May 6, 2025 • 38 mins
In this episode, we hang out with David Rice, Executive Editor at People Managing People, and we're getting real about what it feels like to be a manager. Now.
We got REAL about why managers are in total crisis mode these days. David doesn't hold back on why management has become basically "an experience akin to being sabotaged" (his exact words. And, we agree). We tackle the mind-blowing stat that 82% of managers get zero formal training, why Gen Z is saying "thanks but no thanks" to management roles, and why human connection might be your superpower in an AI-heavy workplace. Plus, why building your community both inside and outside work might save your sanity as a squeezed middle manager.
Whether you're currently juggling direct reports or trying to figure out how to work with your own manager, this convo gives you actual strategies that won't make your eyes glaze over.
Listen for:
- Why becoming a manager is like being "sabotaged" (seriously, this metaphor about pet training will make you laugh AND cry)
- How to survive being caught in the corporate sandwich between demanding execs and your stressed team
- The community-building approach that might save you from managerial isolation
- Why your human skills matter way more than your technical chops in tomorrow's management world
- Easy ways to build trust with team members from different generations
- The shift from obsessing over butts-in-seats to actually measuring meaningful outcomes
Whether you're drowning as a middle manager or thinking about taking the leadership plunge, this episode gives you real talk for surviving today's workplace chaos.
Episode Highlights
⏰ 5:20 The Manager Squeeze: David gets brutally honest about why managers are getting "dumped on every which way" right now
⏰ 11:45 Find Your People: Why you need your community both inside and outside work to survive as a manager
⏰ 15:30 Just Be Real: Why transparency is your lifeline when "everybody's terrified that a layoff is coming"
⏰ 22:30 Forget Your Title: Why you should care about "things that matter" not just your fancy LinkedIn headline
⏰ 27:15 Human > AI: Why connecting with people will make you irreplaceable when AI is doing all the technical stuff
About David Rice:
David is the Executive Editor of People Managing People - Practical guidance for leaders inspiring change. He's also the Host of the
Disclaimer: This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered professional advice. We are not responsible for any losses, damages, or liabilities that may arise from the use of this podcast. The views expressed in this podcast may not be those of the host or the management.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The thing that disturbs me and keeps me up at
night is the fact that,essentially, at this point,
ascending into management ranksis an experience akin to being
sabotaged.
It's almost a betrayal in someways.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Welcome to your Work Friends.
I'm Francesca and I'm Mel.
We're breaking down work, soyou get ahead, Mel.
You and I talk a lot about thestate of the workplace.
Actually, every single daywe're talking about what's
happening with work, what'shappening with jobs, and one of
the things that we just keepcoming back to is what the hell
is going on with the manager andthe manager role.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
We've covered it several times in New Week New
Headlines First of all.
Managers are in the sandwich,the classic corporate sandwich
between executive leadership andthen their employees, and
they're getting dumped on everywhich way.
We covered an article severalmonths back talking about this
is the crisis year of themanager, because we see orgs
(01:13):
ripping them out, which we bothhave expressed as a dumb move
for many reasons.
And the other piece there isthe younger people don't want
the gig because it's a thinklessjob right now being a manager.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
It's hard, right, it's hard and to your very good
point, that's getting attackedfrom all sides and we wanted to
bring in somebody that hearsabout what the hell is really
going on Real streetconversation with the manager.
So we brought in David Rice.
David is the executive editorof People Managing People, where
he's looking at the storiesthat are happening in the
(01:49):
workplace specifically aroundmanagement, and he's really
trying to get at, with peoplemanaging people, the heart of
the issues that are faced notonly by HR professionals but by
employees too.
So we thought, because he'sgetting this great overview of
what's going on in the ether, hecan be a very good person to
get the very real street, veryraw, very honest perspective on
(02:10):
what's going on with managers.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
Yeah, a lot of insightful conversation.
I also, side note, love all ofhis videos, so if you're not
following David on LinkedIn, youshould be and check out his
weekly videos.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
David is very dry, he is very no bullshit, but he's
spot on, so we hope you enjoythis conversation with that.
Here's David.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
David, it's so good to see you.
All right, David.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Again, thanks so much for joining us today.
We're super stoked to talkabout the state of managers In
our part of the world.
Mel and I are hearing frommanagers.
We're reading the news aboutmanagers.
They're getting it from allsides.
We're flattening, we're takingmanagers out.
Apparently, ai is now comingfor your job all this good jazz.
Like it's a.
It's a crazy time to be amanager, and especially in your
(03:08):
role as the executive editor atPeople Managing People.
What are you hearing?
What are you seeing?
What is the world of themanager looking like right now?
And I'm curious what's keepingyou up at night?
Speaker 1 (03:20):
as it relates to managers these days, I think the
thing that, like disturbs meand keeps me up at night is the
fact that, like, essentially atthis point, ascending into
management ranks is anexperience akin to being
sabotaged, right, like it'salmost a betrayal in some ways,
(03:42):
like if you think about the factthat 82% of managers received
no formal training.
So it's just here, go do thisreally difficult thing.
I'm not going to help you do it.
And even the whole way that youwere successful, you got into
this because you were, in theory, good at something.
So is this how we're going toreward success and high
performance?
(04:02):
Is here's this new challengethat I'm just not going to help
you with.
And I don't care.
I guess I don't care if you'regood at it or not.
As somebody who spends a lot oftime talking about leadership
and how to create success andhow to innovate and inspire
people to do new things, how canwe do that to managers?
It's just disturbing, right?
(04:22):
It would be like trying totrain your pets to go to the
bathroom outside but never openthe door.
What do you want them to do?
I don't understand.
So what are we doing?
There's a lot in this worldthat I'm like what are we doing?
But when I think about business, that's the thing that I just.
It blows my mind and makes mewant to pull my hair out.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Yeah I mean to your point is we're not setting them
up for success at all.
If there's a development piece,82% of people aren't even
getting trained.
Mel and I absolutely know thatto be true.
Very few organizations aredoing that and even if they are,
it's not necessarily thatthey're developing them the
right way, because managing is avery different skill than
individual contributor.
It's a completely differentturn.
We know it's one of the hardestroles to step into.
(05:11):
If you ask most people in theircareer ladder, that flip up
into manager was way harder thanthat flip up into executive.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Because it's just so different and I love your
analogy.
So we're basically saying, yeah, this is what you need to do,
but we're not allowing you to doit or we're not setting you up
for success to do it, ie openingthe door.
Is there anything that givesyou hope?
Because we absolutely agree onthat reality.
But is there anything whereyou're like?
But this is interesting.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Yeah, I think the thing that gives me hope is
there's a lot of people comingtogether around common
experiences right now, commongoals, desires.
I think 2025, when we look backon it in a couple of years will
be like a pivotal year forcommunity building.
That's my hope, that's one ofthe things that I really wanted
to see from this year and forchanging the way we think about
traditional dynamics.
So, whether that's how we usesomething like LinkedIn or how
(06:00):
we approach going to aconference or interacting with
each other online whichobviously I think could use an
overhaul but I'm seeing a lot ofpeople agree on what they see
Like we all agree that this ishappening to managers, right,
and we know what we want tochange.
I think there's not as muchdifference in philosophy or the
spectrum of thought around this.
(06:21):
There is about a bunch of otherissues, right.
So I think it's a littledifferent in that we want to
build thought around this.
There is about a bunch of otherissues, right.
So I think it's a littledifferent in that we want to
build community around this, andthat's a skill that we need to
learn in and of itself, and so Ithink it's going to be good for
us to come together on thatstuff and identify the things
that we want.
We've all been sold a lot ofwell, I'll say this bullshit
(06:44):
narratives about eithermanagement or what it means to
be a leader.
There's a lot of this likealpha talk and I have no time
for it, but it's one of thosethings that like pervades the
leadership space.
I just think it's going to beshort-lived and we're all going
to come together and identifysome things.
The need for managers maybewe'll get into this as we go,
(07:06):
but I don't think that the needfor managers is going to
disappear.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
I want to talk about that community piece real quick.
Community Are you seeingcommunity inside organizations
or are you seeing peopleactually going outside
organizations to find thatcommunity because it's the only
place they're getting it?
Speaker 1 (07:24):
I think both.
I think it's cool to seecommunity within organizations
because people are.
We talk about, we always talkabout like peer-to-peer learning
, but I think more and morepeople are realizing like I can
go to this person and get somekind of value, especially around
AI, right, I think that peopleare seeing the things that their
coworkers are doing with it andthey're going whoa, I didn't
(07:44):
know you could do that.
