The Modern Manager

Is your organization more like a stoplight or a round-a-bout? That may seem like an odd question but while they do the same thing (manage traffic intersections), they operate in fundamentally different ways.

This week’s guest, Aaron Dignan, has spent the past 10 years studying organizations and teams with a new way of working that prioritizes adaptivity and autonomy over efficiency and control. Aaron contends that teams everywhere need to join them in the future of work.

As the Founder of ​The Ready​—a global organizational transformation and coaching practice—he helps companies large and small adopt new forms of self-organization and dynamic teaming. Aaron is an active angel investor and helps build partnerships between the startups and end-ups he advises. He’s also a co-founder of Responsive.org. And he has sat on advisory boards for GE, American Express, PepsiCo, and Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum, as well as the board of directors for Smashburger. He is the author of ​Game Frame​ (Free Press, 2011) and ​Brave New Work​ (Portfolio 2019).

Aaron and I talk about the origins of “modern management practices” and why they no longer serve us, what old vs new operating systems look like and how to being transitioning your team to work in brave new ways.

Read the related blog article:  Embracing the Future of Modern Management

Join the Modern Manager community to get Aaron’s OS Canvas PDF and instructions on how to use it to support your learning journey! Join by June 30, 2019 and get two special gifts - a Modern Manager mini-notebook and a Meeteor meeting notebook to help you distill meeting outcomes.

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I need your help: What's challenging about being a manager? Share your experience here: www.mamieks.com/new-course 

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• Current management practices were developed when work was primarily done on a factory floor. The goal was efficiency. Yet today’s work context is very different - one in which the market is constantly changing, the work itself is evolving, and the goal is to be nimble and adaptive.
• Complicated systems are machines that can be fixed and optimized, like a wrist watch. Complex systems are dynamic and unpredictable. They can be managed but not solved, like a garden. Companies are complex and we need to stop treating them like machines and start approaching them more like gardens.
• It’s time to update our “operating systems” - the underlying assumptions and norms that guide how we work. We need do annual planning and more dynamic planning, empower the people doing the work to make decisions as they learn.
• For every process and practice in the workplace, there is a “command and control” way of doing it and a “trust and empower” way of doing it. Our organizations are overwhelmingly command and control oriented.
• The job of a manager is not to create perfect execution - it’s to create continually growing capability.
• Start by asking your team members: "What's stopping you from doing the best work of your life?" and then ask "Well, what can we do in our team to take one step forward on that issue."

KEEP UP WITH AARON

Website: https://theready.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/aarondignan

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aarondignan/

Book: https://www.bravenewwork.com/

It’s been 1 year since I launched The Modern Manager podcast. To celebrate, I take a look back at some of my favorite episodes and lessons learned, and share plans for the future, including some exciting changes.

Get all the free mini-guides (episodes 1-52) in a single download.

There is a new community! Join the Modern Manager community to get the full guides, guest bonuses, access to the forum and more. Join before June 30th and get two special bonus gifts: a Modern Manager mini-notebook (usually reserved only as a thank you gift for my guests) and Meeteor meeting log to help clarify your meeting outcomes.

Subscribe to my newsletter to get episodes, articles and mini-guides delivered to your inbox.

I'm launching a new course for managers! Share you thoughts and get 10% off when the course launches: www.mamieks.com/new-course

Key Takeaways:

• Lesson from Elise Keith: Productive meetings is a mindset - when you expect meetings to be a waste of time, you don’t invest time preparing for them which results in the meeting being a waste of time, further proving they’re a necessary evil. Break this mental downward spiral by seeing meetings as an important place where work gets done and preparing appropriately.
• Lesson from Rob Toomey: Before responding to a colleague or team member, pause and consider how you can communicate in a way that’s best for them rather than what’s easiest for you.
• Lesson from Tara Mohr: Rather than trying to argue with someone’s inner critic, help them recognize that it’s their inner critic who is speaking out of fear, rather than a voice that is speaking from your aspirations or potential.
• Lesson from Robleh Kirce: When giving feedback, start by getting permission to speak with them about feedback. Share your observations without judgement by focusing on facts and the impact. Then open the conversation to hear their thinking.
• Lesson from Jesse Fowl: To help unleash more creative and risky ideas, focus on learning rather than success. Treat ideas that generate learnings (both what works and what doesn’t) as equally valuable.

