Manager Support: Aligning Strategy, Practice, & Community

I am excited to, uh, be here with everybody live and, uh, very grateful for the opportunity. Today we're gonna be talking a little bit about manager support and how to really align strategy practice at community, uh, z and the previous panel, uh, share So much insight and I'm excited about it. 'cause I think there's a lot of alignment with the manager support and the wellbeing. Uh, oftentimes we realize that, uh, we as leaders and managers, as we're managing systems and process and leading our teams and our people, uh, how do we have that support? Who's there for us? Uh, because it's oftentimes we show up for people. It's, it's in our habits, in our nature, uh, to really show up for others. But who shows up for you as the direct leader? So we're gonna give you some insight, and I'm excited about the panel. Uh, but I wanna show her some, some quick data, uh, that we have, uh, at Lighthouse Research and Advisory. Uh, I'm the Chief Culture Officer there, and very excited as I joined my, my good friend Ben Ubanks. Uh, and to, to really thrive into all things data and research. We just released a recent research, uh, study, um, called Peace Performance Engagement and Culture Enablement. And what we found in this, as we asked employees direct questions to their managers, directly tied to their managers, one of the things that really stood out to me is the impact of healthy managers and those managers who are, let's say, somewhat burnt out, uh, going through the emotions. And then those who are just so busy, their, their, their team says, you know, my leader, my manager is so busy, I just don't wanna bother them. And there's some data that really connects a lot of things that we've discussed so far today. One of those things is culture. How does this involve the culture? Whose responsibility is in a culture as a leader, as a HR leader? So many times we are thrust with all the responsibilities of handling the culture of the workplace. When culture really is an employee, it's a team. Um, I define culture as how employees feel, believe, and behave most of the time. Not all the time, because we as people, we change. But how do people feel belief and behave oftentimes? And, uh, this thing is start off, we talk about culture and, and companies want to dictate the behavior piece and, and say change behavior. But the problem is, is that we have to realize why that behavior is what it is. What causes the behaviors of us as people, as humans, right? It, it starts with the root of how do I feel as a leader, as a manager, how do you feel about what you do, where you do, and who you get to do it with, right? And so how do we feel initially starts there, and then we are filling those two belief. What am I believing about my work? Do I believe that I can get my job done? Do I believe that I can gain the trust, uh, of my team and my leaders above me? Do I believe this is a great place to work? We won awards, we got all these cool things, but do I truly believe that? Am I seeing those things? The values lived out more than just a product on the wall, but a true day-to-day, this is what we do. It's not a program, it's who we are. And so we talk about these things, the culture. How do we keep our employees engaged? And how that really falls sometimes on us as leaders. One of the things that really stood out to me in our recent research was we asked a simple question, is your culture functional or dysfunctional? And I love this question because it's just prime and simple. Is your culture function functional or, or dysfunctional? And what I found of that specifically tied directly to, uh, leaders and managers were is that where there was a supportive, functioning culture where people had a sense of connection, they had leaders who cared for them, managers who were there for them, that showed up and was supportive, uh, to them, versus those, uh, cultures that was unsupportive and dysfunctional. Some of the research that I found that really stood out to me was that there's two times more likely as z. And his team and panel, as they were talking about wellbeing and belonging, uh, one of the questions we asked is, do you feel like you have a sense of belonging within your workplace? Do you feel like you're connected and belonging in that workplace? And one of those definitions, a psychical psychological definition of belonging is that I feel accepted, respected, and appreciated at my work. Those people who had a supportive, functioning culture where they were, uh, respected, accepted and appreciated by their direct leader and manager, were four times more likely to say, you know what? I got a functioning culture. This is a place where I feel like I belong. Why? Because I have a supportive, healthy manager leader who is all in. And so when we talk about the importance and the power of a healthy leader, uh, power of a healthy manager, and the importance of that, I'm here for you to say, you know, there's some support there. And so what can we do? How can we bring support? How can we give strategies and, and alignment that can really help you as leaders, uh, thrive? What are the ways, what what is needed for us as leaders to keep on going through this life leading and doing what we love? Beyond going through the emotions, beyond, uh, you know, just kind of beating the drum and, and, and really doing this life. How do we have this work life, what I like to call harmony? Uh, I I say work life balance is no thing. One week it's family that's really high and, and work is here. Some weeks is there. So it's not really a balance. It's really about harmony. How can this work life? Because it's one, it's not a separate, it's who I am. It's what I do. So how do we as leaders have this balance of work life harmony for those employees that, that, that was, again, had a psychological definition of belonging. They were accepted, respected, and appreciated by their managers. Their managers was there for them. They had that support. Uh, the manager helped them and supporting them through their performance, uh, to be able to perform at their best. For all the great leaders out there that are thriving are there for their employees. 70% of employees say, you know what? I'm currently happy in my position. And they're two times more likely to be happy in their position than those who say, you know what, George, I want to quit within the next six months. I am checked out. I'm looking for a new job. Uh, and I, I'm ready to really look for something different because I don't have the manager. And so the, the, the benefit of being healthy, the benefit of having a a, a good healthy wellbeing, mindset and lifestyle is so powerful to you. The business, I like to put it as this way. A healthy culture creates a, a, a healthy employees create a healthy culture. And a healthy culture creates a healthy business. Again, a healthy employee where they're engaged, where they feel like they belong. That healthy employee creates a healthy culture. They feel believed and behave most of the time. They have that healthy culture. And a healthy culture creates a healthy business. And so, how do we have a health within ourselves? How do we have health within our culture? And how does our business stay healthy? Some of those key things that I believe, and I like to call it the CPR, let's give CPR back to the business that you can find in this piece. Research. Some of the CPR is based around three things. Culture, performance and retention. Healthy culture creates healthy performance. Healthy performance creates those people who really want to stay. So if I'm in