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October 7, 2024 26 mins

How do you bounce back after a career disappointment or manage challenging workplace conflicts? In this episode, Kendall Berg takes a deep dive into the art of career resets and conflict resolution. Through real-world examples and actionable strategies, Kendall shares insights on how to recover when promotions don’t go as planned, handle difficult managers, and navigate tricky peer relationships.

With expert advice on managing up, proactive networking, and creating clear development plans, this episode is packed with tools to help you overcome setbacks and strengthen your professional presence. If you’re ready to elevate your career, tune in now.

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That Career Coach

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Kendall Berg (00:00):
Welcome back, my lovelies, to another episode of how to play the career game. And today we have a topic that has been requested by quite a few of my clients and followers recently, and we're going to jump right in. Today is all about resetting after a disappointment. So as you are progressing in your career, there will often be times where things do not go the way that we want them to. Right. My ability to become a career coach was because I have faced all of the same struggles and all of the same setbacks that you guys are facing as well. Right? This includes things like not getting the promotion that you thought you deserve. This includes being told no on a project. This includes interpersonal conflict.

(00:46):
There's so many things that go into our job satisfaction, aside from the obvious answer, which is money, of course. But in addition to that, we are constantly facing what feels like steps back and sets back in our career. So today we're going to talk about how do you reset when that happens? How do you handle some of these situations then? How do you ensure that you're continuing to make progress and developing yourself so that in the end, you'll continue to find the career progression that you're looking for?

(01:14):
So the example that is most common, especially this time of year, is finding out that you did not get the promotion that you were promised, or that your name was conveniently left off of a promo list, or that the promo cycle has been moved, or that there's budget constraints and so your promotion's not going through. There are a million different things that leadership can use to defend why you are not getting the promotion that you feel you deserve and that you have feel you have worked for. And when that happens, it can be incredibly demoralizing. And so there are a couple things that, when that happens to, we want to understand. So first is there anything we could have done?

(01:55):
Are there any gaps in our performance between where we're at today and where we want to be at the next level that we need to work on closing. Right. This requires setting aside our ego, setting aside that hurt part of us and saying, is this because there's truly no opportunity to move to the next level, or is there because you're looking for some type of deliverable for me, some type of skill display that you're not getting first, we have to assess that because if there are things, a lot of the time, quick aside, a lot of the time managers, they don't want to tell you the things you're doing poorly. This comes from, like, this huge, like, they don't want to get backlash. They're afraid of HR. They don't know how to give constructive criticism in a way that's helpful.

(02:36):
And so you have bosses who swing way too far, who are just constantly negative and nitpicky and that's not actually helpful, or people who don't give negative feedback at all because they don't want to hurt your feelings and that's not helpful. And so one of my favorite ways to really address this is, hey, I totally understand where we are, provided that we're looking forward to the next cycle, the next opportunity. Are there any gaps between my level of performance today and the level you would expect to see at that next level that I can work on closing from a self development perspective, it's a very self focused question because we're not asking them how they feel. We're not asking them to tell us what to do better.

(03:12):
We're asking them what are our areas of improvement that we should be investing in as we look forward to that next promotion cycle. So the first step in facing this disappointment is really setting our ego to aside to understand what is the root cause. Now, there are times where legitimately we don't get promoted because of budget constraints or because of a clerical error because the cycle changed at the HR level and your boss doesn't have any control over that. Those are separate. But for the ones where, hey, you know, I was expecting to get promoted, I find out I'm not, is there something that I need to be doing differently to ensure this doesn't happen again the next promo cycle? So that's one piece. The second piece is we need to determine if your happiness enroll is contingent on that promotion.

(03:54):
And here's what I mean by that. There are roles that we work in where the company culture's good, the manager is good, the work is interesting, we have a good job, and we want to get promoted. There are other situations where we're working under a toxic boss, we're working in a toxic culture, we're working in a culture that's burning us out, that doesn't allow us to take sick days. In that situation, if we're not getting promoted despite working through all of those things, it might be time to just cut our losses and start looking for a new job externally. Right.

