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What do you do when you feel like an imposter or feel inadequate? Fake it till you make it? Or be forthcoming with your shortcomings?
Our guest Charlene Leung shares how when she first transitioned from individual contributor to people manager (less than a year ago!), she felt the pressure to project all-knowing confidence in order to earn the respect of her team, even when that confidence was false. But she came to see that putting up this false front was counterproductive, and that when she was willing to be vulnerable with herself and her direct reports, it brought her team together, built trust, and eased the anxieties that had often kept her up at night.
Why it matters
We often have an image of how a manager “should” act or come across. Confident. Cool. Capable. Ready to lead the way to succcess.
However, as Charlene shares, we may be doing ourselves and our teams a disservice by trying to mold ourselves into this archetype. In fact, showing vulnerability is a strength. Having open and honest conversations, including about your weaknesses and uncertainties, and enabling others to do the same is key to building rapport and trusting relationships within your team, as well as fostering an environment of collaboration, risk-taking, and growth.
Putting it into action
1. Be okay with not knowing everything, and ask for help
Everyone has limits and weaknesses, and we face new challenges every day. It's much harder to accommodate for and overcome them if you don't admit them though. Whether you're on day 1 or day 1000 of being a manager, don't be shy asking for help and guidance – and don't be too hard on yourself!
2. Admit to your team when you don’t know
Your job as a manager isn't to have all the answers. Your job is to guide your team towards finding the answers together. Get comfortable saying “I don’t know,” as long as you pair it with a plan to figure it out together. Inviting your direct reports to problem solve with you builds a stronger sense of ownership and engagement.
3. Create room for vulnerability within your team
Be conscious and deliberate about how you build trusting and mutually supportive relationships within your team. For example, Charlene created a regular forum for team members to share their challenges and seek help from each other – and she saw a dramatic impact on how they connected and collaborated with each other.
Other resources recommended by our guest
Bringing Up the Boss by Rachel Pacheco
Share your insights & experiences
When have you felt comfortable or uncomfortable being vulnerable with your team? In moments when you (or someone else) chose authenticity and vulnerability over false confidence, what impact did you observe?
We‘d love to hear from you at [email protected] or on Twitter @YoullManage!
Where to learn more about our guest
Charlene Leung is Group Product Manager at Ylopo. You can find and connect with her on LinkedIn.
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“You'll Manage Challenge” episodes put theory into action, providing you a clear, achievable next step to up your management game within a week.
In Episode 11, Eusden Shing, an engineer-turned-product leader from Hulu and Pinterest, shared how he came about his set of core management principles, and how they have been key to effectively managing and guiding teams. Compiling a full set of "commandments" takes time, but in this week’s Challenge we’ll talk about how to get started, one principle at a time.
The management commandments You'll Manage Challenge
For this week’s challenge, you'll start identifying one or two principles based on the feedback you give to your team.
Here's how:
Note the feedback you have been giving this week and reflect on whether there are common or recurring themes.Reflect on those themes and dig deeper to uncover the underlying reason for its prevalence. For example, a specific, prescriptive piece of feedback about how to conduct a meeting may reflect a broader principle or management truth that you believe in about communication or transparency.Try to articulate that reason as simply and clearly as possible, such that you can then articulate going forward with your team. That’s your first principle! It doesn't need to be perfect – undoubtedly this will a forever evolving, iterative list.Share your Challenge experience
Drop us an email at [email protected] or tweet us @youllmanage to let us know how your experience completing the Challenge was. What principles did you come up with? How did you uncover them? Or do you already have a set of principles that you've developed over time?
Even better, record a voice memo and attach it to your email, and we might feature you in a future episode of You'll Manage!
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Saknas det avsnitt?
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“No one is unreasonable.”
That's one of the 10 principles that engineer-turned-product guy Eusden Shing lives by. In this episode, he shares how having carefully crafted a list of principles has helped him lead teams at companies like Hulu and Pinterest. We learn about some of his top 10, including “trust is the foundation” and “focus on few things well,” and how he puts them into practice to manage and collaborate effectively.
Why it matters
Effective teamwork is often about effective alignment – around what matters and what doesn't, what success looks like, and how best to get there. Having clarity around your core beliefs helps us lead with focus and intentionality, but perhaps even more important is the ability to effectively articulate them. Building a shared understanding of how to collaborate and excel together not only helps align and mobilize your team, it also provides a framework for coaching your team members and giving them feedback.
What are your "commandments"?
