Nai’a — “How do I get the attention of a distracted manager?” (Transcript)

[00:00:00] Anne Morriss:
Hey Frances.

[00:00:03] Frances Frei:
Hi Anne.

[00:00:03] Anne Morriss:
Uh, so I'm gonna start with one of our favorite segments, which are Anne and Frances's favorite icebreakers. This is one we use a lot. Hat tip to Emily Hannenberg, the wonderful Emily Hannenberg—our dear friend and former colleague at TLC.

[00:00:19] Frances Frei:
Former and future colleague.

[00:00:20] Anne Morriss:
Former, future, forever colleague. Actually forever colleague. Um, one of her favorites that I've stolen is: what was your favorite breakfast as a child?

[00:00:31] Frances Frei:
Oh, a bacon sandwich.

[00:00:36] Anne Morriss:
What? You, you are eating bacon sandwiches as a child?

[00:00:39] Frances Frei:
Oh, yes. Uh, oh well, on lucky days, and a bacon sandwich is made just so, so it's two pieces of lightly toasted bread with a little bit of butter and bacon. Unapologetically, just bacon. And you just had a bacon sandwich, and if you say a bacon sandwich to a Frei, they will just all come into the kitchen. Every one of us.

[00:01:00] Anne Morriss:
Uh, so first of all, just to our listeners. You should not respond with shock, like, like I did. What's fun about the question is that you do get a, you do get—

[00:01:10] Frances Frei:
You just got to learn something.

[00:01:11] Anne Morriss:
It reveals an astonishing amount of context.

[00:01:15] Frances Frei:
Alright. Can we ask, can I ask you?

[00:01:15] Anne Morriss:
Um, yes. Growing up, uh, honeycomb. Single mom, we just bought honeycomb by the bulk, and then we were out the door.

[00:01:29] Frances Frei:
I can get why you were astonished by my bacon sandwich.

[00:01:32] Anne Morriss:
Just take, it seems like it would take a lot of time.

[00:01:34] Frances Frei:
Oh, but worth it.

[MUSIC BREAK]

[00:01:43] Anne Morriss:
Hi everyone, I'm Anne Morriss. I'm a company builder and leadership coach.

[00:01:48] Frances Frei:
And I'm Frances Frei. I'm a professor at the Harvard Business School.

[00:01:50] Anne Morriss:
This is Fixable, from the TED Audio Collective. On this show, we believe that meaningful change happens fast. Anything's fixable. Solutions are often just a single conversation away.

[00:02:01] Frances Frei:
Anne, who do we have today?

[00:02:02] Anne Morriss:
Today we have Nai'a, and by the way, we're using a pseudonym to protect your anonymity here. She's a product operations manager at a tech company that's really thinking about how to make education work better, and she's struggling with how is she seen and valued in this environment where there's an incredible amount of change and turbulence happening as there is all over the tech sector right now? So let's hear from Nai'a.

[00:02:28] Nai'a:
So at work, we had a rework, then a layoff, and I find myself in a new team with new manager and new colleagues and all these changes cost tremendous amount of shuffling, refocus, and then doubling the amount of work. What I want to get out most from the situation is professional growth.

I've been with the company for almost two years now, but everything felt…. It's being set to ground zero again, so how might I focus and keep driving towards my professional growth and goals amid all of these changes? New team, new stakeholder, constant firefighting may not align with my professional growth or interest.

[00:03:17] Frances Frei:
Oh.

[00:03:17] Anne Morriss:
Frances, what's your initial reaction?

[00:03:21] Frances Frei:
I love that it's, um, what do you do with the Great Reset? And I think we're gonna continue to have Great Reset and it's when you come together with a lot of newness, and it feels like you're going backwards, how do you turn, uh, the motor to go forward and how do you accelerate it?

[00:03:40] Anne Morriss:
Yeah. When there’s turbulence at the systems level, even in small companies, it’s easy to feel like your own needs are getting lost in that system, and people are legitimately distracted. It's not about you, but they're legitimately distracted about making the business work. So, how do you get what you need in that moment?

[00:03:40] Frances Frei:
Let’s go.

[BREAK]

[00:04:05] Anne Morriss:
Oh, Nai'a, we're so happy to meet you and thank you so much for doing this with us.

[00:04:11] Frances Frei:
Yeah.

[00:04:11] Nai'a:
Thank you so much. I'm super excited.

[00:04:12] Anne Morriss:
Uh, so maybe start us off with just tell us about the work you do. What is a day in the life of Nai’a?

