The Elephant in the Org
The "Elephant in the Org" podcast is a daring dive into the unspoken challenges and opportunities in organizational development, particularly in the realm of employee experience. Hosted by the team at The Fearless PX, we tackle the "elephants" in the room—those taboo or ignored topics—that are critical for creating psychologically safe and highly effective workplaces.
The Elephant in the Org
Caught in the Crossfire: Middle Managers vs. The C-Suite Disconnect
In this explosive episode, Danny Gluch, Marion Anderson, and Cacha Dora dive deep into the turbulent world of middle management. Inspired by the recent MSN article "Being a middle manager is getting increasingly toxic," our hosts explore whether it's the hardest it's ever been for those caught between the C-suite and the frontlines.
Our hosts unpack:
- The growing toxicity in middle management roles
- Why focusing on managers might be more crucial than employee experience
- The dangerous disconnect between C-suite expectations and on-the-ground realities
- How the push for efficiency might be crushing innovation and morale
- The critical need for psychological safety in fostering effective leadership
From "time and attendance police" to "mouthpieces for bad news," we explore middle managers’ evolving and often thankless role. Are they set up to fail from the get-go? How can organizations better support these crucial linchpins?
Join us for a no-holds-barred discussion that challenges conventional wisdom and offers fresh perspectives on empowering middle management. Whether you're a seasoned leader, an aspiring manager, or simply interested in organizational dynamics, this episode is a must-listen.
Don't miss out on this thought-provoking conversation. Subscribe, leave a 5-star review, and let us know your thoughts!
Do you have an organizational elephant you want to discuss? Email us at elephant@thefearlesspx.com
Link to show notes
**Reference:**
MSN. (2024). "Being a middle manager is getting more and more toxic."
#MiddleManagement #LeadershipChallenges #OrganizationalDynamics #WorkplaceCulture #TheElephantInTheOrg
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- Visit our website for more content and updates: https://www.thefearlesspx.com/
- Reach out to Marion, Cacha, and Danny at elephant@thefearlessp.com
- You can find all episodes of The Elephant in the Org here.
We encourage you to subscribe and leave a review if you found this episode enlightening!
From April 2024, all new episodes of The Elephant In the Org will be posted bi-weekly.
Music Credits:
Opening and closing theme by The Toros.
Production Credits:
Produced by The Fearless PX, Edited by Marion Anderson.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are exclusively those of the hosts and do not necessarily reflect any affiliated organizations’ official policy or position.
Season 2 EP 2: Caught in the Crossfire: Middle Managers vs. The C-Suite Disconnect
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Danny Gluch: Welcome back to the elephant in the org, everyone. I'm Danny Gluch, and I'm here with my co-hosts. Cacha Dora.
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Cacha Dora: Hello!
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Danny Gluch: And Marion Anderson.
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Marion: Hi.
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Danny Gluch: I caught her mid coffee sip.
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Cacha Dora: What a waiter! Move!
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Danny Gluch: But we are ready to go on this one.
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Danny Gluch: The elephant in the org today is middle managers. They it is such a tough position they find themselves in.
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Danny Gluch: Is it actually just the hardest it's ever been for middle managers right now.
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Danny Gluch: And where are they? Gonna get the support they need, because.
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Danny Gluch: goodness, they're being asked a lot and scrutinized and under supported.
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Danny Gluch: What do we think, ladies?
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Marion: I'm I'm gonna well, I I think I'd just like to steal the title of an article that I read that being a middle manager is getting more and more toxic.
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Danny Gluch: Yeah, toxic's a little. That's a word that brings up some flags for me. What is it that specifically makes it toxic? Not just more difficult, but actually like degrading, and and a place that you should try to avoid, if possible.
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Danny Gluch: I think.
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Cacha Dora: I think we're. We've talked a little bit in previous episodes last season around this season of layoffs, and how layoffs have kind of become a norm
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Cacha Dora: in businesses
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Cacha Dora: but also that some of the these bottom lines have gotten tighter, which has been due to inflation and lots of other things and circumstances that we're not gonna talk about.
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Cacha Dora: But the problem and I think where the toxicity is coming from is that
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Cacha Dora: where middle managers are placed. They're being given the task of being the voice box of the company when they don't necessarily
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Cacha Dora: either a agree with what the company mandates are, but they're being forced to tell their people to do these things, or they're being told to do more with less as a result of a layoff. And now they're also being tasked with still, like the hard job. So I think, where that toxicity is coming from is at the end of the day.
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Cacha Dora: due to different things in different organizations. And the trend within these businesses is, people feel more stressed
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Cacha Dora: and more being put upon them. Instead of having different decisions being made. And I think, Marion, to your point, it's a lot of what this article is talking about. In what middle management toxicity feels like. It's not like toxicity in everyone bad mouth each other, and it's like a cutthroat. Situation has nothing to do with the behavior. Interpersonal behavior on that level. It has to do with how middle managers are kind of being asked to be the voice box.
