Episode 190: Ask Me Anything: Best Practices for First Time People Leaders
Instructions for how to put an Ikea table together? In the manual. How to grow the perfect green beans? In that one gardening Youtube channel you follow. A playbook on how to manage people? Now that’s a bit dicey.
Managing teams and leading people does not have to be overwhelming. And in this Q&A episode, Erin gives you her 5-step guide for managing effectively, whether you’re a leadership guru or just getting started.
If you’re looking for concrete strategies to let your people know you have their backs no matter what, this is the episode for you.
ICYMI – Your Post-Episode Homework: Have a question related to personal or professional development you want answered? Leave a SpeakPipe message for Erin’s next Q&A episode.
Show Links:
Episode 122 of the improve it! Podcast with Ramona Shaw
Episode 80 of the improve it! Podcast with Kim Scott
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Erin Diehl is the founder and Chief “Yes, And” officer of improve it! and host of the improve it! Podcast. She’s a performer, facilitator and professional risk-taker who lives by the mantra, “get comfortable with the uncomfortable.” Through a series of unrelated dares, Erin has created improve it!, a unique professional development company that pushes others to laugh, learn and grow. Her work with clients such as United Airlines, PepsiCo, Groupon, Deloitte, Motorola, Walgreens, and The Obama Foundation earned her the 2014 Chicago RedEye Big Idea Award and has nominated her for the 2015-2019 Chicago Innovations Award.
This graduate from Clemson University is a former experiential marketing and recruiting professional as well as a veteran improviser from the top improvisational training programs in Chicago, including The Second City, i.O. Theater, and The Annoyance Theatre.
When she is not playing pretend or facilitating, she enjoys running and beach dates with her husband and son, and their eight-pound toy poodle, BIGG Diehl.
You can follow the failed it! podcast on Instagram @learntoimproveit and facebook, and you can follow Erin personally on Instagram @keepinitrealdiehl here. You can also check out improve it! and how we can help your organization at www.learntoimproveit.com. We can’t wait to connect with you online!
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Episode 190 Transcription
Erin (00:00):
Hi new friend. I'm Erin Diehl business, improv edutainer Failfluencer and keynote speaker who is ready to help you improve your it, it being the thing that makes you, you. So think of me as your keeping it real. Professional development bestie who is here to help you develop yourself into the best version of you possible so you can develop your team and lead with intentionality, transparency, and authenticity. Oh, and did I mention we're improving your IT through play? That's right. I am an improvisational comedy expert who uses experiential learning to help you have your aha haha moments. Those are the moments when the light bulb goes off and you're laughing at the same time. So grab your chicken hat, your notebook, and your inner child because I'm gonna take you on a journey that is both fun and transformative. Welcome to the Improve It Podcast.
Erin (01:08):
Improve It Peeps. Oh my God. Welcome to today's show. I'm so excited to be here with you. I hope you're doing well. I hope you are in a space in a place ready to absorb, but some goody goodness over here. I just wanna take a quick reminder if you leave a review for this show, I said I wanna take a quick reminder. I wanna give you a quick reminder if you leave a review for this show, a tiny team of humans does a happy dance and if you send me a screenshot of your review at info, learn to improve it.com, I will give you a 20 minute coaching session. I want you to take that screenshot and the subject line, say Review, and then we'll set up a 20 minute coaching call. I wanna hear your concerns, what's going on in your life, and hope coach you through that for 20 minutes.
Erin (02:10):
So leave a review. It really helps us continue to be a top 1% podcast, which is awesome and bring awesome, awesome guests to this show. I sound like a broken record cuz every time I ask you, please leave a review. Please leave a review, please leave a review. And you know what? I'm never gonna stop because the more reviews we have, the more amazing guests we can bring on this show. That is the only way a guest knows that we have an awesome show is by looking at the number of reviews. So if you haven't done that yet, please do. Now, today is a special episode. This is an ask me Anything. Yes, Q, q and A so to speak. I had a member of you the Improve It Peeps send in a sound bite. And my apologies, dear friend, this was a couple months ago and I'm just now getting to it. So know that when you send in a soundbite, I promise you I will answer your question here on the show. It might just take a couple of months because we plan our content in advance. So let's get to hearing this question. We're gonna leave it anonymous from today's Improve It Peep.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Hi Erin, I have a question for you. What advice do you have for anyone who is a first time people manager? Thank you.
