How to manage others for agency account managers, with Matt Plant

Jenny  00:04

So today, I'm delighted to have my brother Matt, to talk about managing others for the first time. And the reason I've invited him on to talk to me about this subject is twofold really. One, because agency account managers have been asking me about this for a long time. So I'm teaching them how to grow an account. But there's this other skill that they need, which is, as as they get more senior in the agency, they need to be able to manage people well. And they often question whether they're doing the right things. So it's a skill that I think's missing. I'm not the expert in this area. But my brother Matt is and he's been training people for 20 years. And the second reason is, that I'm going to feel more relaxed asking him questions because I, whilst I've been managing people for years, I've never actually had formal training. So I think during this session, it might turn into a bit of a therapy session of the things that I should have done better, being a people manager. So Matt, can we start off just talking a bit about you briefly, your experience and how you help new managers?

Matt  01:12

Yeah, thank you. Nice to be here. Hopefully, it doesn't get into a therapy session, people are going to switch off. But yeah, so I've been in manager or leadership trainer for around about 20 years now. So what I do is offer a lot of different courses, mainly around management and leadership. But some of them kind of drift into interpersonal skills as well. And so what I do is I coach some new managers in their kind of transition to being a manager. And also, when we had face to face training, I did a lot of face-to-face training with new managers and new leaders and some senior leaders as well. Now it's more online so I'm in online virtual world now. So I've worked in a lot of different companies as well.

Jenny  02:03

Okay, brilliant. So let's start off because I really would love this episode, to be lots of takeaways for people who are listening to this thinking they're either in managing position, or they're thinking about transitioning. So what are some of the biggest changes that people have to make when they transition into a position where they have to manage other people?

Matt  02:24

Yeah, I think sometimes, people think they have to have a personality change. I have to change my personality, because now I've got this role. But I think it's the opposite is true. It's being yourself, because if other people see that you've changed, you've got that kind of phrase where people 'You've changed', and you get that kind of stigma attached to you. So you don't need to change. But I think one of the things that I found with a lot of questions I have in courses, is now that they are now managing their friends, how does that work? And I always think it's good to have some kind of informal chat with people. And just to say, how have you found this change now, and try to address the elephant in the room really, because sometimes, we don't. And when it comes to giving feedback later on down the line, it can be awkward. So if you've already addressed it and said, 'Look, there's going to be times when I'm going to give you feedback, and you've got to give me feedback, I don't want it to be awkward. So let's, when it comes to it, hopefully that helps'. But I think changing your personality or feeling that you should, is the wrong way to go with it.

Jenny  03:47

That's really good advice, because I'm just thinking of the experiences I've had in the past where you're in a team, and then one of you gets promoted above the team. And there might be resentment, mightn’t there, from the team members thinking, 'Well, I wanted to get promoted'. So how do you even begin to tackle that one?

Matt  04:10

Yeah, exactly. I do think if you're open and you're supportive to those people, maybe they went for the job as well. So if you're supportive of them, and you're open to talking with them, not having a pen and paper in front of you recording what they're saying, it's just an off the cuff, maybe in a coffee shop, just to have a catch up, one to one and see how they're getting on. And hopefully, that will help build rebuild the relationship.

Jenny  04:39

Do you know what, that is such good advice. And I remember kind of giving other people similar advice, just go and have a coffee, sit down and just have an informal chat about it. And then that kind of relaxes everybody doesn't it? You know, just having that one on one, 'How are you feeling about this' and 'How are we going to manage this moving forward?' maybe, I don't know. But that's great advice.

Matt  05:00

Yeah, just make sure that the channels of communications are open. I think that's the first thing. I was just gonna mention, it can be quite tricky for people who, you've just been working on your own, and you're very task focused or project focused. But now you have this responsibility of dealing with a team and dealing with all the different, maybe issues and problems with each person, can be quite overwhelming. So it's just to be aware that there's going to be some time when you're going to have to be spending more time with people, it's getting that balance of, okay, where do I spend my time? Is it on task? Or is it on people? And this should be a balance there. And I think when you first become a manager, that's difficult.

Jenny  05:48

That's such a good point. Did you have people asking you the question like, what is the right balance are people that specific, they want to know what percentage of their day should be task? And what...?

Matt  05:58

Yeah, I do. And that's a tricky one to answer. Someone on my last course, said, how much time do I need to spend all this management stuff? And that's really difficult to answer because it depends on how many people you have in the team. And it also depends what industry you're working in as well. Yeah, that's a tricky one to answer.

Jenny  06:22

What do you see are the biggest mistakes that people make when they're transitioning to managing other people for the first time?

