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Hi

0:32

everyone, I'm Anne Helen Peterson and this is Work Appropriate.

0:45

It's not surprising that the most common question

0:47

we receive here on the show is about management. Bad

0:50

management, non-existent management, overbearing management,

0:52

might be a good fit. Bad

0:56

management, non-existent management,

0:58

overbearing management, micromanagement.

1:01

It's the root cause of so many of

1:03

our work problems. Even in episodes

1:05

that are ostensibly about other topics, we

1:08

so often come back to the problem of management.

1:11

Like, that's a problem with the

1:13

EI, but it's also a problem with management.

1:16

That's a problem with your PTO policy, but

1:18

it's also a problem with management. That's

1:20

a remote work problem, that's absolutely

1:23

a problem with your management. Today,

1:25

we've collected some of the most complex management

1:28

questions to take to the best no-bullshit

1:31

management pros I know.

1:35

My name is Melissa Nightingale. I am a

1:37

founder and partner at Raw Signal Group. And at

1:39

Raw Signal Group, we build better bosses. We help

1:42

leaders in fast-growing organizations to get the skills

1:44

that they need in order to be successful.

1:46

Alright, so this is your third time on Work

1:48

Appropriate. We have two

1:50

three-peats, you are one of them. And

1:53

I'm so excited to have you back, but you also,

1:55

because our questions are so hard,

1:57

or I guess complex, complicated,

2:00

you brought back up. I

2:03

did. I saw in the email, you were like, let's try and

2:05

stump Melissa. And I was like, well, that's not very

2:07

kind. And so

2:09

I did, I brought back up this time. Oh, hello.

2:12

I'm Jonathan Nightingale. I'm the other co-founder

2:15

and partner at Raw Signal Group. It's

2:17

lovely to be here. And like we're married, not siblings.

2:19

Sometimes people ask. We've

2:22

never had two guests on an episode before. And

2:24

like I said, it's because these questions

2:26

are really complicated. When

2:28

we were selecting for this, Melody,

2:31

our producer, sent me the list of all of the really

2:33

difficult management questions

2:35

that we got. It was literally like, I don't know, 60 questions

2:38

long, 70 questions long. So I tried

2:40

to pick some really, ones

2:42

that were a little bit on a theme, as we'll

2:45

see, but also pretty difficult. So

2:48

we've heard a little bit about

2:50

Melissa's experiences and toxic workplaces

2:53

and how she came to be passionate

2:54

about training leaders, making better

2:56

bosses. Jonathan, what is your story?

2:58

So I've been working in tech for about 20 years. I

3:01

actually met Melissa in one of my, I think my second

3:04

tech job, maybe my third. I started

3:06

in a super corp. I was at IBM and

3:08

I would say that the management culture at IBM

3:11

has been carefully honed over 100 years to

3:13

mostly ignore people. And

3:15

that's certainly what I experienced.

3:18

I think if you're in the sales organization, I think it's pretty

3:20

hands-on, but I was in R&D. And

3:23

yeah, I think I met with my manager once every

3:25

quarter or something. And he, always

3:28

he, always he said, great

3:30

job.

3:32

And that was the management I got. And

3:34

after five years of that, I sort of plateaued and

3:37

moved to Mozilla, which is where I'm at, Melissa,

3:39

in the very early days of building Firefox. And we've

3:41

been working together in one or another way ever since.

3:44

And at Mozilla, neither

3:46

of you had much experience

3:50

in terms of management training, right? This

3:52

is kind of the origin story of like an

3:55

add-on management style where they're like, oh, you're

3:57

good at what you do, why don't you manage?

3:59

Oh.

3:59

ha, right? You're purely additive. You're still, you're

4:02

an engineer, we still want you to write code. We just also

4:04

want you to manage six other people,

4:06

right? Oh, you've been doing that for a while, I guess we'll make you a director

4:09

because we need one of those. And at every step and

4:11

just, okay, that feels nice.

4:13

It's nice to be recognized. It's nice to be trusted. But what

4:16

is that job? Like it sounds cool.

4:18

It sounds like the director mean I'm on the board. No,

4:20

it doesn't mean that. Does director mean I'm executive? No, it doesn't

4:23

really mean that sort of but really doesn't mean that. Okay,

4:25

well,

4:26

understand always, I have to be like, what does

4:28

that mean? When my friends tell me about like organizational

4:30

schemas? I'm like, so is that

4:32

good? Like, VB? Good.

4:34

Sounds nice. I think it's good. Has a

4:36

lot of syllables. But that was about it.

4:38

Everything else was just pay attention

4:41

to the leaders you like and the leaders you don't read books,

4:43

figure it out. And you're doing all that

4:45

figuring out on human beings, right?

4:48

Like there's a bunch of people who are looking to you like you're in the seat.

4:51

Tell me like make the decision which thing are we doing?

4:53

Am I doing a good job? When do I get promoted into

4:55

your seat? Like, and just with no equipment

4:58

on how to do that and screwing up plenty

5:00

along the way.

5:01

I think we talked about a bit though Mozilla was sort

5:03

of fully like fully distributed

5:05

in terms of sort of where we were like I was in California

5:07

and Jonathan was in Toronto, but we were working and

5:10

managing teams of people who are all over the world. And

5:12

it's now really common. But at the time, like

5:15

this is, I don't know, like 20 years, this

5:17

is a long time ago, maybe 15 years ago, it

5:19

was a lot less common to be managing people where

5:21

you had never actually been in person with each

5:23

other. Yeah,

5:24

and a lot easier to

5:26

mess things up or not just just like not manage

5:28

at all just kind of be like, Hi, you're

5:31

here. I'm your boss. And also your peer.

5:33

You know, the common

5:36

theme that we have with these questions is people

5:39

who are struggling with pretty crappy

5:41

managers. And I

5:44

think I like we're just kind of a leading

5:45

question, especially given what

5:47

we were just talking about. But why is this such

5:49

a universal experience?

5:51

Nobody knows what they're doing. We have these

5:53

stickers. So like because he came up

5:55

in tech, right, you end up with this weird swag culture

5:58

and a raw signal group it's turned into a sticker. culture

6:00

where every time something happens we're like

6:02

we need to make that a sticker. That's important. But

6:04

like maybe my favorite sticker

6:07

is like an old like 1950s style pennant that

6:10

just says competent management on it. Just

6:13

we're not reaching for the stars here. We want some basic

6:16

competence and like in the absence

6:18

of that you really feel it. But so many of

6:20

the questions that

6:21

we get on an ongoing basis around management

6:24

like when you sort of peel

6:26

it back, when you peel the layers

6:27

back in terms of why people have those questions

6:29

or where, like you're

6:29

like because nobody ever told

6:31

you right because we keep

6:32

promoting people and saying like you're going to be in charge

6:34

of this team. They're like well what does that mean

6:36

and like we'll be in charge. Like

6:38

well

6:39

okay but like are there are there specific things

6:41

I ought to be doing? Are there specific meetings I'm supposed to be

6:43

having? Are there specific conversations I should have

6:45

or not have? But like most folks

6:47

are sort of just thrown into the deep end and told like

6:50

well good luck

6:51

like let us know how it goes. And then you

6:53

get into the stress position right where your own boss

6:55

who also may or may not have any real

6:57

skill here says to you hey that

7:00

person on your team's screwing up you got to go fix that.

7:03

And you're like okay and

7:05

you act out whatever movie boss you're

7:08

imagining but you don't actually have any skills in terms

7:10

of like structuring hard feedback in a way that they can

7:12

hear or building accountability or being clear

7:14

about priorities or expectations. Like you have none of

7:16

that and so you just sort of you

7:18

shout if you're a shoutr or you hug

7:20

if you're a hugger and you just sort of hope that it's going

7:22

to resolve itself and eventually the person quits and you hire

7:25

someone else and you hope it works better next time.

