Welcome to the new manager podcast. I'm your host, Kim nickel. Hello and welcome, I'm glad you're here. I hope you're doing well. I am feeling really great right now because I spent all of last week with my mentor and a community of other coaches, it really reminded me of two things. I want to tell you about one is how valuable it is to have.
Someone you can talk to who 100% believes in you and 100% is unattached to your life and to the decisions that you make, you know, most of us, we work with people, we have family, we have friends, they might really support you, but they are not unattached. They have opinions about you and what you should do and how you are doing it and even when it's coming from a good place. It's still can feel heavy and it can get in the way. And I just need to tell you
that. If you have never been coached before, you must experience, it especially around work where so much of what happens there is either like very private. So you can't talk to other people about what's happening on your team because of confidentiality or it just turns into complaining and commiserate. Dating which feels worse because nothing changes. Like, you can feel the connection of comfort when we say, oh, this person at work is driving me crazy.
I don't know what to do about them but after that initial, you know, feeling of, oh I see, I understand, I've been in that situation to maybe try this. Like once that wears off it's just you alone with your work and the People that you might not have chosen to work with but there you are. And it is liberating beyond what I can say to have a place to talk about. Okay, here's what's going on.
Here's what I'm struggling with, here's what I'm trying to make a decision about, here's where I feel undermined. Here's where I feel frustrated to be able to talk about that separate from your relationships with either other. Colleagues or your friends and family and I'll tell you, when I was in a work situation where I was feeling very frustrated about the organization or about a relationship.
I was having. If there was some friction, I wasn't sure how to handle it, it would completely show up in my relationship with my partner because I'd either be talking to him about it which then just, you know, brought the work issue home or it would In the back of my mind draining my energy and this low level constant distraction. So if that is something that is happening for you, you have to come on a consult with me and let's talk about what is going
on and get it started. Okay, so that was one thing, but the second thing and this is what I loved when I was teaching my live classes in person, you know, starting in 2017 was when you You get together with other people who are managers who do not work in your organization. You have a level of anonymity where nobody knows you, nobody knows the people you're talking about, it helps to kind of undo the emotional charge. We feel when there's that sense of anonymity and it is.
So inviting you have so much more freedom to be really honest. Because you're not trying to Marriage anyone's image or perception of you. Like I have done trainings in companies where everybody knows each other, it is a different vibe. When I am teaching people who are thinking, I will never see
you again. So I can be extremely open and very honest, that Community is. So valuable both for, you know, getting actually what you want to learn, but also for Getting some relief from the pressure, and the stress.
And the other thing that's really interesting, when you're talking with other people, is that an, especially, like when you're talking with other people who don't know, you or who, don't know, the work environment that you work in is you will realize that, you know, more than you thought you did. This happens all the time both when I work with folks
one-on-one. And also when I was teaching group classes and group workshops is people from different Industries, different companies, getting together and sharing. What have they discovered, what have they tried? What did they learn? And it starts to build your confidence. When you realize, you know what, I do know, some things. I am not completely lost. I am not, I am not completely.
No, struggling here. There's actually a lot that you do know, but you might have forgotten if you have been in a state of frustration or if your confidence has been undermined or you're just tired, it's so easy to forget the things you all ready? Know and the things you do well. So having conversations, super Valuable. So I'm telling you that up front. Okay, what I really wanted to talk with you today is that managing is a separate job. It is a separate skill set.
And it's interesting to me that we overlook this, we Overlook that managing people is a, it's an entirely separate job, it's a different set of skills than whatever you have been doing before. And the way I like to think about it is imagine that you're in a car, you have never driven a car before, but you think to yourself, well, I've written in a lot of cars. I'll for many, many years. I have been in the backseat of a lot of cars, a lot of different
cars. I've watched drivers drive and in fact, I've given feedback about how poorly they drive. And in fact I can look out of the car I'm in and into other cars and I can see other drivers and I always spot who's driving very poorly. So I know all of the things that bad drivers do and let me tell you I have had so many bad drivers of the cars that I've been in. And then from the back seat, I got promoted. I got to sit up front in the passenger seat.
Gave me a whole new perspective. I could see a lot more of the road. I understood a lot more about what the driver was doing. I even had access to the radio and to the air conditioning. So I began to influence the environment I was in and I was making decisions that affected everybody else in the car. And then someone says alright great you've got all these years of experience of being in cars. And you understand what bad driving is? Congratulations. Here are the keys you now?