Matt  06:31

I think one thing is, a new manager wants to do a good job, and they want to hit the targets, they want to get to the objectives. And what I see from people is that they take on too much. And they become overwhelmed. And one of the reasons I feel that's behind that is that they want to be able to answer questions, they want to be able to deal with situations and problems. And what that can lead to is a habit that the team come to them for the answers to everything. So if you're getting that as a habit, if you're getting people coming to you all the time, you will be overwhelmed. And people expect that from you. So you almost become the guru. Unbeknown to you.

Jenny  07:20

I am going to confess something here. Because I think I fell into that trap myself, right. And it wasn't until I was being coached by someone else that they pointed that out. Because I had this open door policy when I was like leading publicists and quite frankly, I loved helping. And I still love helping people. But what I didn't realise was that having this open-door policy meant that I was always receiving questions and being dragged into situations where I didn't need to be. So I was kind of involving myself involuntarily. And it wasn't until my coach pointed out, because, like you said, I got overwhelmed, I was frazzled and ended up staying there really late to catch up on my work in the evenings. And that was a downward spiral. And my coach said to me, 'Well, you're getting your needs met'. And I was kind of slightly horrified at that thinking, 'Oh, my God', it was like a bit of a shot in the stomach, but he was right. You know, I love helping, so I'm putting myself in a position where I'm being able to help people. But as a result, I'm not doing my job. And he was harsh, but true.

Matt  08:29

You can fall into that rescuer position, where you want to rescue everybody. And you see other people as the victim almost, 'Oh you've got too much work, give it to me'. And sometimes that satisfies our needs, our needs of the knight in shining armour - I can rescue you. And also it's love. Love as well comes into it. You know, because you feel loved. Because people need you. It's like that needing.

Jenny  08:57

I'm feeling more bad about myself the more we talk about it. And what other mistakes do you see people making when they're managing other people?

Matt  09:06

I was just gonna say also you know you said about an open-door policy and when you say that to the team, 'I've got an open-door policy', how many people actually come through the door or get in contact with you? Do you go out and approach them? That's what I'm getting at. So it's not like, oh, guys come to me, it's open door. But then waiting for them to come to you can be tricky, because they might not come to you.

Jenny  09:36

Or the same people come to you, like the same people.

Matt  09:40

Just in general, the whole team really. You know, sometimes people say I've got an open- door policy, come and see me whenever you need me. And then a lot of managers leave it at that. But then why not get out and see them?

Jenny  09:56

I was thinking where you going with this? So basically what you're saying is, it's wrong to say that. I mean, nowadays most often, no one has an office nowadays it's all open plan. But what you're saying is, and this is something I read in a book about management, was where the leader would always come in and talk to everybody in the room, you know, acknowledge them and know their name or ask out and it was just that personal touch. And I just think that's really important, when you're managing other people, just to be that kind of, I'm not saying all day, every day chatting to people in the office, but certainly to be approachable and have that personal touch.

Matt  10:37

Yeah, definitely. And I think it does feed into making people feel comfortable with you and the environment they're working in. You know, one thing that we were talking about was, if you have people that are different from you, they might be more perhaps introverted, and you're perhaps more extroverted. And it's appreciating that they bring different things to the party. The other way around as well, if you're more the extroverted person, and you're in the team, then the manager should allow for that, because you have different qualities that you can bring to the team as well. You know, it shouldn't be that if I'm introverted, and everyone else should be introverted, you know, don't don't make a noise, that kind of thing, you know, if we work in an office environment that is, but I think the whole essence of what we're talking about is being appreciative of other people's strengths and what they bring.

Jenny  11:29

That's so true. And are you saying that it's better to adapt your own style to suit? Because, you've got to be a bit of a chameleon, haven't you when you're managing different types of characters, different kinds of personalities? And I am just conjuring up ideas of being managed in the past when, you can think about a manager that only respected people that were like them, that had their style. And didn't spend time with the ones that were, I don't know, less, extroverted, for example.

Matt  12:04

Yeah, it's like, having an appreciation of maybe adapting slightly. I'm not saying you have to change completely, because that's unreasonable. And also, you're going to spend a lot of energy doing that. And it's not, that's not sustainable. So it's having an appreciation about how other people work as well. So some people, if you look at communication styles, perhaps everyone's heard of communication styles, some people need more detail, some people need less detail. Some people need to just run with something. Some people need a bit more direction maybe. Just moving on from communication styles, you could think about leadership styles as well. If you have somebody that's new in your team, what do they need from you? And certainly, if you leave them alone, and don't really give them any direction, they're going to perhaps fail. So you know, this is like a guy called Ken Blanchard, he came up with situational leadership. And this is basically what we're talking about, if you have somebody else who's got a lot of experience, maybe as good competency levels, I may perhaps approach them differently, may give them a bit more autonomy or hands off approach to them. So it's having an appreciation of who you have in your team as well.

