You're really interested in finding these great clients and selling the The Firm to your clients and you're really interested also in Mentoring and helping to train and develop newer Associates. You might feel drawn to that work even though it's outside. The scope of what you're specifically being measured on. And what I like to point out is that, you know, you are responsible for really holding your entire career with so much care with so much, respect and
love. And so, if what you're interested in is kind of expanding beyond what you're Now, and you're exploring. What that next level is then you want to give yourself credit for all of those things. And when you are in conversations with your manager about performance, you want to be the one carrying that that story of value into the conversation. So you can say, yes, these are the hours I've build and I have been giving this Many hours to client development, business
development. And I've also taken the initiative to support our new hires with onboarding and getting them up to speed. So they can work more effectively with, you know, with the rest of us, you want to feel comfortable naming those things and highlighting the value. And if you are a manager, then you'll Really appreciate that.
The value of this, if you have an employee, who does this is because as a manager, you have so much that's happening for you, that you can't possibly track all of the things that your team is doing. Especially if your team is really big, especially if your team is remote and distributed and it is bit more difficult, you have to be more specific and precise about out hearing and learning what people are working
on all of the different things. So, you know, bringing this back to you, continue to capture the things that you do that bring value into your organization, even when it's something that might be not included in your official job description and one of the ways you can do that and this is Something that I have also done in my own life, is once a month, open a document and simply look at your calendar and then write down like, in a bullet point form, what are all of the things you have
accomplished and be specific and you're not trying to make yourself kind of puffed up? You know, or anything like that? You're just being really specific. I had no this this many meetings. Things with this team in order to, you know, whatever, I had this many client calls, I had, you know, this many presentations of, you know, sharing out our ideas and progress to these people. You want to count everything, you want to count everything so that you see it.
And you remember it. I mean, if you're like me, it's hard to remember what you did last week, so, Taking a time, just once a month to pause like back, okay, like what actually happened is really helpful and looking Beyond whatever. The stated goals are look at what actually happened. What did you actually do? What did you actually accomplish? And I would even add to include the things. You do that, help you to be a
good manager. So this includes coach Coaching sessions that you do for yourself classes that you take for yourself books or articles or online courses that you do for yourself, and also have like having great boundaries, right? Like, if you look over the last month and you say I was really consistent about taking a real lunch break in the middle of the day, powering down my computer, eating some food, going for a walk. Give yourself credit for that
too. Because that is part of what enables you to show up centered ready available to do great work, and sometimes we can lose sight of that fact. And think we only get credit for overextending ourselves, or for going above and beyond all of the time, which is not sustainable, and it will drain you, and it will set a poor example. For your team. So give yourself credit for those moments where you have a boundary, where you practice some self-care to replenish and
refresh and reset yourself. I like to think of that document as a value tracker. And it's just, you know, visit it once in a while, once a month, twice a month, to just track, all of the valuable things that you are doing that. You are bringing into the space. Now, the other practice that you can do to kind of operationalize, this capture of value, is something that I've heard described by others as a brag doc or like a like a, like a brag file.
And for me, I actually think of it more like a love file because you know, bragging is is not necessarily a word that that I that I embrace. Myself but I do raise this idea of love. And why that? I mean in the workplace when I get feedback from a client or from a colleague about something I've done that has made a positive difference. I will take a screenshot and I'll put it in this file because every time I look at it, I'll just feel so much love. I'll feel so much pride for the
work that I'm doing. I'll feel so much appreciation and gratitude so it's kind of like this collection. Of evidence that you're seeing reflected back to you of the positive difference that you're making and this becomes valuable to. Because sometimes in the course of our work, you might receive some really fantastic positive feedback but your manager may not have any visibility on that. And so it is good for you to capture that. Sometimes you might even want to share it with your man.