Erin (03:32):
I love this question so much. What advice do you have for a first time people leader or manager? So I know we have a variety of different types of leaders here on this show. We have senior leaders, we have mid-level leaders, we have emerging leaders. And I will tell you, it is true for many of us that when we get our very first leadership position, a lot of us are ill-equipped. There's no training. A lot of the training is done on the job through the experience. So just from personal experience, I myself was thrown into my very first leadership role in my mid twenties. And this was when I was about 25. I resisted working in corporate America until I was 25. I did a series of random things, which is an entirely different episode. But I got this job and I was super excited about it.
Erin (04:30):
I was excited for the structure, I was excited for the challenge. But I will tell you, not working in any type of office or corporate setting, I barely knew how to use Outlook. I barely even knew how to manage an Excel spreadsheet, okay? And I couldn't even write an email. Literally, my emails were like stories with no bullets and they were horrible to read. And my leader at the time, God bless her, sat me down one day and showed me how to write a bulleted email and I'll never, I'll never turn back. So I had little understanding at this time of time management, I was overwhelmed. I had to manage 13 contractors who were in the marketing field every single day, and all 13 of them lived in 13 different states. I was asking them at this time to do things that I wouldn't have even feel comfortable doing.
Erin (05:27):
A lot of manual labor, a lot of just time and grit. And to be honest with you, some gross things we were dealing with toothpaste. It's a whole thing. I won't get into it, but I just felt like it was against my values and I didn't want to do it myself. So I felt really guilty asking people to do these things myself, was stressed, myself, was overworked, myself was overwhelmed and I was underpaid. If I'm being honest, this was my first foray into leadership and then it hit me. I realized that managing people and leading teams does not have to be this way. There's so many amazing leaders in this world and they have had the forethought to lead by example. They have the ability to change their thoughts, which change their words, which change their actions. So why couldn't I do the same thing?
Erin (06:28):
I knew during this two year stint as a leader who was extremely overwhelmed that I could manifest and I could create a new future for myself because I love people, I love helping people. That's why this podcast exists. This is why our company improve. It exists. We love helping you be your best self. So I actually have a very cool story and it's actually a couple of chapters in the book that I am writing. I have since recording this episode, turned in the manuscript and I'm waiting to get that back from my editor. And I'm sure it's gonna have more red lines in it than my face did during my teenage Accutane years. But that's neither here nor there. I am excited to share this book with you. It has a lot of leadership lessons, a lot of tangible tips on leadership. It's an edit right now, but once it's out in the world and it's more, let's just say refined, okay, cuz your girl's a first time author.
Erin (07:34):
I will share some of these stories with you on this show. But going back to this story, I knew that I could create a new future for myself as a leader. And how I did that is, I'm just gonna be completely honest with switching companies, I knew I couldn't keep up with the pace of this job. It was not for me. There was heavy travel. It was nights, weekends, there was no off switch. And I needed to get out of this role in order to find a different perspective and create a leadership style of my own. So I created this first time leadership style. So again, I had two years of really poor leadership when I was a first time leader. And I created this five step plan for you based off our amazing improve it peeps question that can help you the new time, first time leader manage effectively, they're five steps.
Erin (08:33):
All right, let's break 'em down. Step one is to set up reoccurring one-on-ones with your team. Now, if you are leading a large staff, you could split these into smaller groups, but you wanna make sure that you are chatting and communicating with your team on a weekly or biweekly basis. And I'm not talking about, this is a meeting over Slack, I'm talking about virtual on Zoom, on Microsoft teams in person, if you're in the office. And I want you in those meetings to give them something to look for too. Had a wonderful conversation recently with a colleague of mine who also runs a small business and she has just stayed at this company for 18 years. Okay? She's the president, but they have a long tenured staff. These women there, mostly women at this firm have been there for 10, 15 years, all of them.
Erin (09:32):
And I asked her, I said, what's, what's the retention? How do you keep people happy? And she said, we have decided to focus on making them tell their friends and family how amazing this company is. What will they tell their colleagues or their, their coworker, no, excuse me, let me say it again. Skirt. What will they tell their friends? What will they tell their families about this company? Because making it and a wonderful experience, making work fun versus transactional is what keeps people coming back. So when you set up these one-on-ones, I want you to start off the meeting with something that is not transactional. Here are some examples. So let's say you have a meeting of about five people, cuz you, you manage a large team. What's a win? What's a win that you've had this week? What's a win you had last week?