Jenny  13:22

So how do you make that assessment as to which style you choose to manage someone else?

Matt  13:28

Yeah, there's different styles. Obviously, without some kind of visuals, it's difficult for people to take in. But he talks about motivation levels and competency levels. And you can perhaps have an indication about where people are, and also, how do I approach them? So it talks about direction, coaching, supportive style and delegation style, which is a bit more hands off.

Jenny  13:56

Okay, so you've got to assess kind of how competent are they in this particular task? And therefore, what's required here of me? Do I have to be a little bit more direction? You know, give him a bit more direction? Or can I just coach? So that's a really interesting, and I think a great takeaway is to think about how competent that person is in that particular task.

Matt  14:17

Yeah. And the other thing is ask them as well, where do they think they are? You know, because you could, if we are just guessing, that's not gonna be great. If you can ask them as well, you might be able to get some kind of 'What you need from me?' You know, some kind of assessment of where they are, and then you'll know, so ask them as well don't just observe.

Jenny  14:37

And I suppose again, from my own experience, if you then start giving too much direct direction to someone who's actually quite competent in that task, then you're micromanaging, aren't you?

Matt  14:49

Yeah, they're gonna feel like they're being micromanaged. And we all know what that feels like.

Jenny  14:55

And similarly on the other end of the spectrum, leaving someone to just kind of fail, not setting them up for success, saying, okay, so it's the first time you've worked on a pitch, for example, do this, this and this, go and do it. And then they come back and haven't been able to do it because they've never done it before. And then you get sort of irritated with them or something that, again, setting, not choosing the right style is it?

Matt  15:20

Yes, exactly. And also people can regress as well. So they may lose a bit of competence. And the problem there is that the manager is treating them exactly the same as they treated them before. But they, the person has changed. And we need to have that in the back of our mind as well.

Jenny  15:35

So it's like, a new face?

Matt  15:37

Yeah, exactly. It's a lot of adapting.

Jenny  15:39

So when people come to your course, they want to be managing other people for the first time, what kinds of questions do they have for you typically?

Matt  15:58

A lot of people come to the course, one of the most common questions is that they've started as a manager, they're doing the managerial things. And also, they're trying to cover some of the work they were doing before, which is obviously tricky, and they're going to become overwhelmed by that. And I guess one of the things is to have a conversation with a senior, whoever that is, to understand priorities, and put it on their radar. But I do think that a lot of people miss out on using some coaching skills, the basic coaching skills. In coaching, we talk about push and pull. So push is giving information. And then pull is asking good questions for that person to think about the answers, and if they've thought about the answer, they're more than likely to perhaps do it. So as we spoke about earlier, the person who becomes overwhelmed because they are now the guru, this is another good way of, of perhaps just asking a few questions, and letting that person go with it. If they've been trained, and they kind of know the answer, you're teasing it out of them, rather than them coming to you all the time. So it kind of feeds into the to the other question as well.

Jenny  17:13

So can you give us an example of a push question and a pull question?

Matt  17:19

Okay, so what I mean by push is you're giving information.

Jenny  17:26

Oh, sorry.

Matt  17:26

So, if someone comes to you and says, 'When does that report have to be in by?' then you're just giving the answer. Right? You give me the deadline, that's it. Or 'What's the kind of structure that you would want for this report?' And I give them the answer. But if it's something that's coming up all the time, I may ask them, 'What what do you think?' So what I mean, so our natural impulse, maybe that's not a great example, but our natural impulse is to give answers to people. And we've got to try and counteract that a little bit by asking questions, to draw it out of others, because that people grow, and they learn for themselves if we can do that. And I know probably what you're thinking there's, maybe, there's no time for it. See what I mean, so because people say I haven't got time for that, I haven't got time for a quick conversation. It doesn't have to be quick. It doesn't really doesn't have to be quick. And there are times where you can you just give an answer. Because it's time critical or something. But we have to try and think about well, how can I start asking questions and getting other people to feel empowered to come up with his answers.