Teach me how to do that.
So they're learning a lot ofthings from each other and that,
in and of itself, is buildinginternal community.
But I also think, with all theselayoffs and the things that you
see, trust is low.
In some ways there's loyalty,but in other ways people are
like whoa, they ain't going tobe loyal to me, so why should I
be loyal to them?
They ain't going to be loyal tome, so why should I be loyal to
(08:06):
them?
And they want to go out andbuild their communities outside
of it.
So they're going to the thingthey're trying to build their
networks.
They're going to people thatthey have common visions with
and engaging more.
We're seeing that activity thateven you see in slack
communities, right, there's moreand more of that popping up and
there's a lot more groups outthere identifying that and going
, hey, I think we can createthis community.
(08:28):
The facilitation of that isincreasing as well, so there's
more options and there's moredesire to take advantage of it.
It just gets infused into sortof the culture and the way that
we all think I've got to be partof one of these things so that
I can continue to grow, becausethe organization's not going to
help me do it necessarily.
I think that is a thing that'scoming out now, but I ultimately
think that it's a good thing.
(08:48):
It's something that we all needto do anyways.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
There's this overall sentiment for managers right now
that, like I'm on my own and soI gotta figure this out, either
through community or internallyor externally, because my faith
that my company is gonna bedoing it for me or my leader is
going to be doing it for me isnil.
Am I reading that right?
Is that what you're hearing andfeeling?
Speaker 1 (09:25):
who's above you to help you.
It's generally like eitherdirector, like VPs or executives
who have no time or desire tohelp you figure out your
challenges and problems right.
They're just not going to stepin and help you.
And so who are you going toturn?
Yeah, you have to go to otherpeople that are having a common
experience and build some sortof rapport or understanding.
You have to find out what toolsare you using to understand
these problems better.
Where are you getting youradvice from that kind of thing?
(09:47):
And that's one of the thingsthat we see, partially because
we seek to be the thing that youwould go to.
Naturally, when we aresuccessful, we find that people
are gaining value from whatwe're doing.
That is part of what's driving.
It is like amongst managers.
And then you see, like theflattening of organizations
right, they're firing managersleft and right, so it's.
(10:08):
I don't even think they care ifI succeed or not.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
If I don't, they'll just use it as a reason to cut
my salary from the books and, Iguess, get ai to do it yeah,
yeah, which is funny thedeloitte human capital trends
just came out, which a lot oftimes is thought of as one of
the key indicators for wherehuman performance, human capital
consulting, is going right inall these organizations.
And they just were like psychshould be on, you shouldn't be
(10:35):
taking this manager layer andI'm like no shit Sherlock.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Let's not, yeah, so it's figure.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Yeah, having 67 direct reports as a VP didn't
work.
I'm shocked.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
I'm sure.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
Yeah, it's painful, we just covered a few weeks back
that, like Gen Z, has nointerest in even moving into the
management role, and there'sobviously a much better way that
people can be preparing peopleto be in this role.
Ideally, from the time you stepin the door as a junior level
employee, you're gaining thistraining before you.
From the time you step in thedoor as a junior level employee,
you're gaining this trainingbefore you even make it to that
(11:10):
step.
Right, so it isn't this bigsurprise or big shift.
You cover so many differentorganizations, so you see
excellent use cases and reallybad use cases.
What do you see being donereally well?
Speaker 1 (11:17):
It's tough to say, because I'd probably say
so-and-so is doing it right now,and then two weeks from now
they flatten half the thing.
So-and-so is doing it right now, and then two weeks from now,
they flattened half the.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
Thing.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
Yeah, it's tough to say who's getting it right and
who's getting it wrong.
If you're looking at it likeokay, no-transcript, and you're
actually giving them tools to dothat, then you're doing it
right.
One thing I've always said is,from the pandemic time, nobody
ever adjusted.
Nobody ever adjusted what theywere doing to manage differently
(11:49):
.
Right, we went to remote.
They didn't know how to do that.
That's part of the reasons whythere's a lot of reasons why
they want to force people backinto offices that are not great,
but one of them is they neverlearned how to do this any other
way, still doing things by theidea of butts in seats.
And then you realize, oh, theincrease in things like employee
monitoring software.
We talk about that all the timebecause it's one of the things
(12:09):
we do reviews on our website butyou see the increase in that
and you're like, is that healthy?
Is that any better than justlooking at butts in seats?
No, it's not a gauge ofproductivity.
They got these like mousejigglers and all these weird
gadgets you can buy to fakeproductivity, if that's how
you're going to measureproductivity.
And so the ones that are doingit right, I think, are like look
(12:33):
, you got to shift to likemeasuring output reasonably,
measuring outcomes responsibly.
Those are like two of the keythings.
Don't get lost on a goal.
You can create this really biginflated expectation and think
that's reasonable or responsible.
It's not.
(12:54):
It's about figuring out.
Okay, what does productivityactually look like?
Meaningful productivity, notjust like completing tasks or
creating a huge volume of work,because you can create a huge
volume of work.
But if it all sucks, what's thedifference?
It's not going to move theneedle.
We've got all these traditionalquotas and traditional ways of
thinking about things likeproductivity, things like
(13:15):
business impact.
We've got to get away from itbeing so role-specific, it being
quota specific.
I would say in a lot of cases,a lot of it is like volume of
what people are doing ratherthan the velocity or the value
of what they're doing.
So the ones that are thinkingahead and trying to change that
are doing it right.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
Yeah, thinking about more meaningful impact than just
like checking the box.
And we hear it all the time,francesca and I get people
reaching out to us.
They're feeling the squeeze atthe top from the executives that
they're reporting up to, orthey're a manager, their senior
manager, who's getting it fromthe executive right.
And then they're also dealingwith the emotions of their own
(13:57):
team and the things that they'reexperiencing in the day to day.
So they're just what's thatsong Stuck in the Middle with
you?
They're just really all stuckin this kind of hellish
landscape of the middle beingpulled in a million directions
but also not feeling cared forin either way.
If someone's in that spaceright now, what advice do you
have for them if they're in thesqueeze?
Speaker 1 (14:19):
Yeah, it's tough right, because we're in this
period where executive demandsare just so out of touch with
the experience and the realityof the lives people are living.
They could use this moment togain trust and instead they've
used it to put in RTO orders andtalk about 60-hour work weeks.
A lot of what we're seeing,especially when they start
yapping in the media, justerodes people's image of what
(14:41):
leadership is right.
So if you're in that space, Ithink the thing that you got to
do is basically do whatever youcan to increase transparency
about what's going on in the org, what's going on with roles and
I know transparency is one ofthose words that gets overused
to the point that it meanssomething different to everybody
but just try to be real withpeople about what's happening.
(15:05):
Respect them as adults.
Okay, what's going on withtheir roles?
What skills do they need?
Just be human about it.
Be real.
Everybody's terrified that alayoff is coming all the time.
Now they're responding to whatthey see out in the world and
what they want to see is youbeing a human being with them.
They can't trust you more thanthe AI.
(15:26):
If you feel like some soullesscorporate suit, right, they
might as well just listen to theall-knowing robot overlord
that's going to own their future.
That's why Gen Z wants to go tothe AI instead of their manager
.
So you've got to find a way toestablish good faith.
You've got an find a way toestablish like good faith.
You've got an employeepopulation right now that has no
(15:46):
faith in leadership, and thenyou end up, if you don't do this
right, you end up looking likea shill for people who are out
there saying all these things inthe media, or people who are
just maybe not understanding thebasics of their existence
essentially, and it damages yourability to establish a
relationship or trust with them.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
Why do you think people don't do this?
Mel and I, in our research, wetalk a lot about the
boss-employee-boss relationship,because it is a relationship
I'm curious about.
Why don't you think managersshow up as a human?
What's going on there?
Speaker 1 (16:22):
I think there's a couple of reasons.
One is the manager is expectedto deliver certain things from
the business, certain outcomes,and so it gets a little bit like
it's not like they have anyshortage of meetings and work to
do themselves, so they'realready bogged down and they've
got a lot of pressure from thebusiness to deliver results
bogged down and they've got alot of pressure from the
(16:43):
business to deliver results.
On top of that, you're talkingabout a couple of generations
that have been, I would say,systematically weaponized
against each other by medianarratives.
Right, everything is Gen Z this, but for a long time it was
millennials and their damnavocado toast.
Right, everything's just.
(17:07):
Oh, this group is awful, awful,and what you end up with is like
a group of people.