a place as a leader where I feel like I, too as an employee, 'cause we are, we're employees too, we're like to say we're taught between pull between two lovers, right? The, the leadership of us that we're, we're handling things best for business and the people strategy that we have to balance that, hey, we have to handle and, and be able to be there for our teams and balance that with our teams. And so having that, uh, healthy relationship and some of those key findings is so important. I like to tie it up as you can figure out. Acronym junky George, uh, with peace, performance engagement, culture enablement, CPR, you gotta have good culture that helps you perform at a higher level and helps you say, you know what? I wanna stay. I'm, I'm willing to stay here because the culture's healthy culture helps my performance even better. And so you can find a lot of this research and I'm sharing with you today. Um, and I'll share the link in the chat, uh, at l hra.io/two x. And so I'll put that in the chat. But you can find a lot of this research and infographics that, that I'm sharing today that'll help you out. And, and you'll be able to see some of these key findings as well. That, uh, things like my culture frequently provides opportunities of recognition and appreciation supporting our managers as we too need some words of affirmation. Some of us may be gifts. And so understanding the love language that we have, being able to share that with our direct leaders, letting them know, Hey, this is, this is what motivates me. It's not a pizza party. It's not, you know, a, a a, a a shout out with everybody else, simply thank you or bring it back in. So reinforcing those things that you desire to have sa same as your team has that, you know, Hey, Sarah May be different than Josh. And so I wanna be able to balance that out and really give them that love language that they are seeking. It's so important and so vital, uh, to that, that nature. How do we do this? And I'm, I'm gonna wrap it up. We're gonna touch a little bit this on, on the panel, but how do we do this together? How do we create, uh, this support with our managers? I like to call it as A-R-S-V-P one more acronym. RSVP. This is something that I do with my team, but this is something that we do as a, a company. And that's RS VP every quarter. I wanna have a RSS VP, what does that mean? R stands for role. What has changed in your roles? For managers to have that true support, we need to be able to speak to our leadership and say, Hey, listen, this is how my roles change. If you're like me out there, you like to support and be there for your team. And so you wanna bring that value. And so what's changed about your role? Have you added things because you support another department that's changed your role? Um, have you stopped doing things? Because a lot of times we are graded on our performance and, and our performance is not necessarily just our job description. Uh, if you can throw in the chat, and I'm interested, interested about this here. Anybody in the chat that's been with their company for more than a year, answer this question. When was the last time your direct leader or manager talked to you about your job description? When was the last time you have reviewed your job description? If you've been with their job more than a year, not counting the first day when you hired, you knew it, but when was the last time you as a manager and a leader went over your job description? This is the importance of really checking in quarterly with yourself and your team, but also your leaders. And so this is something that you can use roles, responsibilities, what has changed them? S is for strengths. What are your strengths? Are you connecting your strengths to what you do? Are you doing what you love? What is the importance of this? Is that I wanna make sure that you as a leader are doing something that, that you're directly connected with, that you're using your gifts and your talents. And I know oftentimes we say, you know, I don't wanna talk about my strengths because this is just another opportunity for me to use my strengths, but not get taken care of on the back end as far as payment or appreciation or, or value wise. And I, I believe that is true, but how do we connect what we love to do with what we get to do in our day-to-Day. We always say, we love our work, we love our team, but do we love those around us and what we're doing? And so being able to share our gifts with those V is for values. What are your values? Are your values aligned with the company values? Have they changed? Being able to have that discussion and being, having that, that culture and fostering that culture. Open communication where it's not constructive criticism, it's constructive feedback. Feedback is a two way street. This is how, these are my personal values and this is what I believe there is a connect or disconnect with the company's values, but this is how I feel like we can get those connected together. Realigning your values with the company values, making sure you're still connected to a greater purpose. And there is that, or p, the p and r. SV p's. Purpose is your purpose. Are you living with a purpose? Do you have a sense of purpose in what you're doing? Are you championing that thing? So roles, strengths, values, purpose. And doing this quarterly, I believe as managers, we have to do this. We have to check in with ourselves because if we don't check in with ourselves, we eventually check out the same with our employees and our teams as we are an employee too. If leadership is not checking in, employees would check out. And we as leaders and managers, sometimes we're holding on because we're that we're that leader and we have to be there for others. But I wanna encourage you and support you that RSVP with yourself, RSVP, with your leader quarterly. Just get on the calendar and say, listen, this is the support I need. I wanna talk about my roles and what's changed. I wanna talk about the strengths and the values and my purpose and how that aligns with the company and how I as a employee need my leader to hold me accountable and also hold each other accountable on connecting with that. And so I wanna show that support. But real quickly, I'm excited about the panel and I wanna get this discussion going into deeper 'cause we got some great people, uh, on our panel with us today. And so without further ado, I want to introduce three, uh, important people that are with us today, uh, that's gonna talk a little bit more and share some of their insight and wisdom on how we can bring support and some of the strategies and Beck's practices that we can use. But also, you know, how do we bring that within the community? How can we tie those things in? And where does it start? How can we do those? And so what I father do, I wanna introduce, uh, these three, uh, guests that we have today. Uh, and I wanna introduce 'em first and just bring 'em on the screen. Uh, we have Cheryl with us today and, and I'm excited about this conversation to have Cheryl with us as well. Uh, Cheryl is the VP of Human Resources with Baylor University. We're also gonna be joined by Christopher, the VP and chief learning officer of Chadman, and then Mandy as well, principal, behavior scientist at Torch. And so, uh, we're gonna bring those lovely people with us today. And as we're joining today, I'm just gonna kind of share, uh, uh, and shout you out. And I want, if you could just to share a little bit about, a little bit more, uh, about what you're doing. And we're gonna start with the person that's close to me on my screen. And that is