Jenny  18:44

So it doesn't have to take a long time you mean, it doesn't have to be a huge conversation. And one of the things, I don't know if this is helpful, but often when I speak to account managers who maybe have a problem in the agency, and maybe it just means that they have to have a conversation with their boss, for example, I say, think of it in three columns. Just think about like, 'What's the problem?' in one column, like 'What's the challenge you've got? what's the what's the issue you have?' And the next column I say, 'How's that impacting? What's the impact on the business maybe or impact on others or impact on you? Like, what's the impact?' And then 'What are your suggestions?' next column. So what's your ideas to resolve it? Because that way, you're going in more of an empowered way to your boss, so that they don't have to think about this from scratch. And in a way if, and I suppose I got this years ago when a boss said to all of us, said you know, we're already busy when you come with a problem. Think of a couple of solutions for me, so we can quickly discuss the solutions that you see, that could work, rather than me having to think about the problem for the first time. Then try to come up with a solution. So I think that's good practice. What do you think?

Matt  20:04

You know, it's absolutely, they have that in hospitals. And nurses use it. When the nurse has to report something, they have a structure. And this is, I mean, I can't remember off the top of my head now, but they do have a structure. And I think it's really good to have that. And so that person knows, you know, if I do come to you, I've got something here ready. Ready, prepared. Yeah. And maybe I can put that in a link or something?

Jenny  20:33

That would be great. Yeah, that'd be really useful. So what do you think like the top three things that you should consider, when you want to be managing other people? Like the essential skills that you should have?

Matt  20:49

I think, first of all, it's the impact you are making through your behaviour. So the perception of you, you have start to become self aware, like, what am I putting across to people, because some behaviours are almost a green light for others to have the same behaviour. Yeah, so I've got to be aware of what I'm doing basically and become more self aware. I was coaching somebody a few months ago and they were telling me a story about, they used to have this feedback of when they looked up, or they were on a zoom call, or, or trying to talk to other people, their facial expression was really quite harsh. And the perception was that they were angry. And it wasn't that, it was like they were concentrating. So when when you think about what you give out, it's really important. And there was a really interesting study that was done by a guy called SG Basade, I believe, I have to be careful how to say that. But he did a study around mood and how mood translates to other people, and particularly managers. And through his research, he found that if the manager had a really kind of a good mood, I don't want to say you know, they're positive...

Jenny  22:31

That they're juggling..

Matt  22:35

Comes in on stilts, juggling at the same time! Yeah, but no, he found that that boosted productivity, basically, the team felt a bit more comfortable. And the opposite was true, if they come in with a low mood, maybe a little bit negative. And they found that that there was a link to productivity came down. I mean, it sounds very obvious. I know.

Jenny  22:59

But it doesn't in a way, because when you're managing other people, you don't even think about these things. It's almost like getting yourself into a different state. And being aware that like, put your woes and worries to one side, because your mood is just gonna infiltrate someone else's day, frankly, isn't it? And, two things, I think another confession time, I think I was guilty of that, again, because I was so stressed out and busy myself. And I was managing other people. So for example, I was typing on my computer, someone would come up to my desk, and I'd look up and go, 'Yes!' you know, like not angry, angry, but I would kind of look up with not a happy face. And people would sort of go 'Whoa!' you know, and you don't want to inflict that on people. And the second thing I say is a bit of a tip that you've just shared, is because we are in the virtual world, there is a there is an opportunity to record yourself on Zoom. And I said this to a group the other day, and because I do it almost all the time because most of my sessions are recorded, I played it back and I did not crack a smile for the first 45 minutes. And I looked like I was not angry, but I just looked a bit serious. And I wasn't feeling serious. But that mood, you know, God knows how it kind of infiltrated the group. But I think that's a really good tip. Really good tip.

Matt  24:24

Now I'm really paranoid that I haven't smiled.

Jenny  24:26

Yeah, exactly. Miserable git!

Matt  24:32

Yeah, the other thing I wanted to say is, making sure that you create an environment where people can come to you, and that feeds into your mood as well, but that's, you know, that's another thing. But there's a lot of talk around psychological safety now. And this originates from a study that Google did on their most successful teams. It's all out there. If you Google this, it's out in the internet. But they found that people who had psychological safety in a team were more likely to give ideas, they're more likely to bring up things which perhaps are a little bit uncomfortable, and maybe, say what was on their mind or how they felt about something. And in a positive way that can help the company and the manager because you know what's actually happening in the undercurrent of the team, rather than everything going underground. You know, everybody after work, bitching about what's going on at work,

Jenny  25:39

Which happens, right, let's be honest, which happens all too often doesn't it, frequently? I mean, I even get it myself, like the confidentiality is, really important to me. But I end up working with account managers, who will share with me how they're really feeling about the leadership team, for example, and the leadership team have no idea that this is the impact that they're having. And you're right, it's like these two kind of worlds going on in one company. There's the reality of how everybody's sort of, 'Oh God, here he goes again', and what the perception is from the leadership team like, how do you stop that happening? How do you make sure that the whole company has psychological safety and they feel encouraged to speak their minds and maybe fail? I mean, I think one of those findings wasn't it from that study, that you could  admit you made a mistake and not feel you were going to be you know, ridiculed?