7:27

No like the state of work can be explained

7:29

like almost entirely in

7:31

terms of like we are where we are not because

7:33

of cackling like malicious sort of intent

7:36

but because our bosses really don't know what they're doing.

7:38

And like if you're working

7:40

for someone who's sort of cackling malicious intent I'm

7:43

sorry like there are people like that but

7:45

the vast majority of folks that we come into contact

7:47

with who are leading teams of people are like I literally just

7:49

don't know what I'm doing.

7:50

So this is actually a great way to talk about the

7:53

format of this episode which is going to be slightly

7:55

different than what we usually do. So

7:57

usually we read the question we

7:59

give some advice

7:59

to the question-asker on how they can

8:02

handle it. And we're gonna do that.

8:04

But we are also going to try to

8:06

offer advice to the

8:08

bad boss

8:09

if they're listening, right? So

8:11

clearly, the bad boss is probably

8:14

like the specific bad boss, probably

8:16

not gonna be listening. But there might

8:18

be people who are managing who recognize

8:20

some characteristics

8:22

in their own behavior, right? Like

8:24

they're like, oh, this is something that I know

8:26

I struggle with and I'm super self-conscious about it.

8:28

I have no idea how to act on this. So hopefully

8:31

we will be giving advice to

8:33

both ends of the equation here. So

8:37

does that sound good?

8:38

That sounds great. Yeah, we'll talk fast.

8:40

First question is from Sally, whose

8:42

boss is taking micromanaging to the next level.

8:45

Our producer, Melody, is going to read her question for

8:47

us.

8:48

I work for a corporate company that owns

8:50

various hospitals throughout the country and

8:53

I'm pretty much the assistant to our leave of absence

8:55

team that takes care of our company's staff.

8:58

My manager has been overloading me with tasks

9:00

and has been inconsistent with his expectations.

9:03

Plus, there are numerous meetings throughout the

9:05

week that interfere with me completing my

9:07

job duties. He recently started

9:10

making me submit a daily tracker to

9:12

monitor the duration and frequency

9:14

of completing each task he has given

9:16

me. Every day, he seems to pick

9:18

apart my tracker and question why I'm not

9:20

completing my tasks and questions

9:22

why it's taking so long to complete certain

9:24

tasks. I've notified him our

9:27

department is being pulled for

9:29

too many meetings, plus I flat out told him that I

9:31

am working diligently to meet his expectations.

9:34

But I feel as if he's constantly making

9:37

me feel like I'm a horrible employee. I

9:39

enjoy helping our employees, but I don't

9:41

know how to tell my manager his expectations

9:44

are unrealistic and to please stop

9:46

micromanaging. How can I verbalize

9:49

this to him in a professional way without

9:51

worrying about being fired? And

9:53

also, what do I do if this continues to worsen

9:55

without my resume looking bad?

9:58

So I think this question gets at...

9:59

a pretty basic dynamic,

10:02

which is that an employee's boss

10:04

is making their life really hard.

10:07

But they worry that any attempt

10:09

to try to deal with the situation is

10:11

going to lead to them getting fired or

10:14

just like a super toxic situation, even more

10:16

toxic than

10:16

it already is. So let's

10:19

zoom out a little and Melissa

10:21

and Jonathan, what do you think is going on

10:23

in the background that this manager

10:26

is micromanaging? And I

10:28

would not even call this micromanaging. I would call this

10:30

surveillance in this way.

10:33

For Sally, like this is a boss

10:35

who thinks you're slow. Like

10:38

the boss has some sense in their head. And whether

10:40

it's fair or unfair, grounded or ungrounded, whether

10:42

they've got familiarity with the work or not, like

10:44

this is a boss who has some idea

10:47

of how long things should take and feels like

10:49

they're taking way longer than

10:51

they should take. And maybe has not said that

10:54

out loud in so many words, but like the obsession,

10:56

like myopic obsession with where is your time going

10:59

is another form of the question. Like I think this should

11:01

take a lot less time than it's taking. So like

11:04

something, something is a mess here. And

11:06

we have some

11:07

theories about what exactly is a mess. Yeah.

11:09

One thing I'll say though, is that it

11:11

won't work to address it directly

11:13

in the way that Sally's asking. Right.

11:16

So like once you, once you're filling out this time

11:18

tracker, you're sort of champed because I guarantee

11:21

no matter what you write down on that list, your boss

11:23

is going to look at the list, find the thing that takes the longest

11:25

and say, this should take less time because they've

11:28

already internalized this thing of like Sally's

11:30

slow. I'm going to force Sally to

11:32

prove to me that Sally's slow. Then I'm

11:34

going to say that Sally's slow. It's not fair.

11:36

It's a crappy position to be in. And day over

11:39

day over day, it's just self-fulfilling

11:41

prophecy. And it's going to like, it's going to cause

11:43

all the wrong behaviors for Sally too.

11:45

Yeah. The first piece in terms of slowness

11:47

is like there, there are things that sometimes

11:50

take a long time. And then there are other things where like

11:52

it takes a long time until you

11:53

learn the one weird trick. And so like if

11:55

the boss is holding onto a

11:57

one weird trick, right? Like in the process of going

11:59

through the daily track. or sometimes it's helpful

12:01

to say like, can you talk me through how you

12:03

would approach this? Like I just gotta find this thing.

12:05

I expect this can take me an hour, but like I

12:08

hear you that that feels like it's taking too long. Like,

12:10

can you talk me

12:11

through? Like, how would you approach it if you were in my

12:13

shoes? Because you may find that like there is, there's

12:15

an unlock hiding there that you just didn't know. It's a best

12:17

practice. Everybody else learned it on their way and then

12:20

you just missed it. Like that's possible. So this

12:22

makes me think of something that isn't

12:24

explicit in the question,

12:26

which is do you think the boss

12:28

has done this job

12:29

before? Or aspects of this

12:31

job before?

12:32

There it is, right? So we're in one of two spots.

