Management Café By cover art

Management Café

By: Virtual not Distant
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  • Summary

  • Tim Burgess and Pilar Orti chat about what they've learned through their time leading teams. Join them so that you can avoid the mistakes they made! They share anecdotes, analyse articles, books and leadership and management theory, and even dare to give you some advice! Tim was the co-founder of a global distributed organisation, and Pilar used to deliver management and leadership training in organisations, as well as having led a small organisation herself in the UK. You can also check out past episodes from Season 3: Oh No, My Team's Gone Remote!, and seasons 1 and 2 which are solo episodes by Pilar.
    Pilar Orti
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Episodes
  • MC82 Manager Emotions: Joy

    MC82 Manager Emotions: Joy
    Jul 8 2024

    We continue with our Manager Emotions series. Today’s episode is all about joy. We remind ourselves of what it feels like, but we also wonder whether it’s always ok to express it.

    Join Tim Burgess and Pilar Orti for coffee - or tea!


    For full show notes head over to www.managementcafepodcast.com

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    27 mins
  • MC81 Manager Emotions: Anger

    MC81 Manager Emotions: Anger
    Jun 24 2024
    This marks the first of our series on manager emotions, where we discuss some of feelings we experience at work. Anger is one of the more complex emotions for a manager to navigate. Anger is about a perceived wrong and our desire to find a resolution. On the one hand, anger can be energising and act as a powerful catalyst for change. It shows us, and others, what is important to us. But when expressed inappropriately anger can be a destructive force. Many people are uncomfortable being exposed to anger and when we show we're angry at work we can run the risk of reduced connection and collaboration. And so much of this is tied to our own experiences and history and interpretations... one person's "slightly frustrated" might be another person's "rage and fury". Being able to express our difficult emotions in productive ways is one of the hallmarks of psychological safety and a high trust work environment. To quote Aristotle: "Anybody can become angry; that is easy. But to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way—that is not within everybody’s power and is not easy." 01:30 mins Definitions of anger and how different authors talk about it. We share definitions of anger from the "Emotion Thesaurus" by Becca Puiglisi & Angela Ackerman, the American Psychological Association and Claude AI. All of which highlight that anger comes from experiencing a perceived wrong or injustice. 3:00 Anger is sometimes a masking emotion disguising someone's true emotional state, for example protecting them from more vulnerable feelings like fear, sadness or shame. Anger can even be a defensive stance - in their book Big Feelings, Liz Fosslien & Mollie West Duffy share a quote from David Kessler that "Anger is pain's bodyguard". 4:50 Anger tells us that there is something we have to pay attention to. It's important to listen to as opposed to being controlled by your anger. 5:30 Many people feel the need to suppress their anger. There can be a lot of judgement about feeling angry or expressing anger. Tim knows people who never express anger, even when he knows that they have experienced injustice. But there are also so many examples of harmful expressions of anger. 6:30 What does anger look and feel like? Some of the ways we can see anger show up in a work context include: irritability, poor listening skills, jumping to conclusions, irrational reactions to inconsequential things, demanding immediate action, impetuosity, taking inappropriate action or risks. And these don't just show we are angry - in many ways they are also affecting how we interact with others. 7:30 Within ourselves we can feel hot, tense, fuzzy, shallow or fast breathing. It can really take hold of us. 8:00 Tim shares an example of when a friend demonstrated anger as a mask for embarrassment or shame. 9:15 Anger exists on a spectrum. It isn't always expressed so strongly that it takes over. 9:50 Anger can be helpful because it helps us understand what is important and it motivates us to take action. It can give us a way to express negative emotions. 11:50 Pilar has had to learn to moderate how she expresses anger, or behaving in ways that might be interpreted as anger, because it makes people uncomfortable. But we also can't bottle it up and then have it all come out. And sometimes to demonstrate that we are upset is more effective than telling people we're upset. 15:15 Tim's experience has been a bit different. He felt better about expressing his anger, but realised it was making other people feel worse. So he has to be careful. He might think he's giving a mild expression of anger but it can be interpreted very differently by someone else. 16:50 Tim talks about a time when just saying that he was feeling angry helped him feel less angry. This served him better in this situation than his customary angry response. 18:50 For Pilar, she needs to find a balance between tailoring her response without controlling everything about her feelings and how they are expressed. 20:15 Tim has another anecdote from a board meeting where one of the participants had experienced an injustice but wasn't allowed to properly express it in the meeting. It lead to a huge frustration and sense of disconnection for them, as Tim discovered when he spoke to the board member afterwards. 22:00 Just to be given the space to be angry and express their feelings can be valuable. This was a takeaway for Pilar in the example she shared at 11:50. 23:30 Managers can take a timeout if their own anger is getting in the way or someone else is expressing their anger in a way that is unproductive. It's important to return to the conversation at a later point. This is kind of what Tim tried to do in his board meeting. 24:30 It can also be helpful to paraphrase what an angry person is saying. This shows their anger is recognised and the injustice is understood. 25:00 It's ...
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    33 mins
  • MC80 Why Do We Procrastinate? (or what is procrastination, anyway?)

