January 30, 2019 • 34 mins
Being a good manager is hard, and managers often don’t get a lot of guidance. Our guest is a new-ish manager who wants to make sure she’s doing a good job.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
My colleague, We'll stop commenting on everything I get my
assistant eyes at people and meeting. Why does my coworker
keep taking credit for all my ideas? Have any wisdom
for me? Hi? I'm Alison Green. Welcome to the Aska
Manager Podcast. Right answer questions from listeners about life at work,
everything from what to say if you're allergic to your
coworkers perfume to what to do if you drink too
(00:23):
much at the company party. Let's get started. Being a
good manager is hard. It's especially hard when you're new
to doing it, and managers often don't get a lot
of guidance, even though managing is usually a whole different
skill set from whatever they were doing previously. Our guest
today is a new ish manager who wants to make
(00:44):
sure she's doing a good job, and we're going to
talk through how she can make that happen. Hi, and
welcome to the show. Hi, Thank you so much so.
What you wrote to me is that you finished grad
school a couple of years ago, and you started a
company with a colleague and it's been more six assful
than you expected it to be. And now you have
three full time employees and some part time contractors. But
(01:06):
as you wrote before this, you had never had what
you would consider a real job, and suddenly you're a
manager and you're living in fear of being a bad one,
and you feel like things are good with your co founder,
but you're struggling with how to best manage your staff,
and you're not quite used to this boss employee dynamic
a by getting that all right, that's exactly right. And
(01:27):
you wrote when you first contacted me that some of
your biggest concerns are getting the balance right between being
a casual and fun place to work, but also making
sure that people respect you enough and understand that you're
making the final decisions. And you also want to be
sure that you're identifying any weaknesses that you might be
oblivious to, because it feels hard to get honest feedback,
(01:48):
especially from a small team, and you're not sure how
to solicit it, and more generally, just learning how to
be an effective manager. Does that all sound right? That's
all exactly right. Yeah. We work in like a tech
startup in a field where there's usually it's pretty casual
and fun, but obviously there's still lots of deadlines and
things that need to be done, and then we have
so far, really great staff, and I you know, it's
(02:10):
a very competitive field and I don't want to lose them,
So I'd hate to be oblivious to something terrible in
my managing style and then lose an employee. Yeah, well,
it's great that you're thinking about it, because so many
people don't even do that sort of reflection and then
we get lots of bad managers who people are writing about.
So before we jump into advice, tell me a little
(02:30):
bit about how things are going, Like, do you feel
like you're getting what you need from your staff and
just work get done the way you want it to
be done, and are you comfortable giving feedback that kind
of thing. I would say it's pretty good. Um, Like
the technical work is very strong. Sometimes it's hard to
know how to delegate exactly, how to how much responsibility
(02:52):
to give people was reasonable to expect in terms of
how fast someone should work. Um, for some of my staff,
they have the same skill, said it's me. So if
I kind of can bench mark like, oh, this should
take me two weeks, so maybe it will take them
similar a bit longer. But with some of my staff
are totally outside my field, it's it's really hard for
me to even assess what's reasonable or not, and I
(03:13):
find that hard. Yeah, it is hard. So I think
what might make sense is to start with a bunch
of general advice on managing in general, and then we
can dive into some of those more specific questions. If
that sounds good, that sounds great, Okay, Well let's start
with how do you even learn to be an effective
manager in the first place? And so I can't answer
(03:36):
this question without doing a plug for my book for managers,
which is called Managing to Change the World and Nonprofit
Manager's Guide to Getting Results. And as you can tell
from the title, it is primarily targeted to nonprofit managers,
but really, like of what's in there is going to
apply to managers in any sector, and it'll really walk
you through the nitty gritty of how you do some
(03:57):
of the stuff that we're about to talk about in
broader term. What I had found before writing it, well
co authoring it, I should say, is that a lot
of the management books that are out there are pretty theoretical,
but I think what managers often really want and need
is the real detail of it, Like what do I
say in this meeting and how exactly do I approach
this issue, and what does it sound like, and how
(04:19):
do I structure conversations about someone's performance that sort of thing.
So the book really goes in detail on this is
exactly how you do it. So it might be worth
checking out as like a reference material. That sounds great,
but let's talk bigger themes and you can use that
as a reference later if you want to. So I
think the biggest thing that you want to do as
(04:39):
a manager, because everything else will stem from it, is
to be really clear in your own head on what
your job is, what you're there to do as a manager.
And I am going to argue that your fundamental job
as a manager is to make sure that your organization
gets the results that it needs. There's a lot that
goes into that, of course. I mean there's laying out
clear expectations, setting the right goals, and hiring their people
(05:02):
and developing them and giving them good feedback, and building
a culture that supports all of those things and is
somewhere that people want to work. But ultimately, those are
all means to an end, and that end is achieving
whatever it is that you're setting out to achieve, whatever
the goals of the company are. And the reason I'm
stressing that is that because a ton of managers lose
(05:23):
sight of it. They think that their job is just
to develop people or to keep their people happy, or
on the other end of the spectrum, that they're there
to just enforce rules or monitor people. And it is
important to develop people and keep your team happy and
monitor work. But those things aren't ends in themselves. You're
doing them because they're part of achieving the results that
(05:44):
you want. And again I'm belaboring this because if you
lose sight of it, you will find yourself prioritizing the
wrong things, like you'll find yourself avoiding making a decision
that will be unpopular, or shying away from a hard
conversation because you don't want to make someone unhappy, and
so forth. So that's point number one. Look at everything
through the lens of how it supports you achieving whatever
(06:05):
it is that you want to be achieving. From there,
I think I'm going to run through some of the
fundamentals that you want to be thinking about and doing
as a manager. And honestly, each of these could be
a book in itself, so I'm not going to get
terribly in depth on any of them. Unless you jump
in and tell me that you do want to go deeper,
and feel free to do that with any of these.
But otherwise, this is just kind of a list to
(06:27):
get you thinking about the areas that you want to
be paying special attention to. There's that sort of you
don't know what you don't know kind of things, So
so I would say look at this as a list
of areas to make sure that you're being thoughtful about.
So the first and maybe the biggest one is being
really clear with yourself and with your team about what
(06:48):
you want them to do and what it would look
like to do it successfully. And I know that sounds
really obvious, but people don't always do it very effectively,
and if you don't, it's really easy for you and
the people working with you to get pulled in a
bunch of different directions instead of figuring out what are
the most important things for us to achieve and focusing there. So,
(07:10):
for the organization as a whole and for each individual
person who works for you, you you want to get really
clear on what would a successful year look like. If
it's the end of the year and we're looking back
on the previous twelve months, what do we want to
have achieved for it to have been a successful year.
That way, by hashing that out and creating really clear
goals for that time period based on that, everyone's going
(07:30):
to be on the same page about what successful work
and their role looks like. And you're not going to
have people wondering, am I doing a good job? Am
I doing the things she wants me to be doing?
And you're not going to have people spending time on
things that ultimately are trumped by things that are more
important to you. Does that make sense? Definitely? Yeah? And
how does that? How do you balance like say an
(07:51):
employee where you don't really know how to do their jobs,
so you can explain what you want them to do,
but not exactly how you want them to do it. Yes,
So hopefully you've hired someone who has a track record
of getting those things done or getting things that are
very similar and done, so you have some reason to
put your trust in in their skills and their ability
to achieve those things. And then I would say talk
(08:13):
to them, you know, talk through I would explicitly ask
the question, what is reasonable for us to accomplish accomplish
this year? What I'm hoping is that we could do X,
Y and Z. What do you think is that realistic?