12:35

If we're in a spot where the boss used to do this work,

12:38

then this is great, right? It's just, okay,

12:40

champ, show me how it's done by a professional,

12:42

right? And like, I'm gonna level up so fast in this and

12:44

I'm gonna be asking you for advice. I'm not gonna be telling you

12:46

I'm not slow. I'm gonna be saying like,

12:49

show me how to be fast. And that's gonna be great. But

12:51

my hunch is that Sally's

12:54

not in that spot because otherwise the boss would

12:56

have said, this takes five minutes, here's how you do it. What's

12:58

taking the other 25, right? And

13:00

the fact that the boss hasn't offered that makes

13:03

me suspect that the boss is responsible

13:05

for Sally but has never actually done this

13:08

work before. But the sort

13:10

of advice still holds, right? So if Sally's

13:12

boss hasn't done the role before,

13:15

then there's some idea of how long

13:17

things should take, maybe based on other people who

13:19

have done the role within the organization. And so they're

13:21

like, even if your own boss can't provide mentorship

13:23

on here's how I would approach this, maybe you've got a peer

13:25

within the organization, maybe there's someone you trust and go to

13:27

lunch with on a regular basis or at least are in sort

13:30

of regular communication with who's sort

13:32

of a peer or a colleague and you can say like, this

13:35

thing just got thrown over the fence at me and I'm getting ready

13:37

to start it, but I have this sense that there's

13:40

probably something that

13:42

I'm missing

13:42

here, can you talk me through it? There's

13:44

another piece that we have as a theory

13:46

in terms of Sally's description, which

13:48

is that admin roles are famous for being

13:51

catch-all of everything. And the

13:53

colleagues who are like passing things off to

13:56

admin support where it's generalized admin

13:58

support are often like feeling... the

14:00

best way to get good support is to give you a ton

14:02

of context. And so when Sally's talking

14:04

about, like, I'm getting dragged into every meeting, our

14:06

sense is like, maybe you're getting dragged into every meeting because

14:08

like, literally people are like, I need to give you all

14:11

of the information before you can get started. And

14:13

that's slowing things down too. So how do

14:15

you address that? Like, if that's something that's happening,

14:18

if you've got somebody who's like, in every meeting, like, it's

14:21

in there, right? The boss is like, what are you doing with all

14:23

your time? And if you're like, well, like, I'm,

14:25

I'm getting up to speed on the things that like

14:28

the billing department needs for me. And

14:30

in order to do that, they're spending two hours of me like

14:33

teaching me how to use their system. And then the next day

14:35

I'm going and like, I've got some other system that

14:37

I'm trying to learn, like, and if I don't need to be

14:39

doing that,

14:40

let's get me out of those meetings. Yeah, it's

14:42

a pathology here too, where bosses who

14:45

don't know what they're doing are often very bad

14:47

at communicating what the real problem is. So one

14:49

possibility

14:50

is that

14:51

Sally's boss is not annoyed that everything is slow.

14:54

Sally's boss is annoyed that the most important things

14:56

are slow and has done a piss poor job of articulating

14:58

what those are. And so when, when you,

15:01

when I see your daily record, I'm like

15:03

another day where you didn't get to the thing that actually matters

15:05

because this stupid thing took 90 minutes. Like explain

15:08

to me why that took 90 minutes when actually what would

15:10

be much more helpful is like, these things

15:12

have to be done by 10am every morning. After

15:14

that, I care a lot less about where your

15:16

day is. But anytime one of those things slips, I'm

15:19

going to come right back onto what made that thing

15:21

slip.

15:22

And ideally,

15:23

the manager could engage with Sally and say like,

15:26

here's what this role is for. Here's how we measure success,

15:29

right? Everybody in the company loves

15:31

you. It's not actually about that. It's that

15:33

like, when this stuff slips, it causes a huge

15:35

downstream cost for us. And when this stuff slips,

15:38

Bill gets annoyed. And like, we're just going to make

15:40

different choices in terms of which thing is the most important.

15:43

But if nobody's had that conversation with Sally, then she's just going to

15:45

try to do everything faster. And she's going

15:47

to make more mistakes. And she's going to be more stressed.

15:50

And it's it's a spiral at that point.

15:52

Yeah, you know, this surveillance technology

15:55

like this seems to me to be

15:57

such like a poor

15:59

tool

16:01

for trying to exact

16:03

results when there's a problem, right? It's

16:05

like, instead of having clear communication

16:07

about priorities, or instead of having excellent

16:10

training, or instead of thinking about

16:13

priorities in terms of time spent in meetings,

16:15

we just put up the surveillance stuff

16:18

on the computer and then like, bitch

16:20

about it. It's just, it's so shitty.

16:22

Yep. And the surveillance stuff is easy to game.

16:24

Yeah. Right? Like if you really have an employee who doesn't

16:26

give a shit, like, they're going to figure out how not to

16:28

give a shit with surveillance stuff

16:30

in play. Like, basically, like the

16:32

reason why people use it is they're like, well, I could

16:34

like train my managers. I could have like a management

16:36

core that knows what their job is and knows how to do that job,

16:39

but that's hard. That feels complicated. But

16:41

like spyware is like, okay, that's sort

16:43

of easier, but like it doesn't get you what you want. Yeah.

16:45

And there's a weird set of incentives too,

16:47

because like, if this thing's going slow in Sally's

16:51

boss's department, Sally's boss

16:53

always has the ability to blame Sally. Yeah.

16:56

So it's sort of stress position Sally for a while and

16:58

then replace Sally. And the next

17:00

person maybe is better at reading their boss's

17:02

mind. Maybe like just skips on

17:04

some maybe it does not make good relationships with people.

17:06

And so, you know, she's got a colder,

17:08

they've got a colder relationship with other parts of the organization,

17:11

but stuff goes faster. Okay.

17:14

But like, at some point, there should have been accountability

17:16

for Sally's boss. And that might not show up ever.

17:19

And it might not show up until three people have been in Sally's

17:21

job and flamed out. So

17:23

if you recognize, if

17:25

listeners

17:25

recognize

17:26

some of their behaviors, some of

17:28

this tendency that

17:31

we're seeing in Sally's boss, what

17:34

would your advice be to them? I think we've gotten

17:36

a little bit of it, but I would love some explicit advice.

17:39

If you're not in a billable context, there are places

17:41

where time tracking makes sense. If you're a lawyer, if

17:43

you're in an agency, whatever, we're not targeting

17:45

you. If you're not in a context where that time is billable

17:48

and you feel a need to impose time

17:50

tracking like this on a person because you think

17:52

something about their work is not where you

17:55

want it to be, I want you to stop

17:57

for a second and do one more lap.

18:00

And what is that? Is it speed?

18:02

Is it quality? Is it prioritization? What is

18:04

actually driving that sense that you have

18:06

or that sense that you're getting from your own VP or wherever

18:09

it's coming from? And then have

18:11

a conversation with the grownup that

18:13

you employ

18:15

about that

18:16

and see where that conversation takes you.

18:18

I really like the prompts to teach

18:20

me about, particularly when you're working

18:22

with folks who are either in the generalist phase of their career or

18:25

early in their career. Like teach me about the really

18:27

useful way to gauge understanding. Do

18:29

you actually understand what the task is in front of you? Talk

18:31

me through, what are the first three steps that you,

18:33

a new project, right? What do you do first?

18:36

Just talk me through it, right? And for many

18:38

bosses, that flip of

18:40

teaching to listening just puts us in a

18:42

different orientation and we can spot really

18:45

quickly if we've got a misalignment on

18:47

how to approach something, it's often

18:49

very visible and it's not combat. It's not

18:51

like you're fucking up and you're a terrible employee

18:53

and you should be fat. It's not any of that. It's

18:55

just like I'm coming at it with curiosity.

18:58

Tell me what's going on. Tell me how you would approach it. And

19:00

you can often spot like, there's just something that we're

19:02

misaligned on here.

19:04

That's really good. Yeah, if Sally's

19:06

boss had said on the first day, like why is this thing

19:08

taking 90 minutes?

19:09

And then said, oh,

19:11

we should get that roadblock out of your way. That's

19:13

not your fault. Like let me go take care of that. I'm gonna sign

19:15

some forms and give you $250 signing authority

19:17

so you don't have to wait for it, my signature every

19:19

time you're making it. And then like, we'd

19:21

be in a magically different place, right, but it

19:24

requires that boss to have curiosity instead

19:26

of sort of accountability passing.

19:28

And the last thing I'll say is like, Sally's in

19:30

a hospital context. Like you don't want people who are okay with

19:32

like sloppiness, you know what I mean? Like

19:35

it is entirely, like another read, like a really generous

19:37

read for Sally in terms of like just bringing

19:39

it to the bosses. You've got somebody who doesn't want to make mistakes.

19:42

And like in a hospital, you should want to employ

19:45

those people, right? There may be things that help

19:47

them go faster, but like at a starting

19:49

point, like they're assuming that that's sort of like

19:51

laziness or inefficiency or like

19:54

reading the worst read on it. But like if you're working

19:56

in a job where like it is life or death, maybe

19:59

it's okay that you slow down.