Matt  26:37

Yeah, I think it's the fear of the repercussion of something happening. And it's a really difficult one. I mean, I think it starts with the manager, really. I mean it does, let's face it, it does start from above, the likelihood of that, starting from above, I'm not too sure about but for definitely, the new managers, they can really think about, well how do I set this out? How do I make sure people feel comfortable. And a lot of people think it's quite soft, but it's not soft, it's actually dealing with maybe more sensitive things as well, you know, things that need to be said, so giving feedback to other people. But making that to be quite comfortable, and quite normal to give feedback and receive feedback as well. But for the manager, you have to be quite vulnerable really, you have to show a bit of vulnerability. And that's not to mean that you come in and you say, 'Guys, I'm completely rubbish all the time', because that's going to have a real effect on you. But you know, if you've made a mistake, then you admit, 'I've made a mistake, I've been in the same position as you'. See what I mean? So you're showing a bit of vulnerability.

Jenny  27:53

Right, which gives people more of a feeling that they can feel comfortable doing the same thing. So setting the lead, setting the tone and do the behaviours that you want to see in your team.

Matt  28:05

Yeah, and the other thing is, like having shared values as well, within the team. You know, what do you expect from your team members? What can you expect from me? So you've got some kind of working behaviours that people can adhere to. You know, that's a little exercise you can do.

Jenny  28:24

That's a great idea. Would you suggest that that's done in a kind of workshop environment?

Matt  28:28

I mean, ideally, yeah. But, you know, in this virtual...

Jenny  28:34

...virtual workshop...

Matt  28:35

Yeah, absolutely. And it doesn't need to be hours and hours. It's just, what do you expect from each other, what you expect from me? What are things that are blockers that we can perhaps, identify, and work on?

Jenny  28:48

I'm almost thinking about doing the session, because I did a very similar session once, years ago, in an office, and we had loads of post it notes. And there were three or four columns and there were questions. And it was such a brilliant exercise, everyone was really engaged, and I think it was, I think you helped me with that one. And it was like, 'What are the behaviours that we want to see in our team?' And oh, my goodness, there was so many ideas and you can use Miro, couldn't you now, in a virtual environment to do the same thing? So that's a brilliant tip.

Matt  29:23

The other one I was going to say is like being comfortable giving feedback, because that can be really awkward.

Jenny  29:30

How do you even go about giving feedback? Because I'm sure everyone's leaning in thinking, I need to give someone some feedback. How do I even start?

Matt  29:38

Well there are structures out there that you can get prepared to give the feedback. I mean, this is a big session in one of the courses that we do, it's really thinking about, think about the person. So, some people are quite sensitive to feedback and some people are, bring it on, that's their kind of attitude, doesn't really matter what it is. But I think a little bit of preparation needs to happen. And there's a few structures, obviously, as I mentioned. But I do think it's got to be done in like a way, which is a care way, a supportive way. But also take into consideration that you're taking responsibility for it as well. So a guy called Marcus Buckingham, he talks about this, he says, a lot of feedback is quite subjective. So you've got to show or say that it's coming from you. Things like, 'Here's how I see it, here's how I see it'. You're not saying, 'Here's how we see it'. So there's a difference. And making it factual. If it's pinned to a process, or something that the company has as a policy, then that's easier to give, because it's there, it's written down. But being, other things are more subjective. I do think we obviously have to give a balance, you know, we have to make sure that get people get praise. But the constructive stuff, you can't dodge it. Because, a lot of people will actually save up constructive feedback for the kind of one off performance review once a year. Which is pretty horrendous. You know, when you get into that review and all of a sudden, you've got somebody saying that last March, you did this. When was that? You can't remember yesterday! And so it kind of depletes the impact of the feedback.

Jenny  31:48

So can I just pause for a bit because I just want to summarise, this is really useful. So when you're giving feedback use 'I' rather than 'We'. And absolutely, when you really think about it, otherwise, the person's going to think 'Who is this We?' Like, who are all these people that have kind of been talking about me and corners and whispering? And they might get some feelings of paranoia, wouldn't they? So that's a really good tip,  just that tip alone And then sort of, carry on.

