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Episode 5: Managing a Team When You're in Personal Crisis
68 Plays1 year ago
In this episode, Courtney and Susie tackle how to manage a team when you have major challenges happening in your personal life. Despite the common notion of "leave it at home," the hosts emphasize the impracticality of checking personal struggles at the door and highlight transparency as key to building trust and moving work forward. Sharing personal stories and evidence-based strategies from performance psychology and positive psychology, they talk about how to keep showing up in a way that is authentic to you, while not having to divulge every detail of your personal situation.
00:14 Managing Amidst Personal Chaos: It's Gonna Happen
03:09 Personal Experiences and Challenges
06:38 Strategies for Managing During Personal Crisis
16:33 Resilience and Connection
19:13 Using Work as a Healthy Distraction
26:26 Mental Skills and Resilience Techniques
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Transcript
Managing Chaos: Personal Challenges in Leadership
00:00:13
Speaker
Welcome back to the Manage with Meaning podcast. I think this is episode five, Court. Is that five already? Five already. I know. It's not crazy. So exciting. Yeah. The whole hand's worth of. Right. So today we're going to talk about how to manage people when your life is a shit show.
00:00:31
Speaker
I love how we're five episodes in and we haven't used in, I don't feel like to any topics. We've gone, we've just gone straight in. I mean, just take the plunge. I also think when our tag words come up about what is the word we use the most, ah shit is probably going to come up.
00:00:46
Speaker
yeah number one
00:00:50
Speaker
ah Sorry, parents. yeah I mean, there's no word that really, for me, that replaces shit. No, especially in this topic because It's tough to manage when shit is spiraling all around you. Totally. So as managers, we have our own personal lives and we're showing up for teams and we're trying to do our jobs and stuff like that.
Impact of Emotions on Management
00:01:11
Speaker
So maybe starting with why even talk about this. I think this could be similar when we talked about emotions a couple of weeks ago that it's easy to be like, just like check it at the door.
00:01:22
Speaker
You know, you don't need to think about if your life's a shit show, just deal with it. That's personal. This is work. Keep it separate. There's your strategy. Um, so why do we need to talk about it? Yeah. And I think this is where the concept of vulnerability and being able to lean into that can really help you expand in your management and the trust that you're building with your team because the human experience is not, you cannot take that out of the person that we are at work. And in theory, it's great right to say, check your shit at the door, you're in a workplace now, and it doesn't need to enter this building. And that was just a really antiquated thought. And it is completely impractical because the way you show up as a people manager is going to drastically impact the wellbeing of those who
Work-Life Integration Realities
00:02:10
Speaker
report to you. And if you cannot show up for them in those tough times,
00:02:15
Speaker
It's going to ripple, right? They're going to take that home and to their families, it's going to infiltrate their lives. But also the business objectives are going to suffer too. And that's true when your life baby is going really badly and things are happening that aren't great. And it's true too, when the positive emotions take over, it's really hard to focus in those times as well. Those can have just as much impact.
00:02:36
Speaker
Hopefully, not for the negative on the well-being, but in the focus on the business objectives yeah and outcomes as well. What you said resonates a lot with me is like it's just not practical. it It is antiquated, and that's important because overall the expectations of most modern corporate workplaces have evolved such that it is not so much you say jump, I say how high, check it at the door. That's just not the expectation or the reality that we're living with anymore. But we have a lot of people who the expectations of reality have changed and they might not know how to operate in that.
00:03:10
Speaker
Also, i what you said is just not practical and it's not real that you can actually check it at the door and separate it from how you show up at work. and I could think of three different specific times with three different managers where, and this is not a gender thing. This is probably two men, one woman, I think.
00:03:33
Speaker
People who I reported to who for a while it just seemed like something was off. There was a lot of hypercriticality on their part or real lack of decisiveness or something about our dynamic, meaning as the employee and them as the manager had changed. And in all three cases, a few months or maybe a year later, I found out that they'd been navigating parent with terminal illness, going through a divorce, sick child, infertility, or something really, really painful and really, really hard. And I was like, oh, well, that makes sense.