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Cacha Dora: even if they admittedly don't agree. And then talking from previous episodes. This goes right into why people
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Cacha Dora: maybe don't trust the business because they're they know that they, some people know that they, their boss, is in a rock and a hard place.
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Cacha Dora: and they've built those relationships with them. And there's that psychological safety to know
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Cacha Dora: what that looks like.
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Marion: A lot to unpack.
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Cacha Dora: I know the article talks about a lot.
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Marion: It really does.
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Cacha Dora: It and it, and much to my heart. It has actual
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Cacha Dora: quantitative data. So it's not just like this is an opinion piece. It's actually talking about studies with real metrics and real bodies of people that have been surveyed. So.
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Marion: Hmm! I had a conversation with
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Marion: a senior leader. Last week, actually.
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Marion: And I was pretty blunt and said, You know.
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Marion: companies have to stop focusing on employees. They have to focus on managers, and they looked at me as if I just said, You know, the sky is pink and the sea is made of tequila right?
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Marion: And I'm like, no hear me out. I'm like, if you get the manager bit right.
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Marion: The employee but takes care of itself.
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Marion: But if we continue to prioritize employees over managers.
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Marion: we're just making the problem worse. The Delta gets wider and wider and wider.
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Marion: and these managers are frazzled. They're not supported. They're not getting along a long enough runway, I think, to develop those core leadership competencies, you know. I believe that leadership competencies should be developed from
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Marion: your very 1st job. I'm not saying you're going to be a leader in your 1st job.
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Marion: but those little seeds should be sown early on, and then given time to grow. And
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Marion: You know I I gave the the example of apple. I think that apple do a good job.
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Marion: Of developing leadership competencies early on in career, certainly in the retail side. And giving them time to grow with the person. Certainly, in my experience. Don't know if you
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Marion: would, you know, support that, Kasia, but
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Marion: I think that there's lessons there to be learned, and I don't think that it's something a lot of organizations really think about. Yes, they'll do.
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Marion: Training in air quotes but it's not that consistent real grounding of of those leadership competencies. So by the time managers
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Marion: become managers right? But by the time there's that transition from IC to managers of people
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Marion: they're set up to fail from the get-go?
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Marion: No, and and
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Marion: teaching someone someone the what and the how
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Marion: is is okay.
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Marion: but giving them the real, why
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Marion: is absolutely essential. And that just isn't happening enough, and that's not, you know, again, given the managers the support that you need to be effective.
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Danny Gluch: Yeah, I mean, I I think you know, when I was reading the article, and
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Danny Gluch: you know there's some other articles around similar conundrums of of middle management being being very difficult right now.
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Danny Gluch: and tied with what what you ladies were saying it really.
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Danny Gluch: it's almost like they're skipping
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Danny Gluch: right? So you have. You have senior leadership, and they're wanting to directly manage the individual contributors through different policies and things.
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Danny Gluch: And they're almost ignoring any of those leadership competencies and skills that these middle managers have. Like, they might be really well developed, but because senior leadership is trying to directly train and manage and lead
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Danny Gluch: and and engage the individual contributors. They're
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Danny Gluch: they're like left out. They're they're both the the voice of, and I have to deliver all the bad news. But I don't get any opportunity to actually lead like it's it's their job.
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Cacha Dora: She does.
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Danny Gluch: A mouthpiece for sorry you no longer work here anymore, or I need you to perform better. But they're not able to have the the teeth, if you will, to, to do any of the good stuff that they may have developed over the last
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Danny Gluch: 1015, 20 years in their profession. And I really think that that's a really rough place to be in. It's all the responsibility and none of the authority. Essentially.
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Cacha Dora: And I think you you have. You have a point there in the fact that, like speaking for myself as a manager, my favorite part of managing is developing people. I love being able to help people set those goals within themselves, or think, hear about what they are, if they already have them
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Cacha Dora: and create things, opportunities, plans, projects, etc, to help people grow into those things that they want and those goals, obviously, that they have need to align with the business.
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Cacha Dora: and there's that that interplay.
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Cacha Dora: But watching people evolve, and knowing that I got to help them in like is is something that I take a find. Personally, I take responsibility in. But also I find a lot of joy in watching people grow and evolve. I really do. And I think
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Cacha Dora: for people, managers who become people managers because they want to help and support people do that.
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Cacha Dora: That's where I think a lot of this. The article talks a lot about burnout, and I think that there's a huge level of the burnout that's coming from individuals who went in with the right reasons and the right intent
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Cacha Dora: and the organization or organizations, you know that they're a part have been a part of
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Cacha Dora: have. Don't have that same mindset and value set, and that's 1 of that's a hard thing to identify in an interview process. You're not always gonna know that until you're really in there.