Additional Resources:

• Episode 10: Effective Meetings with Elise Keith
• Episode 14: Personality and Preferences with Rob Toomey
• Episode 26: Quieting the Inner Critic with Tara Mohr
• Episode 32: Give and Receive Better Feedback with Robleh Kirce
• Episode 38: How to Unleash New Ideas Through Failure with Jesse Fowl
• Episode 23: Getting a Handle on Procrastination
• Episode 37: Designing Your Management Style
• Get my book Momentum
• Meeting Leadership online course
• Personality and Preference Coaching Options

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How many languages do you speak or understand? Learning a new language helps you appreciate the importance and nuance of language and how it impacts your ability to communicate and connect with others. Leadership and management have their own language which you can learn.

This week’s guest, Krister Ungerboeck, is a CEO Coach, and expert in The Language of Leadership.  Prior to retiring at age 42, Krister was the award-winning CEO of one of the largest family-owned software companies in the world.  His expertise in the Language of Leadership is based upon his unique experience as a global CEO leading teams in three languages while observing and doing business with executives in over 40 countries, building businesses in six and living in three

Krister and I talk about the importance of language as a manager, how to use language to engage people, and how positivity can transform productivity.

Join the Modern Manager community to get special four tools from Krister including a leadership assessment, plus episode guides and other guest bonuses to support your learning journey!

Subscribe to my newsletter to get episodes, articles and mini-guides delivered to your inbox.

Read the related blog article:  How Language Can Make You a Better Manager

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• Leadership or management is all about how you use language.
• Even when the underlying meaning is consistent, how you say it matters. Choose words that are too strong and you risk alienated people. Choose words that are too soft and you risk not getting the behavior you’re asking for.
• Power your productivity with positivity by setting metrics that allow each person to compete with themselves rather than each other. Aim for each person to become their personal best. This eliminates room for excuses and allows everyone to be celebrated.
• Create metrics that can always be increased rather than a percentage so there is always room for improvement.
• It takes lots of energy to figure out answers, but asking good questions is often easier and leads to better answers.
• Ask open-ended questions that generally start with ‘what’ or ‘how’ as these will lead to more interesting answers than yes/no questions or questions that are really ideas disguised as questions.
• To improve your emotional intelligence, try guessing at the emotion the other person may be experiencing and why. What is it they’re needing?
• Use language like “I’m wondering if you’re frustrated by…because you want more autonomy to make decisions,” or “I’d imagine you’re feeling excluded from…because the team didn’t loop you in at the start of the project.”
• If your guess is accurate, the person will reinforce it, but if it’s not, they’ll likely correct you. This gives you more accurate information and helps them articulate their situation.

KEEP UP WITH KRISTER

Website: krister.com

Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/theleadershiparchaeologist

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/meetkrister

Book: https://www.krister.com/book

Unfortunately, bullying is not limited to kids and playgrounds.  

This week’s guest, Matt Paknis, is a senior management consultant who focuses on lessening bullying in the workplace. He was a former assistant coach at Penn State under Joe Paterno and has spoken publicly about being abused as a child. He is the author of Successful Leaders Aren’t Bullies and has over twenty-five years of experience helping global clients embrace healthy management practices.

Warning: The content of this episode is likely not appropriate for young audiences.

Matt and I talk about what makes a person act as a bully, what bullying is, what to do if you are bullied or observe someone being bullied, the legal stuff and more.

Join the Modern Manager community to get 10% off a speaking or consulting engagement with Matt. Plus, get past and future episode guides and guest bonuses to support your learning journey!

Subscribe to my newsletter to get episodes, articles and mini-guides delivered to your inbox.