Is that enough? Is it not ambitious enough? And have
that conversation with them, and it should be kind of
a collaborative process if you've hired the right people. If
(08:34):
you've hired people who don't have those skills to do it,
that's a real problem if you don't have those skills either,
because then you can't can't train them. But I'm assuming
that you feel pretty confident. You said you're happy with
your team. Yes, yes, exactly, so yeah, I would just
have that conversation and it's it's completely okay. I mean,
I think sometimes especially when people are first managing, they
feel like people expect them to have all the answers. Actually,
(08:55):
it really enhances your credibility when you admit that you don't.
It's completely fine to sit down with someone and say,
I'm really going to be leaning on you to help
me figure this out because this is your area of expertise,
so let's talk through this and I think what you
want to have. And this touches on on your question
earlier about like, how do you know if you're not
an expert in their area that their timelines are reasonable?
(09:18):
And the quality of their work is reasonable. I think
you need to have a pretty good BS detector to
some extent. If you're if you're like Spidy, sense is
going off and telling you like this just doesn't sound
right to me. Don't dismiss that just because they are
more expert than you are. I would take that as
(09:38):
a flag that something's going on there and you should
sit down and dig into it. Maybe the thing that's
going on is that you just have some incorrect assumptions,
and by talking to them you can straighten that out.
But maybe there is something more going on. I mean,
one thing that I have found is that when I
am managing areas of work that aren't my area of expertise,
(09:59):
they're there's always small things that I do understand that,
Like I will understand like oh, that person is really
great at follow through, or they're not so great at
follow through, or the way they're explaining this to this
client like really doesn't make sense, and I don't think
that person is understanding it. There's like there's pieces like
that that you will be equipped to judge, and I
(10:20):
would put real weight on those because in my experience,
you can extrapolate pretty well the small pieces that you
are equipped to understand will usually lead you in the
right to action. Right that totally makes sense. I mean
not not entirely, of course, I don't want to overstate that,
but more often than not that will be the case.
(10:44):
And when you're having those conversations with people, when you're saying,
you know, help me figure this out. I want to
lean any for your expertise, you're going to get a
feel for how you know, do I trust what they're saying?
Does it make sense to me? Does it seem logically
sound owned to do it? Does their critical thinking here
seem on target? Or does it not? And that stuff
(11:05):
is all going to point you in a direction of
either Okay, yes, this person I can rely on this person.
They seem incredible, they know what they're doing, or oh,
it feels like there's a lot of red flags here.
Absolutely if it does turn out that you're seeing red
flags and you do think maybe this person isn't doing
what I need them to do or they're not right
for the role, but then you might be thinking like,
(11:27):
but it might even really equipped to assess that. That
is when you come back to the goals that we
were just talking about setting if you're really clear at
the outside of the year, the six month period, or
whatever time period you choose. If you're really clear, you
both get aligned and you both agree, this is what
we're going to achieve in this time period, this is
what success would look like. You're going to have really
good data on whether or not that's actually happening, right,
(11:50):
and then you can kind of assess did this happen
and if not, why not? And then that would give
you the kind of that information exactly. It makes it
really easy to assess performance. Let's pause here for a
short break and we'll come right back and keep talking.
(12:12):
So we were just talking about clarity for expectations for
a big chunk of time, like a year, but you
also want to be really clear about expectations on a
smaller level too, Like if you're assigning a project, you
want to take the time to really talk through whatever
is in your head about it. It's really easy as
a manager to to delegate very quickly. You know, three sentences,
(12:34):
can you take care of this for me? Here's the deadline.
But if you don't have a longer conversation, you're I mean,
obviously not everything requires a longer conversation. But it's if
it's a pretty major project and you don't really talk
it through, you're setting yourself in the staff person up
for frustration when they put a bunch of work in
and then it comes back to you and you say, oh,
this isn't really what I was talking about. That sucks
(12:54):
for everyone. It's not a good use of people's time.
So I would say, really invest on the front end
in making sure that if you do have expectations in
your head about how something will go or what it
will look like when it comes back to you, that
you're very deliberate about sharing that with your staff so
that they're not trying to guess and they're not getting blindsided,
they're not finding out halfway through she had these expectations
(13:16):
that she didn't tell me about. Yes, absolutely, And then
you also want to apply that at another level too,
So not just long term goals, not just individual projects,
but also how people are operating in general, how you
expect them to approach their work. Like, just to give
you a random example, if you wouldn't like it if
they took more than like a day to return a
(13:38):
client's phone call, tell them that. Make sure they know
that what people tend to do is they don't make
those implicit expectations explicit, and so people don't meet those expectations,
and then they get really frustrated and they're wondering, like,
why is why is this person waiting days to return
a client's phone call? They should just know that they
should return it within a day. Well, maybe I mean
(13:59):
to thing in your context, maybe they should just know.
But you're setting everyone up for failure if you don't
just tell them. So you probably have a lot of
expectations in your head of like how we do things
here or how we definitely don't do things here, And
I would be very deliberate about pulling that stuff out
of your head, whatever it is, so that you can
(14:20):
share it with people and you don't end up you
and they don't end up frustrated. Yes, that definitely makes
good sense. Another thing kind of related to clear expectations
is feedback. So giving people feedback on their work is
really key part of your job. And that doesn't just
mean feedback when something goes wrong or needs to be changed.
(14:43):
It means kind of feedback all the time, feedback on
what's going well and what could be better, and how
someone could go from pretty good to really great. How
comfortable are you with giving feedback? Very comfortable with giving
positive feedback? We do lots of that, and negative I
think I find a little bit harder. Yeah, most people do.
(15:06):
Most people actually, I think most people start when they
start managing. There at one end of the spectrum or
the other. I think yours is the most common. Like,
it feels good to give praise, I can do that.
It's a little more awkward to give critical feedback. But
there are also people who do the reverse, who are
like super comfortable with the criticism and it doesn't care
the piece um. But it's really normal to feel a
(15:30):
little awkward about criticism. The easiest way to do it
is to get in the habit of giving feedback on
a really regular basis and to sort of build it
in two existing structures. So like, if you have regular
one and one meetings with your staff, have every time,
have part of those meetings be to debrief recent projects.
(15:53):
Like put it on the agenda. You can even call
it a debriefing because then it's not so scary like
feedback is. You're just talking about how a recent produ
jicked went. But if you make it a thing where
you're doing it every time and it's built into how
you operate, it won't be so hard to initiate when
you do have some serious criticism. You know, sometimes people
don't do that. They give praise and it's fine, and
(16:14):
then one day there's actually a serious issue they have
to talk about and they're like, oh no, and it
feels really dramatic, and they're calling someone into the conference
room and they've got a box of tissues there and
it feels like this big, serious thing. But it doesn't
have to be that. If you build it into your
existing structure so that you're always debriefing and you're always
talking about how things are going, it's going to be
(16:36):
so much less dramatic and stressful for everyone. Yes, that
makes total sense. And do you do you think it's
a good idea to do kind of the compliment sandwich
to have always kind of used that where you say, oh,
you know, you're doing these things well and this one
thing could use work, and then oh, here's some other
things you're doing well. Or do you think that's not
the best way to go? So I am not a
huge fan of the compliment sandwhich I know some people
(16:58):
like it. And find it really useful. And if you
feel like it's working for you and for your staff, great,
But i'll tell you why I don't love it. One
is sometimes people start to recognize what you're doing, and
so every time you praise them, they start bracing themselves
thinking like, oh no, what is she about to criticize?