    MC80 Why Do We Procrastinate? (or what is procrastination, anyway?)
    Jun 10 2024
    Join our hosts Tim Burgess and Pilar Orti. Most of us are familiar with avoiding a task that we should be doing. But is there more to it? On the one hand we worry that procrastination leads us to being totally unproductive. But is being hyper-efficient realistic? Don't we sometimes need to break the cycle of busywork? Procrastination might actually be telling us something important about the task and ourselves. Managers might find themselves rescheduling a difficult conversation or delaying a decision. It can be helpful to dig into the reasons why. Is it a task that we just don't feel like doing? Has the task become boring through constant repetition? Do we need something more (e.g. context, support, perspective, data, etc) before we are ready to tackle it? This is a difficult thing to self-analyse because we are so good at hiding things from ourselves. And this is where managers might be uniquely placed to help their teams. If we become curious when we see someone procrastinating, we might help them understand why they are stuck. And help them make better decisions about what to do next. 00:00 mins Tim is less prone to procrastination as a manager than he was as an individual contributor, mostly because he feels guilty. Similarly Pilar will always prioritise work that someone else is dependent on over work that is "just for her". 2:00 Tim admits that he sometimes procrastinates because he doesn't want to be seen to be too responsive. 3:40 Pilar sometimes schedules a delayed email response so that people don't get used to an immediate answer from her. Tim classifies this as getting your computer to do the procrastination for you! 5:00 Procrastination can also happen when we are starting something but haven't yet gotten into the flow of the task. 5:50 Pilar shares a time when a team-mate's procrastination was just the symptom to a bigger issue. 7:15 The paradox of choice (or decision paralysis) is an issue for Tim, most notably shown via his inability to tackle his inbox. But as a manager much more of the work is happening real time - for example in meetings - which forced him to become more efficient. 10:00 It's harder to procrastinate work that has visible impact, like preparing for a meeting, versus tasks like responding to an email which has a lower "procrastination penalty". 11:00 Pilar wrote a book called "The Remote Workers Guide to Time Management" and it has a whole chapter on procrastination. One of the things she realised in writing the book is that she procrastinates by coming up with more work for herself. And this might be because most of her work now is self-directed. Whereas back in the theatre company when there was one production at a time with many people depending on it, she was less prone to distraction. 12:45 In a perfect example of brains telling us only what we want to hear, Tim relates how delaying tasks has often lead to improved outcomes for him. 14:15 There are so many reasons why we delay. In might be discomfort, boredom, overwhelm or a sense of not feeling ready. If we take time to understand why we are procrastinating then it can help us make better choices about how to deal with it. 16:15 We can apply this same curiosity to our team. And this can be a great benefit. Our team struggle to self-analyse just like we do, so as a manager we have an opportunity to gently and safely help people identify when they are procrastinating and if there is a bigger issue behind it. 17:30 Pilar is reminded of the book "Hidden Potential" by Adam Grant which introduced the concept of deliberate play. Taking a different approach to a task so that it gives you a different experience. When Pilar is stuck whilst writing she will sometimes use a generative AI bot to clarify her thoughts or spark a new idea. She's still working on her project but tackling it from a different angle. Tim agrees this is a great approach towards overcoming procrastination. 20:40 A lack of purpose or reward can also lead to procrastination. 21:15 Tim recalls a colleague who was very prone to procrastination but it was never a cause for concern because once this person got started on their task they became fully immersed in it. Whilst another colleague struggled greatly with prioritisation which looked a bit like procrastination - they were constantly working but not always on the highest priority tasks. 24:00 For our hosts, merely delaying the work is not procrastination. Instead its choosing not to do something that you need or want to do. What about you, dear listener? How do you deal with procrastination in yourself and your team? We'd love to hear from you! Get in touch through our Contact Form https://managementcafepodcast.com/contact/
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    28 mins
Management Career Success Economics
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