They kind of look at each otherweird to begin with, and then
you've got really big shiftsthat happen because of
technology.
Right, like millennials and genz, they don't like phone calls,
they don't even want to go tomeetings.
Yeah, we were talking aboutsomebody on the phone.
Just text me, or couldn't thismeeting have been an email?
How many times have you heardthat?
But it's an old fashioned wayto get together.
(17:28):
Talk about it, just settle it,and so you're not communicating
to people how they want to becommunicated to.
In a lot of cases, you're notunderstanding their culture,
essentially because there's agedifferences or different ways of
doing things that you grew upwith.
Because when you grew up, thatdidn't exist, like when I
entered the workforce, slackwasn't a thing, it just didn't
(17:48):
exist.
We did everything by email.
But you combine all thattogether and you've got a place
where people just don'tunderstand each other.
I feel like and managers, ifthey are typically a little bit
more advanced in their careerright now you're probably
talking about somebody in theirmid-30s to late-40s, let's say,
(18:09):
a 24-year-old those experiencesare wildly different, right, and
their expectations are wildlydifferent.
You interpret things at workdifferently, and now they're
being polarized by everything.
Oh, I don't understand them andtheir pronouns and those like
that.
It's constantly one thing afteranother to highlight our
(18:29):
differences, never ourcommonalities.
We never talk about the thingsthat we experience the same way.
We never talk about the thingsthat affect us in the same way.
So that's why there is no trustFor managers.
It's going to have to be aconscious effort on your part to
sit down, make a lot of eyecontact.
Really, you know what I mean Notan awkward amount, but be
(18:56):
present with somebody, be in theroom with them, see them as a
person, learn about things likeenergy and body language and
personal dynamics, what it isthat might be sitting between
you and somebody that you'refinding it difficult to connect
with.
Those are the things like as amanager.
This job is going to becomeless and less about technical
skills, I'm convinced, because alot of all the technical stuff
(19:18):
you'll just be able to do itwith AI.
The thing that's going todifferentiate you as a manager
is your ability to connect toanother human being and to see
within them what it is you cando to help them achieve that.
But it's not easy to do andit's inherently awkward for
groups that are different likethat, I would say.
Easy, but it's simple it doesn'tactually require too much
(19:41):
technical thought.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
It doesn't, and it's so fun because to point out,
like commonalities right,there's way more that we have in
common.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
humans really don't need a lot, they really don't
there seems to be a huge missedopportunity we've reported on,
like the silver tsunami that'scoming in 2030 and all the the
knowledge that we should belearning, but is there a huge
missed opportunity happeningright now for organizations to
have more intergenerationalconnections and community
(20:11):
building to help bridge that gapand have that conversation,
especially as we're goingthrough these major transitions?
Is that a space where companiesshould really be focusing?
Speaker 1 (20:21):
I would say yes.
Here's the challenge, though.
We're basically likeconditioned to distrust each
other, right?
So, like older folks, theydon't want to trust Gen Z
because they're entitled or lazyor whatever the stereotypes
they peddle about them.
And you've got like the OKboomer side to it where it's
just oh, here they go, and wespend all this time thinking
(20:44):
about our differences.
There's not a lot of motivationto go.
Okay, maybe he doesn't get thisAI thing, but he was in the
workforce when the internet cameabout and that must've been a
huge shift.
What lessons did he learn fromthat?
They're not motivated to askthat question because inherently
, you'd have to be interested inthem or see their value, see
their humanity, and everythingthat we do is meant to polarize
(21:07):
and tear us apart, but it's hardto create something totally
different within the walls ofyour organization when the
broader culture is constantlypeppering people with this
narrative of difference.
It makes it difficult for us tolearn from each other unless
there's some other connector.
We did a thing at work.
We were just messing aroundwith Sora when it came out, and
(21:30):
my team and I we were like, whatif we did this with it?
I said, well, have it, make methe Pope.
And then it did and I was like,oh my God, that's hilarious.
That looks ridiculous.
Now make it, make all of you mycardinals.
So I did that and it wasridiculous.
And then we were like, okay,now give all the cardinals
(21:50):
blowout hairstyles.
And the images were so funny.
We were all laughing so hard.
I can't remember the last timewe all laughed this hard
together, but it was lovely.
It was like we had a greatbonding moment out of it that I
ended up making this video.
But I thought to myself youcould use that, though In terms
(22:10):
of management.
You can use that to create allkinds of experiences, to change
people's narratives about eachother.
If you got somebody from Gen Zguiding somebody from Gen X or a
baby boomer through thatexperience and they're joking
around and working through ittogether to make the funniest,
goofiest, stupidest thing theycan make, well, all of a sudden,
(22:30):
in that moment, you are justlike two human beings having a
good time, and that should beokay.
At work, us learn from eachother and figure out.
Okay, I don't agree with themon everything, but maybe Tom
over there, maybe he has an ideaabout how this could work.
That's what we need.
(22:51):
We need that institutionalknowledge to transfer somehow,
and it can't just be throughSOPs and internal documentation.
Speaker 3 (22:58):
Right, like it's going to have to be that
conversation.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
Yeah, it has to be.
That's the only way.
That's really the only waypeople are going to remember it
or actually apply it.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
We talked a little bit about, organizations are
ripping out the middle, and nowwe also see there's definitely
well, let's not do that and it'sjust a turmoil across the board
.
What does all of this mean forsomeone who maybe has invested
years of their life so far justto reach the manager level, and
now they've made it, and this isthe year they're experiencing?
(23:36):
What does this all mean forthem?
What advice would you give tosomeone who's in that place?
Speaker 1 (23:41):
does this all mean for them?
What advice would you give tosomeone who's in that place?
It's difficult, right?
Like you spent 10 years tryingto climb the ladder and then now
the ladder has been abandonedand about to fall over, with you
on it, right?
Speaker 3 (23:51):
Yeah, it's like the top rungs are gone, the bottom
that you were on are gone andnow you're just hanging on.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
You're like the whole thing rotted out from under me,
yeah, but it does mean thatyou're going to have to be as
flexible as you can when itcomes to things like upskilling,
(24:17):
showing your skills differently, finding ways to play the game
in a different way, showcasingyour impact essentially on any
project or whatever it is thatyou're working on, ascend in an
organization.
I'm looking really hard at howI can showcase my outcomes and
basically build narratives abouthow I've been a driving force
behind whatever it is we weretrying to do and how I integrate
tech into my skillset.
So you want to be reallyflexible around that.
I work in an editorial space.
Right, we are, I would say, ingeneral, we are, I would say, in
(24:42):
general, a curmudgeonly bunch.
Anyways, editors are notlighthearted and high-spirited
people.
most of the time there's alwaysa lot of resistance to anything.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
You guys don't have a fun committee there's no fun
committee.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
The fun committee is occasionally get together, have
a few drinks and have a bigbitch session.
You're constantly trying tounderstand things in a different
way or look at it in adifferent way, and a lot of this
AI stuff does make you go oh,what is this?
Oh God.
But one of the things that'sbeen tough for everybody is that
, essentially, the job as it wasfive years ago doesn't exist
anymore.
The term editor is actuallystarting to mean something
(25:21):
different, and you've got to becomfortable with that.
You got to be prepared tointegrate tech into it.
However, you're going to do it,and this is not just our roles.
This is across the spectrum ofroles within the workforce,
whether it's marketing or you'redoing coding.
The things that you thoughtwere going to be central or core
to your work aren't necessarilythat anymore, and you're going
(25:42):
to have to figure out how you'regoing to be flexible and
adaptable and learn to use thisstuff to do it better, quicker,
in different ways than you'veever done it before.
Speaker 3 (25:52):
Francesca I think I used to say this to you a long
time ago where I was, likeeveryone needs to start to tap
into their inner Madonna, whohas painted herself like a
million times over the last 40years Got to tap into that right
Reinvention.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Yeah, don't be attached to your title.
Be attached to things thatmatter.
Your salary matters, it's howyou pay your bills.
Your title is not how you payyour bills.
I've always said you can callme the head schmuck in charge, I
don't care.
Call me whatever you want.
This is what I want to make.
This is what I want my benefitspackage to look like those
(26:31):
concrete things that make mylife possible.
That's what I'm after.
You can call me whatever youwant, I don't care.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
And don't let work define your self-worth.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
You shouldn't even really connect it to your worth
at all, like at all.
One of the things that we didrecently was we did a survey
about the TV show Severance.
We did a survey asking wouldyou get the procedure?