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Cacha Dora: but
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Cacha Dora: you know. I do think that
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Cacha Dora: it. The challenges that it brings make people want to look elsewhere and make people want to be like I was a people manager. I want to be an individual contributor again. Yeah.
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Cacha Dora: and and and be okay with it. Yes, it's a it's a monetary cut. But also, you know the joy I found in helping people's been stripped from me. And now, if if you know, and if you.
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Danny Gluch: So where's the upside? Other than a few 100 bucks like there, there really, isn't it? They've.
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Cacha Dora: Take it out.
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Danny Gluch: That.
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Cacha Dora: And this obviously isn't for every middle manager in every organization, right? There's a lot of middle managers who aren't
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Certainly, I'll continue with the transcript from where we left off.
Cacha Dora: doing well in the role because the business has it figured out, they know the role and the purpose of that role. Right?
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Cacha Dora: But this article obviously is not speaking to the people who are getting it right speaking to to the phenomena of of where it's going wrong, and why
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Cacha Dora: and why it's happening. And I think a lot really has a lot of overlap into a lot of other things we've seen in the people space. I don't. It's not. This is one lever out of many that are contributing to the whole of the burnout conversation.
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Marion: Yeah, I mean, people, plastic, right?
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Cacha Dora: Okay.
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Marion: It's and it's always people first. But my last thoughts stop focusing on the employee and focus on managers.
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Marion: That's it.
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Marion: you know.
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Marion: such a missed opportunity to do better. The article talks about. They quote someone
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Marion: who's a middle manager, and they say, sometimes I feel like the workers. See me as an agent of the evil overlords and the C-suite. See me as a Union rep
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Marion: it's part of my job to reconcile their interests. No, it's not
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Marion: absolutely isn't. You're not there to be the mediator between those above and those below. Right? You're there to develop people, to produce, to meet organizational goals, to, you know, to establish excellence, to drive performance. That's what you're there to do.
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Marion: You're not there to be a Union rep. You're not there to be the voice piece of those above you who are too scared to see it themselves.
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Marion: You're not there to clean up the mess of decisions that were made way above your pay grade. And yet you're left to to deal with the fallout of that, you know, I think, return to the office. A favorite topic of ours is a great example of that right.
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Danny Gluch: About to bring this up. Yeah.
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Marion: Yeah. I mean, you know, the the these companies where there's mandates
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Marion: and employees are, you know, trying to push the boundaries and fly under the radar a little bit, and maybe come in, but maybe not come in. You know there's now an expectation, often an unsaid expectation, which is the worst on these, on these team leaders, these middle managers, to become the time and attendance police.
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Cacha Dora: Yeah, I'm.
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Marion: Sorry. What what pile of bullshit? Right.
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Danny Gluch: Are we in 4th grade like, what's.
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Cacha Dora: Yeah, you don't.
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Danny Gluch: Do I need.
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Cacha Dora: Being.
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Danny Gluch: Has to go. Use the restroom.
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Cacha Dora: Yeah, or there was like that one article on that end, and I can't God, I can't remember what it was, but it made me like
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Cacha Dora: beyond Danny Squint I like was teeth clenching at the same time where it was like the CEO of a company out and somewhere in the Midwest. I can't remember where. Who said he doesn't even allow employees to leave the premises for coffee breaks.
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Cacha Dora: That's why, like they've designed the office with daycare with a gym with all these things, so you can't leave
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Cacha Dora: and.
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Marion: I would, if I can.
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Cacha Dora: Find it. And I I wish I would with Danny. Yeah, you're making the face that I made. But like I think, exactly if I can find it, we'll link it, and I'm sorry if if we can't, because this was quite some time ago.
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Cacha Dora: but yeah, it's that end of that overlord. Talk about being an overlord right? Like
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Cacha Dora: where you're trying to
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Cacha Dora: give reasons that really don't need to exist. Yeah, you you don't need those things. And
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Cacha Dora: The the article really talked about like the thing that I think really is the
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Cacha Dora: the you know, the the classic tale of the Princess and the pea right, the pea that really makes everything really uncomfortable.
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Cacha Dora: And Glassdoor's lead economist wrote is quoted saying, middle managers are under more pressure to do more with less managing demands from leaders while placating anxious employees. And I think that's the real thing, right? That's really stressful.
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Cacha Dora: And and that's a really uncomfortable place to be. And just even speaking from experience, where you might not have clear leadership direction. But you know that there's a an end line. How do you? How do you navigate that? Right? Like
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Cacha Dora: to your point, Marion, from earlier? There's not a lot of training that covers that.