Cheryl. Cheryl, would you please just kind of give a brief introduction, uh, and share just a little bit more? And I wanna do something fun. Okay. Share one fun fact that nobody may not know about you. One fun fact. One fun fact. Oh my goodness. I think my fun fact is that I have three productive adult children. They're kind of off my payroll, except, except for one. And, and she's, she's hanging in there. And I kind of admire that a little bit. But that is probably my, uh, my, my, my fun fact that I, that I've come up with there and telling a little bit about my role at Baylor and kind of my interest in this, um, in this today is I am CHRO at Baylor University. I actually have been here for almost 10 years. Prior to that, I was in corporate hr, and it was really in corporate HR where I learned the importance of the manager and that we could do all sorts of programs. We could have numerous things to make our place a great place to work. And if the employee doesn't have a great manager, doesn't have a manager that really speaks into their life and is very effective, that a lot of the programs we would put into place are all for Naugh. And so we, I found that to be extremely true at the university as well. And so very excited about this topic and people learning more about it. Awesome. Next up is Mr. Christopher. Share a little bit more about yourself and maybe a fun fact. Yeah. Well, I would say something people don't know about me is the fact I have seven kids under 12, but I talk about it so much on LinkedIn. I think anybody who follows me knows that. So I'll go to my second one, which is, uh, I grew up in a funeral home and my dad is a part-time clown. So if you get to know me, you'll kind of see how that bizarre mix of personalities comes together, uh, in the way I look at the world. So, Very Interesting and yeah, that's Good. Yeah, I, I normally don't find other people that go, Hey, yeah, me too. When I share that fun fact Mortician and the clown. Yeah. Um, yeah, in terms of my focus, so I joined ChenMed three years ago, and in that time I joined, we had about 1200 people. We're now at 6,500 people. And so, as you can imagine, for us, growth is huge, but it's really about how do we prepare and equip people. So I'm responsible for all of the talent development across the enterprise and figuring out how do we not only bring people into the organization that's growing at that pace, but then how do we support them and how do we enable the manager? Awesome. And last but not least, uh, the great Mandy. Thank you, George. Thrilled to be here. Um, my name's Mandy Farley. Let's see, we're all starting with our fun facts. So can I tell you, my first career path that I considered was musical theater actress. And, um, I ended up pivoting to being a scientist. So those two things go nicely together. Um, but yeah, still have a passion for theater. Husband's a playwright, so we try to stay in that community. Um, I'll not sing you a song today unless I get very excited about the topic, and then I might sing my response. Um, you never know, You know, it's happen. It's a good panel if there's singing involved. That's, that's the kind of panel, you know, you've, you've reached it, It's been known to happen. Yeah, I'm a principal behavioral scientist, um, at Torch. I'm also an executive coach. Torch is an executive coaching company. That's what we provide, um, for individuals and for groups. I'm very passionate about this topic in particular because I've been doing a deep dive into the things that managers typically struggle with. Um, I've been developing a program to kind of help that and, and support, um, HR leaders and training their managers. And just a fun fact that I came across was originally on the radio, and then I had to go look it up. Um, there's a report that came out by a workforce institute at UKG that says that a manager actually has, um, a greater influence on employees' mental health than their therapist or doctor, and it's on par with their spouse or partner. So when we're thinking about having good managers, what they can do for companies, um, it's really, really vital. Um, and Gallup has only like 10% of people that get put into those positions are naturally good at managers. So there's a skill gap, um, that needs to be closed for everyone who's not in that lucky 10% to become really good and effective as a manager. So I think it's very achievable. I look at it all very skill-based behavior, change based scientist hat on. Um, and I can also put my coach hat on too. We can decide which one we wanna do. Awesome. I appreciate everybody. I just want to jump right into this conversation, uh, because we talked about this last week a little bit and, um, really important, uh, strategies and support that we can find manager. So this is just dive right into it and, and I'll kick it off with Chris, uh, if you will, uh, with this topic. What are some of those importance are, we talk about manager support and we've been there right? As leaders, um, and, and having leaders on our team. Um, you're leading seven in your house, uh, along with your wife. Talk about some of the, what are some key factors, like what's needed, uh, to, to really start this as we talk about foundational and looking at it from a foundational standpoint as we're gonna build on this conversation. What are some of the important factors you believe, uh, and, and, and best places to really start when it comes to supporting our managers within the work field? So in terms of where we put a lot of focus recently is, and I think this is only gonna grow more as the AI age ranges or increases. There's a lot of assumptions that people know how to interact with people well, and I think the pandemic started to expose to us, we actually aren't really all that good at that. And it's a skill that needs to be built. And so even for us, a lot of times we, we make assumptions that, well, managers know how to do this, or they know how to do this, but they don't even have the fundamental skills sometimes to know how do you actually build a strong, meaningful relationship that's established on trust with people. And that is something that we are really deconstructing what goes into relationships, not just managers, but just interpersonal relationships. Because when we start to focus on that strong foundation of how do you build trust, how do you communicate well in the digital age, how do you do these other things? Then when you start layering on some of the more managerial tasks, you know, how do you have a one-on-one, how do you do these other things? They come more natural and they're more holistic because, well, you've cared and you've genuinely invested in a human relationship. Now that manager, you know, direct report type thing, it just comes a little more naturally. So we're heavily focused on that, and that's been really helpful because again, those are skills we can measure and we can assess so we can start to see, are you getting better at doing these things? And it's something people are often lacking, even though they don't realize it. Yeah. Mandy, you, you wanna, I, I see you nodding your head, uh, over there. You, you wanna jump in and, and kind of, uh, build on that? What, what do you think about this as well? And, and, and that too, what Chris is just saying, Happy to, um, always greatly enjoyed talking with Chris so far as we're we're talking about noodling about these topics. Um, what really strikes me about what Chris said is that there's tasks that managers do. And sometimes those can seem a little bit mysterious, but it's not just about the task. Like, yes, you need to do the task