(04:23):
And throw all of the energy you were throwing into being a stellar employee, delivering all this work instead into finding a job that's going to be a better alignment for who you are, what you want to be doing, and what your goals are. So the second step is assessing. Did we need this promotion to validate a toxic workplace, validate long hours? Or is this something that would have been the cherry on top in a good work environment? So if you've made it through the first one and there's nothing you can work on, great, you made it through the second one and we don't need it. It's just something we wanted then we want to work with your boss to come up with a strategy and a touch base plan between now and the next promotion cycle.

(04:58):
So what that's going to look like is let's meet at least once a month specifically to talk about career development and promotion pathing. Are we on track? Is there anything you need to see? How are my big projects going? What's my impact to the company? How is that impact being articulated? What do you need from me in order to advocate on my behalf? Create that structure to really talk about what is it you're doing? What value do you add to the company? What is it you need from them? What escalations, roadblocks, advocacy? What are you working on from a self development perspective, outside of work? A lot of the time we're working on certifications or we're looking on our communication skills. We're working with a coach. We want to be communicating those things to show our investment in self.

(05:40):
And then we also want to be having similar networking calls with the broader organization. So I have talked about this a million and one times, a million and one on my social media, on my podcast. But we're going to bring it up again, and that is that your boss is not the only person who is responsible for your promotion. Your boss's peers sit in on those calls. Your boss's boss sits in on those calls. The partner of your organization may sit in on those calls. So having a broader network where it's not just your boss who's advocating for you, but it's Susie in accounting, it's Stephen opps, it's your head of HR. We want all of these people going into these meetings talking about how great you are and advocating on your behalf to ensure that promotion maintains momentum.

(06:21):
Okay, so those are the three real steps. What do I need to change, if anything? Do I need to leave the company now, or do I want to stay and continue to progress towards this promotion and then create that communication plan? Who am I communicating with on what cadence, discussing what topics to make sure that we're intentionally progressing our career forward? Okay, so that's the intentional networking piece. Now, going back to the first evaluation step, if it comes out of this and they're like, hey, there are some gaps in your performance. We didn't communicate them to you before now, which is kind of a d move. We still want to assess. Step number two. We still want to evaluate did I need this promotion or do I want to leave?

(06:59):
Right, but say we want to stay and there are some gaps in our performance. We want to come up with really clear development plans. Are there trainings we need to get? Are there certifications? Do we need to be working with a coach? Do we need to be improving our communication? Something that I see really often is when we have that targeted gap conversation, clients that I'm working with will come to me and say, yeah. So it turns out my communication is not where it needs to be. I'm doing all the right work. I'm doing all the right things, but I'm not building stakeholder relationships. I'm not advocating for myself with my partner groups. I don't know how to say no to people effectively.

(07:32):
And if those areas of improvement for you, we want to lean in and we want to really intentionally dedicate time and effort into making those better. All right? So that's one of the ways that we're going to reset after a potentially, like, failed promotion situation. We want to go through those three steps of evaluation. We want to set up our communication plan. We want to be really intentional. Now, if coming out of this, you're like, screw this, it's time to go, which it might be. I've been there. I sat through a promotion cycle. This is a funny story. So I worked for a company that was really great culture, great bosses. I got to work on cool projects. They had a really great environment. I really loved what I did. Super, super, great experience.

(08:14):
But I got passed over for five promotion cycles in a row. Okay? And at this point, I'm getting exceeds expectations on every review. I'm getting put on all the high profile projects I hate. My mentor is the managing vice president of our division, like, super high exposure, and I keep getting missed. And I remember I went to a call them a mentor. They were a peer that was more senior than me, that I had a really good relationship with. And I was like, what is going on? And he was like, I'm going to be honest. You were just totally missed. He's like, I don't have a better answer for you than for some reason. We just completely forgot to put you in this list. He's like, we're going to fix it. We're going to fix it next cycle.

(08:58):
You'll be on the list next cycle. But like, I dont even know how this happened. Im sorry. And it was like this bizarre situation where I was clearly operating really two levels above where I was and because of the timing, id been part of a reorg, id been part of a layoff, there was a lot of movement happening. It just so happened that both of those things contributed to me being completely left off this list. Now, six months later, they did fix it, they did put me through that cycle. I did get that promotion that cycle. But at that point I had already gotten the point in my head where I was like, it's time for me to go. It's been really good.