So you don't want that, and you also don't want
people to feel like you're dealing with them by formula.
(17:20):
The thing is that sometimes it means the message can
be lost that the person either just here's the positive
stuff and doesn't think that the critical part is that
big of a deal because look, you just said all
this positive stuff about their work, or the opposite of
that happens. They just hear the criticism and they completely
forget the positive things that you said, And you don't
(17:41):
want that. You want to make sure that you're giving
them praise in a in a way that's really going
to register with them. So I think people turn to
the compliment sandwich because it feels a little better to
do it that way. Yeah, but I think you can
give criticism in a way that feels safe for the
(18:01):
person and that feels supportive and where it's clear that
you are not questioning their entire fit for the role.
And the part of the way to do it, something
that really will make it easier is if you do
normalize it, if it does become just a normal part
of the conversations that you're having when you check in
weekly or bi weekly or whatever it is, right and
(18:21):
not be like, oh, we need to have this big
talk exactly. And if you also are sure that you're
giving positive feedback and it sounds like you are, that's
going to help with that feeling that people will sometimes
get where they like you give them a piece of
criticism and they think their their whole job is in jeopardy. Now,
some people would think that no matter what you do.
But but in general, as long as you're giving more
praise than you are criticism, most people are going to
(18:45):
take that pretty well. If you're not giving more praise
than criticism, then I would look at is that a
problem with the way that you're managing or is it
a flag that maybe there's some pretty serious concerns about
the person's fit for the job? Right, Okay, let's see.
Another big area to think about is that a key
part of your job as a manager is to build
(19:07):
a great team. And I say that because you don't
want to be passive about it. You want to put
real energy into hiring good people and the flip side
of that addressing it when someone really isn't working out now,
doing that means being a place that good people want
to work so treating people well and being fair and
being open and compassionate while still holding a high bar
(19:28):
for the work that you're doing. UM when we started
out at the start of the show and I was like, Oh,
sometimes people think that managing is just all about supporting
their team. I'm not being dismissive of that. I think
supporting your team is really important. It's important for this
reason that it will help you attract and retain good
people if you're someone that people want to work for
in your company that people want to work in UM
(19:50):
And I mean, obviously it's the right thing to do.
I don't I don't mean to discount that, but ultimately
it's part of building a company that is going to
run really well over time. And part of that I
think is being really deliberate about the culture that you're creating.
And that's not really stuff like do you have a
foodsball table in the office. Although I know that it
gets talked about that way a lot, it's more that
(20:13):
the how we do things around here stuff that is
important to how the company functions. So it's stuff like
what kind of energy is in the office most days,
and how do people interact, and how do you handle
new ideas and how accountable to do people feel for
their work. It tends to not get culture tends to
not get a lot of attention with a small staff,
but it's something to have in your head to be
(20:36):
thinking about, especially if you keep growing and bringing new
people on. Yeah, it's something that's actually made us grow
a bit smaller on purpose, is because we're afraid to
double in size over night and we feel like our
culture may just kind of get away from us. Yeah,
growth is really hard, especially when you're going from from
pretty small to not quite as small. It's very very
common to find that the practices and systems or in
(20:59):
some case lack of practices and systems that that worked
for you at a small size they don't really translate
as you get bigger. And you think that's true of
culture too, and it just becomes all the more important
to be very deliberate about it. Yeah, that totally makes sense.
Let's go to another break here, and when we come back,
let's dig in more to the specific questions that you had. Okay,
(21:29):
we are back. So you mentioned in your letter to
me that you're concerned about getting the balance right between
being a casual and funt place to work, but also
making sure that people respect you enough that they understand
that you make the final decisions. How do you feel
like that's going so far. Does it feel like it's
more or less okay? Or have there been issues? I
feel like we we definitely are airing on the side
(21:52):
of a fun, happy place to work, and we certainly
have done good work and have good feedback on our clients,
and so that part's going really well. But I think
sometimes deadlines aren't taken as seriously as they could be.
How do you handle deadlines? Like if someone misses a deadline,
what happens? Like, say, when it happened recently, I had
a conversation with someone about getting something done by a
(22:14):
certain date, and then when that date came up, I
asked her how it was going, and she said basically like, oh,
she might be able to get part of it done
by the end of the day, and I was a
little unsure how to deal with that, to be honest,
because I I just said something like, oh, I thought
you knew that this was a deadline and that if
you couldn't meet it, you would at least let me know.
And uh, yeah, So that that's something I've been struggling
(22:37):
a little bit with, is how do I I mean,
I made a pretty clear that you know, we need
to meet the deadlines a bit better, but I'm not
really sure exactly what what I should have done differently,
because I'm pretty sure it's something to do with my management,
is why that happened, And I don't know exactly what
it was. How clear were you when you first set
the deadline? Sometimes people I think that they have communicated
(22:58):
to deadline clearly, but in reality they've it's come across
as more of a suggestion like it would be great
if you could do this by Tuesday, but the person
hears that as well, Tuesday would be great, but Friday
would be fine too. So do you do you remember
how clear you were? I feel like I was fairly clear,
but I also know that I gave her a bunch
of other things to do after that that we're less urgent,
(23:20):
but she may have interpreted them as well, I should
be working on these now instead or in addition to
so the deadline now was a little bit less important.
I don't think I explicitly said, but wait and do
these things after How much time was there between when
you first made the assignment and when it was due
about a week okay, so enough time that she could
(23:41):
have come back to you and said, hey, I'm I
have concerned about my ability to meet this deadline. Definitely,
So I think a couple of things. You might be right.
It really might just be it was like this one time,
fluke and she just had a bunch of other things
going on. But I suspect you're bringing it up because
it feels like more of a pattern. So I think
a couple of things. One, do be very clear when
you're setting deadlines, and you might be um, but make
(24:04):
sure that it's not sounding like a suggestion. Make sure
it's you know, I will need this by the end
of the day, you know what. I would even be
more explicit because the end of the day can be
interpreted as five o'clock or eleven o'clock at night. So
let me back up. I would say, Um, you know,
I need this by five pm on Tuesday. Do you
think you'll be able to do that? So you're getting
their commitment to it. And then if the deadline comes
(24:26):
and the person is being kind of wishy washy, you
know the conversation that you had or she was like, oh,
I don't know if it's going to happen. Um, two things.
In the moment, you can say, oh, I really do
need it by the end of today. What can Is
there anything you can move around to make that happen,
so that your intent is very clear. You're not being
loosey goosey about this deadline. You're making it very clear
(24:47):
that you really do need it. In some cases the
person might be able to pull that off and in
other cases maybe not. Either way, though, afterward, have a
conversation about it, because this is how you get deadlines
taken seriously in your culture. You don't just kind of
let it go and feel annoyed about it. You talk
about it, and that means sitting down with her. And
(25:08):
it doesn't have to be like a whole special meeting
just for this. It can be the next time you
have like a weekly check in or something. But you say, hey,
I know we had talked about having project X do
on Tuesday. What happened there? And that's it. That's all
you need to say. What happened there? Those are your
magic words for accountability, because what it's doing is, well,
(25:29):
it's doing a few things. Most importantly, it's communicating this
is actually a problem that we're going to talk about.