00:04:09
Speaker
Of course, you were struggling to show up and be a manager and do all the things you have to do as a manager because you have no reserves. You were coming in really depleted. Negative. Yeah. Every day. And so the three different, very different people with very different styles, it comes out, right? When you're really, really struggling with something big, it comes out in your behavior. It comes out in how you treat people. It comes out in your cognitive ability to make decisions and set priorities and I just don't think it's real that you can check it out the door yeah because you are not a machine. And even if you are a tough, private person who you don't do vulnerability and shit like that, I've never seen that to be the case, like that it doesn't
Balancing Openness and Privacy
00:04:56
Speaker
actually affect you. Like you can still be vulnerable without exploding or word vomiting the details of your life.
00:05:03
Speaker
onto your team. They see you every day. They know when something is up to your point. They're very aware. They're not blind. Yeah. but the And you can feel it usually too. People are very intuitive by nature. If you're not going to say it, that feeling exists. And then people, what are they doing? They're walking on eggshells because they don't know if it's about them or if there's something going on. But you can still show up and say to somebody, I'm having a hard day.
00:05:31
Speaker
this conversation is not going to go well if we have it today. Let's have it tomorrow." Or you can show up really crappy in a terrible mood and make a mistake and that's okay too. And you can come back the next day and say, I reflected on how yesterday went. I didn't show up my best. There were other situations happening in my life. I'm not going to give you those details.
00:05:56
Speaker
but I apologize that that came into the way we worked together yesterday, and I'm gonna look at that going forward, and that can be the end of it. You don't have to say. Yes, yes, yes, yes. I literally wrote a sticky note while you were talking. and And it was that vulnerability can be personalized, and I think you're so right when people are like, vulnerability means I have to share all my deepest, darkest secrets and cry. and I mean, I tend to be a very open book,
00:06:25
Speaker
I generally am comfortable crying in most settings, but you don't have to do that, right? You can be vulnerable and authentic in a way that is true to you and that maintains privacy that you're comfortable with. but You don't have to disclose everything, but to your point, people can tell when something's going on.
00:06:42
Speaker
It does affect your team, it does affect your results, and there's better ways to handle it than pretending that oh it won't that it won't affect you. Why don't we get into some of what those things are? You just actually gave some great language, a couple of strategies. so What are a couple of your strategies when your personal life's a
Vulnerability and Team Dynamics
00:07:01
Speaker
shit show? and My personal life is a shit show, so let's talk about how I'm doing it right now. It's going to show up differently when I'm leading a team because I'm a little bit more comfortable to show up in a certain way in that dynamic versus how do I do it upward to my own manager. And I think those are two, for me, drastically different ways of showing up because I'm a little more comfortable with that detailed side of vulnerability with my team forward. you know
00:07:32
Speaker
I'm struggling with this aspect of my life. And so that's why I showed up this way today. And so I usually am better at communicating my boundaries to my team. We'll just take, I have three kids, for example. Well, that's not an example. I have three kids. We're very young kids and am going through a divorce. So that sad country song, right? That people are scared of being told to them when you ask what's wrong, you're scared you're going to get that.
00:07:59
Speaker
the country song answer. Somebody died. My dog died. I'm going through it. It might be and it was your life, but that is my life right now. But I'm comfortable to say there's these additional complexities that are going on guys. And that's our reality. And so I am not going to be available outside of this window because I've got daycare drop off. I've got after school activities. I've got these things going on. If it's emergency, you can call or text me and I'll get back to you. Otherwise know that I will get back to everything tomorrow. Or if I ask for a little bit of extra grace and space in my response to you, that's because there's additional things going on. I don't want to make sure I respond appropriately. It's easier for me to set that when I manage a team, it's harder for me.
00:08:45
Speaker
to do it upward. And so I'd be curious what your perspective is on that as well. But I kind of hyper focus on what's the ask? What are my priorities? What is my true capacity right now? And then try to focus my conversations on here's what I feel like I'm succeeding at. Here's what I feel like I'm not succeeding at.