Chair and say, hey, look what this person said. I just wanted to share this with you, you know, I so appreciate the work I get to do here and it's like, this is what makes the difficult days completely worth it is when I get feedback like this. So, take that time to capture
that. Positive feedback or that feeling of success, the thing that you launched, the problem, you solve the presentation, you deliver the thing, you design, the client relationship that you are able to repair, whatever it is, where you feel a sense of accomplishment. Like, yes, I did this and it feels really good. Keep a file of those because we number one, we all have difficult days when we think, what am I doing? Like I feel like I'm failing. I feel like, I don't know what
I'm doing. This is so frustrating. We all have days like that, and that's not a problem. That's just what it means to be alive in human on the planet. But it can be really helpful to have this collection to both remind yourself. You know what? Do do good work. I do feel proud about the work I'm doing and it will also help you.
When again, you're having conversations with your manager when you're managing up, when you are are wanting to pursue a promotion or a, a different role, you want to have evidence of the great work that you're doing. And the way that you're bringing value into the Ization.
And if you ever work with somebody like Michelle who can help to create more clarity around your career story, those are the kinds of things that are so helpful to talk about because it can illuminate for you the blind spots that you might not have even realized. So when I was was coaching in all of these different companies around public speaking skills and I did this for about Years at the end of every training, we would do this feedback survey and what was so interesting.
Is that consistently I always got the same kind of feedback and it was always around how I was able to create this really calming welcoming relaxing space, and people could feel safe to do scary things like speaking in public in front of their peers. And so it was quite astonishing as over time, I began to to see this pattern and I began to
understand that. Wow, this this is a thing that I bring into the space and so for you to when you create a file, a love file, a brag file, whatever you want to call it, but it's the place where you collect the screenshots or the emails, the messages from people expressing appreciation, or, you know, or Polly, you know the things that you accomplished right? Like solving a problem serving a client when you have a place where you can look at all of those out ones.
You might be surprised by what emerges, what pattern shows up as you look at that. So those are my thoughts for you today, around value and really coming to a place where you can understand really own and hold with so much confidence the sense of. Yeah, like this is the value that I bring into the space and, you know, oh my gosh.
Okay. So one final thought related to this so you know, as a human you're growing, your interests are growing your Eels are growing, your desires are growing and there may come a time when you feel that you have outgrown the place that you're that you're at or the role that you're in or the even the the industry or the field, you might want to grow beyond that. And, you know, one of the things that was so hard for me for a long time, was I thought, you know, this thing that I'm good at.
It doesn't seem to matter. I don't think it really counts and I mean, I'm going back like 20 years, like, A back into the beginning of my career and feeling like, you know, there's something that I think is true about me that I think is, is valuable about me, but it doesn't seem to be recognized as valuable in the company I'm in or in the industry.
I meant. And so, it just felt very sad because I thought, oh, I'm not valued in the way, you know, people with this kind of background or valued or so, people don't really appreciate our value. You this quality that I bring because they really like, you know, these other kinds of people and what it took me a
while to learn. And so what I want to share with you on this is that it is so important to really trust and respect that the value that you bring exists and it matters, even when other people around, you might not see it or I might not value it too. Always trust and hold with the greatest respect and the greatest confidence, the value that is you and the value that is yours and what's fun is you
can you know what I realized? And what's fun that I want to share is when you do that you can say you know what? It's okay. If they don't value me, I value me. And I'd like to bring myself and this value to a place that wants this kind of value. You like it's okay. You don't have to stay in a place that you have outgrown. You don't have to stay in a role or in an organization. Like you can explore and find and ask, huh, you know, where else might?
I like to use this value, or to bring this value. It's okay to grow Beyond where you're at now, it doesn't mean that you're not grateful, it doesn't mean that you're not a Rishi itive. You can be grateful and appreciative and feel excited for what is next in your career, and in your life. So, I wanted to share that with you. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you have a wonderful day and I will talk to you next
time. Do you want personal confidential help with your situation at work? I offer one-on-one coaching and can help you overcome challenges reach your goals and become a more effective leader to schedule a consult. Go to my website, Kim nickel.com coaching and we'll schedule time to talk about what's going on with you and how I can help talk to you soon.