I'm concerned that it didn't happen, and it's a big
enough issue that we're talking about why it played out
that way. But also you're giving the person a chance
to give you information that you might not have. You know,
maybe what happened is you gave her three other projects
that had sooner deadlines, or um, maybe she was really sick,
(25:52):
or she was learning from home when her power went out,
or who knows. There could be reasons. So you don't
want to just launch into a lecture. You want to
make sure that you're hearing the person out and getting
their perspective, and frankly, you don't even need the lecture
at that point, just the what happened is usually enough
of the conversation. Now, if it keeps happening, you don't
want to just keep having but what happened conversation week
(26:14):
after week. That would be not good if it becomes
a pattern. Then you talk about the pattern, and then
the conversation is, Hey, I'm concerned, there's this pattern. You've
missed a bunch of deadlines recently. What's going on? Oh, look,
it's actually a version of what happened, but you're talking
about the pattern at that point. But for the one time,
(26:34):
what happened is usually enough. And sometimes I think managers
feel like, am I supposed to be like coming down
harder on the person? And what would that even look like?
But really, like, these are adults, they're presumably good at
their jobs. You hired them because you trusted them. What
happened is a respectful way to address it and convey
your concern about it. Now, if they're not people who
(26:55):
you trust to do your job, that's a totally different issue.
But but it sounds like they are. They are. Definitely. Yeah,
let me ask you this. A lot of new managers
feel kind of awkward about having authority and exercising authority.
It just feels weird. Do you feel weird about it? Yes? Definitely, Yeah,
so super normal. I think it feels weird for like,
(27:18):
I mean, a minimum of one year, and I think
for most people a few years. The interesting thing, and
I think it really helps to remember it, is that
if you have decent employees, they probably don't feel weird
about it at all, Like it's normal to have a boss.
It probably feels like a completely normal, matter of fact
thing that you have authority over them. You probably have
a bigger hang up about it than in they do.
(27:39):
I think that's true. And Label had bobs before and
had managers before, so I think for them it's very normal. Yeah. So,
and like if you think about, well, you said you
haven't had a real job history. I was going to say,
if you think about times when you've had a boss,
you probably didn't feel really awkward about the fact that
they had authority. Um, but but yeah, in their shoes,
they probably don't feel weird. So it's not weird unless
you make it weird. And you can make it weird,
(28:02):
are being noticeably uncomfortable about it, or like really holding
off on addressing issues or dancing around it like that
thing I was talking about about presenting things as suggestions
when they're really not suggestions is a really common trap
when someone doesn't feel comfortable with authority. It's easier to say, well,
Tuesday would be great if you can get to it,
(28:24):
rather than a more authoritative I need this by Tuesday, right,
which is actually so much more actionable, so right, And
it's better for the person you're managing to let them
know what you need so that they can meet those expectations.
So really, the more matter of fact you can be
about having authority, the more comfortable everyone will be. But
you do have to fake it for for a while.
(28:44):
It's not going to come naturally. Just like totally pretend
that you feel comfortable with it, and at some point
you will look around and realize that you do, but
it takes a while. That makes sense, I think to like,
most of the time you want to be taking a
pretty collaborative approach with the all that you manage. You know,
you respect their opinions and their input and you want
to hear from them and and then you'll do your
(29:05):
own job, which is using that input from them to
make decisions. But you can be collaborative, like I think
sometimes when people start managing, they have this idea in
their head that they're supposed to be like the boss,
like really rigid and just like delivering these orders, and
you can be collaborative with people because you do have
the authority to use when you need to. So if
(29:27):
you do need to step in at some point and say,
you know, hey, I actually want us to do this
a little bit differently, or we're going to go in
a different direction, you have the authority to say that,
but you don't need to be like exuding that authority
all the time. You can just treat them like a
normal colleague most of the time, right, Okay, Well, that's
good to know because that's that tends to be what
we do good. And I think you had asked about
(29:49):
like making it clear that even though you have a
pretty casual culture, there are times when you'll be making
the final decision, and I think just be a matter
of fact about that too, to be clear about your
decision making structure, because where people run into problems with
this is when they're so collaborative that they say things
that signal that a decision is a group decision when
(30:10):
they don't actually mean that. So you just want to
be upfront and transparent, like you might say at the
start of the discussion, you know, I'm figuring out how
we're going to handle X, and I'd love to get
your input as they make the decision. Yes, I think
that's the balance I need to strike better. Yeah, so
you're like welcoming and inviting their input, but you're using
that input because you're making the decision. Or you could say, like,
(30:33):
I need to make a decision about X, I'd love
any thoughts you have on it, or like if something
is sensitive, you might even be more explicit about it,
like you could say, hey, I want to note that
we're not going to decide this as a group, but
I do want to get everyone's input and advice. And
then if you do make a decision that is different
from what people wanted, just explain why you ended up
there and be clear that you did consider their input
(30:56):
and your thinking and why you ultimately went in a
different direct, because most people are going to feel respected
if it's clear that you heard them out and you
took their inputs seriously, even if you ultimately made a
different choice. Yeah, excellent. Now you also mentioned you want
to be sure that you're spotting any weaknesses that you
have and that it's hard to get candid feedback from
(31:17):
people you're managing, which is very true. One of the
best ways to do it is to just create a
culture where people feel safe talking to you, that they
know that they won't be penalized in some way for
being candid. Honestly, it's hard to do because some people
have had bosses in the past who did penalize them
for being candid, or they grew up in a family
that like really reinforced that posses through the enemy. Some
(31:40):
people just won't be that candid with managers, but a
lot of people will if you demonstrate that it's safe
for them to do it. But you can also make
a point of asking probing questions every so often, like
periodically asking people how things are going, and what would
make their jobs easier, if there's anything that you personally
could be doing differently, and that kind of thing. And
if you have created an environment where it's safe for
(32:02):
people to speak openly and you ask those questions and
you make it clear you really want the answers, you'll hear, well,
you'll hear some of it, you still because there's power
dynamics there. But the other thing is to develop relationships
with other people, people who you don't manage, who you
trust to be straight with you. So maybe that's your
co founder. Maybe it's colleagues and other companies so you
(32:24):
can bounce things off of. Maybe it's like a mentor
type figure. But the idea is to diversify to figure.
You're probably never going to hear everything there is to
hear from your own staff, but that if you work
on developing good, trusting relationships across the range of people,
your chances go up. Right. That makes sense, not just
relying on them to tell me their deepest, darkest feelings exactly. Oh,
(32:48):
and this is really important. Part of making people feel
safe sharing input with you is to demonstrate that you
don't shoot the messenger. And I know we all think like, oh,
I would never shoot the messenger, but like people do it.
A lot of people do it. So if people who
you manage see you get angry or like visibly frustrated
when you get bad news or you hear something you
(33:09):
don't like or agree with, they are never going to
give you honest feedback about their own weaknesses. It's just
not worth that risk. And you're always kind of on
stage as a manager, like people are watching your reactions
to all kinds of things, even if you don't feel
like you're in an official moment of managing, and so
if you react badly to bad news, there goes your
(33:29):
chances of candidate and put down the road. So never
shoot the messenger if you want real feedback that makes sense. Well,
hopefully this was helpful. Thank you so much for coming on.
It really was. Thank you so much. Thanks for listening
to the Asking Manager podcast. If you'd like to come
on the show to talk through your own question, email
it to podcast at Asking Manager dot org, or you
can leave a recording of your question by calling eight
(33:51):
five five six work. That's eight five five T six
nine seven five. You can get more ask a Manager
at ask a Manager dot org or in my book
Ask a Manager how to navigate clueless colleagues, lunch stealing bosses,
and the rest of your life at work. They Ask
a Manager show is a partnership with How Stuff Works
and is produced by Paul Deckett. If you liked what
you heard, please take a minute to subscribe, rate, and
(34:12):
review the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Google Play.