Read the related blog article: Dealing With A Workplace Bully

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• Bullying in the workplace is repetitive, intentional, very negative, even derogatory language and actions that undermine motivation, capability and trust.
• Bullies are often afraid that you’ll outshine them so they set you up to fail.
• The best employees are often the targets of bullying because they're the ones that are most apt to trigger the incompetence fear of the boss.
• A tough boss sets high expectations and then supports you, even if it’s with tough love, to meet them. You always know they’ll go to bat for you and you’re on the same side even when they’re being hard on you.
• Organizations without clear goals, roles and processes are primed for bullying. Bullies take advantage of the lack of clarity while victims don’t have the structure to back up their concerns.
• One of the best things you can do as a manager to prevent bullying is to be clear about roles, goals and processes. Encourage other managers to do the same.
• 5% of the people in an organization will be perpetrators of bullying. 10% will be targets. 85% will be bystanders.
• If you are experiencing bullying or observe someone else being bullied, report it to HR and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. In most states, recording is legal with one party consent - be sure to check your state’s laws. If you're being bullied, you're the one person that's consenting to that recording so you can record the conversation. Then bring that to a labor attorney or the EEOC, or the human rights commission and they'll refer you to a reputable attorney in the area.

Other resources:

• Episode 6: The Importance of Healthy Workplace Culture w/ Fran Sepler

KEEP UP WITH MATT

Website: http://www.mattpaknis.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-paknis-7227454/
 Twitter: https://twitter.com/mattpaknis?lang=en
 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/matt_paknis/

Virtual meetings are laden with problems. Incorrect or missing call-in numbers, strange echoes, and the occasional choppy connection delay and interrupt what is already a difficult situation. But even without technological issues, virtual meetings have all the typical challenges of in-person meetings and more. So how do we make virtual meetings engaging and productive?

Get the free mini-guide with suggestions for virtual meeting practices and how to use technology to enhance your online gatherings.

When you join the Modern Manager community, get the full guide with step-by-step instructions for using Trello to facilitate brainstorming, along with access to prior episode guides and guest bonuses.

Subscribe to my newsletter to get episodes, articles and mini-guides delivered to your inbox.

Key Takeaways:

• Virtual meetings feel less important than in-person meetings, so we treat them with less respect.
• It’s easy to hide during a virtual meeting which enables multi-tasking, coming unprepared and not being noticed, and/or avoiding participating in general.
• For teams that are not generally co-located, virtual meetings may be mis-used for relationship building.
• To make virtual meetings more engaging and productive, treat them more like in-person meetings:
• (1) Have a desired outcome, agenda, and prework. Be more intentional in planning them and take them seriously even though they may feel informal.
• (2) Clarify your virtual meeting practices as a team. Consider norms for processes, technology, and participation so everyone is aligned and expectations are shared.
• (3) Use technology to drive focus and engagement. Use video over audio. Use Trello to mimic sticky-note brainstorming. Use Zoom breakout rooms to mimic small group discussions, etc.
• (4) Use a chat tool to build relationships between meetings. Create ‘water cooler’ channels so people have a place to talk about interests outside of work instead of using meeting time to connect.

Additional Resources:

• episode 33: Do You Really Need That Meeting

[email protected]

What sets apart great leaders and high performers from everyone else? Why is it that some people seem to create magic over and over again for themselves in their personal life, with their team, or their organization?

This week’s guest,  Rob Shallenberger, is one of the world's leading authorities on leadership, planning, and execution. Rob is the CEO of Becoming Your Best Global Leadership and has spoken to and trained more than 200 organizations around the world.

Rob and I talk about two of the 12 principles of highly effective leaders. Rob shares stories and examples of how these principles can transform your life and your team. We also get into the process of pre-week planning, what Rob calls a “game changer” for managers and employees alike.

Join the Modern Manager community to get 30% off the Becoming Your Best Planner plus episode guides and other guest bonuses to support your learning journey!

Subscribe to my newsletter to get episodes, articles and mini-guides delivered to your inbox. 