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Cacha Dora: It's definitely not from the organization that's putting you in that that precarious situation.
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Danny Gluch: Description. If that was the job description on the the application. How many people would really apply for that.
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Marion: Oh, my God!
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Cacha Dora: I wanna know why it wasn't a director at that point. They wouldn't even want it to be. They'd be like, this is something a director should be handling, not something.
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Marion: Yeah.
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Cacha Dora: Like, you know, someone who's got less than 10 years of management. Experience should be.
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Marion: Yeah.
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Danny Gluch: That uncomfortable responsibility down as far as they can.
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Danny Gluch: because then they can just fire that person for not doing it well.
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Marion: Absolutely, absolutely. And again.
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Marion: you know, depending on the size and scale of the organization, depends on how far removed these decision makers at at the top are from what's going on on the day to day, and decisions are being taken.
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Marion: They're absolutely out of tune with the think and feel of the organization. And it's these managers that are having to deal with the crap. And it's unex. It's unacceptable.
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Danny Gluch: They're dealing with the crap, but they're also being devalued to where you know, in one of these sort of like crossover avengers, episodes are. Oh, shit! What happened? Episode? Where? Where? Amazon's asking everyone to come in? They're also talking about flattening the organization and getting rid of of a lot of management positions and increasing the ratio of Ics to managers
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Danny Gluch: and boy, it is so clear, but like they're not explicitly stating, but it's so clear that they think, having the control of individual contributors having the control of them. Being in office
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Danny Gluch: is going to replace a lot of managers, because.
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Danny Gluch: in their view, a manager's job is to control the people. It really is time and attendance, and if we can, if we can watch their badge, you know, badge in badge out and they're coming to work on time.
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Danny Gluch: They really think that is a big percentage of what the management class is doing
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Danny Gluch: because they're now able to eliminate it. We're returning to office. We can eliminate a lot of managers, because clearly that's what they see them doing.
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Danny Gluch: And like.
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Marion: We're, we're, we're we're taking a we're on the wrong side of history. Here. We're taking a U-turn and going backwards. And actually, some of this almost feels dystopian, right where it's so far removed from where we should be and how we want to be.
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Marion: You know it. It's it's awful. I just
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Marion: I think about you know, is, is organizations continue to become more complex. Right?
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Marion: Flat structures are great. But at the end of the day.
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Marion: as business gets more complex.
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Marion: is it?
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Marion: That means more time needed to manage stuff right?
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Cacha Dora: And then.
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Marion: If I'm playing the time and attendance police and all the other nonsense that's being expected of me. What's happening to the business? Where's the time for innovation. Where's the time for creativity? Where's the time for
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Marion: doing the stuff that really propels us forward? If we're only just spending our time in a place of autocracy
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Marion: and managing and not leading right.
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Cacha Dora: And I I think you both are completely spot on Danny as you were talking about that, Marion, you touched on it right.
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Cacha Dora: if all you're doing is managing people's attendance, time cards, things like that. Your management role is really a nothing but meetings which sucks
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Cacha Dora: beep.
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Cacha Dora: and as a result of that. You don't have time to think. You don't have time to innovate, because all you're doing is either
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Cacha Dora: living by check boxes, ex excel sheets, reports, whatever the case may be, you're not actually to your point, Marion leading. You're really just a team project manager or coordinator. At the end of the day you're not actually. And again, this goes back to like, why, I love managing people. I love managing people because I want to see them
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Cacha Dora: progress and make progress, succeed, grow, develop, like.
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Danny Gluch: You're not a taskmaster.
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Cacha Dora: No, I
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Cacha Dora: we've got group. We've got a project. We're all gonna make our way toward it. But
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Cacha Dora: I mean, I would hope we'd have projects right? But
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Cacha Dora: the idea of just having a management role for the sake of you're getting paid to be in meetings and not do much else, because
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Cacha Dora: that's the the task manager enforcer aspect of things like.
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Cacha Dora: yeah, like, that's that A that's not efficient. And B, once those roles, once once leadership sees that that's not efficient and they get rid of the role. Then what happens.
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Marion: Oh, yeah.
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Cacha Dora: You know what I mean, like it really is to your point, Marion. This there's a
Certainly, I'll continue with the transcript from where we left off.
snowball effect there in the wrong direction. You know we're doing the opposite of Sisyphus, pushing the the rock up the hill. It's now just steamrolled back.
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Marion: Yeah. And and then and then, you know, we can start to to get all up in our oh, AI is replacing jobs and blah blah blah blah. But you know, organizations that are smart know that it's people plus tech. Right? Tech is great. But you can't replace fully replace the the nuances a person brings with technology and.
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Danny Gluch: And part of the problem is, they're they're trying to replace the wrong part like.
