November 28, 2018 • 26 mins
Recovering from a mistake as the boss, letting an employee change their mind about quitting, and more.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
My colleagues. We'll stop commenting on everything I get 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, where
I 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 much
(00:23):
at the company party. Let's get started, Hi, and welcome
to the show. You might have noticed that the show
did not come out on Monday this week. We're switching
back to Wednesdays only, but we're keeping both formats, so
we'll still have the format where I have a guest
come on the show and spend the whole show talking
through their problem, and we'll also still have the format
(00:44):
where I answer a bunch of shorter questions from different people.
People seem to like both formats, so we're going to
stick with both of them. Today's show is a bunch
of shorter questions from people, and our first question is
from a manager who messed up at work and is
wondering how to handle it. Hi. There, Allison. So the
basic gist of My question today is that I am
(01:06):
the manager and I screwed up, So now what do
I do h For a little bit of background, I
supervise a small team before at a software company, and
my team is amazing. They're reliable, fast, accurate, amiable, everything
good under the sun. I couldn't ask to manage better people,
and I'm really proud of the work we get done
(01:28):
every day. So that is why I am particularly embarrassed
because I made a noticeable mistake at work earlier in
the week. So to explain that, we have a task
that requires each member of the team to show up
to work early. We rotate through all members of the
team and that includes me, and I didn't arrive to
(01:49):
get this test done, and that meant a few of
my subordinates covered for me when they arrived at their
normal start time. So this didn't ultimately affect our software stability,
but it certainly could have. Of course, I did three things,
so I immediately notified our work chat um that I
was mortified about the oversight. I took someone else's early
(02:13):
start that week to make up for the early start
that I missed, and I verbally addressed it during the
team meeting with my direct reports, and I reasserted that
I'm held to the same expectations and standards as everyone else,
and I'm not different because I'm their supervisor. And of course,
moving forward, I'm going to do everything in my power
(02:35):
to ensure this doesn't happen again. But generally, this got
me to thinking, how do managers hold themselves accountable to
their subordinates when they make a mistake. And I was
wondering if you thought my response was sufficient or if
there's something more that I should do to make sure
my team can trust me. And there's one other sticky
(02:57):
part of this, and that's that I have a chronic
mental health issue that contributed to me failing at this task.
And I discussed that health issue with my own supervisor,
but it seemed inappropriate to bring it up with my
direct reports. I was wondering, if you agreed, um, and
if I continue to struggle despite my best efforts here,
(03:18):
what would be the best way to address that matter professionally.
So thank you so much for considering this question. Um.
I'm so grateful for your website. I'm so grateful for
your podcast. It's made such an impact on my professional life.
So thanks for answering. Well. First, as far as how
you handled this, it sounds like you have done everything right.
(03:40):
You immediately acknowledged the mistake, you apologized for it, you
took someone else's early start, and you've been explicit that
you believe in holding yourself accountable to the same expectations
as everyone else. So if you were my boss, I
would be pretty delighted with the way that you handled it. Really.
If anything, it's possible that you air it a little
(04:00):
bit on the side of going just a bit overboard.
I don't know that you even really needed to do
that last piece about addressing it in a team meeting,
since you had already addressed it in the group chat.
There's nothing wrong with having done that, But I want
to make sure that you're not flagellating yourself over this, because,
at least based on what you shared here, this doesn't
(04:21):
sound like it deserves flagellation. So I mean, yes, you
messed up, but you're human, and humans mess up sometimes
that's what we do. I'm curious about how you would
react if one of your employees did the exact same thing,
immediately acknowledged it and made it clear that they knew
it was a mistake and that it wouldn't happen again.
I don't know all the details about what happened, of course,
(04:43):
or what the ramifications could have been of you not
being there on time, but my hunch is that if
one of your employees did the same thing and had
the same reaction toward it that you had, you would
tell them that it was okay. You know, of course,
not let it happen again. But people are human. So
when you talk about holding yourself to the same standards
(05:04):
that you hold your staff, to make sure that you're
not being harder on yourself than you would be on
your staff. Because when you talk about worrying that they
won't trust you just because you made one mistake, one
that you quickly took responsibility for, I think you are
probably being a little bit too hard on yourself and
harder than you would be on an employee who did
(05:26):
the same thing. You asked, more broadly, how should managers
handle it when they make mistake? And the first thing
to know is you will make mistakes. But this isn't
like something that oh my gosh, you did this and
your a terrible manager for doing it. Other managers are
out there working flawlessly every day and never messing up.
(05:47):
Managers mess up all the time, because again we're human.
That is what humans do. What is important is that
when you do get it wrong, you acknowledge it. And
that doesn't have to be a huge thing. It can
be a simple as hey, I realized that I made
their on call here, I apologize about that. Going forward,
let's do X instead. Sometimes it doesn't even require that,
(06:10):
if it's a pretty routine mistake that doesn't have a
huge impact on other people, it can just be H,
I mess this up, can you help me do X
to fix it. It is true that because you're a manager,
your actions do carry more weight, and sometimes your mistakes
can be ones that have more impact on other people,
and it's good to factor that into how you handle mistakes.