Read the related blog article:  How to Become a Great Leader

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• Rob and his father studied high performers in a variety of roles and industries and distilled 12 principles of highly successful leaders.
• Putting the 12 principles into action together creates a chemistry of excellence that is predictive of success.
• Principle 2: Lead with vision - This means having an articulated, written down vision for the team as well as for yourself. And, as a manager, helping each of your team members to define their own vision which will help them achieve their highest potential.
• It’s incredibly powerful when everyone knows the vision, is inspired by it, and takes actions in line with achieving it.
• Principle 4: Prioritize your time - 68% of people feel their number one challenge is how to prioritize their time. In order to be a transformational leader or effective manager, you need to focus on the things that matter most.
• The things that matter least will always be pulling at us, whereas often, the things that matter most, get lost in the chaos.
• This single biggest game changer for most managers is doing pre-week planning. For 20-30 minutes, between Friday afternoon and Sunday night, look at your vision and goals, the roles you play (parent, friend, spouse, self, etc) then do a mini brainstorm on what you can do this week that matters for each of the topics. Then schedule these onto your calendar.
• The pre-week planning process is simple, but developing the habit of doing it can be hard. Set two reminders for yourself over the weekend to trigger you to do the pre-week planning.
• Read Becoming Your Best with your entire team, practice together applying one principle per month.

KEEP UP WITH ROB

Website: www.BecomingYourBest.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/byb

We all experience stress at work. Ideally, it’s short lived and easily manageable. When a heightened state of stress becomes the new normal, you may be on the way to burnout. While burnout is the extreme and typically rare case, it’s critical to notice when stress, frustration, overload and overwhelm are taking over. They’re the signs burnout may be coming.

Get the free mini-guide with questions to help you identify stressors in your life and your team members’ lives.

When you join the Modern Manager community, get the full guide with suggestions for how to manage stress, along with access to prior episode guides, guest bonuses and 30% off personality based coaching to help you better understand your preferences and learn new strategies to help you be a rockstar manager.

When you join before midnight Eastern April 23, 2019, you are eligible to win a free coaching session with Amy Born, guest from episode 44: Manager as Coach.

Subscribe to my newsletter to get episodes, articles and mini-guides delivered to your inbox. 

Key Takeaways:

• Job burnout is different from depression or other mental or emotional conditions.
• Burnout occurs when you are physically or emotionally exhausted from work in ways that lead to a sense of lack of accomplishment, reduced motivation, and loss of personal identity.
• Burnout is caused by a number of factors including (1) lack of control, (2) unclear expectations, (3) extremes of activity, (4) dysfunctional workplace dynamics, (5) lack of social support, and (6) work-life imbalance.
• Look for signs of stress, frustration, overload and overwhelm so you can manage stress and avoid burnout.
• Find a de-stressor that works for you which you can use ‘in the moment’ to regain a sense of calm.
• Change your situation or change the environment. Do something to get yourself out of the stressful situation if only for a few days.
• Plan a no-meetings day each month to catch up on work, have uninterrupted focus time or do some self care.
• Admit when you’ve got too much on your plate and ask for help or let things go.
• Know what’s most important so you can make choices and not feel guilty.
• Invest in your health by getting enough sleep, exercise and healthy eating.
• Nourish your soul and recharge by doing things you love.
• Remember why you do the work you do and what about your role you find meaningful.
• If all else fails, consider if it’s time to change organizations, fields, roles or careers.

Additional Resources:

• Episode 19: Time Management Methods, Mindsets and Approaches
• Mayo Clinic article: Job Burnout: how to spot job it and take action

[email protected]

Team building can develop relationships in ways that profoundly impact the team. When people get to know each other, they are able to work together more effectively and efficiently. 

This week’s guest, Amani Roberts, is a DJ, music producer, podcaster professor and creative who loves to help people unlock their creativity by teaching them how to DJ. After a successful career as a corporate executive, Amani took the leap into the creative space.

Amani and I talk about his experience in both corporate and creative settings, lessons learned, and his new business of team building through DJing.