00:09:08
Speaker
do you agree with me boss? Can we have a conversation about either course correcting some of these things? And then, you know, if I feel comfortable in the relationship, how comfortable do I feel feel with giving those details? And when I think about when I lost my mother and I got the time and I was able to say, well, I can't even think about you guys right now. I can't be here right now. And the great thing about that was this boss was able to say,
00:09:34
Speaker
Don't call us. Don't talk to us. Go away. Take care of what you need to take care of and your life will be in here at work when you get back and we've got it. And so I think in those scenarios, it really just comes down to my relationship with the person. yeah um And how much of that check your shit at the door attitude do they already have in place? I'm kind of analyzing.
00:09:55
Speaker
at the same time. When it's your team and you're setting the tone, you have the opportunity to role model and to create safety in how you yourself disclose, right? And in being willing to share, you also demonstrate and role model and make it okay for other people to share if they're also struggling. When you are the manager of a group, you do have a certain amount of power, right? And it's good because you can set the tone, but I think you can fear less, right? Because what are they gonna do?
00:10:25
Speaker
I think you're totally right. How much you communicate up. You are a product of the tone that's been set for you as a team member of that manager. Right. One thing I had found successful in times of true deep struggle when I've positioned something as not, I want to tell you all about these challenges that I'm having, but rather I'd like to get to your advice on when you struggled has really worked to take the guard down regardless of the tone they've said. Because when you're asking someone for advice versus bringing a plethora of problems, it just gets on a very different dynamic. Something that you said makes a lot of sense. Regardless of your ability to share what you have going on, when I'm low on capacity, I go ultra hard at getting clarity because what I don't have the bandwidth for when my life's a shit show is unnecessary ambiguity. We talked about this last time, of the fallacy of need to be able to roll with ambiguity and
00:11:24
Speaker
Sometimes yes, and sometimes it's just people don't want to have to figure it out, or yeah provide the clarity and the direction. yeah um And so yes, similarly, I will get ultra clear on my priorities, because I have much less capacity for gray area.
00:11:42
Speaker
i think that that is something we should do a lot more of period, even if we're not in crisis. But when low on capacity, I just need to know what is the most important, where do I need to focus? When we're stressed, our brains tend to struggle to focus anyway. So that's something we can do to help ourselves, we can do to help our teams.
00:12:04
Speaker
Similarly, like you said, the sharing. I can be a very open person, but I can also be very private in some times. It kind of depends on who I'm trying to get people to think that I am, what the context is. yeah I've cared a lot less about that as I've gotten older. I don't know. and I'm like, well, this is what it is. I will say though, it's changed and it's depended on the size of the team that I'm managing, the level of and seniority that I've been at. and how close I am with the people. You know, if I have someone who reports to someone who reports to someone who reports to me, I don't know that person very well. And actually what I have going on probably doesn't affect them anyway. So it kind of depends on who it is in the ecosystem. But when I've had some really big stuff going on, my direct reports, I pretty much always give some version of what's happening.
00:12:56
Speaker
as soon as I'm emotionally prepared to talk about it. And sometimes that can be more detailed and sometimes that can be less detailed, but usually it's because I know that my capacity is really reduced and I'm not gonna be able to be my best for them. yeah And I actually need them to help pick up some of the slack.
Resilience and Coping Strategies
00:13:21
Speaker
We talked about this last time is culture dependent. I think there's some places where there is not safety, but again, as the manager, you get to create the culture that you want. I've never had an experience where I've said something like you said, hey, I wanted to let you know, we decided to get divorced.
00:13:41
Speaker
It's been in the process for a month and a half. I'm having a really hard time and I'm doing my best right now to get through each day. This is probably going to go on for a while and I know that I already haven't been showing up how I want to and I i wanted to let you know as soon as I was ready to tell people and I could use some help over the next couple months.
00:14:05
Speaker
yeah like That goes a long way. people I think people appreciate the context without needing to know all of the details that sits within it, right? That they understand this is yeah huge. i was I didn't need to get into like, and this is why. This is how much therapy we did. Being able to have that conversation helped a ton. One, that was healing for me to be able to say, this is my reality and I need to be me.