[00:04:20] Nai'a:
Day in life would be half of the time I'm working on my own, trying to figure out how I best build the processes and systems to help the product team to be successful. The other time I made meetings, like, trying to figure out where I play and like, contribute as much as I could.

[00:04:45] Anne Morriss:
Got it. And so is your current role helping the product team succeed? That's how you think about your job?

[00:04:52] Nai’a:
Yep.

[00:04:52] Anne Morriss:
And then, um, succeed at what? When you're successful, what is different about the company?

[00:05:00] Nai'a:
If I’m successful, people don't know I exist. So I am one of those, like the army of people anonymously, without a face, ensuring that the product team can spend less time in unnecessary meetings, uh, be more effective, build out the processes so they don't have to do the same work twice just for whatever, like executives need reports.

[00:05:24] Frances Frei:
Beautiful.

[00:05:24] Anne Morriss:
Beautiful. I love it. And so if you don't do your job, what happens?

[00:05:31] Nai'a:
That's one of my challenge, like if I go get hit by a bus tomorrow, I think nobody will notice for maybe a few days. But when, like, there's like the cadence happening when we are about to launch something, when we have a business review or earnings call where we need to solve some like planning, execution-related issues, then it will go haywire.

[00:05:59] Frances Frei:
Yep.

[00:05:59] Anne Morriss:
Got it. So take us through the, the reason you’re in this conversation with us right now. What is not working for you about this job?

[00:06:10] Nai'a:
The first one, I’m good at what I do, but I don't feel valued.

[00:06:13] Frances Frei:
Yep.

[00:06:14] Nai’a:
I should also give a backdrop. My company had a reorg last October and then followed by a layoff in November. So after all that, I'm grateful that I still have a job, but I have a new team. I cycle through three bosses, and my challenge right now is given the context that everything is relatively new in the last three to four months, my manager doesn't understand what I do and it appears to me that he hasn't shown any interest yet.

[00:06:49] Anne Morriss:
Got it. Can you give us an example?

[00:06:55] Nai'a:
Yeah. Uh, the most recent one is he forgets about the things I told him over and over again. I am good at telling what's gonna start burning in the horizon, and I will tell him and he would say, “Okay, great. Like, that sounds good. Your approach sounds good, but I only have a mini or toy firetruck right now.”

I need him to gimme a bigger truck. And then like a month later, I come to him repeating what I said, like, I need a bigger fire truck. And he would be like, “When did we have this conversation?”

[00:07:33] Frances Frei:
Got it.

[00:07:33] Nai’a:
So that is a fact that makes me wonder if he really pays attention or has any vested interest of my career growth.

[00:07:44] Frances Frei:
Yeah. Mm-hm.

[00:07:45] Nai'a:
Like, I chose to work for this company because of its mission. Uh, it's for education, and I wanted to make education part of, like, people's lives. But then once I'm start working, I realized that’s not how I feel. Like, I don't feel the noble mission as my day-to-day. Sometimes I feel like I'm just a coordinator or a project person, but I'm just like, well, it's my job. I'm here for, I don't know, paycheck. I just chug along.

[00:08:17] Frances Frei:
Right.

[00:08:17] Anne Morriss:
To that point about feeling what, what are the emotions that you feel most frequently when you're on the job?

[00:08:26] Nai'a:
I would say lonely, isolated, followed by frustration and agitation.

[00:08:31] Anne Morriss:
Uh, if you think back in the last six months, what was the high point in, at work for you? What was the best part?

[00:08:40] Nai'a:
The best part was the last month; I inherited this process, and I needed to figure out, in the shortest time, to make it seamless for my product team. Um, and I did it. I stressed myself out. I didn't sleep for several days and I built the process and, like, facilitated the conversation, and we are able to, um, achieve dependency resolution, product roadmap, and even afterwards, I asked people how they feel about the meeting, and I got pretty good feedback and that's one of the signal I'm like, “I'm good at my job, but why am I not feeling valued or rewarded?”

[00:09:24] Anne Morriss:
You present to us as incredibly effective.

[00:09:28] Frances Frei:
Oh my gosh.

[00:09:28] Anne Morriss:
Just so you know, you lead with exactly that statement: “I’m great at my job.” I'm gonna, I'm gonna upgrade you from Good to Great.

[00:09:35] Frances Frei:
Yeah.

[00:09:36] Anne Morriss:
But if you were gonna put into words about what makes you effective in this environment, what comes to mind?

[00:09:42] Nai'a:
Numbers, planning, and determination.

[00:09:50] Anne Morriss:
If you're gonna turn those three words into sentences, I can guess, but you're crushing the analytics, you're doing it in advance of the fire.