Putting it into action
1. Start capturing potential principles
Reflect on your own experiences. What are some potential candidates for your list of operating principles? Is there anything you've learned from others that has stuck with you, whether from mentors and managers or books and podcasts? Are there concepts you often find yourself using to coach others? Start capturing it all in a live document.
2. Test them out
As you grow your list of potential principles, you’ll want to see which ones actually work. Try to put them into practice in your workplace – do these principles work in the context of helping you make decisions at work, collaborate with colleagues, and tackle tough challenges? Consider discussing them with your team and get their feedback as well to see if it resonates.
3. Communicate and incorporate
Once you feel you have a solid list that’s been tried and tested, it’s time to start spreading the word. Incorporate your principles into how you frame your actions, decisions, feedback, advice, and more. Make it part of onboarding for new team members. Ultimately, if they truly are effective, essential principles they should become an essential part of your team's culture
4. Iterate
Revisit your list periodically. Do the principles still make sense and still work for you and your team? Are there new ones you want to add and maybe ones that no longer resonate? What feedback have you gotten from others? Your journey as a manager is forever evolving, as well as the contexts you're working in, so it’s likely that your principles will evolve over time as well.
Other resources mentioned in this episode
"No One is Unreasonable" by Seth GodinThe Score Takes Care of Itself by Bill WalshHigh Output Management by Andy Grove (introduces "task relevant maturity")Share your insights & experiences
What are some of the principles you have on your list? How did you come to consider them essential? How do you propagate them within your team's culture?
We‘d love to hear from you at [email protected] or on Twitter @YoullManage!
Where to learn more about our guest
See Eusden's list of principles on his
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“You'll Manage Challenge” episodes put theory into action, providing you a clear, achievable next step to up your management game within a week.
In Episode 9, Charlene Lee, head of product and design at Radar, spoke about the importance of building community and relationships at work. It's the perfect topic for a “You'll Manage Challenge”: A huge, daunting task that we can only start tackling bit by bit.
The community building You'll Manage Challenge
Your challenge this week is to take one deliberate step towards fostering a stronger community with your team. It can be small, like asking an icebreaker question at your next meeting, or bigger, like organizing a book club. It can be silly, like a dress-up day, or serious, like grouping new sets of people together on projects.
Every workplace and team community is different, so we can't tell you what exactly to try, but hopefully this episode provides some good options and a bit of inspiration.
Share your Challenge experience
Drop us an email at [email protected] or tweet us @youllmanage to let us know how your experience completing the Challenge was. What was your community-building effort? How did it go? What would you recommend to others?
Even better, record a voice memo and attach it to your email, and we might feature you in a future episode of You'll Manage!
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We were electrified by two simple words in this interview: "community leader."
We've all felt how much more enjoyable and effective work can be when we're collaborating with people we have mutual trust, respect, and care for. By extension, Charlene Lee, head of product and design at Radar, points out, building effective teams means building community. And so, managers need to think of themselves as community leaders.
Why it matters
Charlene's perspective on management was shaped significantly by her time at Google, whose research has found that the relationships we have with colleagues aren't just a nice to have – they're a key foundation to effective teams. Google identified "psychological safety" as by far the most important dynamic for effective teams and creating "an inclusive team environment, showing concern for success and well-being" as one of the top 10 common behaviors of its best managers.
Thus, it's incumbent on good managers to build those connections – not just one-to-one with their direct reports, but among team members as well.
Putting it into action
Building community seems like a daunting task, but it can be done bit by bit. Charlene suggest starting with these three pillars:
Understand your community and get to know your all your team members. Who are they? What are their personal goals? (Listen to our interview about career conversations in episode 1 for more on this.)Create space for community to get to know each other. Whether in small ways like icebreaker questions at the start of meetings or bigger ones like team activities, create opportunities for people to get to know each other personally.Draw on your own experiences. Think back to when you felt included, psychologically safe, energized – times when you were excited to go to work and see your teammates every day. What made that experience so special? What can you do to bring that back into your own team, in your own authentic style?Share your insights & experiences
How would you describe the communities you've been part of at work? What are ways you've successfully built and strengthened your team community? What aspects have been particularly challenging?
We‘d love to hear from you at [email protected] or on Twitter @YoullManage!
Where to learn more about our guest
Connect with Charlene Lee at charlenelee.me and visit her company Radar's website to learn more about the company and see the open roles in their fast-growing team!
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“You'll Manage Challenge” episodes put theory into action, providing you a clear, achievable next step to up your management game within a week.