00:14:29
Speaker
And then it also helped create a lot of understanding camaraderie and grace between all of us. And then something you mentioned earlier, I think is another good strategy that I've had to use a lot because as much as I try to be intentional about it, sometimes I gotta circle back because I do not show up the way that I want to. And again, I've never had this blow up in my face.
00:14:53
Speaker
I'm sure maybe someone has, but when I've been shitty and I am like, God, I was really shitty. And I go back and I say, listen, I'm really sorry about yesterday. I was not in a good place. I shouldn't have had that conversation. And I apologize for how I spoke in the meeting. And I would like for us to do that conversation. I've had people be like, yeah, that was messed up. And I'm be like, I know, I'm sorry. sorry but yeah But it's never blown up in my face or not ultimately strengthened our relationship when I've circled back.
00:15:26
Speaker
Because sometimes the repair can yeah to make the relationship better because it gives people permission too to be human. Nobody's going to show up perfectly. I'm actually more concerned about the person that is showing up as though they are never going to explode or get mad or having it. like There's somethings something more terrifying about that than the actual reality that life is going to hit and it's going to hit hard sometimes. And that's just going to come out sometimes. And if you can yeah fix it, you can still maintain and even build a stronger relationship. And you've just opened the door for other people to be human too. I mean, let's not treat you like shit all the time, but it's gonna happen. They're gonna make mistakes. Totally. Something else I do too is I try to lighten my load. That is clarifying priorities, but also
00:16:14
Speaker
It's a great opportunity for you to delegate and let people carry stuff that they wouldn't otherwise have the opportunity to carry. And you know what? Turns out they're usually pretty good at it. You've been delegating it anyway. So really taking this as an opportunity to say, okay, what can I get off my plate? I need to create some space for myself. And how can I use this as an opportunity to give some people exposure some to some work that they might not otherwise have gotten? Yeah.
00:16:41
Speaker
So I love listening to you talk about all your experience in applied positive psychology and resilience. So can you share some strategies from your education that are just helpful when you're in that prolonged stress state? Yeah. So definition of resilience, they all generally include navigating adversity and coming out the other side, generally healthier.
00:17:05
Speaker
you know, not less healthy. And there's tons of different strategies that are validated, but there are a few that stand out and have been validated over and over and over again. And one of them is something we've already talked a lot about, and that's connection and the importance of connection in community during crisis.
00:17:27
Speaker
If you're going through a personal crisis, you might think to lean on your personal community during that. Hopefully you have that. But you know, that is community as well. What you were just saying about how you engage with your team, that's an example of you engaging with your community, which is a very adaptive, healthy form of support and a source of resilience. That's a big one.
00:17:54
Speaker
So opposite to check your shit out the door so we can get work done. It's more like bring it in because we're going to be more resilient over a long period of time working together. We're going to be able to sustain this. Totally. Yes. Some oscillation can also be really helpful. There's a fine line between dipping in and out of being in the active stress and numbing your stress with overworking. Personally, I have found that work can be a really awesome healing place for me when I am in personal crisis because it's a place where I can feel competent, capable, I can feel like me. When I was getting divorced, my boss was like, Susie,
00:18:35
Speaker
I think we should get you on the road and have you go do some really good client work. Yeah. And I was like, okay, you know, I can't think about anything, but I did. And it was awesome because I learned, I got exposure to some new stuff and it was work I was good at. So I got to feel capable and competent in a time when I generally felt like shit.
00:18:56
Speaker
Now, I think it's very easy to cross over into compulsive, almost addictive kind of nature of being you know in work. But I do think looking at work as a place to feel strong, if that's true for you at work, that can also be something where you don't have to sit in the hard stuff all day every day. we None of us can. And so if work provides that for you, being mindful of letting yourself step away from the crisis, letting yourself enjoy work, letting yourself enjoy how that makes you feel.
00:19:25
Speaker
Yeah. Is that ever been the case for you, Court? Yeah. Well, I will have two thoughts on what you've shared and one is my natural reaction when somebody tells me on my team. So if they come to me and say like, I lost a loved one or something really hard is going on, my natural reaction is to say, step away. I've got this for you. Go. But I have actually seen that many, many times where people are like,
00:19:49
Speaker
No, no, no, I don't want to. I need to be here today and I need to focus on this because it is such a big distraction. And so getting really comfortable too, if you don't have to have the answer, let people tell you what they need when they're struggling as well. It was a big just aha when you were speaking, but it was also a big aha for my personal life too, because I think about you know some previous roles and how I would say absolutely stepping into what I was doing would be a good distraction for me.