Join the Modern Manager community to get 25% off Amani's team building program plus episode guides and other guest bonuses to support your learning journey!

Subscribe to my newsletter to get episodes, articles and mini-guides delivered to your inbox.

Read the related blog article:  Insightful Management Lessons from a DJ

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• Creatives and those with an arts background tend to be more comfortable taking risks and being vulnerable. It comes from years of practice in their art-making of creating something new, pushing themselves and the boundaries and getting feedback.
• As DJ or manager, it’s helpful to be able to read the room - to look around and recognize when the energy has dropped, people are mentally checked-out, feeling frustrated or uncomfortable. Look for signals of disengagement such as: leaning back in the chair, eyes wandering the room or glazing over, starting to speak but then stopping.
• Music is a universal language that brings people together and helps them learn about each other.
• A great team building activity will transform a group of uncertain participants into a high energy, engaged group. At the end of the exercise, the people will still be talking about the experience and connecting personally.
• Team building should be fun with times of laughter, but also serious in that people are authentically connecting. With music, it’s not unusual for people to become emotional and that enhances the relationships.
• Team building brings people together into a tighter team, enabling them to work more effectively and efficiently together. It’s like a shortcut that speeds up the getting to know each other process, even if you’ve known each other or worked along side each other for years.
• Especially for geographically dispersed teams, the relationships and bonds that get formed in these activities can have a halo effect that lasts for weeks, months or even years afterward.

KEEP UP WITH AMANI

Website: amaniexperience.com/teambuilding

Twitter: twitter.com/amaniexperience

Facebook: facebook.com/amaniexperience

Instagram: instagram.com/amaniexperience/

Pinterest: pinterest.com/amaniexperience/

Your team members are your greatest resource. When they succeed, you succeed. Taking time to focus on each of them rather than the work can have exponential impact on employee engagement, quality of work, productivity, trust, and more. That is the power of One-on-Ones.

Get the free mini-guide with the One-on-One agenda template I use.

When you join the Modern Manager community, get the full guide with suggestions for how to introduce One-on-Ones to your team, plus a Manager’s Guide and Team Member’s Guide to preparing for productive One-on-Ones. In addition, get access to prior episode guides, guest bonuses and 30% off personality based coaching to help you better understand your preferences and learn new strategies to help you be a rockstar manager.

When you join before midnight Eastern April 23, 2019, you are eligible to win a free coaching session with Amy Born, guest from episode 44: Manager as Coach.

Subscribe to my newsletter to get episodes, articles and mini-guides delivered to your inbox.

Read the related blog article: Turbocharge Your Team Members with Meaningful One-on-Ones.

Key Takeaways:

• One-on-Ones are a specific type of meeting that focuses on the employee rather than the work.
• The manager’s role is to ask questions and support the team member to reflect honestly on their performance and areas of growth.
• Spend time building your rapport at the start of the meeting. End the meeting with a recap of any decisions and next steps. Capture them in writing for future reference.
• Focus on celebrating successes and offering praise, sharing critical feedback and planning for growth, and removing roadblocks or frustrations that are inhibiting the individual from doing their best work.
• The manager reinforces and enhances the individual’s reflections by agreeing and adding additional thoughts.
• Together you brainstorm and identify specific steps the individual will take to move forward on growth areas.
• Always ask, “what might I do differently as your manger to better support you?”
• There is no right frequency or length to these meetings. Most managers start with an hour per month per employee and adjust from there.

Additional Resources:

• Episode 9: Show Meaningful and Authentic Appreciation
• Episode 24: Dealing with Difficult Employees with Kris Plachy
• Episode 32: Give and Receive Better Feedback with Robleh Kirce

[email protected]

This is the fifth bonus episode in the Parenting Your Business series. In these episodes, I talk about my experiences as a parent and manager / entrepreneur, comparing situations and learnings.

In this episode, I reflect on moments when we are asked questions that make us uncomfortable and how we might be underestimating both our kids and our colleagues.

Get in touch and join the conversation!

[email protected]

mamieks.com/podcast

patreon.com/modernmanager