Speaker 2 (26:54):
What is Severance about for those that don't?
Speaker 1 (26:56):
know.
So, essentially, severance is adystopian workplace drama, in
which this company called LumenIndustries, I think it is has
created a way so that you cansever your personality between
work and your private life, sowhen you're at work, you don't
remember anything about yourprivate life, and when you're in
your private life, you don'tremember anything about work.
(27:16):
It's called your innie and youroutie, right, and so you live
these two completely separatelives, not knowing, and you just
know that you have to go likehere at this time kind of thing.
So I asked people would you doit?
I had been asked by a UKjournalist in response to a UK
survey that found that 12% ofthe UK population would do it.
So I was like let's see if wecan find out a little bit more
(27:39):
about the US and Canada.
So we did our own version of it, and, for us, 20% said either
definitely or they probablywould 20%.
Wow, 20%.
Here's the really disturbingpart, though.
We asked people what would bethe amount of money that you
would need to consider, andalmost 70 gave a price only 30.
(28:05):
I wouldn't do it for any amountof money.
Almost 70 had an amount inwhich they were like yeah, I'll
do it for that I was like oh man, what does that say say about
us, when we're at with work, howwe're connected to it?
People aren't seeing valuebetween what they learn at work
and applying it into their life.
(28:25):
Every experience I've hadinforms who I am as a person.
That includes what happened atwork, not just the stuff that
was outside of it.
But I think other people aren'tmaybe seeing the connection or
aren't seeing the value of theconnection, and that's a little
disturbing and sad, quitefrankly.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
Let's extrapolate that to the US population that
20% of the population wants tohasa dollar amount figure that
they would go for to sever theirwork.
Mind it's actually almost abenefit, yeah, To cause yourself
a traumatic brain injury.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
It's actually almost a benefit, yeah, to cause
yourself a traumatic braininjury.
That's essentially what it is,if you think about it.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
Yeah, it brings a really interesting question
around what's the biggest thingthat needs to change?
If you could change one thingthat would make the role of a
manager more palatable right now, or at least not want to have
to sever some sort of autonomy.
(29:23):
Basically, what would need tochange?
Speaker 1 (29:26):
This isn't just a workplace thing.
This is how we all serve, andI'm not to get too political
here, but too much of our livesis now dedicated to serving
capitalism.
Essentially, that's really whatit is.
This idea that labor unions arebad was the beginning of the
(29:47):
end for reasonable behaviorabout work.
And you think about the wayEurope constructs work and what
their expectations are forpeople.
It's very pretty reasonable.
But in the United States yourlife is work.
Your value to the society istied to whether or not you have
a job and what you do withinthat job, how much money you
(30:08):
make, how much you consume.
All of our lives is essentiallyin some service to capitalism
when you really break it downand that would have to change
culturally in order for this toget totally better.
Because what people are reallytrying to block out when they
answer that question is the wayin which they serve it, and
(30:30):
they'd almost rather just notremember it than have to deal
with all the demands of it andtrying to make it match their
personal values, Because that'shard.
A lot of organizations reallydon't.
How often are you going to finda job that matches your
personal values?
If you I don't know care aboutthe planet.
It's hard Culturally.
We just have to shift away fromyour purpose is to serve the
(30:53):
machine, and I don't know ifthat's going to happen.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
I think these Gen B kids are gonna do it.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
I have a lot of faith in them.
I do?
I have a lot they've had a realI'm not gonna put up with this
shit kind of attitude and I'mlike good for you guys.
You know children are ourfuture, yeah we'll see how alpha
does when they get there.
Speaker 3 (31:28):
We do this thing called wrap it round, where
we'll ask you a question.
You can respond yes, no orelaborate if you feel so.
How do you?
Speaker 1 (31:36):
feel All right.
Yeah, I'm going to ask anybodyI work with.
I'm super long-winded all thetime, so I'm always going to
elaborate.
Speaker 3 (31:43):
Let's do that.
This is where the juice comes,so we love it.
So it's 2030.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
What's work going to look like?
Well, haven't you heard?
We're all going to be wanderingaround trying to figure out
what our purpose is in life.
Least you listen to bill gates,right?
I do think it'll be verymechanical, like in all respects
, like robots will be in theworkplace.
They've made it to agi thewhite collar jobs.
I don't know if they'll existor not.
There's this cool thing goingaround.
It's called like ai 2027.com,and somebody ran like a
(32:15):
simulation based on all currentevents and everything, and it
was very, I don't know to say,enlightening or disturbing, but
it was interesting.
Let's just put it that way.
I don't know, will white collarjobs exist in five years?
Maybe, but this goes all theway up to the ceo, right,
because strategy is a skill likeit'll do that better, it'll do
(32:36):
decision making better,supposedly.
Yeah, creative tasks you goright down the list, and they
may even do some of the bluecollar stuff too, better too.
I was saying to somebodyrecently that old saying
plumbers rule the world.
They do, I don't, I do, they do.
And I don't know if it'll doplumbing as well.
Speaker 3 (32:51):
So maybe plumbing is the thing to get into someone
who lives in an old house in newengland.
I don't know if AI is going tobe able to navigate it like Joe.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
Yeah, because Joe has just been rigging that thing
for years.
Speaker 3 (33:06):
He's been in every janky house.
He knows how to navigate aroundhere.
It's so interesting you saythat as you respond about
Shopify's CEO, who is askingeveryone to justify hiring for
humans and to showcase what theyconsider to use AI first before
they put in human bodies.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
We're always trying to see that.
I read that same memo.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
Yeah, yeah, okay, let's move on to something a
little more fun, a little morepersonal.
What music are you listening toright now?
What's hyping you up?
Speaker 1 (33:36):
It's spring and I'm going through this like reliving
of my college music listening,and I'm listening to a lot of
like early to mid 2000s indiehip hop at the moment Indie hip
hop.
Yeah, what do you?
Speaker 2 (33:47):
consider indie hip hop.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
Oh God, jedi mind tricks and yeah, like stuff that
was like not on the radio atthe time, so it was like very,
we used to call it underground.
Now they just label it indie,same thing as they do with rock
music.
Speaker 3 (34:04):
What are you reading or listening to right now?
Speaker 1 (34:08):
I started this book called the Fourth Turning, by
William Strauss and Neil Howe.
It's about American history.
They present it as seasons it'slike 80 to 100 year cycles, and
it presents the idea that weare currently in a historical
winter, which is a verydifficult time, and spring will
eventually come.
But it breaks down the lasthundred years as like examples
(34:30):
of these seasons.
I can't speak too much about it.
I've only just started it.
Speaker 3 (34:34):
It's interesting.
Yeah, it's interesting to seethe patterns and maybe what to
look out for.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
Now I'm curious did you get to the part where are we
in winter, Because it feelslike we're like Minnesota
January.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
I think we're all just to that point where it's
like the post-Christmasdepression.
Speaker 3 (34:54):
Like I got bills and I'm on a holiday hangover.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
You're just like I don't know.
At least the football playoffsare on.
I can just eat chicken wingswhenever I want.
Speaker 3 (35:07):
Who do you really admire?
Speaker 1 (35:09):
Former Liverpool FC manager, jurgen Klopp, is one of
my favorite people in the world.
I look up to him a great deal,not just because I'm a big
supporter of the football clubitself, but because he's an
incredible example of what aleader could be, and he's just
an example of how to transformculture and, honestly, just a
lovely human being.
Speaker 3 (35:30):
Okay, what's a piece of advice you wish everyone knew
?
Speaker 1 (35:35):
I was once given a really valuable piece of advice
that I think is great forleaders and really anyone
working with other human beingsto remember, and it's that you
can't expect something you'velearned through experience to be
common sense for somebody else.
And it's just one of thosethings like you think why
wouldn't they do that?
So you didn't know how to dothat.
(35:56):
Always, like, eventually, youlearn that because you broke the
thing or you made the mistake,and so don't expect anybody else
to just know that because youthink it's a thing that you're
supposed to know.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
All right, David, so awesome to talk with you today.
Thanks so much for joining us.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
Yeah, yeah, I hope I didn't ramble, too much.
No, it's awesome?
Speaker 3 (36:22):
Not at all, not at all.
And hey, how can our listenersbest connect with you Of?
Speaker 1 (36:26):
course, you can get in touch with me on LinkedIn.
I'm easy enough to find onthere.
Be sure to check out to thePeople Managing People podcast.
I'm the host on there.