Energy Management and Personal Boundaries
00:20:22
Speaker
In my current role and a startup, everything is ambiguous and expectations are extraordinarily unclear. Milestones are always moving and it's a lot of mental energy and exertion just to survive that environment on a day-to-day basis. So when you compound it with
00:20:42
Speaker
all of the ambiguity in my current divorce divorce process and the ambiguity yeah out of co-parent three kids. So that was an interesting aha because my natural tendency is to lean into work, but I haven't stepped back to analyze, is this actually helping because of the type of work? That's like the mindful use of work. Am I leaning into work because it it does make me feel good or am I leaning into work because I don't want to feel bored? That's, this is just my pattern, but actually this is making it worse. What I really need is not what I'm getting here. You know? Yeah. And then we get into the just topics of culture and the reality of.
00:21:19
Speaker
What can you do? What does your organization allow you? just when It's not something that's going to step into bereavement leave if you have a loss or FMLA. I'm just going through a really hard process and I need some space leave. I mean, maybe some companies that have a really great set of policy and extra time or unlimited PTO, you have flexibility to do that, but then it is a whole another layer when you're trying to be strategic too about income and finances. And so I think that falls into the definition of leveraging your resilience to make it through and tapping into the resources that exist outside of being able to step away so that you can continue that to do what you need to do to keep the job you need to keep.
00:22:05
Speaker
Yes, totally. There's a lot of self-awareness around knowing what depletes you and what refills you. Everyone, when they are in high stress from whatever it is, everyone is more sensitive to what depletes them and they need even more of what repletes them. So like what depletes me is tense organizational dynamics. And so when I am already very stressed or going through a personal crisis,
00:22:32
Speaker
10X. That takes 10X the toll on me. What helps replete me is gardening, walking my dogs, sleep, and I need way more of that. I actually made a choice recently.
00:22:48
Speaker
with my work where I was like, you know what, there are some natural tense dynamics in a piece of work that I could have gotten involved in and that had real benefits to getting involved in. And I'm also going through a personal crisis. Everyone's a crisis. My capacity is so low.
00:23:06
Speaker
And I finally have figured out about myself that I'm so sensitive that that is a particular Susie depleter. I'm gonna not get involved with that. Whereas if I were normal, I probably would have capacity for that. I could handle that with my normal repletion. But right now, I'm at too much of a deficit. I can't do that. To your point, we can't all quit our jobs or go on leaves of absence, but we can be a lot more cognizant of what drains us and what refills us and say no to as many of the drains, as many of the draining people yeah as you can, the draining projects that you don't need to take on, and being really intentional about those things that do recharge you. So that's a big technique that we teach because those are very different for everyone too. So for you, what are some of the things that help recharge you?
00:23:59
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, I've had to think about that a lot because it changes over your, you know, your life and the different periods that you're in. So pre-kids, I had such a great routine with friends and a social life in the fitness classes and and travel and all of those components. And it's been such a new period of life to figure out.
00:24:20
Speaker
What is it anytime I can get outside with my kids and I am 100% focused and it's that full focus. I think what depletes me and I see it more and more is that I'm giving 10% of my energy. to this divorce process and I feel like I'm only giving 20% of energy ah to my kids because I have to give 70% of my energy to working full time to provide and it's it's unbalanced and I think that's what I'm finding is like how do I pull up in that you know time uninterrupted is so key and I know so many working moms would relate to this but when I'm with my kids I feel really guilty because I know there's more I could get done for work and when I'm at work I feel really guilty because all I wanna do
00:25:03
Speaker
is be with my kids. So really focusing, I think, on the boundaries around that again. Really tapping into that space with them where it's just trying to get rid of the distractions is so energy-filling because they're so fun. Also, if it sounds like multiple things happening at one time is a depleter for you. Yeah. That's also a huge depleter for me.
