Welcome to the new manager podcast. I'm your host, Kim nickel. Hello and welcome. I'm glad you're here, and I hope you're doing well today, I wanted to start with a celebration of my client, Aaron. We have been working together this year, and when we started one of the main things, she wanted help with was overwhelmed. She had a lot happening, both in her family, and in her work life, and she initially came to
me, wanting help. Up with time management and prioritizing things and just dealing with the overwhelm of life and work and being a human. And what's so lovely is that in our most recent call, because we were reflecting on the work that we've been doing over the course of the last several months. She said, Kim, you know, I am not overwhelmed anymore.
Something has shifted. I'm a different person and what came up as she was observing and sharing this with me, is that she actually didn't need help with time management. She really needed help with mind management and thinking about relationships and what was most important and some of the different assumptions that she had about herself and her projects and how things needed to be. And so, by managing her mind, which is what we do in coaching and by helping her, to manage her energy.
The result is the overwhelmed dissipates, and she said, I'm still able to get a lot done, but it feels easier. It doesn't feel so heavy, and it doesn't feel like I have to, like, force things to happen. It feels like things are just flowing. A lot more easily. And, you know, she was telling me about being able to be responsive to different challenges, and different people, rather than feeling like she needed to have all the answers or kind of control things, when things seemed
uncertain. And so, I was just really appreciating her and the sharing that she had to let to give to me. And I wanted to pass that along to you because I think it also highlighted Did that. We sometimes think if we're overwhelmed or for anxious, or if we're feeling like there's just a lot going on, we sometimes think it's a time management issue.
When really, it's a mind management and an energy management issue, what are we putting our attention and energy into what is draining our energy and especially how are we thinking about this situation? What is our perspective? What is the story were telling about ourselves about other people. All of that will inform the decisions that you make about your time and the way that you get things done. So that is where we wanted to
start today. Now, my main topic that I wanted to dive into you with today is the topic of managing High performers This is come up in a few of my conversations with clients over the last month or so. And the question of when you are managing people and you have someone on your team, who's a really high performer, sometimes that can be difficult. Oddly enough to know how do I manage them appropriately or correctly? Or am I doing a good job? This person seems to be doing
great. Is that okay if I don't know what to do with them? Or a feeling of this person on my team is doing such a good job and it makes me doubt myself. Who am I to be managing? This person who is so good at what they do and I don't know what my role is. So I thought it would be a good idea to take some time today to talk about what is it like when you are managing a top performer? A high-performing person on your team. So here are a couple of things
to start with. There are three things that I think of, as kind of pitfalls that you want to be aware that you don't fall into. So, one is, when you have a really strong performing person, you might simply neglect them. One of the things you might think is, oh, they'll be fine. They don't need me. They're so good at what they do.
They are doing great. And that can lead you to neglect them to overlook them and to not have conversations about what they need, how they're doing, and helping them to think beyond the current moment and engage them in a conversation about what their desire or Vision or growth path is so be mindful that you're not overlooking or neglecting them because they're doing a good job. Instead you want to think how do
I stay connected? I want to think of my role as their manager, not as the person who is, you know, who is, who is better than them at the thing they do or as in my role, as a manager as the person who helps them to get better at the thing that they're not good at and if they're good at everything, then I have nothing to do instead. Think of it as, oh, my role is to stay. Connected to this person on my team and to help them grow. And to have a sense of what it
is that they want. Maybe they're in a place where they're actually very content, they love what they're doing or they might be in a place where they're feeling a little bit impatient or a little sense of restlessness. You want to have a sense of how they're doing, because that will Be very helpful to you in your role as the manager and as the the person who has a sense of the entire team.
The other thing to watch out for is your self-doubt or insecurity, might flare up, you might go into a little comparison, you might think. Gosh, they know so much more than me. They're so good at what they do. I don't know why I'm their manager. They should probably be managing me. I actually have had a client tell me that before that they had someone on their team who was so solid. She felt uncertain of what her role was as a manager.