In Episode 7, CEO and co-founder of Remote Job van der Voort shared his passion for remote working and the incredible freedom and flexibility it brings. This week's challenge is about looking for ways to bring a bit of those benefits to yourself and your team, even if your organization is far from going fully remote.
The asynchronous work You'll Manage Challenge
Your challenge is to find something on your calendar in the coming week to make more asynchronous – and thus hopefully giving your team members more flexibility and leveling the playing field for those who are remote or unavailable.
Listen to the episode to hear some ideas for how you can do this, including Slack stand-ups, video introductions for new team members, making meetings partially asynchronous, and more.
For even more ideas, we also recommend GitLab's guide to Embracing asynchronous communication and Dropbox's Virtual First Toolkit.
Share your Challenge experience
Drop us an email at [email protected] to let us know how your experience completing the Challenge was. What did you try making more asynchronous? How did it go?
Even better, record a voice memo and attach it to your email, and we might feature you in a future episode of You'll Manage!
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CEO and founder of Remote Job van der Voort has a message for all of us still adapting to working and managing from home – being forced to learn to operate remotely might be a blessing in disguise.
Once the VP of Product at GitLab, another fully-remote organization, Job was so passionate about empowering people to work from anywhere that he left to start a company that specializes in helping other businesses go remote. In this episode, he tells us why – and the lessons all managers can learn from managing remote.
Why it matters
Being able to manage a team well in person is already a big challenge, but in the past year, many of us have been introduced to another layer of complexity: Trying to do it all over Zoom.
What Job has learned, though, is that it's a mistake to simply replicate what we did in the office for our new remote environments – we need to rethink everything.
Many of us have learnt, for example, that the awkwardness of interjecting on Zoom makes us a little less able or likely to pipe up in meetings. And what about those spontaneous watercooler moments when you build personal connections or informally catch up with what your colleague is working on — what do we do when those disappear? When we don’t intentionally readjust our working styles and processes, we run the risk of misalignment among team members, disengaged teams, and erosion of culture.
Putting it into action
1. Embrace it and be intentional. Redesign the remote working and managing experience from scratch rather than just copying what you did in the office.
For example, instead of just replicating the way you and your team communicated in the office, how would you rethink the format and frequency at which you communicate?
How would you redesign being a manager? Without the in-person interactions, how can you still build rapport and build strong relationships with your direct reports remotely? How do you know if someone is having a rough day if you can't see or hear them?
How can you still maintain and build culture remotely? Take decision-making for example – seeing how senior leaders think and decide is an important signal of culture and values. How can we enable people to listen, learn, and read about how decisions were made even if they weren't part of those discussions?
2. Write more. Since a lot of interactions in the office are fundamentally about information sharing, we need to be more intentional about how we communicate in a clear way that's accessible for all. Writing is key, whether it’s communicating big picture goals and vision or just letting someone know you have completed the work.
Reassess whether the meetings you're having are really necessary or if they can be replaced with email, Slack, or other written communication.
3. Consciously connect with colleagues on a personal level. In a remote environment, we’ll need to compensate for losing those little interactions in the office that help us build personal connections.
Set up virtual coffee chats or lunches with your direct reports. Start calls with a bit of socializing before jumping straight into business. Play games or engage in activities that your team can continue to bond over (Job says he sent all of his team members a VR headset so they can connect virtually!).
Share your insights & experiences
What has your experience been like working and managing from home? What's different, and what's the same? What have you learned that you have or will bring back to the office?
We‘d love to hear from you at [email protected]!
Where to learn more about our guest
Find Remote co-founder and CEO Job van der Voort on Twitter
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“You'll Manage Challenge” episodes put theory into action, providing you a clear, achievable next step to up your management game within a week.
In Episode 5, Tomás Campos revealed to us the one critical question he learned to ask at Uber: “What are your expectations of me as a manager?” It's not always an easy question to answer, though, so this week's Challenge provides some other ways to approach that question and start a conversation.
The expectations You'll Manage Challenge
Your challenge is to spark the conversation with at least one of your direct reports about how they expect and want from you as their manager. </p>
Here's how:
Ask them to tell you about:something a past manager of theirs did that they really appreciated, andsomething a past manager of theirs did that made them feel frustrated.Dig into each and understand both the specifics of the events and the general insights you can draw.Based on what you discuss and learn, talk about how you can best work with and support them.Share your Challenge experience
Drop us an email at [email protected] to let us know how your experience completing the Challenge was. Did the Challenge successfully lead to a broader conversation about expectations? Did you learn something new about your direct report(s)? Did it change how you work with them?