If you come over topeoplemanagingpeoplecom, you can
get signed up for thenewsletter and I'm always
sending on a regular basis, acouple of times a week,
different messages from us, andthen come to one of our events.
That's what I really recommend.
Our next one is dedicated toRTO mandates.
(36:48):
It's on April 24th, but, yeah,give me a follow and don't
hesitate to reach out.
Awesome, all right, thanks forbeing here.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
Thank you to reach out Awesome.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
All right, thanks for being here, thank you.
Speaker 3 (36:59):
This episode was produced, edited and all things
by us myself, mel Plett andFrancesca Ranieri.
Our music is by Pink Zebra andif you loved this conversation
and you want to contribute yourthoughts with us, please do.
You can visit us atyourworkfriendscom, but you can
(37:20):
also join us over on LinkedIn.
We have a LinkedIn communitypage and we have the TikToks and
Instagrams.
So please join us in thesocials and if you like this and
you've benefited from thisepisode and you think someone
else can benefit from thisepisode, please rate and
subscribe.
We'd really appreciate it.
That helps keep us going.
(37:40):
Take care, friends.
Bye, friends.
The thing that disturbs me and keeps me up at
night is the fact that,essentially, at this point,
ascending into management ranksis an experience akin to being
sabotaged.
It's almost a betrayal in someways.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Welcome to your Work Friends.
I'm Francesca and I'm Mel.
We're breaking down work, soyou get ahead, Mel.
You and I talk a lot about thestate of the workplace.
Actually, every single daywe're talking about what's
happening with work, what'shappening with jobs, and one of
the things that we just keepcoming back to is what the hell
is going on with the manager andthe manager role.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
We've covered it several times in New Week New
Headlines First of all.
Managers are in the sandwich,the classic corporate sandwich
between executive leadership andthen their employees, and
they're getting dumped on everywhich way.
We covered an article severalmonths back talking about this
is the crisis year of themanager, because we see orgs
(01:13):
ripping them out, which we bothhave expressed as a dumb move
for many reasons.
And the other piece there isthe younger people don't want
the gig because it's a thinklessjob right now being a manager.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
It's hard, right, it's hard and to your very good
point, that's getting attackedfrom all sides and we wanted to
bring in somebody that hearsabout what the hell is really
going on Real streetconversation with the manager.
So we brought in David Rice.
David is the executive editorof People Managing People, where
he's looking at the storiesthat are happening in the
(01:49):
workplace specifically aroundmanagement, and he's really
trying to get at, with peoplemanaging people, the heart of
the issues that are faced notonly by HR professionals but by
employees too.
So we thought, because he'sgetting this great overview of
what's going on in the ether, hecan be a very good person to
get the very real street, veryraw, very honest perspective on
(02:10):
what's going on with managers.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
Yeah, a lot of insightful conversation.
I also, side note, love all ofhis videos, so if you're not
following David on LinkedIn, youshould be and check out his
weekly videos.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
David is very dry, he is very no bullshit, but he's
spot on, so we hope you enjoythis conversation with that.
Here's David.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
David, it's so good to see you.
All right, David.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Again, thanks so much for joining us today.
We're super stoked to talkabout the state of managers In
our part of the world.
Mel and I are hearing frommanagers.
We're reading the news aboutmanagers.
They're getting it from allsides.
We're flattening, we're takingmanagers out.
Apparently, ai is now comingfor your job all this good jazz.
Like it's a.
It's a crazy time to be amanager, and especially in your
(03:08):
role as the executive editor atPeople Managing People.
What are you hearing?
What are you seeing?
What is the world of themanager looking like right now?
And I'm curious what's keepingyou up at night?
Speaker 1 (03:20):
as it relates to managers these days, I think the
thing that, like disturbs meand keeps me up at night is the
fact that, like, essentially atthis point, ascending into
management ranks is anexperience akin to being
sabotaged, right, like it'salmost a betrayal in some ways,
(03:42):
like if you think about the factthat 82% of managers received
no formal training.
So it's just here, go do thisreally difficult thing.
I'm not going to help you do it.
And even the whole way that youwere successful, you got into
this because you were, in theory, good at something.
So is this how we're going toreward success and high
performance?
(04:02):
Is here's this new challengethat I'm just not going to help
you with.
And I don't care.
I guess I don't care if you'regood at it or not.
As somebody who spends a lot oftime talking about leadership
and how to create success andhow to innovate and inspire
people to do new things, how canwe do that to managers?
It's just disturbing, right?
(04:22):
It would be like trying totrain your pets to go to the
bathroom outside but never openthe door.
What do you want them to do?
I don't understand.
So what are we doing?
There's a lot in this worldthat I'm like what are we doing?
But when I think about business, that's the thing that I just.
It blows my mind and makes mewant to pull my hair out.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Yeah I mean to your point is we're not setting them
up for success at all.
If there's a development piece,82% of people aren't even
getting trained.
Mel and I absolutely know thatto be true.
Very few organizations aredoing that and even if they are,
it's not necessarily thatthey're developing them the
right way, because managing is avery different skill than
individual contributor.
It's a completely differentturn.
We know it's one of the hardestroles to step into.
(05:11):
If you ask most people in theircareer ladder, that flip up
into manager was way harder thanthat flip up into executive.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Because it's just so different and I love your
analogy.
So we're basically saying, yeah, this is what you need to do,
but we're not allowing you to doit or we're not setting you up
for success to do it, ie openingthe door.
Is there anything that givesyou hope?
Because we absolutely agree onthat reality.
But is there anything whereyou're like?
But this is interesting.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Yeah, I think the thing that gives me hope is
there's a lot of people comingtogether around common
experiences right now, commongoals, desires.
I think 2025, when we look backon it in a couple of years will
be like a pivotal year forcommunity building.
That's my hope, that's one ofthe things that I really wanted
to see from this year and forchanging the way we think about
traditional dynamics.
So, whether that's how we usesomething like LinkedIn or how
(06:00):
we approach going to aconference or interacting with
each other online whichobviously I think could use an
overhaul but I'm seeing a lot ofpeople agree on what they see
Like we all agree that this ishappening to managers, right,
and we know what we want tochange.
I think there's not as muchdifference in philosophy or the
spectrum of thought around this.
(06:21):
There is about a bunch of otherissues, right.
So I think it's a littledifferent in that we want to
build thought around this.
There is about a bunch of otherissues, right.
So I think it's a littledifferent in that we want to
build community around this, andthat's a skill that we need to
learn in and of itself, and so Ithink it's going to be good for
us to come together on thatstuff and identify the things
that we want.
We've all been sold a lot ofwell, I'll say this bullshit
(06:44):
narratives about eithermanagement or what it means to
be a leader.
There's a lot of this likealpha talk and I have no time
for it, but it's one of thosethings that like pervades the
leadership space.
I just think it's going to beshort-lived and we're all going
to come together and identifysome things.
The need for managers maybewe'll get into this as we go,
(07:06):
but I don't think that the needfor managers is going to
disappear.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
I want to talk about that community piece real quick.
Community Are you seeingcommunity inside organizations
or are you seeing peopleactually going outside
organizations to find thatcommunity because it's the only
place they're getting it?
Speaker 1 (07:24):
I think both.
I think it's cool to seecommunity within organizations
because people are.
We talk about, we always talkabout like peer-to-peer learning
, but I think more and morepeople are realizing like I can
go to this person and get somekind of value, especially around
AI, right, I think that peopleare seeing the things that their
coworkers are doing with it andthey're going whoa, I didn't
(07:44):
know you could do that.
Teach me how to do that.
So they're learning a lot ofthings from each other and that,
in and of itself, is buildinginternal community.
But I also think, with all theselayoffs and the things that you
see, trust is low.
In some ways there's loyalty,but in other ways people are
like whoa, they ain't going tobe loyal to me, so why should I
be loyal to them?
They ain't going to be loyal tome, so why should I be loyal to
(08:06):
them?
And they want to go out andbuild their communities outside
of it.
So they're going to the thingthey're trying to build their
networks.
They're going to people thatthey have common visions with
and engaging more.
We're seeing that activity thateven you see in slack
communities, right, there's moreand more of that popping up and
there's a lot more groups outthere identifying that and going
, hey, I think we can createthis community.
(08:28):
The facilitation of that isincreasing as well, so there's
more options and there's moredesire to take advantage of it.
It just gets infused into sortof the culture and the way that
we all think I've got to be partof one of these things so that
I can continue to grow, becausethe organization's not going to
help me do it necessarily.