So remember the manager's job is not to be the person who knows the most right? It's not to be the best at the thing. Really. When you're in this role of being a manager, think of it like this, your role is to make decisions that lead to the
desired. outcomes that you have for the team or, you know, to make decisions that help support the growth and well-being of the people, the team, the organization, the mission, ideally all these things roll up and align together so it's okay if people on your team have more experience if they have more education, if they have more expertise in the area all of That is fine because your role is to be someone who can make decisions to support the achievement of desired outcomes
and sometimes too because of your position, you will have access to other kinds of information. In the organization that will inform the decisions that get made around the work. Your team is doing around how you direct their time and attention. And energy. And so it's it's a different job than having the job of doing the thing. So be really mindful if you feel your self-doubt flare up, or if you start to feel insecure, just beyond to yourself and remind
yourself. Hey, like your job is not to be best at everything. That is not what the job of managing people is so much of the job of managing people is around decision-making. It's around. Friendship building. It's around being the person who can help create the focus through prioritization or through communicating or through, you know, shielding your team. It's so much of this other relational skill set. That's your role.
That's the job. The other thing to watch out for, as a manager is over Reliance and not wanting them to leave. And that kind of sounds like this person can't go like, please don't go. We rely so much because this person is a top performer and if you have a really unbalanced team, or if you have a team where someone is really strong at what they do, and others are not either, because they just don't perform at the same level or they might be newer, to the role or to the company.
And so they're still learning how it all works. Or if One on your team has gone through a significant life event that is pulling their attention and energy away. So for example, if they are Caregivers for elderly parents and there's been some kind of challenge with that. If they have kids like new parents, are not getting a lot of sleep and so they're going to feel like you're going to need to offer a little more grace to Them the space to adapt to?
What does it mean to perform at a high level when you're not getting so much sleep at night? Like, it's going to look different. It's going to change or there might be something else going on in the life of this person, that influences the way that they're showing up. So, when you have a person who's performing really well and you're noticing for yourself like, oh gosh, you can't go just
be aware. R, if you are over relying on that person to make up for some other, you know, challenges or unevenness on the team because you don't want to put so much of a burden on one person. And also, you don't want to kind of get in the way of this person growing and continuing to feel supported, And who they are and what their career trajectory is.
So, for example, I had a client who gosh, this was years ago and she came to me, worried and confused because she said, I have been performing at a really high level. I have really great performance reviews. My manager says, I'm doing really great work and I'm not getting to getting promoted and I don't know why, I don't know what else I need to be doing in order to prove that I'm ready
for this promotion. and one of the things that we talked about was the possibility that her manager would rather keep her because it would require the work of finding someone new to come in and do her job and that always takes time and energy and then like training somebody up, was it possible that her manager was reluctant to let her go because Would turn into more
work for that manager. And if that manager was not comfortable or not familiar with hiring like how to do that if they were really busy with other things, they might simply not have given the thought or the attention to, if I'm letting go of this really top performer, then that means that I'll have to take on the work of filling that role and getting somebody new plugged in I think Think that's the kind of thing especially when you have a really good relationship with
your team. It can be easy to overlook that because it seems like but we get along so well, everything's going great. Why would they want to leave? Sometimes people have ambition that goes beyond where they currently are? So you just want to be again onto yourself especially if you're feeling really busy like you have no time to hire and bring somebody new on you I want to notice if that is what is happening and that's the way that you're managing this person.
If you're managing with the intention of keeping them, rather, than having conversations around where their growth is what's next for them, how that fits within the organization, what you see, as possible or what their next strengths or next step is in terms of growing as, you know, in their own leadership and in, Their own skills.
So, as the manager, those are three things to watch for neglect, your own self-doubt or insecurity, flaring up, and maybe an unconscious Reliance on this person and a reluctance, to let them go. Now, in terms of having a very top performer, there are two specific behaviors that I wanted to mention, to keep an eye out for because We'll have to
address them. One is this might be a person who becomes very frustrated and impatient and they might come to you saying, when am I getting promoted? I've been doing great. I've gotten all of these performance reviews that really high rankings.
When am I getting promoted? So you'll want to have a conversation that is clear act like clarifying how promotions happen and you that like that means you're going to need to know how that works in your Ation, if you have a very complex organization where promotions are a very, like bureaucratic, very complex process, you'll want to understand that so that you can communicate and help this person. See, here's how that process
works. If you're in a very flat organization, you may have a conversation about that to they might be ready for a promotion. But there might not be any place to promote them up into and Other thing to understand is that performing your work at a high level, is not necessarily what it takes to get a promotion in a specially.