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Marion: Yeah.
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Danny Gluch: It's
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Danny Gluch: it's it's really frustrating. Seeing these organizations that really think of. You know, I love to use this analogy of like a a towel with a lot of water in it, and they're just
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Danny Gluch: bringing out all of the water that they can every last drop.
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Danny Gluch: And then when they're they're they've gotten all the productivity out. They're just they're okay tossing it to the side. And I really feel like that's
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Danny Gluch: the organizations that take that are asking the managers to wring out their people, and like, that's.
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Marion: No.
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Danny Gluch: Totally unsustainable. It's just you can't stay in that position for very long.
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Cacha Dora: It's never an ideal situation to be having to do the towel ringing.
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Cacha Dora: Sometimes it's necessary, but the goal is to put it right back in the bucket right? And like refill it. And and a lot of businesses get it right where it's like we're in a sprint. We're doing XY or Z. This is gonna be a slog. But the slog is gonna end
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Cacha Dora: right. And when the organization can communicate that, you've now made the job of the middle manager so much easier. There's a light at the end of the tunnel. They can then clearly communicate with the messaging, and maybe even some of the contextual reasoning that you're in in individual contributors don't get from executives.
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Marion: So.
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Cacha Dora: Your department leads, or wherever you know, depending on Marion to your point earlier, right? The structure of the company. But
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Cacha Dora: if you know that you're gonna get the filling. That's gonna happen afterward. Then your individual contributors trust you more. You now you're building a lot of the that psych safety you're building hope. And you're able to also make development plans. You're able to do a lot. And yeah, maybe your life still gonna be nothing but meetings, which again, Boo! But
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Cacha Dora: There's something there. But I agree, Danny, when you, the organizational philosophy, is ring and throw versus ring and refill.
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Cacha Dora: I think that there's that's where we're seeing a lot of unhappy people, and understandably so.
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Danny Gluch: What do you think, Marion?
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Marion: I think
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Marion: that I want to take it back to our baseline, our baseline of everything that we talk about, everything that we believe in is psychological safety. Right? It truly is.
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Marion: and and I will die on the hill to say that psychological safety is more important than organizational culture, because without psychological safety. You can't have a healthy organizational culture, right? So you know, chicken and egg absolutely. But I think certainly sex safety comes first. And
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Marion: when I think about
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Marion: the lack of of understanding, of even just the basic concept of that, the basic notion of that.
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Marion: It scares me because decisions are being made purely from you know, a numerical business standpoint and really not taken into account
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Marion: the full impact on the people.
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Marion: There's consideration, but not the true impact. And if we thought more about psychological safety.
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Marion: yes, it's Utopia, I realize, like blue sky. But if we thought more about it actively and and factored it into our decision making and how we build out you know, business structured and and business planning.
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Marion: We could have.
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Danny Gluch: Whole setting, and all of the stuff.
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Cacha Dora: Marion, you just turn it off.
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Marion: Exactly
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Marion: we could have. We would have a much better and more. In fact, impactful life of business, right? Our our teams would feel more engaged. They would be more you know, innovative. They'd want to drive the business forward. They wouldn't be afraid of failure. They wouldn't be afraid of making mistakes. They wouldn't be afraid of speaking up if something is going well or not going well, you know, because we know
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Marion: again that all of these things are absolutely crucial to a high performing organization. And and also, you know, a strong organizational culture.
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Marion: So
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Marion: it's not fucking rocket science, right? This is simple. It's basic concept.
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Danny Gluch: I think that part of the
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Danny Gluch: the thing that's missing is the listening.
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Marion: Yeah.
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Danny Gluch: The.
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Danny Gluch: It's okay to demand excellence. And it's okay to push people and write and to want more.
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Danny Gluch: Strive for better. Honestly, people like that people. And and you know all the studies show that one of the main drivers of like what makes people happy
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Danny Gluch: is taking on challenges right? And there's a generational thing. Older generation likes that more than the younger generation.
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Marion: But like he.
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Danny Gluch: On big challenges and going for it is is actually something that engages people.
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Marion: But knowing where they're going.
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Danny Gluch: Oh, absolutely! That's that!
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Marion: That's the important part.
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Danny Gluch: And why they're doing it all of that. It has to matter right, like the, you know. We're not just going to the moon because of so and so. But we're we're doing it for lots of other reasons.
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Danny Gluch: And and that totally matters. But people people are okay being pushed. They like to see the growth they like to achieve. They like to even try big things.
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Danny Gluch: fail and know that what they tried was still meaningful.
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Danny Gluch: There's still some, you know, some growth to take from that. And I think what what we're missing is
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Danny Gluch: that listening part that, like.
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Marion: Yeah.