(06:31):
But I don't want you to feel like just because
you're the boss, they're very act of making a mistake,
no matter how big or small, is somehow worse because
you're not expected to be perfect just because you're the boss.
If that were the expectation, no manager could be successful.
And I do hear a little bit of that belief
(06:51):
running through the language that you're using. So watch out
for that. Let's talk about what you don't want to do.
If you make a mistake when you're the boss. You
definitely don't want to double down and pretend that you
are right all along. You don't want to shift the
blame to other people. But you also don't want to
seem so mortified by it that you signal to other
people that you don't have any tolerance for mistakes in general,
(07:14):
because if you handle your own medium sized mistakes like
their giant sized mistakes, people are going to assume that
you will do the same thing when they are the
ones who messed up. So you're modeling for your staff
how you want them handling their own mistakes as well.
So yes, acknowledge it, work to fix it, work to
make sure it doesn't happen again, but don't blow it
(07:36):
out of proportion either. Now, let's talk about the mental
health piece of this, because frankly, I suspect that the
reason that you are being so hard in yourself is
because you know that it is tied to this chronic
mental health issue, and maybe you are embarrassed about that
because we are still super weird about mental health and
(07:57):
they're still stigma around it in a way, that there
wouldn't be with a physical health issue. And in fact,
I am curious if you had missed this task because
you were physically sick, would you be beating yourself up
as much? I am willing to bet a pretty significant
amount of money that you wouldn't be, and that is
worth thinking about. You also asked if I agreed that
(08:20):
it would be inappropriate to bring up the mental health
issue with your staff. I think there's just no need to.
If you continue to struggle with it and you're concerned
that it's noticeable at work, you can give them some context,
but it's enough to just say that you're dealing with
a medical issue that's affecting you in X and Y ways.
You don't need to specify that it's a mental health issue.
(08:41):
And in fact, you'll actually be modeling good boundaries for
your staff if you just keep it to a medical issue,
because you don't want them to feel like they are
obligated to disclose their own personal medical details when they
need time off or when they need a health accommodation,
and so you will be mode all in good boundaries
by demonstrating this is what it looks like. It's okay
(09:04):
to just say, I'm dealing with a medical issue that's
making me very tired, or whatever relevant piece of context
do you want to share, but go easier on yourself
because you are human, and that is perfectly okay. We'll
go to a short break here and come back with
more questions. Hi, Alten, I have a job. There's a question.
(09:32):
I'm a relatively new grad applying for jobs that are
out of state, and I've read a lot of advice
and listen to podcasts and recently come across the advice
to shoot out a blind email to a company manager
or lead asking for either an informational interview or twenty
minutes over coffee to quote unquote pick their brain when
you're visiting in their town. Being according to their stories,
(09:55):
it's worked in their favorite each time, and they blamed
at the job. I've never done this, and I feel
it tad awkward asking out of the blue for these
kind of things rather than applying for a job on
their website. But is this the new and recommended way
to find jobs out of state or jobs in general?
(10:15):
Thanks for your helping. This is a piece of advice
that keeps getting passed around and it is not very effective.
So First of all, managers tend to be busy, and
managers who have been managing for a while and hiring
for a while know that informational interview is often code
(10:36):
for I want you to hire me, but I am
not being upfront about my intentions. And the same thing
goes for I want to pick your brain. It's annoying
when people aren't upfront about what they actually want, and
this advice is basically telling you to waste the time
of strangers who may not even have a job open
that would be appropriate for you. And if they do
(10:57):
have job openings and that's why you're targeting them, it's
going to be even more obvious what you're doing. And
increasingly managers are likely to tell you to apply through
their normal application process, and definitely when you're dealing with
non small companies, they're going to want you to apply
that way regardless. Now, there are some exceptions to this,
(11:17):
like very small businesses that are more likely to sort
of wing it when it comes to hiring. As a
side note, I don't know that I would encourage you
to work for small businesses that wing it when it
comes to hiring. They tend to be fraught with dysfunction,
but sometimes this approach can work with them, or if
you have a very specialized, very in demand skill set.
But for most people this approach is does not that
(11:39):
effective or efficient. Definitely not more than actually applying for
jobs that are open through the stated application process. I
think people give this advice because they want to be
able to sell you on the idea that there's some
trick to job searching, there's something that will let you
get around having to grate cover letters and resumes and
apply the normal way, because is telling you to do
(12:01):
it like that is pretty boring advice. But really, this
idea of blind emailing strangers for most people just is
not very effective. It doesn't mean that it never works,
but it does mean that for most people it's not
likely to work most of the time. But it's one
of those things where because it occasionally works in rare cases,
it gets passed around as some kind of trick to
(12:23):
getting a job, but it's really not the best way
to spend your job searching energy. Now, it is true
that there is real value in building your network, especially
when you're trying to find work in another state, but
the way you do that is to build genuine relationships,
not to ask for coffee for a fake reason that
isn't actually what you're looking for from the other person.