[00:09:59] Nai'a:
And I will not rest until I get the people, the process, and all the docs in the line so I can execute.

[00:10:07] Frances Frei:
I love… I, I want a team of “I will not rest”. That's like my favorite.

[00:10:14] Anne Morriss:
Yes.

[00:10:15] Frances Frei:
I hadn't realized it until you said it, Nai’a, but, um, my favorite trait in another person is “I will not rest until…”

[00:10:25] Nai'a:
A worse way is saying, “I will hunt you down.”

[00:10:31] Anne Morriss:
I'm married to someone who has the “I will hunt you” down side. Um, so Frances, give it a shot. How would you summarize Naia's challenge?

[00:10:40] Frances Frei:
Okay, so I think here, here's how I would summarize the problem. We're at a point, um, of turbulence in a place that if this were your resting state, this wouldn't be the organization or the job you would wanna be with. So what do we do when we aren't in the place where we wanna be? We know we can do better. Um, but the, it's not a path of flowers, so we have to go do a little weed whacking, a little signposting, and things like that. So that's where I, where I see it.

[00:11:14] Anne Morriss:
I love it. And then the simple tension of, you know, you're great, you know you have a contribution to make to an organization, but you're not feeling that reflected back in the role.
[00:11:24] Frances Frei:
Yeah. So, does that resonate?

[00:11:26] Anne Morriss:
Yeah. Did, did we summarize where you are?

[00:11:28] Nai'a:
Yeah, Yeah.

[00:11:29] Frances Frei:
Um, so should we, should we start?

[00:11:31] Anne Morriss:
Frances, I, I, I wanna invite you to get the party started.

[00:11:34] Frances Frei:
Okay. I’d love to. I do—

[00:11:34] Anne Morriss:
I see the machinery of your beautiful mind working.

[00:11:38] Frances Frei:
So imagine that you were new to the company and you were randomly placed on a team. That is, teams got distributed at random, and you wanted to be as helpful as possible on the team, and you wanted the team to be as helpful as possible to you.

Because nobody knows you and you don't know the other people, you’d have to communicate way more than you would otherwise want to, and verbal communication is gonna be ether in the air that can vaporize. So verbal communication is fine, but not lasting. So I would think about using writing as a, as a way of doing things is the first one and the signposting of what you're working on. Um, but I could imagine, first of all, like, do you have weekly meetings with this person?

[00:12:31] Nai’a:
Yeah.

[00:12:32] Frances Frei:
I'm guessing you do. Great. And who sets the agenda for it?

[00:12:35] Nai’a:
I do.

[00:12:36] Frances Frei:
Wonderful. Um, so I could imagine if the agenda is always written and you're constantly bringing back the documents, you're gonna make it so the person can't forget. And I don't blame people for forgetting. He could be calling in your boss and saying, “I have now four disparate parts. I'm trying to do this.” Like, he could have his own story going on, but for you, for someone that’s part-time interested in you, let's call it that, you have to make it really easy for them to be more interested.

So what can you do to set their interest up for success? It's like working with someone that has no short-term memory. So, I could imagine a whole lot more formality to your written documentation than you're using now because this person has so many other things going on.

[00:13:32] Nai'a:
I resonate, and I am already doing that.

[00:13:35] Frances Frei:
Great.

[00:13:38] Nai'a:
Um, so I ask for clarification. I paraphrase what he said to me in our meeting. Um, and I overcommunicate, so I will write emails. I will, like, take meeting notes, and he has access to it. The conversation becomes very task-driven and to solve for the value, or I want him to recognize other people's compliments of me, I would take screenshot and say, “Hey, like these are like all the feedback I got after this meeting, like, see?” And I just, sometimes, I don't think he reacts in a way that I would expect. He'll be like, “Oh, okay, what is this about?”

[00:14:24] Frances Frei:
Got it.

[00:14:25] Nai’a:
Okay.

[00:14:26] Anne Morriss:
Um, so let me tell you, can I tell you where my head's going?

[00:14:28] Frances Frei:
Yeah, yeah.

[00:14:29] Anne Morriss:
So I'm also in that moment, in that meeting with your manager and I'm thinking about the, your emotional frequency in that conversation. And I want you to show up in that space as a great collaborator. Sometimes the barrier to showing up as the great collaborator that you are can be that there's still some residual frustration about the situation.

So there's still some “I want you to be a different person. I want your behavior to be different. I want this to not be the third manager that I'm having this freaking conversation with in the last six months”. And I wanna think about what we can do to kind of clear some of that out of the way for you to be in as open and creative and collaborative mind as possible.