I think this can be tricky if we don't understand this, because for a lot of us, especially if you are a high achiever in school, the way School works, is you perform at a high level and you get promoted. You go to the next level. You go to the next Next grade, but the workplace is a little different. You might perform at a high level within that job function but that doesn't mean you automatically get rewarded with a promotion or a raise. It's a different situation often.
What you'll need to do is say, okay, here is the promotion or the role that I want, or here's the Rays that I want and then you have to present your case for why? That should be And you will want to have a conversation in advance to signal to people, okay? If I complete these things, if I perform at this level, if I demonstrate that, I have the skills for X y&z, if I create these kinds of results will that turn into a promotion or a raise, like this is my intention.
Are we in agreement that that this is the path that will create? Eight that different conversation and I know for me when I first came into the professional work, world that wasn't clear to me. I still kind of thought it was like school where you do a really good job. People notice they say great job. Here's your performance review.
You did great. And I just kind of thought it would happen automatically, like you've been performing at this level and now you get rewarded by a promotion or a raise turns out. It doesn't work like that. So you're People on your team, might not understand that and so then they might feel frustrated, they might feel impatient and it can help when you're able to clarify. Oh, here's how the process works, right? Like. Oh yes. Like, here's how I can help you with that.
The other thing you want to keep an eye out for is if you have someone who seems like, they're depending on you for guidance, and this might be someone Who's really eager to grow but they don't have a clear idea of what that looks like. So they come to you and they say something like, okay, like what's next? What else have you got?
And here what you're wanting to do is to think a little bit more, like manager as coach where you're helping to coach them into really holding their career path, taking full responsibility for that, and helping them think through, what does the next step look like for them? And they might not know at first, which is. Okay, so part of the coaching is about helping them. Think through what is it that they want, what are the projects? They've loved the most.
Where what do they want to do more of? What do they want to do? Less of, is there someone in the organization that is kind of a role model of what they want to do next are their skills, they will need to develop. Now in order to get to where they want to go, so you can help them I'm think through and in the course of doing that it will help them to take more active responsibility for their career journey and what they want rather than coming to you.
And saying, well, you're my manager, and you've seen how I work, tell me what I should do next. Because also, even if you've been in their manager, you don't know all of the things they've done. And even if you did at one point, you might forget, right? Because people Forgetful, there's a lot going on and you always want to refocus the intention and the energy around helping them to drive their career forward. If they come in, they're asking you know, help me understand
what else is possible. You can share, what you see but ultimately you want to help them. Think through what do they want? How do they know what can they They do to start coming to you saying something like, you know what, I'm really interested in the recruiting part of our business because I'd really love for us to, you know, bring on like a more diverse slate of candidates.
Or I really want to challenge us as an organization to expand our recruiting, not to just people with this kind of background, but I think it could be really valuable to also open up our recruiting Direction, Include folks here. And I would love to be a part of that, right?
Like you might not know that, that's a thing that they're interested in, but having them come to you saying, I'm really interested in how this thing works that can then help you coach them to meet people in that part of the organization think through. OK. What are you going to need to learn or grow in order to be able to participate more in that like you can partner with them but they're still really Really owning that part for themselves, if that makes sense. So that is what I wanted to
share with you. It's awesome. When you have really high performers but sometimes it can feel stressful either because of, you know, the reasons I mentioned earlier feeling like you don't know what to do with them or if they're feeling a little Restless or they're looking to you for guidance and you're like, I don't know what to tell you, I think you're amazing and I don't know what you should do next, right? Remember what your role is your role is to facilitate great outcomes.
Your Role is to make decisions to help nurture growth to bring the best out of people and help them. To also step into new levels of responsibility and really take on the work of driving their own career growth. And those conversations can be a whole lot of fun.
So that is What I wanted to share with you today, if you want one-on-one support with your work and the way that you manage people, whether or not you have direct reports because honestly client management managing up managing cross-functional Partnerships if you're a product manager and you have to make things happen by managing people even though you do not have direct reports, it is all related and I would love to help you with that so you can go into the show notes.
As you'll see a link to book, a consult on my calendar and we can talk about it. All right, that's what I have for you today. I hope you have a great one and I'll 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.