Get to drive and you think yes, I have been wanting to do this. I am ready to do this and you open the door. You get in the seat, you close the door. And you think what is all this? How wait what? Like I've seen this. Done. Countless times. I've seen people drive, I've had very strong opinions about the ability of other drivers and now I'm in the driver's seat and I know we got some Petals on the floor. I know we've got this, you know,
gear shift here. I know I've got like, you know, a wiper, you know device and I've got lights that go on and there's some other kind of buttons and a display and a A steering wheel, okay? Like no problem, like I've got this, but the truth is that the experience of driving, the car requires skills that you have not fully developed. And it doesn't matter how many hours or for how many years you've seen other people do it. Yes. You have ideas about how to do it.
Well but there is The very specific skill of actually driving that you only really learn when you are in the driver's seat. So I wanted to share that story with you because only think about driving, it seems obvious, right? But it's a different skill and yeah, like you might not be good at it at first, or you might feel really confident until you get in the driver's seat and then you think, oh, I'm not exactly.
Really sure how this all works. And that's not a reason to give up or to say well I guess I just can't do it. It's only for certain people, not for me. It just means that when you drive the car, you will have a period of learning how to do that. Same with managing and in fact, with managing can be even a little weird because you might end up managing people because your organization is growing really fast, and you've been there the longest or, you know, That function the best.
And so they're like, great. We're going to have you manage these people. Ready go? And you have like, no driver's, ed, no training. And you know, no one to kind of show you what all the things are. You just suddenly find yourself in this position where you have a responsibility and it can be really hard when you are not used to doing things poorly. So I'm looking at you, my very strong.
It's like if you were a good student in school and you feel very competitive and you do not like the feeling of knowing that you're not doing a good job, this is going to be extra hard for you because one of the skills that you need to develop is the skill of feeling uncomfortable. The skill of acknowledging, okay? I don't know how to do this. I don't like this feeling, but it's fine. I am going to learn how to do this. This is a normal part of the
process. SS. Here's what I do know. Here's what I can you know, the resources that are available to me. Here's what I need to find out, you can get started. But what happens a lot of times is when you start putting all this pressure on yourself to do a good job when you haven't had any guidance or training or mentoring or anyone to help you think through what do you need to be thinking about? Now, in this new role of being in the driver's seat, what tends
to happen? Ian is we keep all of that uncertainty, super, super private? We don't tell anyone because you know, you're afraid of what will they think? If they find out, I feel insecure. And I don't know what I'm doing. You'll think, oh my gosh, they're paying me way too much. I don't know what I'm doing. You'll keep it private. You'll start to doubt yourself and then what I've seen happen from that is either that's when micromanaging can come out.
Because then the thought is I have to prove I'm doing a good job so I'm going to control as much as I can in order to ensure the result, the outcome that I'm responsible for and that can turn into micromanaging so fast or you do a little bit. Like I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings and I'm not exactly sure of what I'm doing. So I want everyone to feel happy with me because that's how I will measure. ER, success. If my people are happy, that's what I will use to feel successful.
And then you avoid the hard conversations. You are have a really hard time, giving a corrective feedback or telling people, hey, look like this here. We need to change. This isn't working. You'll have a hard time standing up for yourself for your team, for being an advocate. It ends up backfiring and that way too. So and we'll gosh and especially and now with so much still of work from home and so much remote work, it's really easy to hide to only present the face on
Zoom of hey everything's great. I've got it under control and then get off that call and feel terrible. And feel the pressure and feel like I can't let people know. So you know, I want to frame this in this way because I want to normalize it. I want to normalize that this is a really common experience and that there's nothing wrong with you. If you are experiencing this, it just means, oh, you're now in the driver's seat but you know,
you're expecting yourself too. Know how to do something right away that you've never done before and it is so interesting. Isn't it that in the workplace? You know, we often think oh, the reason why this person is in a leadership role. The reason why this person isn't a manager role is because they must be good at what they do. It is not always true that can
be shocking. It was surprising to me when when I had that realization and when I I was first managing people at a team of 18 and it was like, oh, all of a sudden it's like, oh, I have to make decisions about team meeting and about one-on-ones and about pay increases and about performance reviews and here's another thing.
So when you become a manager, you also get access to new information and two more information, and some of this will be very, very specific and clear like, now that you're managing You may have access to see the salary history of the people on your team. We're normally that information would have been considered really private. You wouldn't have been able to know that but now you might have access to that and it might feel weird.
Might feel very personal. You will also get more access more perspective to what else is happening in the organization. You'll be in meetings with higher level people having different kinds of conversations and you'll be expected to understand what's going on. Even if people are not telling you what's going on, you'll be expected to understand what you need to tell your people in order to get them to do.