effectively. You have to be able to give feedback, you have to be able to structure work for people, but it's not just what the task is in performing that part of the performance equation is how you do the task. So there's, um, I always think of the Maya Angelou quote, people won't remember what you do, but they'll remember how you made them feel. Yeah. And so there's a way to give feedback effectively, um, that is useful for your direct report and also compassionate. And so it's finding and also fits with yours, a manager's skillset and, um, strengths like your natural personality, strengths, how you naturally wanna come across. And anytime you can draw on your strengths, you're going to be so much further ahead in, in what you're trying to do. But yeah, for me, it's not just what manager's doing, but how are they doing it? Which I think going to that is, especially when you look at what's going on in society as a whole, it's really important. Right now we're in like a loneliness epidemic. We're in economic uncertainty. There's all these other things that are just crushing people outside of work and helping people and managers understand how do you connect and care about those people, recognizing all these other things. It doesn't mean you don't hold people accountable or have different difficult conversations, but you have to build that compassionate human relationship with them first so that you can then build on that. So I, I love that it's not just about, and I think sometimes with training we do that we're like, here's the task. Go do this. Mm-Hmm. And it's like, well, yeah, but how you do it matters a lot. And that's a skill. Mm-Hmm. Yep. There's a lot of gray in that space. Yeah. So I, as we're talking, I wanna bring she in here as well, uh, because I, I hear relationship, like a lot of this stuff is, is being able to connect. I'm connected, right? So we talk about the psychological definition exec and them talked about that sense of belonging and connection. We're it, it is really built around relationship. Do I have the relationship that is needed to be able to lead and have that support? Cheryl, can you talk a little bit about the importance of relationship and, uh, in leadership to, to be able to gather that, uh, uh, that, that connection? Because if I don't have a good relationship with my leader, I'm just thinking, I've had leaderships where I didn't really connect. I didn't have a relationship. It was hard for me to trust anything that they said because it was business first, not people first. Can you speak a little bit about the importance and the value of that relationship with your leader? Yes, absolutely. It, and it to just build on what's already been said here. I think that we assume a lot of times, well, people know how to do that. I mean, you know how to, to lead a group of people. And actually it's, it's very, very difficult. The notion of building relationship does not come very naturally, especially if you're a manager and you have a large team of direct reports. And there are lots of ways that you can try to do that. One thing we've really tried to do and have found some success with is figuring out what are the things that if a manager does it consistently, what's a routine that if they do it consistently, it's going to lead to a good relationship. It's not gonna have a, you're not gonna have a good relationship maybe the first week, but one of those is one-on-ones having very effective one-on-one meetings with your direct reports. Now, for, for us, what the, the difficulty has been is typically what managers will say to us is one of two things. One, I don't have time to have these one-on-ones. I mean, I'm barely getting my job done now. Or they say this, I don't need to have one-on-ones. I talk to my people all the time. I do it all the time. I'm always having one-on-ones n no you're not. You think you are. But that employee deserves, whether it's once a month, once a week time, that they know they're gonna spend with you, the leader, and you're gonna look at them, you're gonna talk about maybe their job responsibilities, maybe not pull out their job descriptions. But do you understand what your expectations are and how do you think you're doing on that? And let me speak into that, really having those one-on-ones. And I don't, I think it really depends on the manager and the team, but having them routinely and do and avoiding certain things. Like one of the things that we have found is when you constantly are canceling the one-on-one, it, it does not lead to goodness in that relationship. So helping managers understand it's more important that you have a 15 minute meeting may versus an hour and not cancel it if at all possible. And so working on that routine, and again, it can seem, seem pretty, pretty basic, but if we can get an easy tool like that then and, and, and promise them, you know, if you do this regularly, you're gonna see that relationship get better. I think it, it really pays dividends and there are other routines, but I think the thing that we've seen that's the most helpful are the one-on-ones To Cheryl's point, just to go on to that as leaders, especially for those on here who are HR leaders, one of the things that we found I've found to be really effective is also going to my business counterparts and making sure I'm reinforcing with the business senior exec leaders that you need to be reinforcing this and you need to be modeling this. Because often we put this pressure on the frontline folks and go, you need to be doing this. But they're not seeing it all the time from their leader. And if their boss isn't making time for them, they're gonna go, well, I'm not seeing the behavior that I'm being told to do. So it feels a little like, do this, but I'm not seeing it. And so we put a lot of time, I personally put a lot of time really drilling that into my executive counterparts going, this is important for you 'cause otherwise this is just white noise going out to the organization. That's right. And yeah, To add to both what Cheryl and Christopher or Chris said, um, it's not just what's happening in the one-on-one relationship between their manager and the person they're managing the direct report there, we've actually found that there's a ripple effect of how, of what happens within the organization. So we see when managers actually spend the time developing their people, um, spending time acting as a managerial coach, uh, listening very deeply with something that I heard, um, Cheryl talk about, not just the words, but the things that people aren't saying, their behavior, the things that you are saying with your behavior when you cancel meetings. So having the self-awareness to know that all those things really matter, not just to the person that you're managing, but it ripples out through the organization. So when we found that when um, managers spend more time acting as a coach to their direct reports, really figuring out what's important to them, those employees are a lot more likely to stay with the organization. You're gonna retain them, you're gonna be able to upskill them into other different positions. They're more engaged and they pick up new skills. It's really, really incredible. Um, and I can put a link to the report that we did about this, um, ripple effect phenomenon, um, because it was really, really interesting to see that the stance a manager takes with their direct report just ripples throughout the organization. One other thing, Cheryl, that I love that you said, sorry, this, well, I mean these are panels, this conversation. I, Cheryl I. Love the fact that you said, it may sound basic, but so often this stuff with managers, it's like it is the basics. And we've often assumed, well everybody's doing the basics. So we're always focused on these higher order things. And it's like, well, but the basics aren't happening. And if the basics aren't happening, this other stuff isn't going to happen effectively. And we have to not apologize for that. And actually we've done some work to try and normalize it. 