I'm Alison Green and I'll be back next week with
another one of your questions.
My colleague, We'll stop commenting on everything I get my
assistant eyes at people and meeting. Why does my coworker
keep taking credit for all my ideas? Have any wisdom
for me? Hi? I'm Alison Green. Welcome to the Aska
Manager Podcast. Right answer questions from listeners about life at work,
everything from what to say if you're allergic to your
coworkers perfume to what to do if you drink too
(00:23):
much at the company party. Let's get started. Being a
good manager is hard. It's especially hard when you're new
to doing it, and managers often don't get a lot
of guidance, even though managing is usually a whole different
skill set from whatever they were doing previously. Our guest
today is a new ish manager who wants to make
(00:44):
sure she's doing a good job, and we're going to
talk through how she can make that happen. Hi, and
welcome to the show. Hi, Thank you so much so.
What you wrote to me is that you finished grad
school a couple of years ago, and you started a
company with a colleague and it's been more six assful
than you expected it to be. And now you have
three full time employees and some part time contractors. But
(01:06):
as you wrote before this, you had never had what
you would consider a real job, and suddenly you're a
manager and you're living in fear of being a bad one,
and you feel like things are good with your co founder,
but you're struggling with how to best manage your staff,
and you're not quite used to this boss employee dynamic
a by getting that all right, that's exactly right. And
(01:27):
you wrote when you first contacted me that some of
your biggest concerns are getting the balance right between being
a casual and fun place to work, but also making
sure that people respect you enough and understand that you're
making the final decisions. And you also want to be
sure that you're identifying any weaknesses that you might be
oblivious to, because it feels hard to get honest feedback,
(01:48):
especially from a small team, and you're not sure how
to solicit it, and more generally, just learning how to
be an effective manager. Does that all sound right? That's
all exactly right. Yeah. We work in like a tech
startup in a field where there's usually it's pretty casual
and fun, but obviously there's still lots of deadlines and
things that need to be done, and then we have
so far, really great staff, and I you know, it's
(02:10):
a very competitive field and I don't want to lose them,
So I'd hate to be oblivious to something terrible in
my managing style and then lose an employee. Yeah, well,
it's great that you're thinking about it, because so many
people don't even do that sort of reflection and then
we get lots of bad managers who people are writing about.
So before we jump into advice, tell me a little
(02:30):
bit about how things are going, Like, do you feel
like you're getting what you need from your staff and
just work get done the way you want it to
be done, and are you comfortable giving feedback that kind
of thing. I would say it's pretty good. Um, Like
the technical work is very strong. Sometimes it's hard to
know how to delegate exactly, how to how much responsibility
(02:52):
to give people was reasonable to expect in terms of
how fast someone should work. Um, for some of my staff,
they have the same skill, said it's me. So if
I kind of can bench mark like, oh, this should
take me two weeks, so maybe it will take them
similar a bit longer. But with some of my staff
are totally outside my field, it's it's really hard for
me to even assess what's reasonable or not, and I
(03:13):
find that hard. Yeah, it is hard. So I think
what might make sense is to start with a bunch
of general advice on managing in general, and then we
can dive into some of those more specific questions. If
that sounds good, that sounds great, Okay, Well let's start
with how do you even learn to be an effective
manager in the first place? And so I can't answer
(03:36):
this question without doing a plug for my book for managers,
which is called Managing to Change the World and Nonprofit
Manager's Guide to Getting Results. And as you can tell
from the title, it is primarily targeted to nonprofit managers,
but really, like of what's in there is going to
apply to managers in any sector, and it'll really walk
you through the nitty gritty of how you do some
(03:57):
of the stuff that we're about to talk about in
broader term. What I had found before writing it, well
co authoring it, I should say, is that a lot
of the management books that are out there are pretty theoretical,
but I think what managers often really want and need
is the real detail of it, Like what do I
say in this meeting and how exactly do I approach
this issue, and what does it sound like, and how
(04:19):
do I structure conversations about someone's performance that sort of thing.
So the book really goes in detail on this is
exactly how you do it. So it might be worth
checking out as like a reference material. That sounds great,
but let's talk bigger themes and you can use that
as a reference later if you want to. So I
think the biggest thing that you want to do as
(04:39):
a manager, because everything else will stem from it, is
to be really clear in your own head on what
your job is, what you're there to do as a manager.
And I am going to argue that your fundamental job
as a manager is to make sure that your organization
gets the results that it needs. There's a lot that
goes into that, of course. I mean there's laying out
clear expectations, setting the right goals, and hiring their people
(05:02):
and developing them and giving them good feedback, and building
a culture that supports all of those things and is
somewhere that people want to work. But ultimately, those are
all means to an end, and that end is achieving
whatever it is that you're setting out to achieve, whatever
the goals of the company are. And the reason I'm
stressing that is that because a ton of managers lose
(05:23):
sight of it. They think that their job is just
to develop people or to keep their people happy, or
on the other end of the spectrum, that they're there
to just enforce rules or monitor people. And it is
important to develop people and keep your team happy and
monitor work. But those things aren't ends in themselves. You're
doing them because they're part of achieving the results that
(05:44):
you want. And again I'm belaboring this because if you
lose sight of it, you will find yourself prioritizing the
wrong things, like you'll find yourself avoiding making a decision
that will be unpopular, or shying away from a hard
conversation because you don't want to make someone unhappy, and
so forth. So that's point number one. Look at everything
through the lens of how it supports you achieving whatever
(06:05):
it is that you want to be achieving. From there,
I think I'm going to run through some of the
fundamentals that you want to be thinking about and doing
as a manager. And honestly, each of these could be
a book in itself, so I'm not going to get
terribly in depth on any of them. Unless you jump
in and tell me that you do want to go deeper,
and feel free to do that with any of these.
But otherwise, this is just kind of a list to
(06:27):
get you thinking about the areas that you want to
be paying special attention to. There's that sort of you
don't know what you don't know kind of things, So
so I would say look at this as a list
of areas to make sure that you're being thoughtful about.
So the first and maybe the biggest one is being
really clear with yourself and with your team about what
(06:48):
you want them to do and what it would look
like to do it successfully. And I know that sounds
really obvious, but people don't always do it very effectively,
and if you don't, it's really easy for you and
the people working with you to get pulled in a
bunch of different directions instead of figuring out what are
the most important things for us to achieve and focusing there. So,
(07:10):
for the organization as a whole and for each individual
person who works for you, you you want to get really
clear on what would a successful year look like. If
it's the end of the year and we're looking back
on the previous twelve months, what do we want to
have achieved for it to have been a successful year.
That way, by hashing that out and creating really clear
goals for that time period based on that, everyone's going
(07:30):
to be on the same page about what successful work
and their role looks like. And you're not going to
have people wondering, am I doing a good job? Am
I doing the things she wants me to be doing?
And you're not going to have people spending time on
things that ultimately are trumped by things that are more
important to you. Does that make sense? Definitely? Yeah? And
how does that? How do you balance like say an
(07:51):
employee where you don't really know how to do their jobs,
so you can explain what you want them to do,
but not exactly how you want them to do it. Yes,
So hopefully you've hired someone who has a track record
of getting those things done or getting things that are
very similar and done, so you have some reason to
put your trust in in their skills and their ability
to achieve those things. And then I would say talk
(08:13):
to them, you know, talk through I would explicitly ask
the question, what is reasonable for us to accomplish accomplish
this year? What I'm hoping is that we could do X,
Y and Z. What do you think is that realistic?