Even better, record a voice memo and attach it to your email, and we might feature you in a future episode of You'll Manage!
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Early Uber employee Tomás Campos circled the globe launching the service in new cities. Managing teams from different cultures, he discovered how essential it was to ask a simple, yet critical question: “What are your expectations of me as a manager?”
Listen in to hear Tomás share some of the painful consequences he faced before he learned to always ask – and why when he did ask, he says it was “one of the most interesting exercises I've ever gone through in my life.”
Why it matters
We often make assumptions about what others want based on our own experiences and therefore don’t take the time to explicitly ask our direct reports about their expectations of their role, the company, and, most importantly, us as managers. When we don’t ask, we miss out on an opportunity to truly understand what our direct reports care about, what they want, what makes them tick, and how we can best support them.
And when we make the wrong assumptions, often we find out the hard way—in the form of a conflict, underperformance, or even a resignation.
That's why it always pays off to just find out directly: “What are your expectations of me as a manager?”
Putting it into action
Find a time to sit down with your direct report or as part of your regular 1:1s, simply ask “What do you expect of me as your manager?” Don’t assume, even if you think you know.Translate their expectations into a plan. How will you work to meet them (or, if needed, be clear about what you can't meet and what can be done instead)? For example, if they’re looking for more training, help them explore courses and programs. Or, if they expect you to help them get a promotion, work with them to identify milestones and metrics that will enable that.Measure and track the progress of the plan. Check in together so that they know you're working to meet their expectations.Ask the question at least once a quarter. As someone's career progresses or life circumstances evolve, their goals and expectations may change. Clear expectation setting works both ways: Be clear and consistent in communicating your expectations of them as well. And as you demonstrate that you're working to meet their expectations, they'll be more motivated to meet yours.Share your insights & experiences
Have you ever discovered the hard way that your assumptions about a direct report's expectations were wrong? Did you learn anything surprising when you asked directly about their expectations? Have you ever been asked this question yourself?
We‘d love to hear from you at [email protected]!
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“You'll Manage Challenge” episodes put theory into action, providing you a clear, achievable next step to up your management game within a week.
In Episode 3 we talked about empowerment, and this week's Challenge will help you, well, challenge your direct reports! Using a four-stage framework, you'll be able to thoughtfully and carefully guide your team towards greater autonomy and responsibility (it's not the deep end or nothing!).
The empowerment You'll Manage Challenge
Your challenge is to take a clear, deliberate, calibrated step together with one of your direct reports towards greater empowerment.
Here's how:
Identify a upcoming task or project that you plan to involve a direct report in.Locate where the direct report is in the four-stage model we discussed in the episode, in relation to this task or project.Find ways to calibrate their level of responsibility and autonomy slightly higher than the stage you've identified them at.Communicate these tweaks in expectations and processes clearly when briefing your direct report on the task or project.
Share your Challenge experience
Drop us an email at [email protected] to let us know how your experience completing the Challenge was. Did it change your perception of what your direct report is capable of? Did it change their self perception? How did the conversation with them go?
Even better, record a voice memo and attach it to your email, and we might feature you in a future episode of You'll Manage!
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Ever been called a micromanager? Or been told you're too hands off?
Startup founders Vic and Maggie learned the hard way to strike the balance — and they revealed to us their secret to empowering a team and unlocking their superhuman strength to tackle new, daunting challenges. What frameworks helped them foster a culture of empowerment that enabled them to build the world’s most successful pet camera company, Furbo? Press play to find out.
Why it matters
You've probably experienced how motivation- and morale-sapping it is to work on menial, routine tasks that are completely unchallenging – or complex projects that are far too challenging without support. You certainly don't want your team members feeling either. Being deliberate about empowering your direct reports is central to not just their motivation and morale, but also their ability to grow and contribute more.
Putting it into action
1. Set a clear vision
The first step to empowerment is to make sure you have set a clear vision and agreed on clear objectives with your direct report. If you want to empower them and let them run, they need to know where they are heading.
How? Use a clear goal-setting framework. In this episode, Vic and Maggie mention the OKRs (Objective & Key Results) framework, popularized by Silicon Valley companies like Google.
Try this: If you haven't done so already, sit down with your direct reports to set their individual objectives using a clear framework. Make it clear it's their responsibility to achieve these targets, and be sure to touch base with them regularly to see how they're progressing.
Learn more: https://rework.withgoogle.com/guides/set-goals-with-okrs/steps/introduction/
2. Design stretch challenges
People often deliver their best work – and are most energized – when they feel challenged. They should feel a little nervous, but also be sufficiently set up for success through support and coaching.