(12:44):
The things that will really help you find a job
in another state are things like making your move sound
like a done deal, like putting on your resume and
in your cover letter that you're moving to their area
in January or whatever month that you pick, not just
I'm hoping to move there at some more this point
in the future, or in some cases using a local
(13:04):
address if you're going to be able to get there
quickly for an interview. I wouldn't recommend doing that if
you can't, because if you put down a local address
and they're like, great, can you come in in two days,
and you're suddenly stuck explaining, actually, I live across the country,
it's going to look deceptive. But if you can be
there quickly and there is a local address that you
can use, that is an option. Other things like offering
(13:26):
to pay for your own interview travel expenses, and definitely
really leaning on your network to help you develop contacts
in the area that you're moving to. And that last
one does not mean blind email people. It means get
the person in your network to introduce you to their
old boss who works in the city you're moving to,
or so forth, so that you're using real connections from
your network. Okay, next question, Hi, Alison, when I listen
(13:51):
to your episodes about getting your tone right and made
me think of a question that it's plagued me for
a while. I am a pretty rational person. I have
a master's degree and have worked in scientific research. However,
if I ever do experience any strong emotions, either positive
or negative, I tend to reaspect crying. If an emotional
skill was one to ten, if I am below with
(14:11):
three or above a seven, I tend to cry and
it's hard to stop myself. This can be very difficult
because I don't want to seem unprofessional, weak, or unable
to handle my workload. Another factor that compounds this issue
is that I am currently a teacher who works in
the middle school that serves very low income kits. This
can cause a lot of emotional stress on top of
(14:32):
what one might experience at a normal job. Is there
any wisdom you can share about how to avoid this
or alternatively, is there anything I can say in the
moment to assure my coworkers that I am not a
crazy over emotional wreck, but rather a professional, smart, strong,
frequent crier. Thank you so much. I hope you have
a great day. So I am someone who tears up
(14:55):
easily too. I think a lot of us are. It's true, though,
that will crying once or twice that work will usually
be excused. If it's happening a lot, people are going
to worry about what's going on. They might worry that
you can't handle the stress of the job, or that
you're too sensitive for getting feedback or so forth, and
you don't want that, so I think the first thing is,
(15:17):
if it is happening a lot, look for other ways
to get that under control. There's some physical tricks that
you can try that are supposed to help people, say
pinching the bridge of your nose or pressing your tongue
against the roof of your mouth, or even just making
yourself think about something totally unrelated like what time it
is sometimes can cut off the tears. Or if that
(15:41):
doesn't work, you can physically remove yourself from the situation
until you've regained your composure, Like you can say that
you need to go get a glass of water, or
excuse yourself to go to the bathroom, and often that's
going to give you the break that you need to
get it under control. But if you do tear up
in front of a colleague, most people will take their
used from you. So if you're a really matter of
(16:03):
fact about it and you just say something like, please
excuse me my tear ducks have a mind of their own,
or don't mind me. I'm an easy crier, but I
want to hear what you're saying, so please go on
something that signals, hey, this isn't a big deal. Yeah,
there's water coming from my eyes, but it's not getting
in the way of me hearing and processing what you're saying. So,
(16:23):
in other words, don't let it be disruptive, Assure the
person you're talking to you that you're hearing them and
they don't need to stop and comfort you, and so forth.
And the more matter of fact that you can be
about it, the better. Let's do a quick break and
come right back. Okay, here is our next question. I
(16:47):
have a complicated situation. I am the manager of a
department in a public library. I have an employee who
was very kind and helpful, but she doesn't take feedback
very well. Um, the person perceives back and some conversations
to be aggressive towards her, and she inflates the way
people respond to her, which then leads to her feeling
(17:08):
insecure about her relationships with co workers in a really
irrational way. She has also overreacted in the past and
has tried to quit because she thought she submitted some
cardinal work sin which turned out to be a mynor inconvenience.
I and my director had to talk her back from
the edge in that case. In the past several months,
she has been dealing with difficult matters at home. Her
(17:30):
husband found work in a neighboring state about three hours
away and has been unfful during his travels. Rather than
leaving him, she decided that she would follow him to
his new job and resigned from the library. We posted
her position and received more than a dozen applicants, a
few of which are very promising. As I was about
to schedule interviews, she informed me that she is not
(17:52):
moving and would like to keep her job. Do I
keep on or pushed her to resign she had planned.
She has been in this position for about teen months
and generally does a good job with with minor adjustments
that need to be made in her performance. What should
I do? Thank you so much? So you say she
(18:13):
generally does a good job, that she sounds exhausting, she
takes feedback badly, and she gets weird about her relationships
with her coworkers, and she's tried to quit before for
strange reasons and you've had to talk her down. It
all sounds like a lot of drama and distraction. I
am curious when she resigned this time, did you feel relief,
(18:34):
because if you did, that is a sign that you
have probably been accommodating behavior that you should not have
been accommodating, and that it might actually be better for
your organization to take this opportunity to part ways with her.
I don't know that that's the right move in this case,
but I do want you to know that in theory,
you're certainly entitled to say, you know, you resigned, and
(18:57):
we accepted that resignation, and we're now moving forward word
with other applicants who we recruited in good faith, and
we're going to stick with the path that we're on
and keep your last day as whatever date was set.
And that is what I would recommend doing with someone
who was a different sort of problem, Like if she
had had a terrible attitude and been a jerk to people,
(19:17):
I would go with that plan. But you say she's
actually very kind and helpful, So I am betting that
will not feel like the right thing to do, especially
when you throw in the situation with her marriage, which
sounds pretty awful. So there is a middle ground here.