'cause it can sound a little offensive if you're like, we're taking you back to the ba 'cause nobody wants to feel like I'm being taken back to like the found. So we've actually tried to be careful how we word it even so that people don't feel like, Hey dummy, you're not doing the basics, but more like, Hey, we all can get better at these foundational skills that we may have assumed we were doing, but really we maybe weren't doing 'em as well as we thought. So let's see how we can do that. And the nice thing is technology is changing things so much. You can kind of frame it in the, Hey, you have to do it differently. You're not like bad or behind. We just have to do it differently. 'cause it's a different world and it's distributed workforces and AI is changing everything. And so like, let's just make sure we've figured out how to adapt those foundational skills in the modern age. So I love that you said that. Yeah. One of the things too, when you were saying about the basics, one of the things that we try to share with our managers is this, you will never get to the strategic if you're not doing the basics. You're, you're never gonna win a football game if you're new at doing blocking tackling. You. You have to know the basics first and do them really well. And the cool thing is then you get to a place where you can do some cool stuff and and Right. And the basics are cool also. But yes, take they Are cool. We gotta make 'em cool. That's right. That's the thing. We gotta make 'em cool again. So people are like, you know, it's cool to be good at the plumbing and the electrical in your house. Like That's right. Don't worry about the new kitchen cabinets. That's right. Well, I think part of that too is that when we're talking about them as basics, they're actually really challenging skills, like listening very deeply. It's not easy. That's a, that's a tricky thing to do. Keep your, keep your focus, not multitask. And so what I kind of hear us talking around is like seeing these basic skills as valuable, like these are valuable to the business. These are value adds. They have really important impacts on the bottom line that are not immediately apparent. And so being able to highlight like a manager, like a lot of your job is actually just developing the people below you. Like, yeah, you wanna do strategy, you wanna do this cool stuff, show off to your bosses, then you got a little dancing instead of singing. Um, it's, it's not just that like actually investing the time with your people. And sometimes it comes down to like, where do I spend my time as a manager? What's a good use of my time? I'm obsessed with thinking and talking about time. But when you're making those trade-offs, it feels really urgent that I have to work on this budget. But it's just as urgent that I make time for my direct report because I want them to stay engaged. I want them to see that I care. Um, I want to get information about their perspective, what they're seeing at their level. 'cause that really decreases the further up you go in the organization, senior leaders get told yes a lot, whether or not they should just because of the amount of power they hold. So you need those strong relationships even to just function well as an organization. Well, and as we've said, the basics doesn't mean easy. Yeah. And I think that was eye-opening when we started deconstructing skills into their fundamental bits and pieces. And people start seeing like, whoa, that's what goes into building trust. That's what goes into communication. And you're like, yes. When you start to see the complexity of human behavior and skills, you realize that basics isn't like you're a dummy if you don't know how to do it. No, it's hard. And it's changing and it requires continual practice. And that helps people feel less kind of padded on the head like, oh, that's cute. You don't know how to do that. Like, no, most of us don't. Well, and trust is such a complex one. You've brought that up a few times, Chris. Like there's like a cognitive component of trust and then there's also an effective component of trust and people don't Yeah. Really think about emotions aren't cool to bring to the workplace. Well, we're humans, they're gonna come with us anyway. So like, why don't we just acknowledge and talk about them so that they're less mysterious, but it's not enough to be like, intellectually, I should trust this person. This person is my manager. Therefore they're in a role where they're supposed to look out for me. So I will trust them effectively. If you don't feel that connection emotionally to that person, if it doesn't look like they're gonna have your back, if you don't feel that, forget it. There's no trust. Trust. Yeah. I'm over here. I'm over here. We'll give you Back the panel, George. Sorry. We just like Totally hijack. I there's so many notes. I'm over here. There's, there's two things that are going through my mind is that oftentimes we just assume and we, we, we can talk as adults, what assuming means. If you don't know, you can pm me personally, I won't say it here, but we all, most of us know the, uh, the acronym for assuming, uh, again, I'm an acronym junkie and I'm over thinking sometimes common sense isn't so common, we just assume, right? No. And we shouldn't assume if you know what that means, but really having, uh, you know, the, the knowledge to have, uh, those basics. I I do have an acronym that I have in my mind for basic, I may save it for later, uh, to, to challenge. But I wanna talk about, uh, go more into, as we talked about the, the difference. Couple things I heard was the development development managers. Um, we talked a little bit about what it means to have that relationship and development there. Can we, can we discuss the power of transformational leadership just for a little bit when we talk about how that really supports one of the strategies and supporting our managers is taking their mindset and ourselves from a transactional leader versus transformational leader. Um, Manny, I'll, I'll open this up with you. Um, talking about, just kind of share a little bit about that, that transactional versus transformational and what strategies we we can implement to develop managers into transformative leaders and equipping them, uh, in the mindset and the skills to really inspire them to do greatness and to drive meaningful results within the workplace for themselves, but also for the business. So as you say, um, transactional and transformation or transformational leader makes me think of, um, the distinction we made earlier about like focusing on the task or focusing on the person. And so ideally you're doing both. And I think that's where you start to see that transformational leadership take hold and take root, um, as opposed to just, well, I did my thing. I did my thing, I did my thing. I'm a good manager. Um, there's a little bit more to it. And I mean, I'm very biased because I am a coach. I study coaching. So lo and behold, I'm gonna talk to you about coaching. Um, but the reason why this is so effective, and there's been some interesting peer reviewed research out there that training isn't really sufficient to learn these skills. Um, there's a big