(09:38):
I have great advocates, I have great culture, great work environment, but I'm not seeing the upward mobility that I would have expected to have at this point. It's a catch 22 with that looking back. Part of me is like, man, maybe I should have stayed right. They had given me what I wanted. They did follow through on what they were going to do. The difficult boss I was dealing with at the time ended up leaving the company anyways. It all kind of would have come out in the wash had I just stayed. But the role that I left for was like a 30% raise, a jump in title, really well known company, and it felt like the right move at the time.

(10:12):
And in some ways it was because at that company I learned so much about how to play the corporate game that now I'm doing what I'm doing now. So all comes full circle. But what I would say is, had I gone through these three steps and said, hey, is it a performance thing? And they said no. And I said, great. Is this a need or a want? I would have evaluated as a want and I would have made a communication strategy and I would have stayed. But instead my decision was to leave that company, which later became a regret. And I did try to go back. Timing didn't work out, so I ended up in a better company that I love. Now that I work out that it's really great, but these three steps would have been really helpful.

(10:45):
So I encourage you, just take a pause, take a breath. I know it's frustrating in the moment, but like, if you sit back and you genuinely go through this exercise, it'll help point you in the right direction. And even if you decide that it's a want to leave or want to get promotion and you decide you're going to stay, you can still be parallel path looking for jobs, you can still be out there applying casually for the perfect jobs at the right companies, jobs with the right teams. Be very picky with what you want and still be progressing your career that way. I'm not saying you can't ever look at a job board. Let's be realistic here. But it doesn't mean that we have to be so hot to trot that we've got to get out. Right? We can pace ourselves.

(11:22):
We can be picky. We can take our time. So that's resetting after potentially not getting a promotion. So now I want to talk about resetting when we have conflict. Everybody's favorite. If you're listening to this, I just very dramatically blinked because it comes up a lot. Okay. This is probably the number one thing people come to me about in coaching. It's one of the things I deal with the most in my own career that I struggle with. And it is. It can be really challenging because we're all probably, arguably more emotional than we should be when it comes to our careers. So conflict in the workplace can look like a few different things. Okay? It can be from you to your boss. Your boss is new to management. They are a micromanager. They don't know how to give you feedback.

(12:12):
They don't know how to delegate effectively. They don't know how to give you autonomy. Managing up is its own type of conflict. And managing up requires a lot more empathy and a lot more expectation setting than any other type of conflict. And the reason for this is because, whether we want to admit it or not, that person has a lot of control over your career. And we don't want to go in guns a blazing and be like, you can't talk to me like that. Yes, they can. They can do whatever they want. So there is interpersonal conflict with your boss. There is interpersonal conflict with a peer where maybe we do work very differently. Maybe they are missing deadlines. Maybe they're imposing deadlines on us that we don't think are realistic. Maybe they are bad mouthing us or taking credit for our work.

(13:01):
All of those situations lead to interpersonal conflict with a peer. One of the most, what I would say understated conflicts with a peer is making the other person feel stupid. And I would argue 90, 95% of the time, this is done on accident. But when you are the personality type who makes somebody else feel dumb, or when you're on the receiving end, it feels like it happens 100% of the time, and it's very intentional. So the way that we're communicating things, the way we're communicating disagreement, the way we're communicating questions, the way we are discussing things with other people, either is going to come across very combative and very. You're dumb and I know what I'm doing and you should listen to me, or it's going to come across very collaborative and very partnership oriented.

(13:49):
And we want to fall, obviously, towards that ladder section. So we could do a whole separate episode on, like, interpersonal communication. Maybe we will. But these are all different examples of where you can be facing conflict at work. And the question is, how do we reset after? So I would argue if you come out of a meeting with a peer where we've had this second type of conflict, whether it's them making us feel stupid or they took credit for our work, or they badmouthed us, or they missed a deadline or they imposed a deadline that we don't like, any of those situations, when we come out of that first, we are going to find ten minutes. Okay? It's hard, I know. Lots of meetings. It's corporate. It happens. Okay?

(14:33):
You're going to find ten minutes and you're going to think through the situation from their perspective. I know. I know. You don't want to do that. Neither do I. Okay? We're all a little bit petty. We're all a little bit petty. But sometimes empathy is really, really important. So you're going to take ten minutes. The first is you're going to write out three things you think are really important to that individual and their goals. Maybe they've been in their role for a long time. Getting promoted is really important to them. Maybe they care a lot about operations and the process. Maybe they run finance. They care a lot about the financials. Right. What are three things that are really important to that individual? And then we're going to write out for each of those three things.