With the right challenge, they’ll feel like they achieved the impossible and be more ready than ever for the next big project!
How? Craft challenges that push your direct reports out of their comfort zones. Then, coach them along the way when they need it. In Vic's words "fight the war together," and you can help them find that superhuman strength in them to achieve the impossible.
Try this: Identify one direct report who you consider an “emerging star” – someone with a lot of potential. Think about what skills and experiences they need to take things to the next level, and then try to find a project or task that will challenge them on those fronts. Create checkpoints and communicate with them along the way so that you can guide them when needed while still giving them the space to learn and figure things out on their own. (More on this to come in episode 4!)
3. Foster the right culture
Empowering an individual can only go so far if the overall organization's culture and practices aren't aligned.
Vic and Maggie not only defined open-mindedness and exploration as core values for their company, they actively embedded habits and frameworks that reflected those values. Their "1-2-3 strategy," for example, encourages teams to explore their options before coming to a decision as a group.
How? Consider what culture you want to foster. What are the specific traits? Then think about what specific day-to-day frameworks you can implement to bring it about.
Try this: Start with something granular, rather than trying to...
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"You'll Manage Challenge" episodes put theory into action, providing you a clear, achievable next step to up your management game within a week.
Following Episode 1's focus on career conversations, this week's Challenge is all about better understanding what makes your direct reports tick. After all, before you can help your direct report to develop their careers, you need to understand them as a person.
The career conversations You'll Manage Challenge
Your challenge is to build a better understanding of one of your direct reports by answering three simple questions.
What is one thing that your direct report enjoys doing?What is one thing that your direct report dreadsWhat is a passion/hobby your direct report has?Try to complete the Challenge within a week starting now! If you're not sure how to start, try one of the approaches we discuss in the episode.
Share your Challenge experience
Drop us an email at [email protected] to let us know how your experience completing the Challenge was. What approach did you try? Did you learn anything surprising? How will it change how you manage this person in the future?
Even better, record a voice memo and attach it to your email, and we might feature you in a future episode of You'll Manage!
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Do you know what your direct reports want out of their careers?
Leadership & development expert Steph Wong makes the case that it is your job as a manager to know.
Steph shares with us the approaches and tools she uses to guide people in developing their careers, and how meaningful career conversations can help your team do their best work – at their current jobs, and beyond.
Why it matters
As managers, we have a tremendous amount of potential influence on our direct reports' careers – not just within your current organization, but also wherever they may go in the future (and yes, someday they will leave!). We have a reponsibility to wield this influence with care and buy-in, and if we do it well it will bring out the best in them in their current jobs as well.
Putting it into action
1. Care about your direct reports as humans, not just employees
In order to have meaningful, honest, and open conversations about career development, your direct reports have to feel that you genuinely care about them and are interested in their lives – this can't be faked!
You have to build a rapport and trust with them and this takes self-awareness on your part. The ways you communicate with them – how you hold conversations, how you ask questions, your gestures, etc. – all feed into how rapport and trust is built.
2. Help your direct reports build self awareness to ultimately figure out what they want in their careers.
“What do you want to do with your career?” can be daunting for many.
Try these exercises and frameworks to help you and your direct report to together identify themes in what motivates and energizes them at work as a starting point to more thoughtfully plan their careers.
(Most of these exercises are from the book Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans. For more information, visit: https://designingyour.life).
Adjectives exerciseOne's awareness of oneself is just one side of the coin. Help your team members understand how they show up at work in the eyes of others. Ask them to each write 5 adjectives to describe each other – the collated adjectives for each person should help them identify key themes on how they are perceived and what others notice about them.Good time journalInvite your direct report to document everything they do for a period of time, in and out of work, scoring each event or activity based on how engaged they were and whether they gained or lost energy from it. At the end of it, they should be able to step back and recognize patterns in what keeps them engaged and energized in life and at work. (You can use the good time journal worksheet.)AEIOUHave your direct report identify some significant positive and negative experiences at work. For each, ask them to reflect on: What activity they were doing, what was the environment like, what were the interactions with the people there, were there any objects being made or used, who the users there were and how they affected the experience. This exercise provides a deeper understanding of the factors that enhance or detract from their satisfaction at work.OdysseyCareer planning can be an exercise in imagination.... -
We (Jenny and Harold) have been geeking out about people management for a long time. Learn why we care so much, why we started You'll Manage, and how we hope it will help you in your journey to become the manager everyone wants to work for!