forgetting effect of that and people don't really get to practice the skills. So I kind of liken it to like, I'm gonna learn to ride a bike. Am I gonna watch a video to learn to ride a bike or am I actually gonna get on a bike and mess around and find my balance? Um, it, it's just the more effective way to learn how to ride a bike. And it's the same thing with learning to be a manager. I can watch a video on how to be a good listener, but until I actually start practicing those skills and seeing like what comes up for me when I'm trying to do this? What are, what am I struggling with? Where am I succeeding? Um, coaching I love because you get to talk to another person, a confidential source. It's very personalized and you work on the things that are really important to you, but also in the context in which you need to use them. So I'm not just abstract learning how to listen, I'm learning how to listen to my direct reports in a way that they feel that sense of belonging that George was talking about. On that note though, one of the things, and I sometimes this gets misconstrued is thinking, it's competing with coaching. But this to me is one of the reasons I'm so excited about where generative AI is going is I'm doing so much work right now with generative AI in using it as that place. To your point of how important it's for people to have opportunities to practice and apply and get feedback, which anybody on this call knows is historically been extremely difficult, not scalable. You, you either had to have a lot of money or a boatload of people to pull it off. And while generative AI doesn't replace it, I don't know a single person in any company that's gone, yeah, we're nailing it. Like we're offering this to everybody. We're generative. AI is now adding a level of scalability where you can say, Hey, we can actually offer this to people so they can practice doing things and get that direct feedback in real time or on their own thing in a psychologically safe way that can then support and augment it. Because that active learning, I'm doing a live stream in a couple weeks talking about we're in the age of active learning and that is going to be so critical for the development of human skills, is giving people opportunity to do it. Because otherwise it's all just head knowledge. And we all know what happens when people are filled with head knowledge that never transfers to action. And it's that dunning Kruger curve where you just hit the pavement To what you said Chris, too. I think that's a really interesting strategy. And then the part that I would add to it is actually getting that, I guess live to live human to human feedback at the end of it. Um, I mean we use 360, um, I'm, I'm a fan of 360 to a point. I think it gives you a really good way to build self-awareness. How you perceive yourself as a manager matters, but not as much as how your direct reports perceive you. And so, and again, talking about trust, there's kind of the two sides of the street, how you think you're doing and then how other people really think you're doing. And so these sorts of behavioral based measures, shock, the scientist wants to talk about measuring behavior, um, are, are really important to be like, well, uh, my intention. 'cause there's also intention impact. My intention is to be really inclusive. Is that felt by the person I'm trying to include? If not, didn't really happen. Just to build off of both of these, I think for us, I wanna agree with what Mandy said regarding listening. It's so important. And that to me hearing is transactional listening is transformational. That's, that's a difference. And one thing that we've shared with our managers I think has really helped, especially if their one-on-ones aren't as effective. We've encouraged 'em to think about their listening as a light switch that can go on and off versus a dimmer, think about a light dimmer, you know, um, you know, you can take the light down or, but a light switch without a dimmer, it's on or off. And really that's the way listening is really listening means you're either on or you're off. And some of us, we think we're far better at faking it then we are. Right? And the employee's going, I know you're not listening. And so again, that sometimes the length of your one-on-one, you can shorten it. And if you really listen, you're gonna get more out of that time. So I wanna acknowledge that, uh, it really is, um, a key, key piece. And it is the thing, you know, I think when people look at ai, there's so many things that AI can help us with. Seeing a person and hearing a person is something that will always set that really transformational manager, um, in a, in a whole different category. Well, and I think the beauty of it to that point, 'cause again, this is where sometimes I get misunderstood as thinking AI's replacing and it's not. But I think the beauty of it is it allows us to be more present and focused in those moments that matter because we're not so caught up in all these other distractions. Instead we can say, that's all happened outside, now you're with me and let's actually talk about this because I'm not focused on all these other activities. And I think that's the beauty of doing this, right? But again, the key is threading that needle, right? 'cause the potential to go sideways is there. And I, I will not turn this panel into an AI one. We always say, let technology do what technology do does best. Mm-Hmm, yes. And there's all, so I think that's what what you're getting at. It's not a substitute. Yes, there are things that it can do better and easier so we can do the transformational end of it better. Yes. Because Yes, I mean, just acknowledging the valuability of human attention. We were talking, um, we did a training on active listening within our organization and our, uh, CEO who's a therapist led it. Um, and he was saying like, you can actually only pay attention and listen deeply for eight seconds at a time. You get eight seconds, you get another eight seconds, you get another eight seconds. And thinking about it in that way, like, oh, are human hardware just is not always able to do the things that we would like it to do. And so just even acknowledging like, I will need to take breaks. Sometimes I'll need to refresh, I'll need to like bring my focus back to the thing that I'm trying to do and build up that muscle, um, I think is, is really key. And the other thing that I'll say, 'cause um, Cheryl, you were talking about hearing versus listening. Um, I have a friend and colleague who did research on listening and how people know that they have felt listened to. And one of her key findings was that, um, it's not enough just to hear what someone said and take it in. Usually your direct report wants to see you take action in some form. They want to see your behavior do something. So if you've asked very specifically to talk about your performance, and then your manager never does that with you, they didn't really listen to you. They may have heard you, but they didn't follow through with action. And to your point, inaction is an action and it's an action. Mm-Hmm. In the wrong way. It speaks volumes to your people. And that's mm-Hmm. I I, you couldn't, I couldn't emphasize that more That, that's awesome. Although here again, I I appreciate y'all, I'm taking notes, uh, about all this thing. And Chris, you, you said something really sticks out, like having no action is an action, right? Like there is no choice versus chance and just leaving it to chance, you made a choice, uh, to, to do do so. And so the importance is like, take that action, take that step. Uh, as we're