You could say to her, you know, we took you
out your word when you resigned, and we put a
lot of work into recruiting good candidates, and we have
(19:40):
some promising people in the candidate pool now, but we
also value you and I don't want to put you
in a difficult spot. But if we short circuit the
search now and you stay, I want to be transparent
with you that we're going to need you to make
some changes. You do excellent work, but you also bring
a lot of drama into your relationships here, and I
need you to read that because it can be distracting.
(20:02):
I need you to work on not responding defensively when
you get feedback, and on dealing with colleagues in a calm,
drama freeway. And you could give a couple of examples
there so that she's clear about what you're talking about,
and you could say, if you can commit to doing that,
we can move forward. But if you can't or you
don't want to, we'd want to stick with the ending
date that you set. And you should also say you
(20:24):
know you've resigned in the past and then rescinded it,
so I need you to be really clear that if
you tell me again that you're quitting after this, I
am going to take you at your word and we
won't be able to reverse it again. You might feel like, oh,
that's kind of harsh for someone who does good work,
but what you've described is actually really disruptive. And you've
got to think about her coworkers too, because if they
(20:47):
see her being this disruptive and then they had the
relief I'm betting of her resigning and then they see
her reverse and course and coming back and you being
okay with it, the message that you will take a
way is that you're either fine with all of the
drama or you're not fine with it, but you aren't
being a strong leader and addressing it. So if you
(21:10):
do let her rescind the resignation, it's got to be
with these conditions on it and a commitment from her
to really get that behavior under control. Let's take another question. Hi,
I wanted to talk to Alison and figure out a
way how to ask my brod to go from working
(21:31):
sides eights two, three solved or four tunes. When I
approached her a few days ago, um, she told me
she put me on the list because other employees were
going to be asking the same thing because we're moving
from Kansas City, Missouri, to ln next to Kansas and
(21:51):
the drive now is going to be about an hour
one way and that just might not work for me
every day. So I need to figure out a way
to ask my boss again and kind of make sure
that she knows that I'm serious, and then I want
to be taken serious to have a different schedule coming
(22:13):
up in November because Kansas City and Kansas can get
very bad with traffic and weather. Alison, I listened to
your show every week. I look forward to it. I just,
you know, the one person that I want to give
my advice, and I actually want to get my advice
more from you than from my mom, who was a
project manager for a teen chief for thirty five years. Okay,
(22:37):
so first, for people who don't know this lingo when
the color is saying she wants to go from working
five eighths to four tenths. That means that right now
she's working five eight hour days every week, and she
wants to switch to four ten hour days, so same
number of hours each week that spread out over four
days instead of five. It is potentially tricky because it
(22:59):
sounds like your US as saying other people are asking
for this as well, and she doesn't necessarily want to
say yes to it for everyone. And there might be
good reasons for that, like maybe it'll affect coverage in
a way that won't be workable, or maybe there are
not good reasons for that, and she just hasn't fully
thought it through. Who knows. I think you need to
figure out is this a deal breaker for you? If
(23:20):
she says no, you definitely can't make this change, would
you leave the job over it. If you would, that
will affect the way you approach it. You could say
to her, you know, I really love my job and
I want to stay in it, but I am very
concerned about my community after the move. I could make
it work if I can switch my schedule to four
tens so that I'm still working the same number of hours,
(23:42):
but doing the drive one day less. I want to
emphasize that I really love the company and I love
my work, and I want to find a way to
make this work if we can. But the drive is
not going to be doable for me five days a week.
And if she resists, you could say something like I
really want to see if we can try to make
this work because I don't want to have to leave
the job. Would you be open to trying it as
(24:05):
a short term experiment, maybe for one month, and then
we can see how it goes and revisit it after
a month to see if it's doable. Sometimes it's easier
for managers to say yes to something that is just
a short term experiment rather than a permanent change, and
then that gives you the chance to show that it
is workable. The other thing is, you've probably thought of this,
(24:26):
but is it an option for you to work from
home at all? Because if it is, you could also
propose working from home one day a week, which would
also get you that break from commuting. But ultimately, if
she does say no, you probably need to decide if
you still want the job under these new conditions, with
the longer drive and I know that sucks, but it
may end up coming down to that. But have the
(24:47):
conversation first, show that you really want to make it
work and see what happens. I will say, if you
have a really short commute now and you're going up
to an hour each way, even just going to four
tens might not be enough to make that work for
you in the long term. I mean, I'm in the
DC area. A lot of people have one hour commutes.
(25:08):
It's seen as not that unusual here. But if you
are somewhere where it's it's normal to have a ten
minute or fifteen minute commute, this might be a major
quality of life compromise that you don't want to make.