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Danny Gluch: Hey? I am being pushed too hard, or I'm not really understanding why we're doing this, or you know any of those.
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Danny Gluch: there's there's a great scene. Have you all seen Ford versus Ferrari?
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Cacha Dora: It's been a while. But yeah, I thought we saw it in theaters when it came out.
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Danny Gluch: Yeah. Yeah. Christian bale, Matt Damon, great movie. But it's about this really big project that Ford took on trying to challenge Ferrari. And they did in a super short time. Span Yada Yada Yada, great movie about leadership and organizations, cool.
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Cacha Dora: And the Shelby Cobra.
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Danny Gluch: Yeah.
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Danny Gluch: And also cars. Right? It's great. But at 1 point Christian Bale's talking about like really pushing and trying to make the best race car ever. And he's talking about, you know the car, and and you can't just push it past its limits. It's gonna break down. You have to listen to it and feel it.
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Danny Gluch: and I think that's what the middle managers can do. They're there. They can feel their team. They can hear their team.
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Danny Gluch: but they're not given the authority to pull back off the gas a little bit because they're getting pushed of. We need this number. We need this number, and it's 1 of the reasons why I love that toxic bit that you brought up is it doesn't feel good to push something when you know you're past its limits.
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Danny Gluch: because you can feel it about to fall apart. And you know it's dangerous, and you might crash.
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Danny Gluch: And
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Danny Gluch: and and I think there's that they can hear it, they can feel it.
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Danny Gluch: But there's so much pressure
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Danny Gluch: to still meet this number that was set, this goal, or whatever project was what you know that they were put in charge of
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Danny Gluch: to where they feel they have to ignore what they're feeling, and.
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Marion: Because we.
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Danny Gluch: Anyways, and like.
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Marion: A great current example of that. The obviously the investigation into the Titan submarine
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Marion: tragedy is going on just now, and I I, without actually knowing for sure. But I would imagine that that's a perfect example, right? Because I'm sure there was someone who was working in that project going.
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Marion: Yeah, this is not good, and probably didn't have the psychological safety to speak up. And, in fact, I did read an article yesterday where there was a traveler on the on the thing, and they were on it, and they they were one of the last people to go on it before, you know. Obviously it.
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Marion: Winkapoo, right? But
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Marion: They were on it, and they were like, Yeah, this shit's not good, you know. So again, catastrophic things can be avoided if people have the the safety to be able to speak up right. And and again.
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Marion: we're kind of like, certainly veering away. But it comes back to the basic things managers should be able to say.
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Marion: I don't have the tools. I need to be successful.
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Marion: and they don't see it because they don't want to look foolish. They don't want to admit that they can't do it. They don't want to. Be looked down on. They don't want to be performance managed right, and they shouldn't be performance managed. You don't automatically get promoted to manager, and someone puts a chip in your head, and all of a sudden you know how to coach people deal with difficult situations, get feedback. No, you don't. Right.
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Marion: And again, going back to my earlier point about Apple.
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Marion: Some of those are core skills that you learn that you learn very, very early on in in the role. So by the time you get to manager, it's a lot more
Certainly, I'll continue with the transcript from where we left off.
comfortable right
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Marion: that should be happening everywhere. As opposed to just thinking that as soon as you give them the title automatically, the the leadership fairies have implanted in their brain overnight.
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Danny Gluch: Were good as an individual contributor. Of course they're going to train.
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Marion: They'll pick up.
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Cacha Dora: Vertical climb. Yeah.
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Marion: Go ahead and.
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Cacha Dora: Think.
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Danny Gluch: It's such a different skill. Set the.
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Cacha Dora: It is yeah. And I think you know, we, we've said many times to each other as well as on the podcast. Right where
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Cacha Dora: managers are not leaders, and leaders might not be managers right like you can.
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Cacha Dora: And and those those leadership capabilities make great managers. But great managers might not make great leaders, and you know, and that goes back to that tasking. Maybe you are a great manager. You're great at the tactical
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Cacha Dora: but maybe you're not great at the other things that make you a great leader, that innovation, inspiration, development.
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Cacha Dora: all of those things, because leadership and management are different, and it would be Utopian ideal
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Cacha Dora: to have those both be the same and have them actually work together. And sometimes they do, and sometimes they don't. And
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Cacha Dora: I I think
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Cacha Dora: I think it's an interesting article to really read out and really evaluate. And I, what I'm curious about from our listeners is who it resonates with and who it doesn't right. Who is middle managers have said. I've never experienced this before I've been. I've been listened to. I've been able to speak up. I've been able to do these things, and there are some managers who do get that.
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Cacha Dora: But like, please don't leave the company you're at, cause you're gonna.