00:25:26
Speaker
It sounds like that is taking maybe a disproportionate toll on you right now. Yeah. Yeah. So a great example of a strategy is you sit being really intentional about phone doesn't come with us or phone gets put on D and&D or whatever you can do to really protect the distraction free because that's a particular depleter for you. So you need to lean into the particular strategies around that.
00:25:49
Speaker
I notice I get really triggered too when I can still get all the things done that are being asked of me with everything going on in my life and I find that I get short or snippy when there are other people who have either not shared a context or something larger going on so I'm unaware of it that are not keeping pace rather than saying, is there something going on on your side to cause the delay? Are you also struggling? Are you having a challenge? Which you would normally reach towards. You would typically reach towards like, huh, that's weird. I wonder what's going on with them. You're like,
00:26:25
Speaker
I managed to get my shit done. yes What the hell? yeah yeah You bring up a really good point though, which is that again, under stress, all of our stuff, all of our tendencies just are heightened. blowde right so and That's different for everyone. so In talking about resilience and talking about some of the strategies around it, there is a cognitive process where when you're under high stress, your brain just does not function in the way that it that it typically does. So that almost always affects people's decision making, definitely affects people's how people show up emotionally, but it also tends to show up in how creative they can be, how many ideas they can generate, the um number of solutions they can see to a problem, right? And so wherever we struggle, we tend to just struggle more. That's just such such an interesting
00:27:11
Speaker
topic, thinking about resilience, but and what you're saying about just how your executive function gets diminished essentially as you get more and more stress and your ability to have creative or innovative ideas is reduced. Cause you know, the higher up you go in the business, you get to those chief levels.
00:27:28
Speaker
the more your responsibility is weighted to having those ideas and being innovative and creative. Something that we teach a lot when it comes to resiliency is mental skills for navigating ongoing adversity. and so We have a negativity bias and that was You know, got that overtime as humans so that we could… Survival, right? Yeah, survival. Exactly, exactly. We teach a lot of skills that are a subset of cognitive behavioral therapy, like understanding thinking traps. They're called sometimes called mental distortions or thinking traps, and it's essentially checking the accuracy of your thinking and saying, okay, a common thinking trap is all or nothing.
00:28:15
Speaker
I know that when I'm stressed, I tend to be very all or nothing about stuff. Yeah. And so I'm like, okay, ding, ding, ding, thinking trap all or nothing. And then I can be like, okay, is that true? And I can just check that thought out, right? Yeah. Another common thinking trap is catastrophizing.
00:28:32
Speaker
And when people are anxious, we tend to see a lot more of that, right? This thing happens, and this thing happens, and I'm going to lose my job, and then I'm going to lose my partner and then my family, and then I'm going to die. That just tends to happen when I'm anxious. I fall into that when I think quite frequently. If you look in your text history, you would probably agree.
00:28:51
Speaker
so I come from a long lineage of catastrophesers, so get it. So the mental skills around resilience, I think are really helpful because it's not about positive thinking, it's about accuracy.
00:29:03
Speaker
It really walks you through when I'm feeling like, what is the thought behind that? How true is that? Or how likely is that? So investing in some of those skills, whether that's spending time reading about them online or reading a book or going to therapy.
00:29:21
Speaker
or working with a coach who has some good experience in this. Investing in some of those mental skills can be really helpful.
Mental Health and Organizational Support
00:29:30
Speaker
And I'm a big fan of therapy. I love it. That's not everyone's cup of tea, but so you know some people like to learn different ways. But if you grew up in the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, you were not necessarily taught these skills.
00:29:48
Speaker
Yeah. And it is okay to go figure out a way to learn them now so you can process what's going on now, but keep learning the skills that you're going to, that are going to pay dividends through your life because abortion is going to come up. Gosh, I just love it because I have this dream, you know, we've talked so much about breaking down the antiquated paradigms and the corporate world and I would love an in-house therapist for an organization to exist. That is a resource for all employees covered by the business, right? Because there's no denying the impact and the value that I would have on the foundation of relationships, which is you know people and their mental health and their relationships and the connections and all of that, that is upholding the work that needs to get done.