Even if you do get the four tents, that still
means you're spending two hours a day sitting in traffic,
and you might not want to do that. So give
(25:29):
that some thought too. Good luck. That is our show
for today. If you would like to hear your question
answered on an upcoming episode recorded on the show voicemail
at eight five five six work that is eight five
five f T six nine five, or if you have
a longer question where you want to actually come on
(25:49):
the show and talk to me email podcast at ask
a manager dot org. That's it for today. I will
be back next time with more questions and
My colleagues. We'll stop commenting on everything I get 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, where
I 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 much
(00:23):
at the company party. Let's get started, Hi, and welcome
to the show. You might have noticed that the show
did not come out on Monday this week. We're switching
back to Wednesdays only, but we're keeping both formats, so
we'll still have the format where I have a guest
come on the show and spend the whole show talking
through their problem, and we'll also still have the format
(00:44):
where I answer a bunch of shorter questions from different people.
People seem to like both formats, so we're going to
stick with both of them. Today's show is a bunch
of shorter questions from people, and our first question is
from a manager who messed up at work and is
wondering how to handle it. Hi. There, Allison. So the
basic gist of My question today is that I am
(01:06):
the manager and I screwed up, So now what do
I do h For a little bit of background, I
supervise a small team before at a software company, and
my team is amazing. They're reliable, fast, accurate, amiable, everything
good under the sun. I couldn't ask to manage better people,
and I'm really proud of the work we get done
(01:28):
every day. So that is why I am particularly embarrassed
because I made a noticeable mistake at work earlier in
the week. So to explain that, we have a task
that requires each member of the team to show up
to work early. We rotate through all members of the
team and that includes me, and I didn't arrive to
(01:49):
get this test done, and that meant a few of
my subordinates covered for me when they arrived at their
normal start time. So this didn't ultimately affect our software stability,
but it certainly could have. Of course, I did three things,
so I immediately notified our work chat um that I
was mortified about the oversight. I took someone else's early
(02:13):
start that week to make up for the early start
that I missed, and I verbally addressed it during the
team meeting with my direct reports, and I reasserted that
I'm held to the same expectations and standards as everyone else,
and I'm not different because I'm their supervisor. And of course,
moving forward, I'm going to do everything in my power
(02:35):
to ensure this doesn't happen again. But generally, this got
me to thinking, how do managers hold themselves accountable to
their subordinates when they make a mistake. And I was
wondering if you thought my response was sufficient or if
there's something more that I should do to make sure
my team can trust me. And there's one other sticky
(02:57):
part of this, and that's that I have a chronic
mental health issue that contributed to me failing at this task.
And I discussed that health issue with my own supervisor,
but it seemed inappropriate to bring it up with my
direct reports. I was wondering, if you agreed, um, and
if I continue to struggle despite my best efforts here,
(03:18):
what would be the best way to address that matter professionally.
So thank you so much for considering this question. Um.
I'm so grateful for your website. I'm so grateful for
your podcast. It's made such an impact on my professional life.
So thanks for answering. Well. First, as far as how
you handled this, it sounds like you have done everything right.
(03:40):
You immediately acknowledged the mistake, you apologized for it, you
took someone else's early start, and you've been explicit that
you believe in holding yourself accountable to the same expectations
as everyone else. So if you were my boss, I
would be pretty delighted with the way that you handled it. Really.
If anything, it's possible that you air it a little
(04:00):
bit on the side of going just a bit overboard.
I don't know that you even really needed to do
that last piece about addressing it in a team meeting,
since you had already addressed it in the group chat.
There's nothing wrong with having done that, But I want
to make sure that you're not flagellating yourself over this, because,
at least based on what you shared here, this doesn't
(04:21):
sound like it deserves flagellation. So I mean, yes, you
messed up, but you're human, and humans mess up sometimes
that's what we do. I'm curious about how you would
react if one of your employees did the exact same thing,
immediately acknowledged it and made it clear that they knew
it was a mistake and that it wouldn't happen again.
I don't know all the details about what happened, of course,
(04:43):
or what the ramifications could have been of you not
being there on time, but my hunch is that if
one of your employees did the same thing and had
the same reaction toward it that you had, you would
tell them that it was okay. You know, of course,
not let it happen again. But people are human. So
when you talk about holding yourself to the same standards
(05:04):
that you hold your staff, to make sure that you're
not being harder on yourself than you would be on
your staff. Because when you talk about worrying that they
won't trust you just because you made one mistake, one
that you quickly took responsibility for, I think you are
probably being a little bit too hard on yourself and
harder than you would be on an employee who did
(05:26):
the same thing. You asked, more broadly, how should managers
handle it when they make mistake? And the first thing
to know is you will make mistakes. But this isn't
like something that oh my gosh, you did this and
your a terrible manager for doing it. Other managers are
out there working flawlessly every day and never messing up.
(05:47):
Managers mess up all the time, because again we're human.
That is what humans do. What is important is that
when you do get it wrong, you acknowledge it. And
that doesn't have to be a huge thing. It can
be a simple as hey, I realized that I made
their on call here, I apologize about that. Going forward,
let's do X instead. Sometimes it doesn't even require that,
(06:10):
if it's a pretty routine mistake that doesn't have a
huge impact on other people, it can just be H,
I mess this up, can you help me do X
to fix it. It is true that because you're a manager,
your actions do carry more weight, and sometimes your mistakes
can be ones that have more impact on other people,
and it's good to factor that into how you handle mistakes.
(06:31):
But I don't want you to feel like just because
you're the boss, they're very act of making a mistake,
no matter how big or small, is somehow worse because
you're not expected to be perfect just because you're the boss.