(15:13):
The conversation were having, the topic, the meeting, how does it relate to each of those three things? And then we're going to take a second to see if we can understand why they were the way they were in that meeting. Doesn't mean we have to accept it. Doesn't mean we're okay with it. Okay, we'll get to boundary setting in a second. But can we understand why their approach to the situation was the way that it was? If the answer is yes, great. We're like 50 steps closer to resetting from the situation. If the answer is still no. But maybe we kind of understand. Well, depending on how they saw this, they may have misunderstood it because of this, right, we're starting to create that empathy. Then you're going to create a 30 minutes one one for you and this individual in the future.

(15:57):
So maybe it's this afternoon, maybe it's tomorrow, maybe it's next week. Depends on your calendars and how much you are interested in chatting with them. But we want to talk to them one one. And this is where we're going to maintain our boundaries and or have open dialogue. So say this was a situation where they took credit for your work. We're going to have this one one. Say, hey, you know, I was really thinking about it. I know that, you know, you're probably up for promo this year. You want to make sure you're getting credit for your efforts. I totally appreciate that. In this meeting, it did make me feel undervalued when you didn't mention my name. In this project going forward, I'd really appreciate it if you could make sure that you're just sharing that credit.

(16:39):
I think you totally deserve the accolade for the great work you're doing. But I want to make sure that we're on even ground, right? We can maintain our boundary. Doesn't mean you're going to like it, but we can maintain it. Or secondly, we can have an open dialogue of like, hey, I want to understand how you were feeling in this meeting. When were discussing this topic, it seemed like maybe you were looking to take things a different direction. I'd love to hear a little bit more about that. Or we're in a situation where maybe in the meeting they made you feel stupid about something and you're pretty sure you're right, but it's fine. Then we have that one one. Hey, in this meeting were talking about this, I'd love to hear a little bit more about your perspective.

(17:21):
I felt like it got a little tense during the conversation. I want to make sure you and I are on the same page so I can help advocate for what you're trying to do here. Great, let's air it out. Okay, but it needs to come from a really collaborative place. We don't want to go into that one one and be like, dude, what the hell? You took credit for my work. Will that make things better? No. No, it won't. Okay, so when we're resetting from interpersonal conflict, especially with a peer, we want to take time to think about things from their perspective, aligned to their goals and their objectives. And then we want to have a one one that either maintains our boundaries or opens a dialogue so we can discuss it.

(17:57):
Now, if you have a frequent offender, this is like a bonus step. Bonus asterisk, super sparkles. I don't know if you have a frequent offender who like, every meeting we leave, we're like, oh, God, if I have to have one more meeting with Steve. Sorry, it's always Steve. I'm sure there are very nice steves out there, just not in my examples. If I have to have one more meeting with Steve, I'm going to lose my mind. Okay. He makes me crazy. Every meeting he's doing the same thing. That's really bothersome to me. If they are a frequent offender, our natural instinct is to avoid that person. And I want you to do the opposite of, instead of avoiding them, I want you to be having one ones with them, let's say every other month where we don't talk about work stuff, we're just chatting.

(18:38):
Hey, how are you? How are things? How's the fam? Yeah, would you like to go get a cup coffee? Let's do it. Love to hear a little bit more about what's going on in your space. Because even the most difficult people are nicer, more approachable, better partners to people they like. And so our natural instinct is I'm going to avoid them. They're difficult. I don't get them. They drive me nuts. Not my problem. But I want you to instead lean in. Especially if there's someone who, a, has a lot of power and influence in the organization, or B, works with you often on projects that are really important to your growth and your development. If they fall in either of those two categories, buy monthly chats, get to know them, build a better relationship with them.

(19:21):
It is long term going to better for you. As a quick aside, I have seen it so many times where we take the other approach. We're like, Steve is so difficult, I'm just going to avoid him. I don't want to work with him. I'll only deal with him when I absolutely have to. But Steve has a lot of clout and a lot of influence in the organization, and he's in the VP's ear. Like, Kendall won't talk to me, she won't respond to my meeting. She's not getting me what I need. And Kendall ends up fired. I see it all the time. So instead, let's be friends with Steve and let's figure out where these things are coming from. Because if that's going to make him happier, his work easier, and it's going to make your life easier. Trifecta. Big one, right?