Matt  32:15

Yeah, the obvious ones are, not in front of other people. Every time I say that, I just feel it's so obvious. But I do hear other people say that that actually happens to me!  It's not obvious. Okay. Let me, another confession. Well, it's my boss. Like we had an internal meeting, I remember it to this day. And he asked a question to the room, and I thought I might have an answer. And  I was quite Junior, I'd never spoken up in my life in a meeting, internal meeting. I was totally intimidated. Even thinking about what I wanted to say my face, glow hot red, but I thought Nope, go on Jen. Do it. Do it. Put your suggestion forward. Anyway, so I gave my suggestion. He turned to me and said, 'That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard'. On my life. He said that, right? Honestly, my face was burning. My heart rate was right up. I felt awful. Like talk about someone pulling the rug from underneath your feet. I mean, in hindsight, obviously, that was awful, shitty thing for him to do. But what did it encourage? It encouraged my future behaviour, never to speak up in a meeting, never to put forward an idea, because you're going to feel awful and it was humiliating, quite frankly, in front of everybody. Exactly. And then what he's doing really, is conveying the message that that is okay to do that as well. You know, to other people. So then you're kind of building a culture of well never say anything, because you're going to get the same treatment as Jenny got. So yeah, you're building that culture, which is quite negative thing. Okay, where do we get to? Oh, yeah. The other thing I wanted to mention is being aware of the feedback sandwich. I mean, this can be, I'm not gonna say to completely dismiss it because in some situations, like, if you've got a specialist who's working and been experienced, they just say, 'Okay, well give me the feedback. What is it good or bad? What is it?' But that's okay for some people, but the feedback sandwich most people know about. So if your boss says to you, I need to talk to you a minute and all of a sudden they launch into 'Look, you're doing really, really well. You're doing excellent'. You know, we're not stupid. We're waiting for the next bit to come in. And we all know that when you hear that word, 'But', you know that the negative bit's coming in, and what do we all kind of focus on? We all focus on the negatives, normally, we don't really hear the praise So, you know, the feedback sandwiches, the praise, the negatives and the praise. What we end up doing is we don't hear about the praise; we just are left with those negatives. And that's what we dwell on for the whole of the weekend, perhaps, if it's done on a Friday. So yeah, just to make sure we're aware that people know that. And I do think, yes, we need a balance. Yes, people need to know, perhaps what their what they're doing right. But be aware of that one, be aware of it and just to be balanced in it.

Jenny  35:38

Okay, so you said something earlier on that I wanted to just bring back in, that you said, don't save up all of the praise or the negativity for the annual meeting. You know, this is what you did last March. So what you're saying is give feedback on a regular basis, but you're saying don't use that typical structure of, you know, praise, shit in the middle, and praise at the end, because...

Matt  36:05

I wouldn't take it!

Jenny  36:05

I would, because it's my podcast!  So what's the alternative? Can you just share something that like, what's the alternative?

Matt  36:12

Yeah, okay. So there's a structure, which is like, okay, what's the action or behaviour? What actually happened and be specific with that? And then give the impact of it. Or ask for the impact of that. So this happened, or I've noticed this, the impact for me was this. Or, you could say in a non patronising way, what do you think is the impact of that? And a simple one is to then get into is, well what can we do about it? What's next? Almost.

Jenny  36:47

Nice.

Matt  36:48

So it's like the action, the impact and then what do we do next about it? I mean, there are a lot out there. And without launching into the course right now, there's a lot more around it that we could talk about, but it's just to get a flavour.

Jenny  37:01

That's really helpful as well. I think, honestly, I think, as I said before, I never had any training into to how to do it properly. So a lot of people are finding their way with managing others and hoping that they're doing a good job.

Matt  37:13

Yeah, of course. And I think, you know, especially on a course, if you give too much information, people become like 'What, what, where are we with this?' And if you can just make it very simplified with a few principles around it, that's what people take away.

Jenny  37:32

Can you give us an example, maybe of someone that you've met in your life that you think of as one of the most successful people managers that you've seen?

Matt  37:42

I've had a lot of really good people, managers, myself, and I've also in the past had a lot of really, really bad ones. And this is why I love this subject so much  because I can see the effects that managers have on people and their development. And I was a manager years ago, made all the mistakes and realised that it's not an easy job. But there are some things that we can do to make it a little bit easier, and to help other people because that's what you're doing. You're affecting other people and their lives. The person that I think you're talking about is I used to work for Richard Branson.

Jenny  38:35

Virgin Atlantic.

Matt  38:35

Yeah, but Richard Branson. So I mean, I think, obviously, I don't know the guy personally, but what he for people was usually he had a people first kind of attitude, I thought. And I think it's just about being human. And, you know, treating people equally and inclusively as well.