If that were the expectation, no manager could be successful.
And I do hear a little bit of that belief
(06:51):
running through the language that you're using. So watch out
for that. Let's talk about what you don't want to do.
If you make a mistake when you're the boss. You
definitely don't want to double down and pretend that you
are right all along. You don't want to shift the
blame to other people. But you also don't want to
seem so mortified by it that you signal to other
people that you don't have any tolerance for mistakes in general,
(07:14):
because if you handle your own medium sized mistakes like
their giant sized mistakes, people are going to assume that
you will do the same thing when they are the
ones who messed up. So you're modeling for your staff
how you want them handling their own mistakes as well.
So yes, acknowledge it, work to fix it, work to
make sure it doesn't happen again, but don't blow it
(07:36):
out of proportion either. Now, let's talk about the mental
health piece of this, because frankly, I suspect that the
reason that you are being so hard in yourself is
because you know that it is tied to this chronic
mental health issue, and maybe you are embarrassed about that
because we are still super weird about mental health and
(07:57):
they're still stigma around it in a way, that there
wouldn't be with a physical health issue. And in fact,
I am curious if you had missed this task because
you were physically sick, would you be beating yourself up
as much? I am willing to bet a pretty significant
amount of money that you wouldn't be, and that is
worth thinking about. You also asked if I agreed that
(08:20):
it would be inappropriate to bring up the mental health
issue with your staff. I think there's just no need to.
If you continue to struggle with it and you're concerned
that it's noticeable at work, you can give them some context,
but it's enough to just say that you're dealing with
a medical issue that's affecting you in X and Y ways.
You don't need to specify that it's a mental health issue.
(08:41):
And in fact, you'll actually be modeling good boundaries for
your staff if you just keep it to a medical issue,
because you don't want them to feel like they are
obligated to disclose their own personal medical details when they
need time off or when they need a health accommodation,
and so you will be mode all in good boundaries
by demonstrating this is what it looks like. It's okay
(09:04):
to just say, I'm dealing with a medical issue that's
making me very tired, or whatever relevant piece of context
do you want to share, but go easier on yourself
because you are human, and that is perfectly okay. We'll
go to a short break here and come back with
more questions. Hi, Alten, I have a job. There's a question.
(09:32):
I'm a relatively new grad applying for jobs that are
out of state, and I've read a lot of advice
and listen to podcasts and recently come across the advice
to shoot out a blind email to a company manager
or lead asking for either an informational interview or twenty
minutes over coffee to quote unquote pick their brain when
you're visiting in their town. Being according to their stories,
(09:55):
it's worked in their favorite each time, and they blamed
at the job. I've never done this, and I feel
it tad awkward asking out of the blue for these
kind of things rather than applying for a job on
their website. But is this the new and recommended way
to find jobs out of state or jobs in general?
(10:15):
Thanks for your helping. This is a piece of advice
that keeps getting passed around and it is not very effective.
So First of all, managers tend to be busy, and
managers who have been managing for a while and hiring
for a while know that informational interview is often code
(10:36):
for I want you to hire me, but I am
not being upfront about my intentions. And the same thing
goes for I want to pick your brain. It's annoying
when people aren't upfront about what they actually want, and
this advice is basically telling you to waste the time
of strangers who may not even have a job open
that would be appropriate for you. And if they do
(10:57):
have job openings and that's why you're targeting them, it's
going to be even more obvious what you're doing. And
increasingly managers are likely to tell you to apply through
their normal application process, and definitely when you're dealing with
non small companies, they're going to want you to apply
that way regardless. Now, there are some exceptions to this,
(11:17):
like very small businesses that are more likely to sort
of wing it when it comes to hiring. As a
side note, I don't know that I would encourage you
to work for small businesses that wing it when it
comes to hiring. They tend to be fraught with dysfunction,
but sometimes this approach can work with them, or if
you have a very specialized, very in demand skill set.
But for most people this approach is does not that
(11:39):
effective or efficient. Definitely not more than actually applying for
jobs that are open through the stated application process. I
think people give this advice because they want to be
able to sell you on the idea that there's some
trick to job searching, there's something that will let you
get around having to grate cover letters and resumes and
apply the normal way, because is telling you to do
(12:01):
it like that is pretty boring advice. But really, this
idea of blind emailing strangers for most people just is
not very effective. It doesn't mean that it never works,
but it does mean that for most people it's not
likely to work most of the time. But it's one
of those things where because it occasionally works in rare cases,
it gets passed around as some kind of trick to
(12:23):
getting a job, but it's really not the best way
to spend your job searching energy. Now, it is true
that there is real value in building your network, especially
when you're trying to find work in another state, but
the way you do that is to build genuine relationships,
not to ask for coffee for a fake reason that
isn't actually what you're looking for from the other person.