[00:15:25] Nai'a:
I love it. I feel every meeting I have to set the intentions so I don't get bothered and I, myself, become the enemy of showing up as a collaborator or positive person. Definitely. Thank you.

[00:15:37] Anne Morriss:
And this is really, this is really hard and I just sense a little bit of this, which is perfectly normal. Of course you're showing in, up in that room frustrated and you're bracing your, you're bracing yourself for, “I'm sorry, Nai’a, who are you? I'm sorry, what? What are you doing?”

Meanwhile, you are killing it for the company and not sleeping. And, but that emotion is not gonna be useful to you, and it's gonna be a distraction to you and a distraction to him to have the kinds of conversations that you want. So there is a piece of this dynamic, forgiving this man for being human, right? Like, accepting the situation, processing those emotions off-stage.

Bringing a little bit of Joseph Campbell. You know, we have to be willing to let go of the life we planned to make space for the life that's waiting for us. Like, yes, this is not how you wanted this situation to play out, but here we are.

[00:16:37] Frances Frei:
And if we have judgment, it leaks. People know we have judgment, and that's why one of the things Anne and I often talk about is that you have a choice between judgment and curiosity.

‘Cause both can't exist at the same time. So if you have judgment about the manager, you can't really be curious about their situation. And what you're thinking of, so this is a person who's got a lot of part-time jobs. Maybe they had a full-time job before, and the reorg now gives them a lot of part-time jobs.

And so, how do we set someone who's distracted up for success? Well, we probably don't send them emails and then meeting notes where they have to then go be really efficient at sorting through their emails in order to do it. Like, if you really wanted to set this person up for success, there'd probably be one link that they can always go to, that you are, like, deeply curating.

You might have conversations with them. “I hear lots of comments about my work. What's the format that would be most helpful to you for me to share them?” And you could even say, “‘Cause here's my fear—I’m working really hard. Um, and I fear in, in this state of flux that six months are gonna go by, and people are gonna wonder whether or not I did a good job. And so it's just helpful to me to be super clear: what is a good job and how can I help in getting that data for you?”

But if you have that conversation with 'em and you co-produce it, then you are delivering on the co-produced thing as opposed to your delivering on perhaps this is what you would like to know if you were managing someone else, this would be the way that you wanna do it. And so I would allow for a very different style for a reasonably distracted person.

[00:18:24] Anne Morriss:
What's your reaction to that?

[00:18:26] Nai'a:
I wrote down “choose curiosity”, and I am going to implement in my next one-on-one. And as you were saying, Frances, in my mind, I just had this thought about for every meetings I have to hit reset and then remind myself that anything you say, like, be vulnerable, uh, and then really be curious how I can help him succeed. ‘Cause I told him before, I'm like, “My job here is to make you successful.” But I don't think that message quite landed yet. But I think it's also because most of the time, I am being judgmental.

[00:19:10] Frances Frei:
Yeah. One of the most liberating things we can do is to let go of judgment. It takes up so much space and it helps almost, not at all. So I would say that judgment is a negative slope and curiosity is a positive slope. Um, what's amazing to me about you, Nai'a, is you, I, and I got the benefit of watching you thinking right now, but I watched you process it and I believe you've just flipped that switch.

Like, I believe you're, you now get it, which is something that's so awesome is that you understand it and then your behavioral change will come after that. So that's super exciting to me.

[00:19:50] Anne Morriss:
And what I love about this direction too is: how do you change the emotional tenor of the conversation? You have an opportunity once a week to go in and, and build something with this collaborator of yours, and you have a ton of control over how that conversation feels.

You set the agenda, you're inviting this person into the room, and then how do you solve for, and literally, it can be in the form of this question: how can I be most helpful to you? How can this time be of service to the thing we're trying to achieve together? The simplest expression of curiosity, which is truly a magical elixir in a workplace, is in the form of questions.

So what are the, what questions could you ask your collaborator here? And I'm gonna keep calling him a collaborator as opposed to a boss or a manager, because I think that is the emotional pivot that's available to you. How do you walk in this room as a creative, kick-ass, smart collaborator to this person on the other side of the table who is probably also feeling undervalued in that, in this system, that tends to be a cultural feature?

If you're feeling undervalued, other people are feeling undervalued. If you're reacting to how other people are trying to get attention, it means this is, uh, this is a challenge that other people are feeling. So what is it that you can do to change that conversation?

[00:21:20] Nai'a:
Yeah, I love that suggestion and I think it will change the dynamic.