(20:03):
So that's dealing with interpersonal conflict for a period. Those are going to be your steps. If it's with your boss. Again, similar steps. One, where is this coming from? What are their goals? What's important to them? What is their boss asking them? What are they trying to accomplish? Are they trying to get promoted? We need to understand where they're coming from first. The biggest swing I see in how people feel in the corporate workplace is when you go from being managed to being a manager, because the first time you're managing like a decent sized team. So let's say five, six people.

(20:35):
First time that you have five or six direct reports, all of a sudden you're like, oh, my God, I feel terrible for every manager who ever managed me because you start to see things where you're like, oh, yeah, no, I needed this today. That's why I asked for it by end of day. And then you think back and you're like, oh, my gosh, I totally did that. Right? Or you ask for something, you think the instructions are really clear, and then the employee doesn't do them and you're like, why couldn't you figure that out? And then you think back and you're like, oh, my gosh, I have been the employee in this situation, right? All of a sudden, we have so much more empathy for managers when we become managers.

(21:05):
So when you are being managed, let's take the time to understand, like, what are their goals, what are their objectives, what are they trying to do and how do we fit into that? It's going to make it a lot easier to build that connection, a lot easier for us to provide feedback and upward coaching. Okay, so step one, meet them where they're at. Step two, we want to ask for really clear expectations. This fixes 99.9% of all managerial struggles. Okay. If you are talking with your boss and they are, like, micromanaging you to death, I want to know about this, this. Okay. Hey, I've noticed that you've been asking for a lot of updates lately. Is there something proactively you would like me to do to make sure you stay in the loop?

(21:47):
I could send a daily email at the end of the day with everything that took place that day. I could send you a weekly status update on each project. What would be the most helpful for you? Can we be proactive to them that gets them off our case? Right. That's a great example. I've talked about that on social media and other podcast episodes. As well. But this is more broadly applicable. If they're getting on to you and they're like, they don't know how to delegate, we say, hey, you know, I would love to run this for you. I can see it's taking a lot of your time.

(22:17):
Why don't you just take a few minutes and talk me through each thing you would like delivered and when, and we can create a clear roadmap, and I can make sure you're getting stuff as you need it. Right. Take the delegation into your own hands. If they assign you a deadline, meet it. And if for some reason you can't meet it, proactively inform them. Hey, I know we talked about me getting you this by the end of day Thursday, but the data was delayed. I just got it this morning. Is it cool if I get it to you by Friday at noon? Be proactive in your communication. Set good expectations, follow through on those expectations. Do it. Okay. And then similarly have a meeting, one one, maintain our boundaries and or open dialogue.

(22:56):
Hey, I noticed in this meeting that, you know, you were talking through this particular portion of the presentation. I'd love to get more practice presenting to the broader group. Is that something you and I can work on together? Maybe you and I can do a dry run so that you feel comfortable. Next time we go into that call, open a dialogue. Okay. Most of the issues you face in corporate are because somebody is not communicating their expectations or their dissatisfactions. Almost always comes down to those two things. So let's exam, let's reset, and let's start to make forward progress. The last piece, when it comes to dealing with a difficult boss, specifically, is your boss is not your end all, be all, end all advocate. Say that ten times fast. Okay? They are not your end all, be all advocate.

(23:40):
I don't know if I said it right that time. Now it sounds weird in my head. You're with me. You're following. You're a great listener. Thank you. So you should have peers of your boss that you are meeting with quarterly. We've talked about this in other episodes. You should be meeting with your boss's boss. You should have relationships with peers who are influential. You should be building a broader network that allows you to advocate for yourself. Your boss should not be the only person that you are investing in. It's a quick aside, because if your goal is career progression, we can't just have one person who thinks we're great. We need 50. Okay? So hopefully this was helpful. If you are facing some setbacks or some frustrations in your career right now.

(24:18):
If you've been finding yourself in difficult situations, unable to really move forward, the goal of this is that this would give you the tools that you need in order to reset, restart, reframe, and crush it, right? So you can continue to get that growth and progression in your career. So I'm Kendall. I'm that career coach. If you like today's episode, go ahead and give me five stars. Leave any questions or comments down below. Otherwise, tune back in next week for another great episode.
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