(12:44):
The things that will really help you find a job
in another state are things like making your move sound
like a done deal, like putting on your resume and
in your cover letter that you're moving to their area
in January or whatever month that you pick, not just
I'm hoping to move there at some more this point
in the future, or in some cases using a local
(13:04):
address if you're going to be able to get there
quickly for an interview. I wouldn't recommend doing that if
you can't, because if you put down a local address
and they're like, great, can you come in in two days,
and you're suddenly stuck explaining, actually, I live across the country,
it's going to look deceptive. But if you can be
there quickly and there is a local address that you
can use, that is an option. Other things like offering
(13:26):
to pay for your own interview travel expenses, and definitely
really leaning on your network to help you develop contacts
in the area that you're moving to. And that last
one does not mean blind email people. It means get
the person in your network to introduce you to their
old boss who works in the city you're moving to,
or so forth, so that you're using real connections from
your network. Okay, next question, Hi, Alison, when I listen
(13:51):
to your episodes about getting your tone right and made
me think of a question that it's plagued me for
a while. I am a pretty rational person. I have
a master's degree and have worked in scientific research. However,
if I ever do experience any strong emotions, either positive
or negative, I tend to reaspect crying. If an emotional
skill was one to ten, if I am below with
(14:11):
three or above a seven, I tend to cry and
it's hard to stop myself. This can be very difficult
because I don't want to seem unprofessional, weak, or unable
to handle my workload. Another factor that compounds this issue
is that I am currently a teacher who works in
the middle school that serves very low income kits. This
can cause a lot of emotional stress on top of
(14:32):
what one might experience at a normal job. Is there
any wisdom you can share about how to avoid this
or alternatively, is there anything I can say in the
moment to assure my coworkers that I am not a
crazy over emotional wreck, but rather a professional, smart, strong,
frequent crier. Thank you so much. I hope you have
a great day. So I am someone who tears up
(14:55):
easily too. I think a lot of us are. It's true, though,
that will crying once or twice that work will usually
be excused. If it's happening a lot, people are going
to worry about what's going on. They might worry that
you can't handle the stress of the job, or that
you're too sensitive for getting feedback or so forth, and
you don't want that, so I think the first thing is,
(15:17):
if it is happening a lot, look for other ways
to get that under control. There's some physical tricks that
you can try that are supposed to help people, say
pinching the bridge of your nose or pressing your tongue
against the roof of your mouth, or even just making
yourself think about something totally unrelated like what time it
is sometimes can cut off the tears. Or if that
(15:41):
doesn't work, you can physically remove yourself from the situation
until you've regained your composure, Like you can say that
you need to go get a glass of water, or
excuse yourself to go to the bathroom, and often that's
going to give you the break that you need to
get it under control. But if you do tear up
in front of a colleague, most people will take their
used from you. So if you're a really matter of
(16:03):
fact about it and you just say something like, please
excuse me my tear ducks have a mind of their own,
or don't mind me. I'm an easy crier, but I
want to hear what you're saying, so please go on
something that signals, hey, this isn't a big deal. Yeah,
there's water coming from my eyes, but it's not getting
in the way of me hearing and processing what you're saying. So,
(16:23):
in other words, don't let it be disruptive, Assure the
person you're talking to you that you're hearing them and
they don't need to stop and comfort you, and so forth.
And the more matter of fact that you can be
about it, the better. Let's do a quick break and
come right back. Okay, here is our next question. I
(16:47):
have a complicated situation. I am the manager of a
department in a public library. I have an employee who
was very kind and helpful, but she doesn't take feedback
very well. Um, the person perceives back and some conversations
to be aggressive towards her, and she inflates the way
people respond to her, which then leads to her feeling
(17:08):
insecure about her relationships with co workers in a really
irrational way. She has also overreacted in the past and
has tried to quit because she thought she submitted some
cardinal work sin which turned out to be a mynor inconvenience.
I and my director had to talk her back from
the edge in that case. In the past several months,
she has been dealing with difficult matters at home. Her
(17:30):
husband found work in a neighboring state about three hours
away and has been unfful during his travels. Rather than
leaving him, she decided that she would follow him to
his new job and resigned from the library. We posted
her position and received more than a dozen applicants, a
few of which are very promising. As I was about
to schedule interviews, she informed me that she is not
(17:52):
moving and would like to keep her job. Do I
keep on or pushed her to resign she had planned.
She has been in this position for about teen months
and generally does a good job with with minor adjustments
that need to be made in her performance. What should
I do? Thank you so much? So you say she
(18:13):
generally does a good job, that she sounds exhausting, she
takes feedback badly, and she gets weird about her relationships
with her coworkers, and she's tried to quit before for
strange reasons and you've had to talk her down. It
all sounds like a lot of drama and distraction. I
am curious when she resigned this time, did you feel relief,
(18:34):
because if you did, that is a sign that you
have probably been accommodating behavior that you should not have
been accommodating, and that it might actually be better for
your organization to take this opportunity to part ways with her.
I don't know that that's the right move in this case,
but I do want you to know that in theory,
you're certainly entitled to say, you know, you resigned, and
(18:57):
we accepted that resignation, and we're now moving forward word
with other applicants who we recruited in good faith, and
we're going to stick with the path that we're on
and keep your last day as whatever date was set.
And that is what I would recommend doing with someone
who was a different sort of problem, Like if she
had had a terrible attitude and been a jerk to people,
(19:17):
I would go with that plan. But you say she's
actually very kind and helpful, So I am betting that
will not feel like the right thing to do, especially
when you throw in the situation with her marriage, which
sounds pretty awful. So there is a middle ground here.