talking, I wanna encourage everybody right now that is actually still here with us and listen to us. Feel free to drop questions here. In the next two or three minutes, I'm gonna, I'm gonna take some questions and q and a and, and throw those to our, our panel here. So feel free to jot those q uh, questions in and, and we'll get to those in a second. A as a last round to kind of bring this all together. Before we get to the q and a, um, I want to move into some of the, the importance of resources and opportunities, uh, that we can provide for our managers, maybe with some things that you're providing at your workplace and your organization, uh, here on the panel. Because I believe that fostering that continuous growth, um, and learning, right? Inspiring our leaders and our managers to embrace lifelong learning and development. Um, we're seeing a lot of organizations and companies bring on as, um, Mandy has talked about bringing on coaches and bringing on partners, uh, uh, to help with the leadership development. Those are some of the things that, that I'm excited about I get to do as well on a day-to-Day is help organizations, uh, bring in not just another program, but it's a daily, it's not a training a one-off, but it's like, this is, we, we wanna develop our leaders over time and grow within, um, how do we bring some of that growth and development? What are some resources, what are some ways, uh, that they can, uh, stay developed that they're, they're continuing to grow. And I'm gonna start off with Cheryl. Um, Cheryl, if you, you don't mind just kind of sharing some of the things that you're doing that you're seeing in your organization that's really an integral part of your leadership journey in developing from within? Yeah. So one of, one of the things that we are using, and I think Mandy will appreciate this, we do use a, a coaching group that we have started working with, which again, in corporate, I think that is, uh, I think I hope a common, a really common practice in higher ed. It, it hasn't really been there or it hasn't been at our institution. So us coming forward and saying leaders, especially for your kind of mid-level managers and as they're growing into things, if we could provide a coach, um, that is available to them, we think it could be really helpful. And we've had tremendous, tremendous success with that. And uh, again, would be happy to discuss that we were very intentional in how we went about it. We have seen amazing results and it's so rewarding. We have one of the people that participated in it say to us, I thank you so much for doing this. I was feeling shame because I didn't think I was leading well and I needed help. So a lot of times, you know, with us, when a manager's not doing well, we think, ugh, you know, or don't you care about your people? Or why aren't you doing the basics? And this person wanted to do well, but feared that they weren't. And this coach was able to walk alongside them. They told me personally. They said she would say all the time. So is that true? It sounds a little bit like you've created, uh, some of, some of that. So I think that is, is a very important piece. I will say we use, uh, LinkedIn learning and bite-sized learning as much as we can. And how we try to do that is if someone is struggling with something, you know, and sometimes we find podcasts, sometimes we, we have a group of people that can help with that. But then we also think after that person has done that, it's helpful to talk to an exemplar manager about that, who's also familiar with it. And so a quick 30 minute conversation on teams afterwards, like, you know, what do you, is this practical? How would I do that? We have found that also to be very safe for people. Sometimes talking with, with the HR person, they're like, I got it. I had no questions, actually, I'm perfect. And so, but if they talk to an exemplar manager that says, gosh, I'm, I'm, you're learning this before I learned it. Here's how this happens. Here's how this goes. We have found that to be e extremely helpful as well there. The only other thing I'll mention is we have some team behaviors and uh, kind of group norms if you will, that we uh, we use as an HR team and sometimes sharing that with teams and managers can help the entire group understand certain things differently and it helps a manager. One of our non-negotiables is that we assume positive intent and what does that look like and what does that mean? We seek and provide feedback and what does that look like and what does that mean? So sometimes going to the larger group can also be very developmental. Awesome. I'll just, awesome. Well, we got a couple, I was just gonna jump on what you said, Chris, Cheryl, um, which something you hit on. So for me, I'm always thinking about scale and something you hit on is we often underestimate the power of the knowledge and expertise we have in our organizations. So you combine that with the need for people to have human relationships. We've found so much success in really driving and facilitating connection points for managers so that it's guided by us. We're making sure it stays on track and is focused on certain skills, but allowing the collective to come together and discuss that. And we do it really timely based on what's going on in the organization. So we recently had a big organizational rift. So we leaned in and said, we need to bring managers together around the skills of rebuilding trust with your teams in that. But not necessarily going, let's do a traditional training and talk at them about what they should do, but instead bring them together and go, let's talk about what you're dealing with and what are you struggling with and where are those areas that we can lean in and what kind of resources do you need? And they're actually building a lot of connections and learning from each other, which sometimes learning people are like, that's a threat to us. And I look at that and go, absolutely not. Like, no way. This is fantastic that they're learning from each other in that relevant area where they can apply it directly to the work they're doing. I love that Chris. And it ticks so many boxes for me. We've um, tried to be a little bit more intentional just internally at our org about how to facilitate the types of conversations you want managers to have. And so our people success team actually rolled out the People success scorecard. And so it alternates between performance conversations with your manager, talking about job descriptions. 