19:59

a little bit.

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23:29

Our next question is about time management, or

23:31

work-life balance, depending on who you ask. This

23:33

is from Liz and our colleague Ashley is going

23:36

to read it for us.

23:36

Is it fair for me to resent my leadership

23:39

for telling me not to work weekends or nights?

23:42

I'm in legal and both a lawyer and a manager

23:44

on the team, so I have people work and

23:46

knowledge work. We've had layoffs

23:48

and we're a lean corporate team, and

23:51

management takes pride in the leanness.

23:52

I feel like them telling

23:54

me not

23:55

to work these times without coming prepared

23:57

with solutions is really insensitive.

23:59

I have expectations and deliverables.

24:02

When else am I supposed to get this done? Yes,

24:05

I can cut down meetings, but one,

24:07

sometimes things need to be verbal for

24:10

confidentiality or privilege purposes,

24:12

and two, volume is volume. All

24:15

right, so I feel like this is an organization

24:18

that is trying to solve a burnout

24:20

problem

24:21

without

24:22

actually changing the way

24:25

that their business works, right? So

24:27

they're just saying, like, you don't

24:29

need to work on nights or weekends, right?

24:31

Like, they're trying to do this sort of, like,

24:33

lip service towards,

24:34

like, we don't want you working overtime, but

24:37

the work demands

24:38

some overtime, right? Like,

24:40

is that what you see? Yeah, a lot of bosses

24:43

have

24:44

ego riding on—I mean, we don't know,

24:46

this person's boss—but, like, a lot of bosses have ego

24:48

riding on

24:49

being the kind of boss who

24:52

says you don't need to work evenings and

24:54

weekends. It's very comforting to me

24:56

to be like, you know, I'm in a field like law

24:58

where everybody's burning everybody out all the time, but

25:00

not here. Right. Right? Like,

25:03

I tell all my people, I tell them every Friday, you better get out of here

25:05

at five o'clock and, like, okay,

25:09

but your people aren't idiots, and they figured out

25:12

what constitutes success. And this person's gotten

25:14

promoted into management, right? They figured out what

25:16

constitutes success in your firm, and if it were

25:19

checking

25:19

out at five o'clock and not checking back

25:21

in until Monday at nine,

25:23

they'd know it already, and we wouldn't be in this position.

25:26

There is a truth tucked in here. There's, like, a tiny

25:28

niceness tucked in here, right, between the,

25:30

like, I'm very frustrated, like, the

25:34

organization that says, like, we don't want to burn

25:36

people out, and then has leaders

25:38

regularly burning the midnight oil

25:40

where their teams

25:41

see it. Like, this person says, I'm a manager, and

25:43

so if we have a situation where,

25:45

like, you're reporting into somebody who's sending you emails

25:48

at eleven o'clock at night and three o'clock in the morning

25:50

and then again at six, like, you, anybody

25:52

on that team reporting to that person not only

25:54

sees it but will model that behavior. And so, like,

25:57

as a starting point, like, it does, to some degree,

25:59

it's not a big deal. make sense for this person to get that

26:01

feedback if they're in an organization that doesn't want 3am

26:05

emails flying around. Like once one person's

26:07

doing it, then everybody's like, particularly a person

26:09

in power, then everybody else is

26:11

doing it. There's just like stuff that's falling down

26:13

in terms of the implementation. Yeah, that's

26:16

the thing is that I think like, if this question

26:18

was slightly different and with someone like new to

26:20

her job and the organization

26:22

was really trying to keep boundaries and like she was slightly

26:25

disciplined or like chided for sending

26:28

emails because she doesn't

26:30

know any other way to work. But here

26:32

it seems like that is the only way to do

26:34

the work, at least according to this description.

26:36

And especially since

26:39

it's in law and you have like the, you know,

26:41

the volume is volume part of the question where it's

26:43

like, we are dealing with billables and they haven't,

26:45

it doesn't seem like this is a legal organization

26:48

that has adapted a new and innovative

26:50

way of like profit model, you

26:52

know, like they're still wedded to billable

26:55

hours. So can

26:57

Liz just like ignore her bosses

26:59

and do what needs to be done? What's the more constructive

27:01

move here? The thing that I really

27:03

like in conversations like this

27:06

is even overs. So

27:08

somebody says like, you know,

27:10

you don't need to work weekends, you can go home at five

27:13

every day. That's the kind of culture we have. And

27:15

just to come back and say I can go at five every

27:17

day, even over missing my billable

27:19

targets.

27:21

I can go home like I can I can clock

27:23

out all weekend, even over people

27:26

on my team waiting for my review on stuff

27:28

that's got to go to a client, like is that what we're saying?

27:30

And not not from a combat place,

27:33

but from a let's test trade offs. Because when

27:35

you say it in the abstract, nobody wants to burn out their

27:37

people. Nobody would self discover

27:39

than demons. Nobody would self describe

27:42

as like, I want to harm

27:44

the knowledge workers that I pay a lot of money to do creative

27:46

work. Finance makers, I think they are like,

27:48

it's a crucible.

27:50

But like, but like normal

27:53

managers, even incompetent ones wouldn't say

27:55

that what they're not doing is confronting the trade

27:57

off. I'm saying well, if I'm saying that.

27:59

Am I willing to accept the other thing? And if not,

28:02

okay, then at least we've drawn that into conversation now,

28:04

particularly as a member of the management team, at least we've

28:06

drawn into conversation like,

28:08

how do we want to approach that trade off?

28:10

The other thing we'd offer to Liz is that like billability

28:13

targets go down as management responsibilities

28:15

go up in professional services organizations

28:17

is like an industry standard. They don't go down

28:19

by very much, but they do go down slightly.

28:21

And if nobody's adjusted the billability target for

28:24

Liz, even though we've got management responsibilities

28:26

that just showed up, then like we are out

28:28

of step with like really established

28:31

norms

28:31

across professional service

28:33

organizations. Sometimes it's like in

28:35

this moment, like I feel very frustrated and

28:37

like, I feel like I'm in an impossible no win situation.

28:39

It's sometimes helpful to look around and just say like, in

28:41

our industry, what happens?

28:43

Like other people who are sort of in my position,

28:45

like what are their billability targets look like? And

28:48

not because I necessarily need to go work at that other organization,

28:50

just cause I'm trying to

28:51

get a read on is this normal.

28:52

That is such a good point. And

28:54

I do think that all of this is pointed to the fact that

28:56

like there needs to be another conversation.

28:59

And she says, like, is it wrong for me to

29:01

resent them? Like, I mean,

29:03

resentment is, it just breeds

29:05

and explodes and is not going to lead

29:07

anywhere good. So I think instead of like an

29:10

actual

29:10

conversation, bringing up some of these points

29:12

would be worthwhile. But

29:14

then if you are a boss

29:17

who maybe sees some of this in

29:19

your own communication, in

29:22

your own organization, what's

29:24

the advice you'd give to the bosses here? Just

29:26

name three things that could fall on the floor.

29:29

Like I actually got somebody who's overwhelmed, like, and you

29:31

feel like they oughtn't be, right? Okay, like you're overwhelmed,

29:33

but like, I feel like your workload doesn't

29:36

mandate that, or we don't mandate that as an employer,

29:38

then okay, like what are we putting down?

29:41

And if you can't name anything, then like, okay, well,

29:43

we're back to the same situation we were in before, which is

29:45

this person like, is right. Yeah.