Is that enough? Is it not ambitious enough? And have
that conversation with them, and it should be kind of
a collaborative process if you've hired the right people. If
(08:34):
you've hired people who don't have those skills to do it,
that's a real problem if you don't have those skills either,
because then you can't can't train them. But I'm assuming
that you feel pretty confident. You said you're happy with
your team. Yes, yes, exactly, so yeah, I would just
have that conversation and it's it's completely okay. I mean,
I think sometimes especially when people are first managing, they
feel like people expect them to have all the answers. Actually,
(08:55):
it really enhances your credibility when you admit that you don't.
It's completely fine to sit down with someone and say,
I'm really going to be leaning on you to help
me figure this out because this is your area of expertise,
so let's talk through this and I think what you
want to have. And this touches on on your question
earlier about like, how do you know if you're not
an expert in their area that their timelines are reasonable?
(09:18):
And the quality of their work is reasonable. I think
you need to have a pretty good BS detector to
some extent. If you're if you're like Spidy, sense is
going off and telling you like this just doesn't sound
right to me. Don't dismiss that just because they are
more expert than you are. I would take that as
(09:38):
a flag that something's going on there and you should
sit down and dig into it. Maybe the thing that's
going on is that you just have some incorrect assumptions,
and by talking to them you can straighten that out.
But maybe there is something more going on. I mean,
one thing that I have found is that when I
am managing areas of work that aren't my area of expertise,
(09:59):
they're there's always small things that I do understand that,
Like I will understand like oh, that person is really
great at follow through, or they're not so great at
follow through, or the way they're explaining this to this
client like really doesn't make sense, and I don't think
that person is understanding it. There's like there's pieces like
that that you will be equipped to judge, and I
(10:20):
would put real weight on those because in my experience,
you can extrapolate pretty well the small pieces that you
are equipped to understand will usually lead you in the
right to action. Right that totally makes sense. I mean
not not entirely, of course, I don't want to overstate that,
but more often than not that will be the case.
(10:44):
And when you're having those conversations with people, when you're saying,
you know, help me figure this out. I want to
lean any for your expertise, you're going to get a
feel for how you know, do I trust what they're saying?
Does it make sense to me? Does it seem logically
sound owned to do it? Does their critical thinking here
seem on target? Or does it not? And that stuff
(11:05):
is all going to point you in a direction of
either Okay, yes, this person I can rely on this person.
They seem incredible, they know what they're doing, or oh,
it feels like there's a lot of red flags here.
Absolutely if it does turn out that you're seeing red
flags and you do think maybe this person isn't doing
what I need them to do or they're not right
for the role, but then you might be thinking like,
(11:27):
but it might even really equipped to assess that. That
is when you come back to the goals that we
were just talking about setting if you're really clear at
the outside of the year, the six month period, or
whatever time period you choose. If you're really clear, you
both get aligned and you both agree, this is what
we're going to achieve in this time period, this is
what success would look like. You're going to have really
good data on whether or not that's actually happening, right,
(11:50):
and then you can kind of assess did this happen
and if not, why not? And then that would give
you the kind of that information exactly. It makes it
really easy to assess performance. Let's pause here for a
short break and we'll come right back and keep talking.
(12:12):
So we were just talking about clarity for expectations for
a big chunk of time, like a year, but you
also want to be really clear about expectations on a
smaller level too, Like if you're assigning a project, you
want to take the time to really talk through whatever
is in your head about it. It's really easy as
a manager to to delegate very quickly. You know, three sentences,
(12:34):
can you take care of this for me? Here's the deadline.
But if you don't have a longer conversation, you're I mean,
obviously not everything requires a longer conversation. But it's if
it's a pretty major project and you don't really talk
it through, you're setting yourself in the staff person up
for frustration when they put a bunch of work in
and then it comes back to you and you say, oh,
this isn't really what I was talking about. That sucks
(12:54):
for everyone. It's not a good use of people's time.
So I would say, really invest on the front end
in making sure that if you do have expectations in
your head about how something will go or what it
will look like when it comes back to you, that
you're very deliberate about sharing that with your staff so
that they're not trying to guess and they're not getting blindsided,
they're not finding out halfway through she had these expectations
(13:16):
that she didn't tell me about. Yes, absolutely, And then
you also want to apply that at another level too,
So not just long term goals, not just individual projects,
but also how people are operating in general, how you
expect them to approach their work. Like, just to give
you a random example, if you wouldn't like it if
they took more than like a day to return a
(13:38):
client's phone call, tell them that. Make sure they know
that what people tend to do is they don't make
those implicit expectations explicit, and so people don't meet those expectations,
and then they get really frustrated and they're wondering, like,
why is why is this person waiting days to return
a client's phone call? They should just know that they
should return it within a day. Well, maybe I mean
(13:59):
to thing in your context, maybe they should just know.
But you're setting everyone up for failure if you don't
just tell them. So you probably have a lot of
expectations in your head of like how we do things
here or how we definitely don't do things here, And
I would be very deliberate about pulling that stuff out
of your head, whatever it is, so that you can
(14:20):
share it with people and you don't end up you
and they don't end up frustrated. Yes, that definitely makes
good sense. Another thing kind of related to clear expectations
is feedback. So giving people feedback on their work is
really key part of your job. And that doesn't just
mean feedback when something goes wrong or needs to be changed.
(14:43):
It means kind of feedback all the time, feedback on
what's going well and what could be better, and how
someone could go from pretty good to really great. How
comfortable are you with giving feedback? Very comfortable with giving
positive feedback? We do lots of that, and negative I
think I find a little bit harder. Yeah, most people do.
(15:06):
Most people actually, I think most people start when they
start managing. There at one end of the spectrum or
the other. I think yours is the most common. Like,
it feels good to give praise, I can do that.
It's a little more awkward to give critical feedback. But
there are also people who do the reverse, who are
like super comfortable with the criticism and it doesn't care
the piece um. But it's really normal to feel a
(15:30):
little awkward about criticism. The easiest way to do it
is to get in the habit of giving feedback on
a really regular basis and to sort of build it
in two existing structures. So like, if you have regular
one and one meetings with your staff, have every time,
have part of those meetings be to debrief recent projects.
(15:53):
Like put it on the agenda. You can even call
it a debriefing because then it's not so scary like
feedback is. You're just talking about how a recent produ
jicked went. But if you make it a thing where
you're doing it every time and it's built into how
you operate, it won't be so hard to initiate when
you do have some serious criticism. You know, sometimes people
don't do that. They give praise and it's fine, and
(16:14):
then one day there's actually a serious issue they have
to talk about and they're like, oh no, and it
feels really dramatic, and they're calling someone into the conference
room and they've got a box of tissues there and
it feels like this big, serious thing. But it doesn't
have to be that. If you build it into your
existing structure so that you're always debriefing and you're always
talking about how things are going, it's going to be
(16:36):
so much less dramatic and stressful for everyone. Yes, that
makes total sense. And do you do you think it's
a good idea to do kind of the compliment sandwich
to have always kind of used that where you say, oh,
you know, you're doing these things well and this one
thing could use work, and then oh, here's some other
things you're doing well. Or do you think that's not
the best way to go? So I am not a
huge fan of the compliment sandwhich I know some people
(16:58):
like it. And find it really useful. And if you
feel like it's working for you and for your staff, great,
But i'll tell you why I don't love it. One
is sometimes people start to recognize what you're doing, and
so every time you praise them, they start bracing themselves
thinking like, oh no, what is she about to criticize?
So you don't want that, and you also don't want
people to feel like you're dealing with them by formula.