'cause George asked, when's the last time you talked about your job description? I'm like, this morning with my manager. Um, because we built that into our cadence. So it goes between performance and then also engagement. How are you feeling? You know, what do you need support on? Where are you unclear? And that's been very effective in helping not only managers see what's happening with their people, but also more widely as an organization, how are we functioning? And then we're also big fans of sipping our own champagne. So everyone is allowed, a coach encouraged to get a coach, um, at my organization. And we actually use our own manager development coaching program internally to help develop our own managers and their talent. Um, and I know George, you prompted us before be like, what are suggestions you would actually give to managers? And kind of based on that program and what we've developed, one of the things that we haven't talked about is someone being able to see themselves as a leader. So your leader identity is actually really key. When someone actually sees themself as a leader, they're more likely to invest time and energy in learning new skills, developing, getting better. Um, but there's also kind of this interesting dip where it's like, I started to see myself as a leader. I'm practicing, I'm not very good now. I don't see myself as a leader. Okay. I'm practicing more, I'm getting better now. I see myself as a leader. So it's interesting kind of this trajectory of how managers and leaders see themselves as they're trying to upscale. Awesome. We have, uh, one question. We're run outta time, so I wanna get this question in 60 seconds if it's possible. And I'll start with Chris. Uh, and then Cheryl, and then I got a question for you, Manny, a different one. So, uh, one question is this, we've heard a lot about helping managers show up gaps, basics. Uh, what about those who are great at leading, supporting, and enabling their people? How do we elevate their stories and examples for others? Chris, if you can in 60 seconds? Sure. So honestly, there's really practical ways. One way I did, I actually created a livestream. Doesn't surprise people who know me, but internal livestream where we, it's called Leading From the Front. And I interview leaders who are doing great things and we share their stories with the organization. And it's not only a way to recognize and show, hey, these are leaders who are great, doing great things, but then I'm there to help unpack what actually makes that great so people can then take takeaways from it. So it's a dual reward for people, but it's also a great learning opportunity and it's a great networking relationship building. 'cause they go, I know that person now, and they're, it's building connection. So it's been a phenomenal way to do that. Awesome. Yeah, I I, I would build off of that as well. I mean, what we have found to be extremely helpful is focusing on our c-suite leaders that do it well. And it is paid dividends and really highlighting them. And most organizations have at least one, you've just gotta find them and highlight that. Uh, full disclosure, our president has a PhD in organizational behavior, so she's all about this all the time. Her first contract, she was like, I have to have an executive coach. I want that as part of my contract. So we're very fortunate, but I have seen it even in other organizations where maybe that is not a practice. You find one or two that are extremely successful and you highlight what they're doing. And the way that Chris said, where it's, it's a good learning experience and it doesn't look like they're just magically awesome. They are awesome, but there are a lot of things that they're just doing really, really well, Man. Yeah. I'll let you throw ahead. I, you're shaking your head, so I'm gonna let you go ahead and, and, and, and so you got some listen, if not, I, uh, You can go. I think we covered that one. That those a great, great Example. What, what is your, so what is your Go-to book author or resource Mandy, uh, that you like to share with leaders to develop coaching skills? Um, so coaching with compassion, um, it's written by Richard boy Ellen Van Oten and Melvin Smith. Um, so they're all professors at my alma mater case, Western Reserve University, which is one of the only hubs of coaching research in the world. Um, and they train coaches. They provide coaching. So I have a deep passion for coaching. Um, they trained me and I really like their perspective on how to incorporate coaching into your everyday life. Um, and I can put a, I'll find a link and throw it in the chat. Um, but it's really approachable way to look at having more coaching behaviors in your life in general. How to be curious, how to deeply listen, how to not solve someone's problem for them. Very tempting to wanna do that, but it's a better result if you actually help the person to solve their own problem. So teach someone to fish versus fishing for them, essentially. Awesome. Well, I appreciate everybody here. Um, I appreciate you Cheryl, Mandy, Christopher, for being a part of this panel, um, and sharing insights. One last thing, and this is all, I'm gonna bring Zach up here, but I just wanna give everybody just one last, uh, word of wisdom. If there's something on your heart, encouragement you can give out to the managers out there as we wrap up this panel today. Uh, we'll start with Cheryl. We'll go to Chris. And then Mandy, just one last glimpse for our audience today. You know, the, the one thing I'll say, we used to always say this in manager training, and it would, we would say, first of all, welcome, they, they did this, they did that. And also we would remind them that now that you're a boss or a manager, um, people will talk about you at their dinner table at night. And people said, no, they won't. No, no, no, no, no, no, they won't. And we'd say, yeah, here are great things for them to say. And, and you get to, and we would always say too, how don't you do that occasionally? Oh yeah, I guess I do. Wouldn't it be wonder for your people at dinner tables? Said, you won't believe the compliment I got from my boss today. Or, you know, I met with my boss today and he says, you sees so much potential in me, or she said that she's so glad I joined the company and I'm making a difference. So it's about helping that manager understand the power of conversation, the power of their input, and that it's not a burden that actually it's, it's a joy and it can lead to the greatest joy that they have at work. So on. So on mine, I would say, you're going to fail. You are going to make mistakes. And some of the most powerful transformational leadership moments I've had is where I've gone and I've shared that with the people that work for me. And I've apologized for it and said, I'm not perfect. I screwed this up and I'm sorry. And while everything in your body makes you go, don't do it, don't admit vulnerability or failure, they're going to think less of you. Those have been the most transformational moments that have rallied the team around to go. It's okay. And it completely changes the paradigm for a team that says, I have a leader who knows, they make mistakes. 'cause they all know you make mistakes to your point of talking around the dinner, they talk about the mistakes you make, but when you see 'em and you can own them, you can completely transform the culture of your team. I love all of that. What I will add to it is take care of yourself managers. Um, one of my favorite topics is wellbeing in the workplace. If you don't put on your own oxygen mask first, how are you gonna help anyone else with their oxygen mask Roles are expanding. The job of being a manager is getting harder and harder and more difficult. And so it actually is really important to find ways to slow down, ways to take time for yourself. Actually spending time helping your direct reports it, these one-on-ones that Cheryl described. Oh, I don't have time to do that. It actually can be renewing to you. That's what some of the research says. So it's actually taking care of your people as a way to also take care of yourself. So be good to yourself. Restless holiday season. Awesome. Thank, and I'm gonna put my LinkedIn in the chat if anyone wants to. Awesome. Follow up with me. Feel free. Yep. Yeah, we, we dropped all of that in. Zack, if you wanna come up and uh, take back over. I appreciate everybody. Thank you again, uh, Mandy, Christopher and Cheryl for being with us and to everybody that's watching, we've got more exciting things to come in the wrap up. And I would just like to encourage you to inspect what you expect, inspect what you expect. Z is yours buddy.

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