I think that is a thing that'scoming out now, but I ultimately
think that it's a good thing.
(08:48):
It's something that we all needto do anyways.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
There's this overall sentiment for managers right now
that, like I'm on my own and soI gotta figure this out, either
through community or internallyor externally, because my faith
that my company is gonna bedoing it for me or my leader is
going to be doing it for me isnil.
Am I reading that right?
Is that what you're hearing andfeeling?
Speaker 1 (09:25):
who's above you to help you.
It's generally like eitherdirector, like VPs or executives
who have no time or desire tohelp you figure out your
challenges and problems right.
They're just not going to stepin and help you.
And so who are you going toturn?
Yeah, you have to go to otherpeople that are having a common
experience and build some sortof rapport or understanding.
You have to find out what toolsare you using to understand
these problems better.
Where are you getting youradvice from that kind of thing?
(09:47):
And that's one of the thingsthat we see, partially because
we seek to be the thing that youwould go to.
Naturally, when we aresuccessful, we find that people
are gaining value from whatwe're doing.
That is part of what's driving.
It is like amongst managers.
And then you see, like theflattening of organizations
right, they're firing managersleft and right, so it's.
(10:08):
I don't even think they care ifI succeed or not.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
If I don't, they'll just use it as a reason to cut
my salary from the books and, Iguess, get ai to do it yeah,
yeah, which is funny thedeloitte human capital trends
just came out, which a lot oftimes is thought of as one of
the key indicators for wherehuman performance, human capital
consulting, is going right inall these organizations.
And they just were like psychshould be on, you shouldn't be
(10:35):
taking this manager layer andI'm like no shit Sherlock.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Let's not, yeah, so it's figure.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Yeah, having 67 direct reports as a VP didn't
work.
I'm shocked.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
I'm sure.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
Yeah, it's painful, we just covered a few weeks back
that, like Gen Z, has nointerest in even moving into the
management role, and there'sobviously a much better way that
people can be preparing peopleto be in this role.
Ideally, from the time you stepin the door as a junior level
employee, you're gaining thistraining before you.
From the time you step in thedoor as a junior level employee,
you're gaining this trainingbefore you even make it to that
(11:10):
step.
Right, so it isn't this bigsurprise or big shift.
You cover so many differentorganizations, so you see
excellent use cases and reallybad use cases.
What do you see being donereally well?
Speaker 1 (11:17):
It's tough to say, because I'd probably say
so-and-so is doing it right now,and then two weeks from now
they flatten half the thing.
So-and-so is doing it right now, and then two weeks from now,
they flattened half the.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
Thing.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
Yeah, it's tough to say who's getting it right and
who's getting it wrong.
If you're looking at it likeokay, no-transcript, and you're
actually giving them tools to dothat, then you're doing it
right.
One thing I've always said is,from the pandemic time, nobody
ever adjusted.
Nobody ever adjusted what theywere doing to manage differently
(11:49):
.
Right, we went to remote.
They didn't know how to do that.
That's part of the reasons whythere's a lot of reasons why
they want to force people backinto offices that are not great,
but one of them is they neverlearned how to do this any other
way, still doing things by theidea of butts in seats.
And then you realize, oh, theincrease in things like employee
monitoring software.
We talk about that all the timebecause it's one of the things
(12:09):
we do reviews on our website butyou see the increase in that
and you're like, is that healthy?
Is that any better than justlooking at butts in seats?
No, it's not a gauge ofproductivity.
They got these like mousejigglers and all these weird
gadgets you can buy to fakeproductivity, if that's how
you're going to measureproductivity.
And so the ones that are doingit right, I think, are like look
(12:33):
, you got to shift to likemeasuring output reasonably,
measuring outcomes responsibly.
Those are like two of the keythings.
Don't get lost on a goal.
You can create this really biginflated expectation and think
that's reasonable or responsible.
It's not.
(12:54):
It's about figuring out.
Okay, what does productivityactually look like?
Meaningful productivity, notjust like completing tasks or
creating a huge volume of work,because you can create a huge
volume of work.
But if it all sucks, what's thedifference?
It's not going to move theneedle.
We've got all these traditionalquotas and traditional ways of
thinking about things likeproductivity, things like
(13:15):
business impact.
We've got to get away from itbeing so role-specific, it being
quota specific.
I would say in a lot of cases,a lot of it is like volume of
what people are doing ratherthan the velocity or the value
of what they're doing.
So the ones that are thinkingahead and trying to change that
are doing it right.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
Yeah, thinking about more meaningful impact than just
like checking the box.
And we hear it all the time,francesca and I get people
reaching out to us.
They're feeling the squeeze atthe top from the executives that
they're reporting up to, orthey're a manager, their senior
manager, who's getting it fromthe executive right.
And then they're also dealingwith the emotions of their own
(13:57):
team and the things that they'reexperiencing in the day to day.
So they're just what's thatsong Stuck in the Middle with
you?
They're just really all stuckin this kind of hellish
landscape of the middle beingpulled in a million directions
but also not feeling cared forin either way.
If someone's in that spaceright now, what advice do you
have for them if they're in thesqueeze?
Speaker 1 (14:19):
Yeah, it's tough right, because we're in this
period where executive demandsare just so out of touch with
the experience and the realityof the lives people are living.
They could use this moment togain trust and instead they've
used it to put in RTO orders andtalk about 60-hour work weeks.
A lot of what we're seeing,especially when they start
yapping in the media, justerodes people's image of what
(14:41):
leadership is right.
So if you're in that space, Ithink the thing that you got to
do is basically do whatever youcan to increase transparency
about what's going on in the org, what's going on with roles and
I know transparency is one ofthose words that gets overused
to the point that it meanssomething different to everybody
but just try to be real withpeople about what's happening.
(15:05):
Respect them as adults.
Okay, what's going on withtheir roles?
What skills do they need?
Just be human about it.
Be real.
Everybody's terrified that alayoff is coming all the time.
Now they're responding to whatthey see out in the world and
what they want to see is youbeing a human being with them.
They can't trust you more thanthe AI.
(15:26):
If you feel like some soullesscorporate suit, right, they
might as well just listen to theall-knowing robot overlord
that's going to own their future.
That's why Gen Z wants to go tothe AI instead of their manager
.
So you've got to find a way toestablish good faith.
You've got an find a way toestablish like good faith.
You've got an employeepopulation right now that has no
(15:46):
faith in leadership, and thenyou end up, if you don't do this
right, you end up looking likea shill for people who are out
there saying all these things inthe media, or people who are
just maybe not understanding thebasics of their existence
essentially, and it damages yourability to establish a
relationship or trust with them.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
Why do you think people don't do this?
Mel and I, in our research, wetalk a lot about the
boss-employee-boss relationship,because it is a relationship
I'm curious about.
Why don't you think managersshow up as a human?
What's going on there?
Speaker 1 (16:22):
I think there's a couple of reasons.
One is the manager is expectedto deliver certain things from
the business, certain outcomes,and so it gets a little bit like
it's not like they have anyshortage of meetings and work to
do themselves, so they'realready bogged down and they've
got a lot of pressure from thebusiness to deliver results
bogged down and they've got alot of pressure from the
(16:43):
business to deliver results.
On top of that, you're talkingabout a couple of generations
that have been, I would say,systematically weaponized
against each other by medianarratives.
Right, everything is Gen Z this, but for a long time it was
millennials and their damnavocado toast.
Right, everything's just.
(17:07):
Oh, this group is awful, awful,and what you end up with is like
a group of people.
They kind of look at each otherweird to begin with, and then
you've got really big shiftsthat happen because of
technology.
Right, like millennials and genz, they don't like phone calls,
they don't even want to go tomeetings.
Yeah, we were talking aboutsomebody on the phone.
Just text me, or couldn't thismeeting have been an email?
How many times have you heardthat?
But it's an old fashioned wayto get together.
(17:28):
Talk about it, just settle it,and so you're not communicating
to people how they want to becommunicated to.
In a lot of cases, you're notunderstanding their culture,
essentially because there's agedifferences or different ways of
doing things that you grew upwith.
Because when you grew up, thatdidn't exist, like when I
entered the workforce, slackwasn't a thing, it just didn't
(17:48):
exist.
We did everything by email.
But you combine all thattogether and you've got a place
where people just don'tunderstand each other.
I feel like and managers, ifthey are typically a little bit
more advanced in their careerright now you're probably
talking about somebody in theirmid-30s to late-40s, let's say,
(18:09):
a 24-year-old those experiencesare wildly different, right, and
their expectations are wildlydifferent.