29:47

When Liz says the management team

29:49

is very proud of being lean, I think

29:52

if I were part of that management team, I would

29:54

sit for a little bit with what

29:56

do we mean by that? I think what

29:58

we're getting at is we're not gonna spend

31:59

Lately.

32:01

Lately. So we feel like we all

32:03

know this guy. And there's

32:05

a fear too of upsetting someone

32:08

with power over you. So what would you

32:10

tell Tamara

32:10

to do here?

32:11

One of the things that is

32:14

really clear here is that this

32:16

boss seems sort of unaware that they're

32:18

having this impact. And so how

32:20

do we get a little bit closer to that awareness

32:22

without saying, I need you to stop talking so

32:24

much in meetings? Because that's a hard thing to

32:26

say to somebody who decides whether you get promoted or whether

32:29

you get a bonus. Like that's from a power

32:31

perspective. But

32:33

it is totally fair game to say that this boss,

32:35

like I am finding that I get the most value

32:38

out of our meeting in the last five minutes, that that's

32:40

where it all comes together. And so

32:43

sometimes I wonder whether we can experiment with

32:45

flipping the format where we make that the first five

32:47

minutes of the meeting and then we can go a little bit deeper on it. But

32:49

I find like I'm really having my aha

32:51

moment. And like the first 20 minutes,

32:53

like I'm not there. And I don't know whether

32:55

anybody else is having that too. But like it just you

32:58

can personalize it a little bit in terms of

33:00

like, it does sound like

33:01

he gets there eventually. It's just a

33:04

windy path to get there.

33:05

Yeah, there's this sort of truism

33:08

that gets trotted out all the time, which is that you can teach

33:10

people lots of things, but you can't teach them self awareness,

33:12

right? And it's false. There's

33:14

good research on it. You can totally improve self awareness.

33:17

And the way you do it with reflection exercises

33:19

that like the thing to do is to cause the person

33:22

to reflect so that they can start to pay attention

33:24

to what is it about that meeting. And so like, Melissa,

33:26

I love the idea of just like, can

33:28

we play with this format? We've

33:31

been having this meeting the same way for a long time.

33:33

And like, the context setting is an important part

33:35

of it. But we get to substantive work as well. And

33:37

I just feel like it's time to shake it up. And

33:41

often that can lead to a conversation

33:43

about like, well, what would we shake up? And how

33:45

should we balance the time and stuff like that? And you

33:47

can let the person ease into it. I want to say though, yeah,

33:50

it is scary to give feedback to someone with power over

33:53

you, for sure. And maybe

33:55

I'm sort of stating a theoretical

33:58

but like, it should be possible. to

34:01

give feedback to a person that says, one of the things

34:03

that I struggle with in this meeting is that nobody wants

34:05

to talk while you're talking because it's

34:07

your meeting, it's your team, but that's

34:10

taking a lot of the air out of the room. And

34:13

you really don't want to have to consolidate

34:16

an adult with power in the organization that much

34:19

from their own impact, but I understand that tomorrow

34:21

feels like maybe that has to happen here.

34:24

One of the things that happens for a lot of bosses is that

34:26

they get used to being in rooms that their people aren't

34:28

in, and so in terms of just an empathy moment

34:30

for this long-winded boss,

34:33

they get used to being in these meetings and being like, okay,

34:35

well, how do I, I have this amazing team,

34:38

I need to get them caught up on the meeting that they weren't in,

34:40

so I'll just play back. I

34:42

was in a half-hour meeting, so I'll just basically

34:45

be a tape recorder and press play and do the entire

34:47

half-hour meeting that I was just in that they missed so

34:49

that they're caught up on the context. And it comes

34:52

from a lovely place, but it is most of

34:54

the work that you need to do is to just

34:56

do some of that synthesis before

34:59

you go into that conversation. And so anyway,

35:01

I had a question in my head for this boss,

35:03

he's like, what's the meeting before this one?

35:06

Right, because if he's coming straight from,

35:08

I just had this and they told me to tell my team this thing,

35:10

then I understand exactly what's happening, and that man just

35:12

needs 10 minutes to go walk around the block before

35:15

going into the next conversation. And this is

35:17

a great way, I think, to kind of address the question

35:19

of, if you recognize yourself in this, and

35:21

this question is to think a little bit empathetically,

35:24

and my first thought was like, maybe

35:27

this boss is just like really nervous and

35:29

doesn't know how to fill the time, and like he's

35:31

the only guy in a group of women and

35:33

feels kind of awkward sometimes. And so

35:36

it might be self-awareness, but it might also just

35:38

be awkwardness. And

35:40

maybe the suggestion

35:43

from one of the people that he manages would

35:45

be very welcome. Maybe they

35:47

would be like, thank God, another

35:49

way to start this meeting. I will take

35:52

a step back. Maybe that I think

35:54

also maybe might make the employee

35:56

feel like, well, what if this person

35:59

wants an idea? Like, no.

35:59

Maybe it could be really helpful for all of us,

36:02

right? We hear from bosses all

36:04

the time that it's so hard to get feedback from their teams.

36:06

Like really, like, well, meeting bosses are like, it's so hard.

36:08

Like my team never tells me

36:10

what they think. They just sit there quietly.

36:11

They just sit there and you're like, well, like it's

36:13

hard. Like it is a big hill to climb

36:16

before they can say like, hey, boss, that

36:18

meeting is not going well. And to your point,

36:20

like I have been a

36:22

consensus driven leader who

36:24

really felt like so much esteem

36:27

for the people on my team that I really didn't want to

36:29

autocratically sort of say, here's what we're doing. You're

36:32

on this piece. You're on this piece. That felt

36:34

really gross to me. And so I have definitely

36:36

been guilty of being like, context, context, context,

36:39

context. Here's all the freemen. Do

36:41

we all unimpeachably agree that this is the only

36:43

choice we can make? Please somebody tell me if

36:45

you disagree. In an attempt

36:48

to not insult them,

36:50

to not seem like I was an egotistical

36:52

leader who was just coming in and calling shots and didn't care what

36:54

anybody thought. And like way, way

36:57

off. Like I was wrong. I was framing 90% more

37:00

than my team needed in order to be confident about the decision.

37:03

You're exactly right. There's my own insecurity

37:05

that was driving that.

37:07

And still, I ought to have, I don't know if I

37:09

would have, like to tomorrow's point, I don't know if I would have, but

37:11

I ought to have been receptive if someone

37:13

said, you're over framing and like

37:15

you need to let the rest of us in because we

37:17

got it.

37:18

All right. The advice is if you are

37:20

the employee in the situation, reframe,

37:23

offer ways

37:23

to reframe. And if you're a boss in this

37:25

situation, be receptive to others

37:28

offering ways to reframe.

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Our next question is also about communication

39:01

and it's from Astrid and our executive

39:03

producer Kendra is going to read it.

39:05

I'm a millennial and I supervise the Gen

39:07

Xer, who's also a manager. About

39:09

once or twice a week, he texts or emails

39:11

on an unrelated thread to see if we could talk

39:13

on the phone for quote,

39:15

just five minutes or less. It always

39:17

takes longer, plus will I chit-chat, and it's never

39:19

urgent. I hate playing phone tag

39:21

and I have a busy schedule. Even if

39:23

it only takes him a minute to share something with

39:26

me, it takes me time to process

39:28

and generate a response. I often

39:30

need to write it down anyway, so he might as well

39:32

send it over with a date stamp.