Jenny  38:57

Let me tell the story, because I know you're too, you feel like it's, you know, you shouldn't say it, but you've spent time with it because you how many years did you work at Virgin Atlantic in the training?

Matt  39:09

Seven or eight years.

Jenny  39:10

Yes. And he was very accessible wasn't he, I mean you spent like, I don't know, half a day once, you had to spend with him. So you were observing? And also you did end up staying at his house. Come on!

Matt  39:25

You were gonna say that!

Jenny  39:28

I was amazed, like, I couldn't believe you. And you said, you didn't even say this recently, but I remember you told me years ago that he got everyone sitting around his kitchen table and was having a chat. Do you remember you told me that?

Matt  39:42

Yeah. Yeah.

Jenny  39:43

And he asked you for feedback, didn't he?

Matt  39:47

Yeah. I won't go into the details. But he was what he was doing was trying to get opinions and ideas of a certain situation that they were having in the airline at that time. And that just tells you that he was open to other people's ideas, and I wasn't anybody special at all, you know, I was a trainer. And that's what I liked about him. He was, he didn't have that hierarchical kind of feel, you know, 'I'm the chairman of this company'. It's kind of just human to human.

Jenny  40:21

And I think that's the takeaway from that story really isn't it? He was asking for feedback, which I think is a really good thing in itself. You know, what do you all think? Because then people that are in your team feel more empowered to make the answer, rather than you imposing your views or imposing how you think it should be.

Matt  40:42

So yeah, exactly.

Jenny  40:44

He's always struck me, I mean I've never even met him, but he's always struck me as a personality in the public eye that just looks like a great person to work for.

Matt  40:53

Yeah, yeah, for sure. I'm sure other people have had bad experiences. But I think in general, for mine, it was good. But and also he kind of empowered people to make decisions as well, and also to not always be the one that's kind of making a decision, but asking first, before you make a decision as a manager, or, you know, leader of the company, let's say. But yeah, inclusivity, I think was the major thing.

Jenny  41:24

Are any questions that people should be asking you about managing other people that they that they don't ask?

Matt  41:33

I think, understanding differences in others is one thing. And, making sure that, we all have differences in terms of how we're motivated, we're all motivated by different things. And some of the mistakes that I think managers can make is, they try and manage, sorry, try and motivate in the same way that they're motivated. And it just doesn't work. So it's trying to get underneath what drives the person and knowing a little bit more about them. I mean, there's been loads of books written about it, a guy called Patrick Lencioni, one of my favourites, and he talks about three signs of a miserable job. He had a book that was called that, and he was saying that anonymity is being, is quite a miserable thing, right? If people don't know you, within your business, or the manager doesn't know you, how miserable is that going to be? But it's not, it's not kind of being poking, you know, how many times you've been divorced and stuff like that, it's about knowing a little bit about the person. So if they've got kids, maybe they have difficulties, they might need a bit of time to pick up the kids, you know, it's the nuances. That's what I'm getting at.

Jenny  42:50

Do you know what, this is such a good insight, it's to understand what's important to other people. And because of this remote way of working, for example, I know that some agencies, for example, recognise that everyone's Zoomed out. And they're really, really busy. So they've made a policy that they don't have any internal meetings scheduled for Friday's, for example. Because, unfortunately, you're working a million miles an hour often in agency. And if suddenly you look at your diary, and it's just meeting and meeting and meeting, you don't get anything done. And I don't know what you've been hearing from different businesses you're working with, but everyone seems to be working harder and more intensely in this remote environment from home because you don't have that wind downtime from driving the car going home and things. So that understanding of everyone's individual scenario, like  homeschooling, all the parents that I feel so sorry for, well, you included, that had to homeschool, whilst you're trying to have a full time job that's really busy.

Matt  43:53

Yeah, exactly. And one thing that's come up a few times on courses is, having clear channels of how do I communicate when I need to? And what kind of software are we using for what, and someone suddenly said this, like, a couple of weeks ago, they said, 'Look, we don't we don't know, when we're doing a piece of work, where do I add that? Is it in Microsoft? Is it in a meeting on Zoom?' So I think those kind of norms need to be clear. You know, when you're communicating if you need to get hold of me for an emergency, Whatsapp is the best one, you know, whatever it is for you. And so make sure that your team know how to communicate to you, and what kind of contribution they have to make and where they make that. Does that make sense? So, you know, is it on Microsoft Teams?

Jenny  44:50

Is it on Slack?

Matt  44:53

Is it on email? What's the best thing and this is a couple of questions I had, but that's quite a common question. So, for a manager to be able to get that across, I think it's really important.