Erin (10:27):
Start off with a positive because it gets them thinking in a positive way. One other great question I like to ask my team just to continue that conversation is what is one thing that we should stop? And what is one thing that we should start doing? Give the breath at the beginning of this one-on-one or small team meeting for small talk. I mean, listen, some people hate small talk. I genuinely care about what my team does on the weekend. I wanna know Mondays we have our Monday meeting and literally the first 15 minutes are catching up on the weekend. What did you do? Where are you going, Nicole? And my team is traveling the country in a van. It's true. She has amazing wifi and I wanna know where she's at, what she did. Jenna always has these really fun clubs and things that she's starting with her team.
Erin (11:16):
Kristy is basically on the road for us or doing something awesome all the time. Rachel, too. Rachel's like an influencer. I wanna know. I genuinely care. So genuinely care. And then get into the business by starting off with a question that allows them to think outside of just their day-to-day. That is step one, step two in those one-on-one meetings, I want you to look for roadblocks. What are some things that you can do to help get your team unstuck? What is the thing in the middle of the road that the team cannot drive the car around? Are they having trouble with a specific software? Can you help them? Can you get on a call with them and train them? Can you find a vendor or coach to help them with that software? Do they need guidance on setting their priorities? Literally, I feel like just in my 13 plus years of leadership, one of the biggest roadblocks for team members is priorities.
Erin (12:17):
Where do I put my energy? What's the first thing I should get done? Especially when you're a new leader or you're leading a team and they don't know your leadership style, it's really great to help guide them on those priorities. So ask them questions and let them come up with the answers and offer suggestions with needed. But here's a pro tip for you. Instead of just telling them the answers in these meetings when you're helping them get through the roadblock, I want you to ask them questions and help them arrive at the answer. Because guess what? When they feel like they came up with the answer, they are more empowered to put that plan into action because they feel like they came up with it. You guided them to that answer, but essentially they were the ones coming up with the next step. And that just empowers everyone because they feel important, they feel empowered, they feel connected to the work.
Erin (13:13):
So use that in your next meeting. Step three, this is huge. So you've got your one-on-ones, you're helping them get unstuck with whatever roadblock may be in their path. And step two, step three, all right, take the meetings out of the equation. Day to day, I want you to make sure you are over-communicating versus under-communicating. Especially messages from senior leadership. Senior leadership comes to you, or if you are senior leadership, make sure you are telling the people in the middle. Streamline that communication. Don't save all communication for meetings. Sometimes a simple bulleted email is all that is needed. And really, really lean into this bullet. Okay? Lean into the bullets. I just had a meeting with senior leadership. Here are the three things we need to focus on this week. Boom. Please reply back. You got this, let's go. That's all they need. All right.
Erin (14:19):
And communication, I will say, makes or breaks teams. We have an entire workshop on that. It is literally our most popular workshop and has been for years. Effective communication over communicating versus under. You never wanna be in a situation where you haven't shared vital information you would rather overshare than under. Okay, step four, y'all are crushing. This is rely on your gut and your values to guide you. So like I mentioned before, in my early days of leading teams, I was asking these leaders, these managers in the marketing field to do things that I would not personally feel comfortable doing. And that was hard for me. So when I started improve it, I said, I will do every single task first before I outsource it. Because I wanna know what it feels like to do this. I wanna know what it feels like to research leads.
Erin (15:23):
I wanna know what it feels like to prep workshops. I wanna know what it feels like to do this spreadsheet for five hours. Because before I give it to somebody else, I wanna know how to help them. I actually want to know how it feels to do it. So if it's not something that I personally don't think is moral or ethical, I will never ask them to do it. Or if it's something that I think is a huge waste of time, never gonna ask them to do it. We don't need paper pushers. We need people who are empowered to move the needle and service for whatever your company does for the world. And so what I really want to tell you as a first time leader is to truly listen to your gut. It will guide you. The moment I strayed from listening to my gut as a first time leader was the moment that I truly had some major hiccups in my, in my role.