00:30:31
Speaker
The evidence of psychological capital and mental health and performance is pretty well validated. It's interesting, right? That that's, you know, we think about where to invest in a business. I feel like it's pretty early, but there are some companies who've kind of gotten all right on like the mental health perspective. I'm curious to see. Yeah. Like what the, what the outcomes. You're hearing the conversations of like,
00:30:56
Speaker
I think the slow needle tick forward of what wellbeing is. It's not the ping pong tables, you know, and it's not the happy hours and it's not those things. Those conversations are happening, yeah, right? The gig in the office. So people are like starting to be like, okay, that doesn't feel right. Like we get you're trying to make the environment fun, but that's not the one. yeah the well-being. Yeah. Yeah. And fun is important for certain things, right? But the fun does not equate to well-being. This stuff is hard to, well, everything's hard to measure, right? Even the most nuts and bolts. Yeah. You know, I'm on projects right now where you're like, literally, it's zeros and ones and we still can't measure it. So imagine i love measuring man mental health and like the connection to well-being to business outcomes. Oh my gosh. Yeah. I love researchers. So my, master you your master's is in applied positive psychology. Mine is in organizational leadership and strategic innovation.
00:31:47
Speaker
And I wanted to do it industrial or industrial and organizational psychology, but yeah, I am just not great at the measurement components. I think that the the measurement is awesome. And if we want to be operating from an evidence-based perspective quite a bit of the time. Yeah. When I was in grad school,
00:32:07
Speaker
I also had a lot of very fancy organizational psychologists that I got to here and I was like, oh no, your work would not survive contact with the real world because to get a good measurement, it has to be a little too controlled. It's like this blend of like, okay, let's try to measure the best we can. Let's see what we can get. Let's also just apply some common sense and watch what's happening and be like, you know what?
00:32:33
Speaker
Common sense. What on earth is that? alright Not so common. know I'm going to hold my tongue. man but Awesome. Anything else court about navigating managing people when you're in personal crisis? I think the most important thing is go into the position and know that it's going to happen.
Humanity in Leadership and Conclusion
00:32:57
Speaker
There is no avoiding it and think about how you want to show up for people setting your management intention.
00:33:05
Speaker
What culture do you want to create? What feeling do you want to exist on your team? I think people get humbled quickly because but like I see this in parenthood all of the time. I was a perfect parent till I was a parent, right? Like, no, no, no, like no screen time. No, absolutely. I'm still a perfect parent. And I think that's all you take to it. Like from frontline supervisor to CEO, you don't know what tomorrow's going to bring you.
00:33:33
Speaker
So just know that you are human. It is okay to be human. I was thinking a similar thing of just, it makes me sad because I do think that there's a lot of people who are like, Oh, I'm a manager now. I have to shift this way. and And I remember being that way too. And no,
00:33:49
Speaker
no, you are a human being who deserves grace and compassion and who gets to be human. Yeah. You get to struggle too. And There's not some order of the managers that you've now been inducted into that now you you don't get to struggle. You get to struggle and you do struggle FYI. So yeah, giving ourselves some space to.
00:34:16
Speaker
to be imperfect. A vulnerability is not a weakness. it's your It's a strength. And tapping into that when you need to is yeah yeah absolutely okay. And you don't have to give the details to be vulnerable. Yes, and you don't have to cry. yeah Crying is not a thing. you know I'm just imagining Matt listening to this and him being like, no. Because vulnerability for him with his team might look very different. Absolutely. And that would also be okay.
00:34:42
Speaker
I think that's a good point to make too, is I know there are people who will just not jam with what we're saying because they sit in that space still of, I have to show up this light in my continued question. It's just, why? yeah Yeah. We had an old colleague we both used to work with who would tell us, it his former life as an executive in the auto industry, he was told his car had headlights so he could come in before the sun.
00:35:06
Speaker
ah came up and if you can go home after it went down. And so that's reality. And we understand that. So you pick up a works and you make it work in your environment. And if it doesn't, then you don't use it, right? For sure. Well, super fun conversation. Thank you. So number five. nice yeah High five. All right. Talk to you later. Bye.