39:34

I respond promptly online when I'm in

39:36

between meetings and we also have a weekly one-on-one

39:38

where we can discuss things. During his

39:41

onboarding, I

39:41

explained that my preferred method of contact

39:44

was email or online chat, but

39:46

he was welcome to phone or text me if

39:48

it was something urgent. In response

39:50

to those requests, I've started waiting to discuss

39:52

those things in our one-on-one or

39:55

ask if he can send me an email if it's

39:57

a quick thing. I treat my boss's

39:59

time as precious and would only ask for a

40:01

phone call outside of our normal meeting schedule

40:04

if it was something that couldn't wait. What's

40:06

going on? Should I address it more directly?

40:08

Am I being stubborn or rude because I don't

40:10

like phone calls?"

40:12

All right, so

40:13

on a stereotypical level, this is

40:15

a classic generational divide of like

40:18

a lot of Gen Xers and Boomers who think that Millennials

40:21

just need to get over and get on the phone.

40:23

Millennials stereotypically, like, avoid

40:25

the phone. That used to be me. Now

40:27

I love the phone. I like, I have totally

40:30

come around on the phone, which

40:32

is actually a reversion to my 13-year-old

40:34

love of the phone,

40:36

right? Like, that a lot of elder Millennials

40:38

have a very close relationship

40:40

with talking on the phone

40:41

at some point in their lives.

40:44

But to me this seems like a kind of classic

40:46

like miscommunication about, here's how

40:48

I communicate best. How can

40:50

you deal with that? We think this

40:52

question isn't about this question at all. Okay,

40:56

tell me more.

40:56

We think this guy is

40:58

lonely. He sounds

40:59

lonely. I guarantee they're not in an office.

41:03

He doesn't have anybody to talk to and he's like,

41:06

I miss colleagues and like I need

41:08

somebody to talk to and like my boss

41:11

is like

41:12

the person that I'm in contact with most within the

41:14

organization. But like it doesn't say that this

41:16

is a remote contact but like if you gave me ten dollars

41:18

I would put

41:18

ten dollars down that this is a person who's working remote

41:20

without any colleagues nearby. Right,

41:22

because other ways they would just walk down,

41:24

like this is the guy who in the office, he's a walker,

41:27

right? Like he's like, hey I'm just

41:29

stopping by. Like what's going on? I got a quick question

41:31

for you, right? Depending

41:35

on your work style that can be annoying

41:37

but it also maybe like feels slightly

41:40

less disruptive because it doesn't require

41:42

you to pick up the phone or whatever. So

41:44

okay, Jonathan what were you gonna say? Yeah, well you can

41:46

you can feel it in Astrid's question. You can like

41:48

feel the whatever context

41:51

she had for whatever work she was doing like crumbling.

41:54

Like you're like trying to remember a dream. Like just every

41:56

time the phone call comes in it's

41:58

like well that goes half an hour a month. life

42:00

for your five minute nothing update, right? And

42:03

like, on the one hand, it's totally fair

42:05

to say, if this can wait till our one on one, let's talk

42:07

about it in our one on one. That's actually a really good

42:09

time management strategy that a bunch of managers fail

42:11

at is that they like, you know, if you open

42:14

business as a free answer store where people

42:16

can just message you and get a free answer, that's likely to be

42:18

right. Most of the time, you will be very popular, like that

42:20

is a very popular service to offer. And so it's

42:22

good first line defense to say,

42:25

we're talking tomorrow at 11am, can I wait till then?

42:27

Yeah, we can talk about it there. But the other

42:29

thing is like, when Astrid talks about it, she says,

42:32

you know, during onboarding,

42:33

I was really clear about my communication preferences.

42:36

And she doesn't say so we don't know, if he

42:38

got a chance to be clear about his. Right.

42:41

And in the next sentence of her question, she

42:43

says, you know, I would never do this to my boss,

42:46

with the sort of implication that ergo, no

42:48

one ought to do that to me. But like, that's, that's

42:50

a choice around power and communication styles and

42:52

stuff that, that we should not expect

42:55

anybody to, to

42:56

just magically know.

42:58

I will also just offer the layer that like, I

43:00

am somebody for whom like when I am in flow, I like,

43:02

I just like

43:03

I love to be in flow. And the idea

43:05

that someone would call me and sort

43:06

of break that flow and like, have the middle

43:08

of it just like start to fall apart, feels

43:11

really intense. But like, this

43:13

is somebody like it, it,

43:15

from the way that the question is worded, it

43:17

doesn't sound like it matters whether the

43:19

human to human connection is with Astrid or

43:21

with someone

43:22

else within the organization.

43:23

Yeah, yeah. And

43:25

so like bosses often like, especially bosses who

43:27

are like deep flow focus bosses often

43:30

like

43:30

undervalue team,

43:32

team coffee, or a team stand up or like

43:34

a an opportunity once a week for everybody to like,

43:36

even if we're remote to like eat lunch together, or eat

43:39

whatever meal it is, you know, based on whatever time zone

43:41

you're in, like, but that the, there's

43:44

like a very deep connection

43:46

longing here. And like the

43:49

good news answer for Astrid is you don't have to

43:51

be the like you don't have to be the sole guardian

43:54

of connection for this person at work, you are a primary

43:56

guardian of it, but like, you're not the only

43:58

one. And so like you do need to. have your one-on-ones,

44:01

but if this person like wants to have a regular coffee

44:03

date with someone or you want to organize for

44:06

your team a regular opportunity for them all

44:08

to have coffee even without you so

44:10

that you can stay and flow like that's okay

44:12

that tends to be alright. Yeah

44:15

so what I'm hearing is there

44:17

are some things that like you can defect

44:20

to the weekly meeting since you do have

44:22

that time for connection and then

44:24

you somehow need to funnel this energy

44:26

somewhere else

44:28

and the key can organize it like

44:30

when you find a person on your team who is like really

44:33

oriented around like connection a

44:35

team building you think like if that's not you like

44:37

it actually doesn't need to be the boss 100% of the time

44:39

like you can have a person on the team who sort

44:41

of identifies that way. Peter

44:44

we're putting you in charge like once a week we

44:46

need the whole team to get together and you're just

44:49

you're the guy for that Pete like you really are

44:52

and so let us know. This is a

44:54

job for an extrovert. And

44:57

Astrid will know when it is she won't have anything

44:59

else going on because the team call is when it is

45:01

right like you know when I used to run engineering

45:03

teams in a startup we had daily stand-up it's a really

45:06

sort of standard thing to do for engineering teams and

45:08

my hunch is that if Peter or whatever

45:10

this person's name is had one of those calls

45:12

would go down because you'd already

45:14

be getting fed in that way right now that is not a

45:17

reason to totally change how your team works

45:19

because you've got somebody's working preference that's different

45:22

but like spotting the opportunity there

45:24

and being like there's a sync up call that I hate

45:26

that somebody on my team has to go to and

45:28

I've been shielding everybody else from it but like Pete

45:31

that's you take notes send it

45:33

around to the team afterwards like if you've got

45:35

someone who wants to be connecting lean

45:37

on that instead of sort of building up shields

45:39

because you don't want to connect in that way.

45:41

So what do you think if you're the person

45:43

if you recognize yourself in this person who's like

45:45

hey let's get on the phone or like

45:48

can we have a little zoom chat right and I

45:50

like I know in my scenario

45:51

I'm constantly

45:54

sometimes I'm like let's just get on the phone and let me talk

45:56

to you about it but if someone's like can we hop

45:58

on a 15-minute zoom I say

46:00

send me four questions. I don't want to deal with

46:02

this, right? So if you see

46:04

yourself as the person who is oftentimes

46:07

reaching out for that sort of connection, what

46:09

sort of advice do you have for that person? If

46:11

there's a non hateful way to do

46:14

it, right? Like if if Astrid's like I really just

46:16

don't like I'm in flow, I don't like it, whatever.