Erin (16:18):
So listen to your gut. Here is step five. We're getting it done here. So step five is to ask for their feedback, your team members' feedback on your performance bi annually. So this is twice a year. I love to do these six months. And then at the end of the year, so in June, our fiscal year starts in January. So in June, and then in December, you have six months into the year to talk about what you're doing as a leader and how you can improve. And then you have the six months after to talk about what you did and what you're gonna do going forward. So you set up meetings with each individual, and if you have a large team, this will take time. But I can't stress to you enough the importance of this. There are ways to streamline this, but I really encourage meetings via Zoom or in person.
Erin (17:11):
The simplest way to hear from them is say, Hey, this is a meeting for you to give me feedback. What should I, as your leader start doing? And what should I as your leader, stop doing those two questions. First of all, they can't say, oh, nothing say, what should I do? They have to give you an answer. It's not a yes or no answer. It's like, it's like you're not asking them, should I stop doing X, Y, Z? Yes, you're asking them for an open-ended answer, which can lead to some great discussion. And so here's what you do. You ask these questions, these two questions, and then my friend, here is the hardest part. You actually listen. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. I know what you're thinking. So easy, Erin. Easier said than done. Okay? Then if you start talking and you realize it is not your turn to talk, because this opportunity is for them to talk to you, your job is to ask these two questions.
Erin (18:15):
Sit back and take notes. If you start to talk, apply this acronym. Wait, W A I T. Why am I talking? I love this acronym. Trust me. I use it daily, sometimes hourly. Think about that because the, the purpose of this conversation is for you to gain clarity. And I can't tell you how s impactful these conversations with my team are. I realize that I have a lot to work on as a leader. No one is perfect. So as a human being, you're just going to be flawed. So expect that. And I will tell you, you gotta put on some deodorant for this. It's gonna feel a little icky because you're used to giving the feedback. But it is so important if you wanna keep your team happy to listen to them. So let me recap these five step. Step one is set up those reoccurring one-on-ones with your team.
Erin (19:21):
Or if you lead a large team, split them into smaller groups. Step two is in those meetings, look for roadblocks. Look for roadblocks. What can you do to help them get unstuck? Step three, make sure you are over-communicating versus under. Step four, rely on your values and your gut to guide you when making decisions. And then step five, ask for their feedback on your performance bi-annually. And here's step six, which I didn't get to realize that you won't have all the answers. You're not literally the, the A leader who is 95 years old will not have all the answers. Part of life is figuring it out as we go is embracing the journey. It's actually being excited about the journey because when we get to the destination, we're gonna want another journey. So enjoy it. Now we have also had a couple of really great episodes on this show who talk about this concept.
Erin (20:33):
So I wanna refer you back a little bit to episode 1 22 with Ramona Shaw. And the title of that show is First Time Manager, how to go from Peer to Manager in Five Easy Steps with Ramona Shaw. So if you're somebody who was on a team and you recently got promoted, this is an excellent, excellent episode for you. And then to go even further back, episode 80 is with the incredible author of Radical Candor, Kim Scott. And that episode is called, if You Can, if you Can Give Feedback as a Leader, or Let me Say It again, you can give feedback as a leader and it cannot be triggering. So that book Radical Candor changed everything for me as a leader. Oh, you can give feedback and you can receive feedback. You'll hear it in that episode. It is a remarkable episode all about leadership.
Erin (21:26):
So as a new leader, listen to that. That's episode 80. And finally, here is your homework. If you have a question, if you want me to answer a question for you here on this show, I would absolutely love to. You can leave a SpeakPipe message and that is found in our show notes and it says, leave a message. All you have to do is click on that link. It'll take you to a little recording button. You can record it from your phone, from your computer, wherever. It does not have to be a fancy recording device. Ask the question, it'll come to my email. I'll download it. We'll put it in the show and we'll answer for you here. So my Improve It Peeps, you know what I'm gonna say? I want you to keep failing. I want you to keep improving because this world needs that very special it that only you can bring. I am so proud of you. Get out there and lead those teams with love. I'll see you next week. Bye. Hey, friend, did you enjoy today's show? If so, head on over to iTunes to rate and subscribe. So you never miss an episode. Now, did I mention that when you leave a five star review of the Improve It podcast, an actual team of humans does a happy dance? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. That's right. So leave a review for us on iTunes, screenshot it, and send me an email at info Learn to improve it.com. I'll send you a personalized video back as a thank you. Thanks so much for listening. Improve at Peeps. I'll see you next Wednesday.