You know, whatever it is that they need to do and to figure that out on your own and again, the two extremes I see is either being Over heavy-handed, right? Being too controlling or being a bit to it deferential. A bit too, you know prioritizing do people like me are people having a good time? A good experience and that and but and what's interesting is that both of those over corrections, I see it coming from a good place, like nobody wakes up in the morning.
And says, I want to be a terrible manager today, and I'm going to be the manager that my team goes home to their family and complains about Nobody says that. Nobody but what happens because you care and you're simply uncertain you haven't developed the skills or the mindset yet. So we get over controlling to try to get the good outcome or overly deferential and avoidant. In order to try and get the outcome. It's really interesting.
When you start to notice and then question what, like, notice what you do, and then question, why you do it, or notice, what you don't do, what you're avoiding and question, why you're avoiding it. There's so much Insight that comes from all of that. So that is what I wanted to share with. You is just this awareness that
managing people is a Great job. It's a separate skill set and it's fascinating how we can, you know, you can get into a position of managing people even though you haven't done that job before you also might find and what I might offer to you is there's a lot of Hope and optimism in that if you are not yet managing like if you don't yet have direct reports or if you're managing a really small team and the next level up for you'll be a much larger team. It's also a reminder Kinder.
Don't wait to be ready before. You're ready. Don't think, well before, I can manage a team of that size I have to, you know, manage a team of a similar size because that will keep you out of the game. Like, that'll keep you from promoting, like, promoting yourself. It'll keep you from inviting yourself into that higher level. It'll keep you from applying for jobs because you will disqualify yourself because you'll say, oh, I don't have, I don't have
everything. But what I want to remind Mind, you, is that any time you see a job posting or any time that there's an opening internally for and, you know, a higher level roll? It's because somebody really wants someone to raise their hand and say, I'm ready for that. Give it to me. I'm going to do it. And here's why I can do it. Like you don't have to have everything. Perfect. Somebody really wants you to raise your hand and say, yep, let me go.
I want to take it. And then your work is to understand for yourself. Why will I be successful at that thing? Even if I haven't done that exact thing before, And that's part of them. What you talk about, whether it's in your cover letter interview, or just having conversations, you know, one of the greatest ways to move your career forward is to let other people know what you have an appetite for. Oh, I think I'd be really great at that.
Here's why I feel so eager feels so ready to do this when you start with that sense of self assurance, redness that sense of confidence people want to say yes to that because they want that Ashura Dennis and that confidence in that role they want to say yes, make it easy for them to say yes to you the other way, I think about this, sometimes the idea that managing is a separate skill, even if you've been around it, if you've been managed, you've had Opinions about how people
manage. Then you get in the driver's seat feels kind of different. I think about this too, around sales. Like you can be really good at buying things. I'm so good at buying things. I buy things all the time. If I groceries I buy coffee, you know, I pay my cell, phone bill. I'm, you know, I buy things like it's my job. I'm so good at buying things really good at consuming super good. But then if you're asked to sell something, people either love sales or They tend to freak out about it.
Like oh my gosh, I don't know. I'm terrible at sales. I don't know how to sell really, because you've been a part of a sales relationship for years. You've been on the buyer side, you've encountered salespeople people have sold things to you, you have you know, enjoyed buying things but of course selling is a separate skill set. Ling is a thing. You can learn to do just like managing people and then, you know, if you're great at sales and then you need to learn to
manage people. That's also a different skill set but I want to give a little warm. Shout out to my sales team managers because I feel like you know there's there's something kind of magical that happens around sales and especially people who feel called into leadership in sales because it's so much about About relationships so much about energy so much about the invisible qualities, that make sales happen. So I'm just through this sound. I am seeing you and giving you a
little bit of high five. So managing people is a separate skill, don't freak out. If you don't know that you'd like, if you realize, I don't know what I'm doing or freak out. It's fine, but don't live in the freak out that's exhausting and it doesn't help you or anybody. You'll just get really, really tired. You have options like you're listening to this podcast for 14 to reach out to me. Schedule a consult. Let's talk and get this sorted out for you.
Oh, and extra bonus tip because it is the beginning of the year. There are so many organizations that are sponsoring their employees to get coaching to get training with me. So that is something we in talk about to on your consult is the Strategic approach for how to do that. How to advocate for yourself to get that and realizing that might be available to you. Mmm.
And someone might be really, really glad that you are taking a leadership role in your own Career Development and saying, hey, I want to get better at this thing. I found someone to work with. Let's make that happen. So many options. All right, that is what I have for you today. I am glad that you are here, listening and learning and I will talk to you next time. Hey before you go if you like this podcast, please leave a review. Tell me why you listen and what
has helped you? Thanks so much. I'll see you next time.