You interpret things at workdifferently, and now they're
being polarized by everything.
Oh, I don't understand them andtheir pronouns and those like
that.
It's constantly one thing afteranother to highlight our
(18:29):
differences, never ourcommonalities.
We never talk about the thingsthat we experience the same way.
We never talk about the thingsthat affect us in the same way.
So that's why there is no trustFor managers.
It's going to have to be aconscious effort on your part to
sit down, make a lot of eyecontact.
Really, you know what I mean Notan awkward amount, but be
(18:56):
present with somebody, be in theroom with them, see them as a
person, learn about things likeenergy and body language and
personal dynamics, what it isthat might be sitting between
you and somebody that you'refinding it difficult to connect
with.
Those are the things like as amanager.
This job is going to becomeless and less about technical
skills, I'm convinced, because alot of all the technical stuff
(19:18):
you'll just be able to do itwith AI.
The thing that's going todifferentiate you as a manager
is your ability to connect toanother human being and to see
within them what it is you cando to help them achieve that.
But it's not easy to do andit's inherently awkward for
groups that are different likethat, I would say.
Easy, but it's simple it doesn'tactually require too much
(19:41):
technical thought.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
It doesn't, and it's so fun because to point out,
like commonalities right,there's way more that we have in
common.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
humans really don't need a lot, they really don't
there seems to be a huge missedopportunity we've reported on,
like the silver tsunami that'scoming in 2030 and all the the
knowledge that we should belearning, but is there a huge
missed opportunity happeningright now for organizations to
have more intergenerationalconnections and community
(20:11):
building to help bridge that gapand have that conversation,
especially as we're goingthrough these major transitions?
Is that a space where companiesshould really be focusing?
Speaker 1 (20:21):
I would say yes.
Here's the challenge, though.
We're basically likeconditioned to distrust each
other, right?
So, like older folks, theydon't want to trust Gen Z
because they're entitled or lazyor whatever the stereotypes
they peddle about them.
And you've got like the OKboomer side to it where it's
just oh, here they go, and wespend all this time thinking
(20:44):
about our differences.
There's not a lot of motivationto go.
Okay, maybe he doesn't get thisAI thing, but he was in the
workforce when the internet cameabout and that must've been a
huge shift.
What lessons did he learn fromthat?
They're not motivated to askthat question because inherently
, you'd have to be interested inthem or see their value, see
their humanity, and everythingthat we do is meant to polarize
(21:07):
and tear us apart, but it's hardto create something totally
different within the walls ofyour organization when the
broader culture is constantlypeppering people with this
narrative of difference.
It makes it difficult for us tolearn from each other unless
there's some other connector.
We did a thing at work.
We were just messing aroundwith Sora when it came out, and
(21:30):
my team and I we were like, whatif we did this with it?
I said, well, have it, make methe Pope.
And then it did and I was like,oh my God, that's hilarious.
That looks ridiculous.
Now make it, make all of you mycardinals.
So I did that and it wasridiculous.
And then we were like, okay,now give all the cardinals
(21:50):
blowout hairstyles.
And the images were so funny.
We were all laughing so hard.
I can't remember the last timewe all laughed this hard
together, but it was lovely.
It was like we had a greatbonding moment out of it that I
ended up making this video.
But I thought to myself youcould use that, though In terms
(22:10):
of management.
You can use that to create allkinds of experiences, to change
people's narratives about eachother.
If you got somebody from Gen Zguiding somebody from Gen X or a
baby boomer through thatexperience and they're joking
around and working through ittogether to make the funniest,
goofiest, stupidest thing theycan make, well, all of a sudden,
(22:30):
in that moment, you are justlike two human beings having a
good time, and that should beokay.
At work, us learn from eachother and figure out.
Okay, I don't agree with themon everything, but maybe Tom
over there, maybe he has an ideaabout how this could work.
That's what we need.
(22:51):
We need that institutionalknowledge to transfer somehow,
and it can't just be throughSOPs and internal documentation.
Speaker 3 (22:58):
Right, like it's going to have to be that
conversation.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
Yeah, it has to be.
That's the only way.
That's really the only waypeople are going to remember it
or actually apply it.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
We talked a little bit about, organizations are
ripping out the middle, and nowwe also see there's definitely
well, let's not do that and it'sjust a turmoil across the board
.
What does all of this mean forsomeone who maybe has invested
years of their life so far justto reach the manager level, and
now they've made it, and this isthe year they're experiencing?
(23:36):
What does this all mean forthem?
What advice would you give tosomeone who's in that place?
Speaker 1 (23:41):
does this all mean for them?
What advice would you give tosomeone who's in that place?
It's difficult, right?
Like you spent 10 years tryingto climb the ladder and then now
the ladder has been abandonedand about to fall over, with you
on it, right?
Speaker 3 (23:51):
Yeah, it's like the top rungs are gone, the bottom
that you were on are gone andnow you're just hanging on.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
You're like the whole thing rotted out from under me,
yeah, but it does mean thatyou're going to have to be as
flexible as you can when itcomes to things like upskilling,
(24:17):
showing your skills differently, finding ways to play the game
in a different way, showcasingyour impact essentially on any
project or whatever it is thatyou're working on, ascend in an
organization.
I'm looking really hard at howI can showcase my outcomes and
basically build narratives abouthow I've been a driving force
behind whatever it is we weretrying to do and how I integrate
tech into my skillset.
So you want to be reallyflexible around that.
I work in an editorial space.
Right, we are, I would say, ingeneral, we are, I would say, in
(24:42):
general, a curmudgeonly bunch.
Anyways, editors are notlighthearted and high-spirited
people.
most of the time there's alwaysa lot of resistance to anything.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
You guys don't have a fun committee there's no fun
committee.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
The fun committee is occasionally get together, have
a few drinks and have a bigbitch session.
You're constantly trying tounderstand things in a different
way or look at it in adifferent way, and a lot of this
AI stuff does make you go oh,what is this?
Oh God.
But one of the things that'sbeen tough for everybody is that
, essentially, the job as it wasfive years ago doesn't exist
anymore.
The term editor is actuallystarting to mean something
(25:21):
different, and you've got to becomfortable with that.
You got to be prepared tointegrate tech into it.
However, you're going to do it,and this is not just our roles.
This is across the spectrum ofroles within the workforce,
whether it's marketing or you'redoing coding.
The things that you thoughtwere going to be central or core
to your work aren't necessarilythat anymore, and you're going
(25:42):
to have to figure out how you'regoing to be flexible and
adaptable and learn to use thisstuff to do it better, quicker,
in different ways than you'veever done it before.
Speaker 3 (25:52):
Francesca I think I used to say this to you a long
time ago where I was, likeeveryone needs to start to tap
into their inner Madonna, whohas painted herself like a
million times over the last 40years Got to tap into that right
Reinvention.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Yeah, don't be attached to your title.
Be attached to things thatmatter.
Your salary matters, it's howyou pay your bills.
Your title is not how you payyour bills.
I've always said you can callme the head schmuck in charge, I
don't care.
Call me whatever you want.
This is what I want to make.
This is what I want my benefitspackage to look like those
(26:31):
concrete things that make mylife possible.
That's what I'm after.
You can call me whatever youwant, I don't care.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
And don't let work define your self-worth.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
You shouldn't even really connect it to your worth
at all, like at all.
One of the things that we didrecently was we did a survey
about the TV show Severance.
We did a survey asking wouldyou get the procedure?
Speaker 2 (26:54):
What is Severance about for those that don't?
Speaker 1 (26:56):
know.
So, essentially, severance is adystopian workplace drama, in
which this company called LumenIndustries, I think it is has
created a way so that you cansever your personality between
work and your private life, sowhen you're at work, you don't
remember anything about yourprivate life, and when you're in
your private life, you don'tremember anything about work.
(27:16):
It's called your innie and youroutie, right, and so you live
these two completely separatelives, not knowing, and you just
know that you have to go likehere at this time kind of thing.
So I asked people would you doit?
I had been asked by a UKjournalist in response to a UK
survey that found that 12% ofthe UK population would do it.
So I was like let's see if wecan find out a little bit more
(27:39):
about the US and Canada.
So we did our own version of it, and, for us, 20% said either
definitely or they probablywould 20%.
Wow, 20%.
Here's the really disturbingpart, though.
We asked people what would bethe amount of money that you
would need to consider, andalmost 70 gave a price only 30.
(28:05):
I wouldn't do it for any amountof money.