46:18

Okay, but like if there is a moment

46:20

where like it would be welcome, right?

46:23

Sometimes some people are like I've got

46:25

like five minutes in the car after I dropped my kid at school

46:27

before I'm on my way back to my home office or whatever it

46:29

is, right? Like if there's a time

46:31

there where it's like, okay, I understand that this

46:33

is a thing that Pete needs, but like it's not

46:36

my favorite thing, but I can I can hand

46:38

over five minutes of solitude every

46:40

morning to make sure that like that person is plugged in and has

46:42

some connection to the organization. I just think

46:44

like it doesn't

46:45

sound like Astrid wants this.

46:47

Yeah, no. But

46:50

what about Pete though? Like what if you're a Pete? What

46:53

if you're a guy who like you

46:55

just really feel like you need that and then you

46:57

have all these Astrids in your life.

47:00

I want to process those in writing. You're like,

47:02

no, let's talk on the phone. Like what are you,

47:04

what's our Pete advice? I

47:06

mean, one, that not everybody is you,

47:08

right? You can you can say

47:10

like a thing that I've learned about myself is

47:13

I do my best work if I have these touch points. You

47:15

can say that in a one-on-one, you can say it on onboarding. A

47:17

thing that I've learned about myself is that you need

47:19

to have some empathy for the fact that there

47:21

are Astrids out there in the world

47:23

who find like that thing that you get energy from

47:25

is energy draining for them. And that's weird and counterintuitive,

47:28

but it's true. And like, and so you're

47:30

gonna need some creativity about like, what

47:33

would fill your bucket in that way? And does it have

47:35

to be always from the same source? And

47:38

can you find people for whom that's a really natural

47:40

fit and you too can go for coffee every morning? That's great.

47:42

But the awareness is one piece, the labeling

47:44

it. It's not, can I talk to you for five minutes? It's I

47:47

am somebody who enjoys that as part of work, right?

47:50

And then try to get more intentional

47:52

about how do I design that and how am I sensitive

47:54

to the fact that not everybody works that way? We've

47:56

also met, I mean, we work with a lot of bosses, right?

47:59

We've

47:59

met bosses.

47:59

over the last couple of years who've said, I learned,

48:02

to Jonathan's point, a thing I've learned about myself is that I

48:04

do not do well in a remote context.

48:07

And that can be okay, right? I am a person who

48:09

thrives when I can go in to the kitchen

48:12

and there are donuts and I can stand for 15 minutes

48:14

and shoot the shit and talk about TV shows. There's just,

48:17

there's nothing wrong with that. But I

48:19

think the thing where you pretend that you

48:21

can work from your basement by yourself

48:23

with a weekly one-on-one is your only work touch point

48:25

and it's not working, it's not working to

48:27

pretend that it is. Totally. So

48:30

our last question, I think

48:31

is like a great

48:33

capstone question, because it's about

48:36

who is responsible for making

48:38

a boss better? This is from Anya

48:40

and our colleague Emma is going to read it.

48:43

I'm consistently the top performer

48:45

on my team.

48:46

This isn't me bragging, it's something I've

48:48

been told repeatedly in performance

48:51

reviews and by org leadership. My

48:54

boss is a first time manager

48:56

with less professional experience than me

48:58

and I struggled to get any

49:00

kind of meaningful feedback or support

49:03

from her. She's there but

49:05

she's not really providing anything to me as

49:07

a manager. I recently brought this

49:09

up to my skip level who seemed receptive

49:11

to my feedback but also told

49:13

my immediate manager how I feel about

49:16

her job performance. Now

49:19

my manager wants me to

49:21

coach her how to be a better manager

49:23

to me. It's been suggested

49:26

to me that if I'm not open to teaching

49:28

my manager how to do her job,

49:30

I should look to transfer to a different team.

49:33

I like everything about my role

49:36

except my boss. But I feel

49:38

like transferring

49:38

is the only option at this

49:40

point,

49:41

right?

49:42

How on earth do I handle this?

49:45

So to me this seems like Anya

49:48

is maybe misinterpreting how

49:50

this is going down. Do you see that at

49:52

all? I can absolutely see

49:55

how she would read this as my skip

49:57

level went to my boss and then

49:59

now my boss says. you need to teach me how to manage,

50:01

like this is your responsibility, when

50:04

maybe the reality is that like

50:06

this manager is now

50:09

aware that she has not been doing a great job of managing,

50:11

and is maybe trying to say,

50:14

what kind of management would work best for

50:16

you? Right, is trying to be really,

50:18

like trying to be a good manager by asking

50:21

how to manage her. What do you see? Yup,

50:23

yeah, there's a couple things going on at once here. So one,

50:26

I agree, I mean, none of us is ever a perfectly

50:28

reliable narrator, so I'm not putting this just on Anya,

50:30

but like this idea of

50:32

I'm being told that I have to teach my manager how to do her

50:35

job, not really, you went to your skip

50:37

level and said my manager's failing me, and

50:40

your skip level told your manager, which is a party

50:42

foul, that's not a perfect way

50:44

to do that. But like now you

50:46

both know, okay, so that conversation has happened,

50:49

and the question is, can you work together or not? It's

50:51

not teach her how to be a manager, it's

50:54

what do you need, have you articulated that clearly,

50:56

does she understand that, and is she performing her job

50:58

in terms of bringing you those supports? Like that's

51:01

different than teach my manager how to be a manager. The

51:04

other thing that I would say is, Anya,

51:06

like welcome to the big leagues. If

51:08

you're a top performer on your team, congratulations,

51:11

that's excellent, but like there's only

51:13

two ways that goes either, you

51:15

will constantly report to people who know more than

51:18

you do, that's neat, but

51:20

you really top out at some point. You're gonna plateau

51:22

because if you're

51:23

world class,

51:25

there's a limited number of people, regardless

51:27

of what your discipline is, right?

51:29

Or you're

51:30

gonna have to figure out how to grow and thrive,

51:32

even when your manager doesn't know as much as you do about

51:34

the thing that you're a top performer at. That is

51:37

most people when they get to senior roles, most people

51:39

who report to a CEO know more about their thing than

51:41

the CEO knows about their thing, and that's okay.

51:44

It just means that you need a different orientation

51:46

towards how growth happens, and your manager can still

51:49

be a partner in that.

51:50

We get bosses sometimes in program who ask

51:52

like quietly. I found

51:54

out how much somebody on my team makes,

51:57

and it's more than me, is

51:58

that okay?

51:59

Should I be upset?

52:00

Should I be upset? How should I feel about

52:02

it? I think I'm outraged. Am I outraged?

52:05

Like, how outraged should I be? And

52:09

what we say is some variation

52:11

of what Jonathan just said, which is like, welcome. That

52:14

not only happens, it's really

52:17

normal in the course of

52:19

working, particularly in management that you will

52:21

manage people who like, really,

52:23

I am certain that you are cleverer than I am. I

52:25

am certain that you have more, like, you have earned

52:28

more postgraduate degrees than I have.

52:30

I am certain that you are 20 years old. There's

52:33

just a lot of those

52:35

situations where your first

52:37

kick at is, should I be outraged? Should I be outraged

52:39

if I'm working for somebody with less professional experience

52:42

than I have? Should I be outraged if

52:43

I'm working for somebody where it's their first time

52:45

managing but I've managed before? These

52:48

things happen across the workforce.

52:50

And to Jonathan's point, if your thing

52:53

is that you're going to be individually excellent in

52:55

your craft and that's your path, then, like,

52:57

it's

52:57

going to happen again.