(17:20):
The thing is that sometimes it means the message can
be lost that the person either just here's the positive
stuff and doesn't think that the critical part is that
big of a deal because look, you just said all
this positive stuff about their work, or the opposite of
that happens. They just hear the criticism and they completely
forget the positive things that you said, And you don't
(17:41):
want that. You want to make sure that you're giving
them praise in a in a way that's really going
to register with them. So I think people turn to
the compliment sandwich because it feels a little better to
do it that way. Yeah, but I think you can
give criticism in a way that feels safe for the
(18:01):
person and that feels supportive and where it's clear that
you are not questioning their entire fit for the role.
And the part of the way to do it, something
that really will make it easier is if you do
normalize it, if it does become just a normal part
of the conversations that you're having when you check in
weekly or bi weekly or whatever it is, right and
(18:21):
not be like, oh, we need to have this big
talk exactly. And if you also are sure that you're
giving positive feedback and it sounds like you are, that's
going to help with that feeling that people will sometimes
get where they like you give them a piece of
criticism and they think their their whole job is in jeopardy. Now,
some people would think that no matter what you do.
But but in general, as long as you're giving more
praise than you are criticism, most people are going to
(18:45):
take that pretty well. If you're not giving more praise
than criticism, then I would look at is that a
problem with the way that you're managing or is it
a flag that maybe there's some pretty serious concerns about
the person's fit for the job? Right, Okay, let's see.
Another big area to think about is that a key
part of your job as a manager is to build
(19:07):
a great team. And I say that because you don't
want to be passive about it. You want to put
real energy into hiring good people and the flip side
of that addressing it when someone really isn't working out now,
doing that means being a place that good people want
to work so treating people well and being fair and
being open and compassionate while still holding a high bar
(19:28):
for the work that you're doing. UM when we started
out at the start of the show and I was like, Oh,
sometimes people think that managing is just all about supporting
their team. I'm not being dismissive of that. I think
supporting your team is really important. It's important for this
reason that it will help you attract and retain good
people if you're someone that people want to work for
in your company that people want to work in UM
(19:50):
And I mean, obviously it's the right thing to do.
I don't I don't mean to discount that, but ultimately
it's part of building a company that is going to
run really well over time. And part of that I
think is being really deliberate about the culture that you're creating.
And that's not really stuff like do you have a
foodsball table in the office. Although I know that it
gets talked about that way a lot, it's more that
(20:13):
the how we do things around here stuff that is
important to how the company functions. So it's stuff like
what kind of energy is in the office most days,
and how do people interact, and how do you handle
new ideas and how accountable to do people feel for
their work. It tends to not get culture tends to
not get a lot of attention with a small staff,
but it's something to have in your head to be
(20:36):
thinking about, especially if you keep growing and bringing new
people on. Yeah, it's something that's actually made us grow
a bit smaller on purpose, is because we're afraid to
double in size over night and we feel like our
culture may just kind of get away from us. Yeah,
growth is really hard, especially when you're going from from
pretty small to not quite as small. It's very very
common to find that the practices and systems or in
(20:59):
some case lack of practices and systems that that worked
for you at a small size they don't really translate
as you get bigger. And you think that's true of
culture too, and it just becomes all the more important
to be very deliberate about it. Yeah, that totally makes sense.
Let's go to another break here, and when we come back,
let's dig in more to the specific questions that you had. Okay,
(21:29):
we are back. So you mentioned in your letter to
me that you're concerned about getting the balance right between
being a casual and funt place to work, but also
making sure that people respect you enough that they understand
that you make the final decisions. How do you feel
like that's going so far. Does it feel like it's
more or less okay? Or have there been issues? I
feel like we we definitely are airing on the side
(21:52):
of a fun, happy place to work, and we certainly
have done good work and have good feedback on our clients,
and so that part's going really well. But I think
sometimes deadlines aren't taken as seriously as they could be.
How do you handle deadlines? Like if someone misses a deadline,
what happens? Like, say, when it happened recently, I had
a conversation with someone about getting something done by a
(22:14):
certain date, and then when that date came up, I
asked her how it was going, and she said basically like, oh,
she might be able to get part of it done
by the end of the day, and I was a
little unsure how to deal with that, to be honest,
because I I just said something like, oh, I thought
you knew that this was a deadline and that if
you couldn't meet it, you would at least let me know.
And uh, yeah, So that that's something I've been struggling
(22:37):
a little bit with, is how do I I mean,
I made a pretty clear that you know, we need
to meet the deadlines a bit better, but I'm not
really sure exactly what what I should have done differently,
because I'm pretty sure it's something to do with my management,
is why that happened, And I don't know exactly what
it was. How clear were you when you first set
the deadline? Sometimes people I think that they have communicated
(22:58):
to deadline clearly, but in reality they've it's come across
as more of a suggestion like it would be great
if you could do this by Tuesday, but the person
hears that as well, Tuesday would be great, but Friday
would be fine too. So do you do you remember
how clear you were? I feel like I was fairly clear,
but I also know that I gave her a bunch
of other things to do after that that we're less urgent,
(23:20):
but she may have interpreted them as well, I should
be working on these now instead or in addition to
so the deadline now was a little bit less important.
I don't think I explicitly said, but wait and do
these things after How much time was there between when
you first made the assignment and when it was due
about a week okay, so enough time that she could
(23:41):
have come back to you and said, hey, I'm I
have concerned about my ability to meet this deadline. Definitely,
So I think a couple of things. You might be right.
It really might just be it was like this one time,
fluke and she just had a bunch of other things
going on. But I suspect you're bringing it up because
it feels like more of a pattern. So I think
a couple of things. One, do be very clear when
you're setting deadlines, and you might be um, but make
(24:04):
sure that it's not sounding like a suggestion. Make sure
it's you know, I will need this by the end
of the day, you know what. I would even be
more explicit because the end of the day can be
interpreted as five o'clock or eleven o'clock at night. So
let me back up. I would say, Um, you know,
I need this by five pm on Tuesday. Do you
think you'll be able to do that? So you're getting
their commitment to it. And then if the deadline comes
(24:26):
and the person is being kind of wishy washy, you
know the conversation that you had or she was like, oh,
I don't know if it's going to happen. Um, two things.
In the moment, you can say, oh, I really do
need it by the end of today. What can Is
there anything you can move around to make that happen,
so that your intent is very clear. You're not being
loosey goosey about this deadline. You're making it very clear
(24:47):
that you really do need it. In some cases the
person might be able to pull that off and in
other cases maybe not. Either way, though, afterward, have a
conversation about it, because this is how you get deadlines
taken seriously in your culture. You don't just kind of
let it go and feel annoyed about it. You talk
about it, and that means sitting down with her. And
(25:08):
it doesn't have to be like a whole special meeting
just for this. It can be the next time you
have like a weekly check in or something. But you say, hey,
I know we had talked about having project X do
on Tuesday. What happened there? And that's it. That's all
you need to say. What happened there? Those are your
magic words for accountability, because what it's doing is, well,
(25:29):
it's doing a few things. Most importantly, it's communicating this
is actually a problem that we're going to talk about.