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Marion: You're not going to find it anywhere else. Trust me. Yeah, the minority of people that have that blessed experience never leave. Yeah, because the grass. The grass, I can assure you, is definitely not greener. My friends.
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Danny Gluch: Know some something, and and you know, maybe this will be one of the last things. But something I was reading and and sort of like reading between the lines that I really wanted to to hear. What what you all had to say was
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Danny Gluch: the idea of efficiency. Right? It's a very like 19 fifties kind of mindset of oh, your team's running well, if you're efficient and like, I feel like a lot of
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Danny Gluch: what managers are being asked to do is
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Danny Gluch: efficiently produce with their team just consistently, efficiently produce, find efficiencies.
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Danny Gluch: And I it it just. It feels so outdated, and oftentimes what happens is when they feel that like oh, my team's being pushed to my limit. I need a headcount.
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Danny Gluch: and the pushback is no, you can find more efficiency, and I'm wondering if we're we're asking the wrong questions when we're we're thinking about efficiency. And we should really be thinking more about
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Danny Gluch: impactfulness, right? The the oh, man, this! It's been a while since I listened to the Ted talk. But the guy who was talking about like purposeful procrastination.
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Danny Gluch: and really, instead of just worrying about efficiency worrying about oh, goodness! He had a word for it anyways.
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Danny Gluch: But the idea of.
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Danny Gluch: I think a lot of managers need to have the the autonomy and authority to eliminate some of the stuff that their team is being asked to do. Being like. You know what? This doesn't really matter that much, and it's using up a lot of my team's resources.
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Danny Gluch: and I just don't want to do it
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Danny Gluch: right. And so they should be. Have the autonomy and authority to eliminate some of that stuff like, why are we doing this like.
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Marion: Yeah.
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Danny Gluch: I love data. But like, there's a lot of time, especially in the people space
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Danny Gluch: of collecting data that we then can analyze and give presentations about.
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Danny Gluch: And no one's gonna do anything. Can we just stop collecting data if we're not gonna do this like the annual engagement survey? Are we gonna spend 2 months.
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Marion: Oh, God!
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Danny Gluch: And then, and then just not have it affect anything where we could just save 2 months of work.
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Marion: Yeah. Or why are we doing an annual survey anyway? Because it's about as much use as an ashtray on a motorbike. Right? So yeah, man so many things
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Marion: and feels there, Danny, I think I would. I would venture to say that probably Hr. Is one of the least efficient functions in the business right? Because.
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Danny Gluch: Don't think that's a bad thing. I think the nature of the people space it like efficiency is not what we should be looking for.
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Marion: Well, no, I don't agree.
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Cacha Dora: It's also one of the spaces in the business that gets thrown. The most monkey wrenches exactly where, like.
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Danny Gluch: That's what I mean of like, it shouldn't be a streamlined. We can just like cookie cutter. All of this.
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Marion: No, but but there should be. There should be a lot more efficiencies right? And again, different conversation for a different time. But
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Marion: you know, there's a lot of
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Marion: really innovative thinking out there, progressive thinking about the tools that are actually important for the people space, right? And there's a lot of development in that space happening like one of my favorites is tools that triangulate some really important data like we've talked about this triangulation of sentiment. Think and feel along with, you know, probability of attrition along with, you know.
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Marion: like L and D in succession, right? Triangulate that data. You have a real life succession, plan, living and breathing right?
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Marion: But no, no, no, no, no! We still have about 8,000 spreadsheets, and we look at really useless stuff like average member or.
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Danny Gluch: Oh, yeah.
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Marion: With Ben. We talked about how average is just the most useless Kpi ever like. We're not efficient, and we should be efficient. Because guess what if we were actually efficient and using data in a meaningful way.
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Marion: we wouldn't be spending all this time mopping up crap. We would actually be doing good work right.
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Cacha Dora: And then you'd be able.
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Marion: Driving the business forward. Yeah.
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Cacha Dora: You'd be able to take that engagement survey and actually have meaningful conversations with those middle managers with those department heads
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Cacha Dora: and be able to bridge the gap between vision and purpose and the work that needs to be done to turn that into a circle instead of it, just being like an arrow going forward that doesn't stop.
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Marion: Exactly imagine you're a a middle manager, a new manager, right? And you've just taken over a new team, and you're trying to understand what's going on in that team. Imagine you can press a button, and you can see.
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Marion: like real time.
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Marion: where the the strengths and weaknesses of your team in terms of succession, and and all that kind of stuff is all of that stuff, is there? But we don't. We can do anything meaningful with it, and we should be right because the the technology is there. So like, we can change this for ourselves and for managers.
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Marion: but
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Marion: takes me into another of our favorite soap boxes
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Marion: us as a people profession do a crap job of advocating for ourselves and helping senior leadership understand what it is that we truly need to be effective rather than what they think. We need to be effective. And then that's why, when we spend time going round and round the the people cycle, which
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Marion: you know some some parts are fit for purpose, but many of them are not.