Jenny  45:03

You see, this comes back to the point about time management. Time management, everyone's struggling with time to get anything done. And what I've noticed on Zoom, when people are talking to me that there's these pop up sounds 'Bing, bing, bing!' I don't know what's going on, but it probably an email that's come through, and their attention is distracted. And there's this fascinating study that it says, if you're concentrating on a task, and you're distracted, it takes up to 25 minutes to get back to the task that you were focusing on. Now, can you imagine how unproductive your day is if you've got pop ups, and you need that deep time to work on things that lend themselves to more concentration, like proposal writing or generating ideas? But everyone seems to be in this pop up world- WhatsApp, email, and you don't, it's almost like we don't help ourselves do we?

Matt  45:56

No, exactly. There's a book about it. And the guy's name is Cal Newport, I think his name is, and he talks about deep work. And, he's saying that it's just making the point that we don't really have time to do some really concentrated quality work at times, because we've got so many other things going on. There's so many people talking about the distraction kind of world that we're living in. And, you know, even on courses, you know, sometimes on courses, you get somebody who's like this side, that they're, they're not facing the camera, but they're obviously doing some work, at the same time. It's just impossible. You can't concentrate on more than one thing at a time really.

Jenny  46:41

I agree, and probably a completely separate podcast about it. But to your point about if you are then in a leadership position, or managing others, it's almost like telling your team, look for these hours or these blocks of time, I'm not going to be available on email. But if you need me in an emergency, like call my phone, so to have one agreed way that they can interrupt you if really, really necessary.

Matt  47:06

Yeah, yeah.

Jenny  47:08

Okay.

Matt  47:10

I was always impressed with one manager I used to work with, he used to record a message every single day to say what he was doing. So, he would say that I'm in meetings from two to four, if you need me, you can get hold of me at this point. So it was for clients as well. But I just thought it was a really nice touch, he would record it every single day.

Jenny  47:30

That's really good, that's a good tip.  It was Ian by the way.  Oh, was it? Okay, what books or sources of inspiration would you recommend people read if they're interested in learning more about managing others?

Matt  47:42

I'm a bit of a hoarder when it comes to management books, I always kind of think, what's new and shiny?

Jenny  47:48

Don't read them, just put them on the shelves so it looks like you very well read.

Matt  47:52

Yeah, look how many things I read. But sometimes you dip in and out of them because there's certain things about them that you say, I'm interested in that bit. But there's a few, I mean, Five Dysfunctions Of a Team is really good - Patrick Lencioni. He makes the point in that, that conflict is quite good. Not particularly between people, disliking people, but it's about ideas, it's about ways forward. Rather than thinking, oh, gosh, you know, Jenny hasn't got the same kind of view as me and that being a problem, it should be a positive, it should be a good thing that we are discussing ways forwards and tasks. So I do think Patrick Lencioni is really good and he's got about five or six management books. And they're great, I really like them. Adam Grant is really good. He covers a lot to do with management, but also things outside of management as well that make you think. If I had the titles with me now, I would give them to you.

Jenny  49:04

I think the author's name is fine. as good.

Matt  49:07

Okay. And I would also look at emotional intelligence as well. You know, Travis Bradberry, and Daniel Goleman. It's about, a big part of it is self awareness. You know, and how your emotions, you can think about when you are what they call emotionally hijacked. And there's another phrase for it, which, which is the Amygdala Hijack, where certain things will make you respond in a way perhaps, which you didn't want to respond. So there are triggers and I think, as a manager, to have a view on what your triggers are, and how you deal and manage those triggers is really important. So that's another area I would definitely get you to look at as well.

Jenny  49:58

That's really useful.

Matt  49:59

There's a new one, which is called The Evolved Leader as well. I'd look at that and a few coaching books, which I was...

Jenny  50:06

I'm going to be spending a lot of time on Amazon!

Matt  50:12

I know I could go on and on here. I could give some recommendations in the notes if you'd like?

Jenny  50:17

Fantastic. We'll do that, Matt. That's great. So just finally, can you tell us a bit more about your course? And if people are interested in coming on this, 'Managing others for new managers', how can people book?

Matt  50:31

Yeah, I've got various different ways. If you want to contact me, contact me on matt@bottledlearning.com, and then I can give you the dates of what's coming up next. So probably the easiest way.

Jenny  50:42

All right, fantastic. Well, thank you so much. That was I think, hopefully, that was really going to give a lot of food for thought for people who are maybe in the position that they're going to be managing someone or they're already managing someone and hoping to get it right. So thank you so much for sharing so much. It's been brilliant.

Matt  50:59

Thanks. I’ve enjoyed it. Thank you.