Almost 70 had an amount inwhich they were like yeah, I'll
do it for that I was like oh man, what does that say say about
us, when we're at with work, howwe're connected to it?
People aren't seeing valuebetween what they learn at work
and applying it into their life.
(28:25):
Every experience I've hadinforms who I am as a person.
That includes what happened atwork, not just the stuff that
was outside of it.
But I think other people aren'tmaybe seeing the connection or
aren't seeing the value of theconnection, and that's a little
disturbing and sad, quitefrankly.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
Let's extrapolate that to the US population that
20% of the population wants tohasa dollar amount figure that
they would go for to sever theirwork.
Mind it's actually almost abenefit, yeah, To cause yourself
a traumatic brain injury.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
It's actually almost a benefit, yeah, to cause
yourself a traumatic braininjury.
That's essentially what it is,if you think about it.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
Yeah, it brings a really interesting question
around what's the biggest thingthat needs to change?
If you could change one thingthat would make the role of a
manager more palatable right now, or at least not want to have
to sever some sort of autonomy.
(29:23):
Basically, what would need tochange?
Speaker 1 (29:26):
This isn't just a workplace thing.
This is how we all serve, andI'm not to get too political
here, but too much of our livesis now dedicated to serving
capitalism.
Essentially, that's really whatit is.
This idea that labor unions arebad was the beginning of the
(29:47):
end for reasonable behaviorabout work.
And you think about the wayEurope constructs work and what
their expectations are forpeople.
It's very pretty reasonable.
But in the United States yourlife is work.
Your value to the society istied to whether or not you have
a job and what you do withinthat job, how much money you
(30:08):
make, how much you consume.
All of our lives is essentiallyin some service to capitalism
when you really break it downand that would have to change
culturally in order for this toget totally better.
Because what people are reallytrying to block out when they
answer that question is the wayin which they serve it, and
(30:30):
they'd almost rather just notremember it than have to deal
with all the demands of it andtrying to make it match their
personal values, Because that'shard.
A lot of organizations reallydon't.
How often are you going to finda job that matches your
personal values?
If you I don't know care aboutthe planet.
It's hard Culturally.
We just have to shift away fromyour purpose is to serve the
(30:53):
machine, and I don't know ifthat's going to happen.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
I think these Gen B kids are gonna do it.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
I have a lot of faith in them.
I do?
I have a lot they've had a realI'm not gonna put up with this
shit kind of attitude and I'mlike good for you guys.
You know children are ourfuture, yeah we'll see how alpha
does when they get there.
Speaker 3 (31:28):
We do this thing called wrap it round, where
we'll ask you a question.
You can respond yes, no orelaborate if you feel so.
How do you?
Speaker 1 (31:36):
feel All right.
Yeah, I'm going to ask anybodyI work with.
I'm super long-winded all thetime, so I'm always going to
elaborate.
Speaker 3 (31:43):
Let's do that.
This is where the juice comes,so we love it.
So it's 2030.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
What's work going to look like?
Well, haven't you heard?
We're all going to be wanderingaround trying to figure out
what our purpose is in life.
Least you listen to bill gates,right?
I do think it'll be verymechanical, like in all respects
, like robots will be in theworkplace.
They've made it to agi thewhite collar jobs.
I don't know if they'll existor not.
There's this cool thing goingaround.
It's called like ai 2027.com,and somebody ran like a
(32:15):
simulation based on all currentevents and everything, and it
was very, I don't know to say,enlightening or disturbing, but
it was interesting.
Let's just put it that way.
I don't know, will white collarjobs exist in five years?
Maybe, but this goes all theway up to the ceo, right,
because strategy is a skill likeit'll do that better, it'll do
(32:36):
decision making better,supposedly.
Yeah, creative tasks you goright down the list, and they
may even do some of the bluecollar stuff too, better too.
I was saying to somebodyrecently that old saying
plumbers rule the world.
They do, I don't, I do, they do.
And I don't know if it'll doplumbing as well.
Speaker 3 (32:51):
So maybe plumbing is the thing to get into someone
who lives in an old house in newengland.
I don't know if AI is going tobe able to navigate it like Joe.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
Yeah, because Joe has just been rigging that thing
for years.
Speaker 3 (33:06):
He's been in every janky house.
He knows how to navigate aroundhere.
It's so interesting you saythat as you respond about
Shopify's CEO, who is askingeveryone to justify hiring for
humans and to showcase what theyconsider to use AI first before
they put in human bodies.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
We're always trying to see that.
I read that same memo.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
Yeah, yeah, okay, let's move on to something a
little more fun, a little morepersonal.
What music are you listening toright now?
What's hyping you up?
Speaker 1 (33:36):
It's spring and I'm going through this like reliving
of my college music listening,and I'm listening to a lot of
like early to mid 2000s indiehip hop at the moment Indie hip
hop.
Yeah, what do you?
Speaker 2 (33:47):
consider indie hip hop.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
Oh God, jedi mind tricks and yeah, like stuff that
was like not on the radio atthe time, so it was like very,
we used to call it underground.
Now they just label it indie,same thing as they do with rock
music.
Speaker 3 (34:04):
What are you reading or listening to right now?
Speaker 1 (34:08):
I started this book called the Fourth Turning, by
William Strauss and Neil Howe.
It's about American history.
They present it as seasons it'slike 80 to 100 year cycles, and
it presents the idea that weare currently in a historical
winter, which is a verydifficult time, and spring will
eventually come.
But it breaks down the lasthundred years as like examples
(34:30):
of these seasons.
I can't speak too much about it.
I've only just started it.
Speaker 3 (34:34):
It's interesting.
Yeah, it's interesting to seethe patterns and maybe what to
look out for.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
Now I'm curious did you get to the part where are we
in winter, Because it feelslike we're like Minnesota
January.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
I think we're all just to that point where it's
like the post-Christmasdepression.
Speaker 3 (34:54):
Like I got bills and I'm on a holiday hangover.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
You're just like I don't know.
At least the football playoffsare on.
I can just eat chicken wingswhenever I want.
Speaker 3 (35:07):
Who do you really admire?
Speaker 1 (35:09):
Former Liverpool FC manager, jurgen Klopp, is one of
my favorite people in the world.
I look up to him a great deal,not just because I'm a big
supporter of the football clubitself, but because he's an
incredible example of what aleader could be, and he's just
an example of how to transformculture and, honestly, just a
lovely human being.
Speaker 3 (35:30):
Okay, what's a piece of advice you wish everyone knew
?
Speaker 1 (35:35):
I was once given a really valuable piece of advice
that I think is great forleaders and really anyone
working with other human beingsto remember, and it's that you
can't expect something you'velearned through experience to be
common sense for somebody else.
And it's just one of thosethings like you think why
wouldn't they do that?
So you didn't know how to dothat.
(35:56):
Always, like, eventually, youlearn that because you broke the
thing or you made the mistake,and so don't expect anybody else
to just know that because youthink it's a thing that you're
supposed to know.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
All right, David, so awesome to talk with you today.
Thanks so much for joining us.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
Yeah, yeah, I hope I didn't ramble, too much.
No, it's awesome?
Speaker 3 (36:22):
Not at all, not at all.
And hey, how can our listenersbest connect with you Of?
Speaker 1 (36:26):
course, you can get in touch with me on LinkedIn.
I'm easy enough to find onthere.
Be sure to check out to thePeople Managing People podcast.
I'm the host on there.
If you come over topeoplemanagingpeoplecom, you can
get signed up for thenewsletter and I'm always
sending on a regular basis, acouple of times a week,
different messages from us, andthen come to one of our events.
That's what I really recommend.
Our next one is dedicated toRTO mandates.
(36:48):
It's on April 24th, but, yeah,give me a follow and don't
hesitate to reach out.
Awesome, all right, thanks forbeing here.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
Thank you to reach out Awesome.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
All right, thanks for being here, thank you.
Speaker 3 (36:59):
This episode was produced, edited and all things
by us myself, mel Plett andFrancesca Ranieri.
Our music is by Pink Zebra andif you loved this conversation
and you want to contribute yourthoughts with us, please do.
You can visit us atyourworkfriendscom, but you can
(37:20):
also join us over on LinkedIn.
We have a LinkedIn communitypage and we have the TikToks and
Instagrams.
So please join us in thesocials and if you like this and
you've benefited from thisepisode and you think someone
else can benefit from thisepisode, please rate and
subscribe.
We'd really appreciate it.
That helps keep us going.
(37:40):
Take care, friends.
Bye, friends.
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