52:59

Yeah, do you think that there's

53:01

a little bit of a sense that this, like, she

53:04

is someone who is really good

53:06

at a lot of things. And

53:08

seeing, like, incompetency in

53:10

some capacity and someone who's above

53:12

her in an organizational chart is

53:14

like, well, why can't you also

53:17

do this thing? Like, there is an expectation

53:19

of excellence instead of, well,

53:23

sometimes the person who manages

53:25

me might not be

53:26

good at every single thing.

53:28

If I was in that position, maybe I

53:30

wouldn't be good at all of those things either. And

53:32

maybe someone

53:33

would need to teach me how to be good at those things.

53:35

And like, you know, if we speak to Anja's

53:38

manager for a second, like, Anja

53:40

does need mentorship. She does

53:43

need people, like, helping her break

53:45

through to the next level, make new connections,

53:48

build a sort of executive,

53:49

whatever it is, like, a more

53:51

senior and more expert and more integrated

53:54

version of what she can bring to the organization.

53:57

It doesn't have to be you, but that doesn't mean you're

53:59

off the hook. then you've got to

54:01

be a partner in finding that. Like where is your network

54:04

within the organization or outside of it? How are

54:06

you looking at like the things that the organization

54:08

needs from Anya that she still needs to build the skills

54:11

and going and doing that work together to say

54:13

like, let's be partners in finding you the right

54:15

ways to excel at that, but like not

54:18

from a place of, and I'm going to learn right alongside

54:20

you. So that one day I'm like, that's not

54:22

actually your job. The reason it's

54:24

okay to have people on your team who get paid more than

54:26

you is that managers a different job than engineer.

54:29

Manager is a different job than marketer. Manager is like,

54:32

that's okay. You're paid to do your job.

54:35

Anya's paid to do her job. It

54:37

is fair for her to hold you accountable for doing your job

54:39

well. It is not fair to hold you accountable

54:41

for doing Anya's job. That's not actually what we're paying

54:43

for.

54:44

And I think you've got it exactly right. Like everything

54:46

about this question, like the frustration,

54:48

like you can hear the frustration in it, but the

54:51

structural bits sound like a supportive organization.

54:54

They did not say to Anya, like get your shit

54:56

together or you're fired.

54:57

They said like,

54:58

let's see if we can make it work. And if we can't

55:00

make it work, we will find another place for you to thrive

55:03

within this organization. It is not every organization,

55:05

right? Like it is not every boss's

55:07

boss or every boss who's like trying

55:10

to figure out a solution to it. It does feel like

55:12

the facts on the ground and what was asked

55:15

in the question, it does feel like she's got folks who are willing

55:17

to

55:17

work with her on it. And only she knows

55:19

if it's cooked already. Like maybe it's done. Maybe like

55:21

the relationship's too damaged and transferring

55:23

within the org is the only way that org's gonna

55:26

save Anya, right? Maybe, but

55:28

when you transfer, there's no guarantee your next

55:31

boss is gonna be smarter. It's your job than you are either.

55:33

And so is this, so are you ready to

55:36

make this a collaborative relationship that

55:38

she can be better at managing you, that you can have some mentorship,

55:41

that you can figure out horizontal

55:43

mentorship too. And like those

55:46

sorts of relationships as well that will make you better

55:48

at your job. It's all there. The

55:50

point that you make that this organization is on board

55:52

with trying to make this better, that is the

55:54

good news.

55:55

So we can go forward from there. All

55:58

right, so I

55:59

don't think we.

55:59

I think we stumped you. I think we announced

56:02

it. I brought the big guns. Like I brought

56:04

backup for a reason. But

56:08

you know, this is an invitation for all listeners

56:11

to try and stump us again. We'll have

56:13

you back on so that we can try to grapple

56:15

this. We still have all that backlog of like a hundred

56:17

more questions about management.

56:18

Because as

56:21

we talk about here, like it is so foundational.

56:22

Like everything is in some ways a

56:25

management question or sometimes

56:28

it's a loneliness question or sometimes it's an

56:30

awkwardness question. Sometimes it's a power

56:32

differential question but management is

56:34

kind of the hub of the wheel.

56:36

So thank you so much for coming on the

56:38

show today. If people wanna find more from you, where

56:40

can they find

56:41

you on the internet? Best way to find us is

56:43

our newsletter. It's at worldbestnewsletter.com.

56:46

It's both of us. It comes out every couple of weeks. We'd love

56:48

to see you there.

56:49

It is the world's best newsletter.

56:50

That isn't my newsletter. I will

56:52

give it a shot. World's second best newsletter wasn't available

56:54

as a domain name. What

56:57

was I gonna say?

56:57

I was just gonna

56:59

say thank you. It's always fun and I

57:01

love that

57:02

the questions are real questions, right? I think

57:04

that there's this idea that it's all easy,

57:06

right? You just do these three things and then it's simple.

57:08

And like the reality is it's humans,

57:11

right? It's humans at work. Like it's humans and stuff we

57:13

care about. Like it's not simple.

57:15

Yeah, thank you to you but also thank you to the question

57:17

and answers. It's uncomfortable. Like you can

57:19

want an answer and it's still uncomfortable to have your

57:22

deep and rich and nuanced life picked apart

57:25

on the basis of

57:26

a few sentences of question.

57:28

Yeah, so I hope all, as always,

57:31

I hope all of the people who wrote in with questions that

57:33

they feel like we have seen them, like that

57:35

their questions are real and valuable and

57:38

this is hard. And also

57:40

that there's some kernel

57:41

of advice in here that you can take forward.

57:44

Thank you again. Thank you. Thank

57:47

you. Thanks

57:54

for listening to Work Appropriate.

57:55

If you need advice about a sticky... situation

58:00

at work, wear hair for you. Submit your

58:02

questions at workappropriate.com or

58:04

send a voice memo with your question to

58:06

workappropriate at crooked.com. We

58:09

love building episodes around your questions and

58:11

you can stay as anonymous as you like.

58:14

Don't forget to follow us at Crooked

58:15

Media on Instagram and Twitter for more original

58:18

content, host takeovers and other

58:20

community

58:20

events. You can follow me on

58:22

Instagram at Anne Helen Peterson or you can

58:24

sign up for my newsletter, Culture Study, at

58:27

annehlen.substack.com. And

58:29

if you like the show, leave us a review on your podcast

58:32

app of choice. It really helps.

58:33

Workappropriate is at Crooked

58:35

Media Production. I'm Anne Helen Peterson,

58:38

your host. Our executive producer is

58:40

Kendra James. Melody Raul is our

58:42

producer and editor. Alison Falcetta

58:44

is our development producer. Music is

58:46

composed by Chanel Critchlow. Additional

58:49

production support from Ari Schwartz and special

58:51

thanks to Katie Long and Sarah Geyser.

59:22

We've transformed conflict

59:25

into positive change. We've

59:27

united passion with purpose and

59:30

helped turn discovery into lifetimes

59:32

of learning. Kent State embraces

59:35

diversity and welcomes all with

59:37

respect, kindness and purpose

59:40

in all we do.

59:41

These values guide us as we serve

59:44

and support our mission and the people we

59:46

value most, our students.

59:49

Find your beginning at Kent State

59:51

University.

59:59

Looper conferences have arrived and

1:00:02

a transfer portal is completely out of control.

1:00:04

The drama is hotter than ever this year and

1:00:06

the only way to cool off is with an ice cold

1:00:09

Dr. Pepper. So get ready for more hot takes,

1:00:11

more heartbreak and more Dr. Pepper flavors

1:00:14

than ever before. Stop by your local

1:00:16

retailer today to score some ice cold

1:00:18

Dr. Pepper, the one stands deserved.