You could say to her, you know, we took you
out your word when you resigned, and we put a
lot of work into recruiting good candidates, and we have
(19:40):
some promising people in the candidate pool now, but we
also value you and I don't want to put you
in a difficult spot. But if we short circuit the
search now and you stay, I want to be transparent
with you that we're going to need you to make
some changes. You do excellent work, but you also bring
a lot of drama into your relationships here, and I
need you to read that because it can be distracting.
(20:02):
I need you to work on not responding defensively when
you get feedback, and on dealing with colleagues in a calm,
drama freeway. And you could give a couple of examples
there so that she's clear about what you're talking about,
and you could say, if you can commit to doing that,
we can move forward. But if you can't or you
don't want to, we'd want to stick with the ending
date that you set. And you should also say you
(20:24):
know you've resigned in the past and then rescinded it,
so I need you to be really clear that if
you tell me again that you're quitting after this, I
am going to take you at your word and we
won't be able to reverse it again. You might feel like, oh,
that's kind of harsh for someone who does good work,
but what you've described is actually really disruptive. And you've
got to think about her coworkers too, because if they
(20:47):
see her being this disruptive and then they had the
relief I'm betting of her resigning and then they see
her reverse and course and coming back and you being
okay with it, the message that you will take a
way is that you're either fine with all of the
drama or you're not fine with it, but you aren't
being a strong leader and addressing it. So if you
(21:10):
do let her rescind the resignation, it's got to be
with these conditions on it and a commitment from her
to really get that behavior under control. Let's take another question. Hi,
I wanted to talk to Alison and figure out a
way how to ask my brod to go from working
(21:31):
sides eights two, three solved or four tunes. When I
approached her a few days ago, um, she told me
she put me on the list because other employees were
going to be asking the same thing because we're moving
from Kansas City, Missouri, to ln next to Kansas and
(21:51):
the drive now is going to be about an hour
one way and that just might not work for me
every day. So I need to figure out a way
to ask my boss again and kind of make sure
that she knows that I'm serious, and then I want
to be taken serious to have a different schedule coming
(22:13):
up in November because Kansas City and Kansas can get
very bad with traffic and weather. Alison, I listened to
your show every week. I look forward to it. I just,
you know, the one person that I want to give
my advice, and I actually want to get my advice
more from you than from my mom, who was a
project manager for a teen chief for thirty five years. Okay,
(22:37):
so first, for people who don't know this lingo when
the color is saying she wants to go from working
five eighths to four tenths. That means that right now
she's working five eight hour days every week, and she
wants to switch to four ten hour days, so same
number of hours each week that spread out over four
days instead of five. It is potentially tricky because it
(22:59):
sounds like your US as saying other people are asking
for this as well, and she doesn't necessarily want to
say yes to it for everyone. And there might be
good reasons for that, like maybe it'll affect coverage in
a way that won't be workable, or maybe there are
not good reasons for that, and she just hasn't fully
thought it through. Who knows. I think you need to
figure out is this a deal breaker for you? If
(23:20):
she says no, you definitely can't make this change, would
you leave the job over it. If you would, that
will affect the way you approach it. You could say
to her, you know, I really love my job and
I want to stay in it, but I am very
concerned about my community after the move. I could make
it work if I can switch my schedule to four
tens so that I'm still working the same number of hours,
(23:42):
but doing the drive one day less. I want to
emphasize that I really love the company and I love
my work, and I want to find a way to
make this work if we can. But the drive is
not going to be doable for me five days a week.
And if she resists, you could say something like I
really want to see if we can try to make
this work because I don't want to have to leave
the job. Would you be open to trying it as
(24:05):
a short term experiment, maybe for one month, and then
we can see how it goes and revisit it after
a month to see if it's doable. Sometimes it's easier
for managers to say yes to something that is just
a short term experiment rather than a permanent change, and
then that gives you the chance to show that it
is workable. The other thing is, you've probably thought of this,
(24:26):
but is it an option for you to work from
home at all? Because if it is, you could also
propose working from home one day a week, which would
also get you that break from commuting. But ultimately, if
she does say no, you probably need to decide if
you still want the job under these new conditions, with
the longer drive and I know that sucks, but it
may end up coming down to that. But have the
(24:47):
conversation first, show that you really want to make it
work and see what happens. I will say, if you
have a really short commute now and you're going up
to an hour each way, even just going to four
tens might not be enough to make that work for
you in the long term. I mean, I'm in the
DC area. A lot of people have one hour commutes.
(25:08):
It's seen as not that unusual here. But if you
are somewhere where it's it's normal to have a ten
minute or fifteen minute commute, this might be a major
quality of life compromise that you don't want to make.
Even if you do get the four tents, that still
means you're spending two hours a day sitting in traffic,
and you might not want to do that. So give
(25:29):
that some thought too. Good luck. That is our show
for today. If you would like to hear your question
answered on an upcoming episode recorded on the show voicemail
at eight five five six work that is eight five
five f T six nine five, or if you have
a longer question where you want to actually come on
(25:49):
the show and talk to me email podcast at ask
a manager dot org. That's it for today. I will
be back next time with more questions and
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