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Danny Gluch: See, and that's that's the kind of efficiency. When I was saying we shouldn't be efficient, I was meaning like, we can't.
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Danny Gluch: we can't make this a production line right? It's.
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Marion: No, no.
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Danny Gluch: As everything is right, it's a much more bespoke thing. But in the the bespoke
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Danny Gluch: the efficiency of you know what? No, we don't need these fancy shoes. No, we don't need, you know these, whatever we can get rid of a lot of the fluff and a lot of the stuff we used to do
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Danny Gluch: like. Oh, you know what it turns out. That's crap like that's that's against what you know. Hr, and and whatever the people space really needs
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Danny Gluch: to make the impact that leadership. Yeah, the C-suite is asking us to make
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Danny Gluch: like, that's the pushback we need is be like, yeah, sorry annual engagement surveys. They're better off, not done. If you really want to know, we can do things that are more adjacent to pulse surveys. I still don't. I don't fully believe in pulse surveys either, but like they're at least a lot closer to the data that you need that can be impactful.
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Marion: Yeah, I mean, done right. They can be effective, done wrong. They're not right. But yeah, you're right, Danny. And honestly.
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Marion: you know, I can't think of one. Any manager who would not pick a tool that made their life easier and more effective over
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Marion: pizza parties and company swag. Right? People are going to choose the tool.
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Marion: So invest in the stuff that makes your your managers more effective and feel psychologically safe and and and gives them the the tools that they need to be effective.
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Marion: Put your money there, and stop trying to.
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Danny Gluch: Now we're done. I'm trying to
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Danny Gluch: empower them to make the decisions that those tools are really helping.
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Marion: Exactly.
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Danny Gluch: Right. And that's and you know they're listening. They you need to empower the managers. And I think that's really where some of the toxicity comes from.
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Cacha Dora: Yeah, it's.
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Danny Gluch: Are given the tools, and it's even more clear now and that. But they're still not empowered.
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Cacha Dora: Yeah, the there's organizational handcuffs can be very
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Cacha Dora: detrimental to the employee experience all the way around. And but a lot of times, because it's such a company culture.
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Cacha Dora: They don't realize it's there.
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Marion: Yeah, it's true.
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Cacha Dora: But I agree, I think having the tech is important, having the ability to use it is important.
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Cacha Dora: And
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Cacha Dora: th there is 100, not a 1. Size fits all, and some businesses do really well with engagement surveys, some do not, some do really well with feedback, some do not right like. So it's definitely not a 1. Size fits all but I would encourage anyone in the people space like, if you know, there's something you're doing. Well find out how that can power something else.
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Marion: Yeah.
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Marion: absolutely. Absolutely.
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Danny Gluch: Well, any last thoughts, ladies.
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Danny Gluch: I feel for me.
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Marion: Sorry.
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Danny Gluch: I truly do. I think that they're not. Yeah.
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Danny Gluch: I think that the tech is, is there? There's a
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Danny Gluch: a movement in Tech where people are trying to help them, and I think organizations are struggling to figure out which are the right ones.
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Danny Gluch: and some of them are leading towards right there. There's a lot of like AI tech and a lot of digital tech
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Danny Gluch: that is moving managers more towards the where we're checking keystrokes and time and attendance sort of tasks.
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Marion: Master Stuff.
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Danny Gluch: People who are adopting those tools are really putting the managers in a bad spot. So I think
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Danny Gluch: organizations need to be careful about which tools that are adopting. And what are those implicit sort of cultural messages that they're giving and and positions are putting their managers in, because some, it's making it worse, and some, you know, is making.
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Marion: Yeah, I mean, people, plastic, right?
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Cacha Dora: Okay.
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Marion: It's and it's always people first. But my last thoughts stop focusing on the employee and focus on managers.
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Marion: That's it.
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Cacha Dora: Your managers need the employee experience. They do.
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Marion: That's it.
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Danny Gluch: Yeah.
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Marion: That's it, because it's not the C-suite that do it. It's it's it's it's the managers, it's the supervisors. They are the critical linchpins in the organization, not the C-suite.
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Marion: And anyone who thinks it is a C-suite
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Marion: they're barking up the wrong tree.
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Marion: Yep.
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Danny Gluch: Well on that. Feel encouraged, managers. We're here to support you.
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Cacha Dora: We believe in you. Yes.
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Marion: We do?
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Danny Gluch: When that doesn't happen. And you need to talk about some of those elephants in your organization feel free to email us at elephant@thefearlesspx.com. Everybody be sure to like subscribe. Leave a 5 star review. We'll see you all next time.