I'm concerned that it didn't happen, and it's a big
enough issue that we're talking about why it played out
that way. But also you're giving the person a chance
to give you information that you might not have. You know,
maybe what happened is you gave her three other projects
that had sooner deadlines, or um, maybe she was really sick,
(25:52):
or she was learning from home when her power went out,
or who knows. There could be reasons. So you don't
want to just launch into a lecture. You want to
make sure that you're hearing the person out and getting
their perspective, and frankly, you don't even need the lecture
at that point, just the what happened is usually enough
of the conversation. Now, if it keeps happening, you don't
want to just keep having but what happened conversation week
(26:14):
after week. That would be not good if it becomes
a pattern. Then you talk about the pattern, and then
the conversation is, Hey, I'm concerned, there's this pattern. You've
missed a bunch of deadlines recently. What's going on? Oh, look,
it's actually a version of what happened, but you're talking
about the pattern at that point. But for the one time,
(26:34):
what happened is usually enough. And sometimes I think managers
feel like, am I supposed to be like coming down
harder on the person? And what would that even look like?
But really, like, these are adults, they're presumably good at
their jobs. You hired them because you trusted them. What
happened is a respectful way to address it and convey
your concern about it. Now, if they're not people who
(26:55):
you trust to do your job, that's a totally different issue.
But but it sounds like they are. They are. Definitely. Yeah,
let me ask you this. A lot of new managers
feel kind of awkward about having authority and exercising authority.
It just feels weird. Do you feel weird about it? Yes? Definitely, Yeah,
so super normal. I think it feels weird for like,
(27:18):
I mean, a minimum of one year, and I think
for most people a few years. The interesting thing, and
I think it really helps to remember it, is that
if you have decent employees, they probably don't feel weird
about it at all, Like it's normal to have a boss.
It probably feels like a completely normal, matter of fact
thing that you have authority over them. You probably have
a bigger hang up about it than in they do.
(27:39):
I think that's true. And Label had bobs before and
had managers before, so I think for them it's very normal. Yeah. So,
and like if you think about, well, you said you
haven't had a real job history. I was going to say,
if you think about times when you've had a boss,
you probably didn't feel really awkward about the fact that
they had authority. Um, but but yeah, in their shoes,
they probably don't feel weird. So it's not weird unless
you make it weird. And you can make it weird,
(28:02):
are being noticeably uncomfortable about it, or like really holding
off on addressing issues or dancing around it like that
thing I was talking about about presenting things as suggestions
when they're really not suggestions is a really common trap
when someone doesn't feel comfortable with authority. It's easier to say, well,
Tuesday would be great if you can get to it,
(28:24):
rather than a more authoritative I need this by Tuesday, right,
which is actually so much more actionable, so right, And
it's better for the person you're managing to let them
know what you need so that they can meet those expectations.
So really, the more matter of fact you can be
about having authority, the more comfortable everyone will be. But
you do have to fake it for for a while.
(28:44):
It's not going to come naturally. Just like totally pretend
that you feel comfortable with it, and at some point
you will look around and realize that you do, but
it takes a while. That makes sense, I think to like,
most of the time you want to be taking a
pretty collaborative approach with the all that you manage. You know,
you respect their opinions and their input and you want
to hear from them and and then you'll do your
(29:05):
own job, which is using that input from them to
make decisions. But you can be collaborative, like I think
sometimes when people start managing, they have this idea in
their head that they're supposed to be like the boss,
like really rigid and just like delivering these orders, and
you can be collaborative with people because you do have
the authority to use when you need to. So if
(29:27):
you do need to step in at some point and say,
you know, hey, I actually want us to do this
a little bit differently, or we're going to go in
a different direction, you have the authority to say that,
but you don't need to be like exuding that authority
all the time. You can just treat them like a
normal colleague most of the time, right, Okay, Well, that's
good to know because that's that tends to be what
we do good. And I think you had asked about
(29:49):
like making it clear that even though you have a
pretty casual culture, there are times when you'll be making
the final decision, and I think just be a matter
of fact about that too, to be clear about your
decision making structure, because where people run into problems with
this is when they're so collaborative that they say things
that signal that a decision is a group decision when
(30:10):
they don't actually mean that. So you just want to
be upfront and transparent, like you might say at the
start of the discussion, you know, I'm figuring out how
we're going to handle X, and I'd love to get
your input as they make the decision. Yes, I think
that's the balance I need to strike better. Yeah, so
you're like welcoming and inviting their input, but you're using
that input because you're making the decision. Or you could say, like,
(30:33):
I need to make a decision about X, I'd love
any thoughts you have on it, or like if something
is sensitive, you might even be more explicit about it,
like you could say, hey, I want to note that
we're not going to decide this as a group, but
I do want to get everyone's input and advice. And
then if you do make a decision that is different
from what people wanted, just explain why you ended up
there and be clear that you did consider their input
(30:56):
and your thinking and why you ultimately went in a
different direct, because most people are going to feel respected
if it's clear that you heard them out and you
took their inputs seriously, even if you ultimately made a
different choice. Yeah, excellent. Now you also mentioned you want
to be sure that you're spotting any weaknesses that you
have and that it's hard to get candid feedback from
(31:17):
people you're managing, which is very true. One of the
best ways to do it is to just create a
culture where people feel safe talking to you, that they
know that they won't be penalized in some way for
being candid. Honestly, it's hard to do because some people
have had bosses in the past who did penalize them
for being candid, or they grew up in a family
that like really reinforced that posses through the enemy. Some
(31:40):
people just won't be that candid with managers, but a
lot of people will if you demonstrate that it's safe
for them to do it. But you can also make
a point of asking probing questions every so often, like
periodically asking people how things are going, and what would
make their jobs easier, if there's anything that you personally
could be doing differently, and that kind of thing. And
if you have created an environment where it's safe for
(32:02):
people to speak openly and you ask those questions and
you make it clear you really want the answers, you'll hear, well,
you'll hear some of it, you still because there's power
dynamics there. But the other thing is to develop relationships
with other people, people who you don't manage, who you
trust to be straight with you. So maybe that's your
co founder. Maybe it's colleagues and other companies so you
(32:24):
can bounce things off of. Maybe it's like a mentor
type figure. But the idea is to diversify to figure.
You're probably never going to hear everything there is to
hear from your own staff, but that if you work
on developing good, trusting relationships across the range of people,
your chances go up. Right. That makes sense, not just
relying on them to tell me their deepest, darkest feelings exactly. Oh,
(32:48):
and this is really important. Part of making people feel
safe sharing input with you is to demonstrate that you
don't shoot the messenger. And I know we all think like, oh,
I would never shoot the messenger, but like people do it.
A lot of people do it. So if people who
you manage see you get angry or like visibly frustrated
when you get bad news or you hear something you
(33:09):
don't like or agree with, they are never going to
give you honest feedback about their own weaknesses. It's just
not worth that risk. And you're always kind of on
stage as a manager, like people are watching your reactions
to all kinds of things, even if you don't feel
like you're in an official moment of managing, and so
if you react badly to bad news, there goes your
(33:29):
chances of candidate and put down the road. So never
shoot the messenger if you want real feedback that makes sense. Well,
hopefully this was helpful. Thank you so much for coming on.
It really was. Thank you so much. Thanks for listening
to the Asking Manager podcast. If you'd like to come
on the show to talk through your own question, email
it to podcast at Asking Manager dot org, or you
can leave a recording of your question by calling eight
(33:51):
five five six work. That's eight five five T six
nine seven five. You can get more ask a Manager
at ask a Manager dot org or in my book
Ask a Manager how to navigate clueless colleagues, lunch stealing bosses,
and the rest of your life at work. They Ask
a Manager show is a partnership with How Stuff Works
and is produced by Paul Deckett. If you liked what
you heard, please take a minute to subscribe, rate, and
(34:12):
review the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Google Play.
I'm Alison Green and I'll be back next week with
another one of your questions.
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