[00:21:27] Anne Morriss:
What I love about where this conversation is going, Nai’a, is that we're now, we're back in the zone of things you can control.

[00:21:33] Frances Frei:
Yeah.

[00:21:34] Anne Morriss:
Like, the origin of stress and anxiety is to want to control things that are out of our control. And now we're talking about how can you change the outcomes that are actually within your control.

[00:21:44] Nai'a:
I love it, and you are spot on. I can only focus on some things I can control. Like, like outside of work, I submit to speak at conferences and I always have this simple mentality. My goal is to check the box. I've been there, done that. Regardless of the outcome, whether I got accepted or not, I think I should do more of that at work.

Like, not expecting, “Oh, this person is going to behave a certain way.” I will do my part of being curious, making sure I have written document and sincerely asking the person for help and thanking the person. But beyond that, how it's gonna turn out, it’s beyond my control. I should just be okay with it.

[00:22:28] Frances Frei:
And I think you're gonna be really pleasantly surprised. That’s the beautiful part of this.

[00:22:32] Anne Morriss:
Yes. The counterintuitive intuition here is the more you give up trying to control their behavior, the more they will be willing to be guided by you.

[00:22:41] Frances Frei:
Yeah. This is a beautiful thing.

[00:22:43] Anne Morriss:
That's the counterintuitive truth of leadership.

[00:22:47] Nai'a:
I'm excited and curious to give it a try.

[00:22:49] Frances Frei:
Aw.

[00:22:49] Anne Morriss:
Nai’a, we would love that. You're such a fast processor.

[00:22:53] Frances Frei:
Oh.

[00:22:53] Anne Morriss:
That I'm already excited for Monday morning meetings.

[00:22:59] Frances Frei:
Super optimistic about how this is gonna go in the short term and how everything's gonna go after that. And Anne and I are on your team.

[00:23:06] Nai'a:
Thank you. That's the most important, and you guys made my day.

[00:23:09] Anne Morriss:
Awesome. Awesome. All you made ours.

[MUSIC BREAK]

[00:23:26] Anne Morriss:
Frances. What did you think? What surprised you? What deep thoughts did this conversation spur?

[00:23:34] Frances Frei:
Uh, what I loved about this conversation is at one point or another, we've all been, you know, discombobulated a little bit and we find ourselves not in the ideal circumstances, and we're frustrated by the behavior of others and how, what can we do with an inward-looking lens that can improve the dynamic? So what's our role in it? And I think she started thinking that there were these other people that she had to endure. And I'm super optimistic that the relationship is gonna now be better. So I'm left being very optimistic, uh, about what's gonna happen there and optimistic for those that are listening.

If you have a dynamic, a communication dynamic that you're frustrated with, try inviting in curiosity, try doing what you can, and marvel at how the other person changes as a result, as opposed to coming up with the list of how you would like the other person to change.

[00:24:35] Anne Morriss:
Uh, I do think there is a piece of this too that, that does require us to be, if not our best selves, a better version of ourselves that can show up in stressful situations that we're also accountable for.

So what is it going to take? And I see you take responsibility for this as an introvert. You deliberately spend time by yourself—

[00:24:55] Frances Frei:
In dark rooms.

[00:22:56] Anne Morriss:
—so that when you show up, around your loved ones, and I'm quite grateful for this, you can be really present, and that, I know that has been a lifetime of learning for you and a lifetime of saying no to dinners and—

[00:25:09] Frances Frei:
Yeah.

[00:25:09] Anne Morriss:
So that you can say yes and be present when it really matters.

[00:25:13] Frances Frei:
Yeah. And just, uh, mini public service announcement. If anybody ever asks me for a meal, I say no. I don't. I won't have meals with anyone. Um, because as an introvert, those are, like, super stressful to me. But by not doing that, I let me to show up in other ways, and I feel like that's what Nai’a is gonna do.

[00:25:32] Anne Morriss:
A hundred percent. And I know this has been an ongoing negotiation in our marriage. I want you to know for the record that I only force you to have dinner with other people when it really matters.

[00:25:44] Frances Frei:
And when it really matters, I wanna do it.

[00:25:48] Anne Morriss:
That's our show. Thanks, everybody, for listening. We would love to include you next time, so please reach out to us. Email fixable@ted.com or call us at 234-fixable. That's 234-349-2253.

[00:26:02] Frances Frei:
We wanna talk to you, give us a call.

Fixable is brought to you by the TED Audio Collective. It's hosted by me, Frances Frei.

[00:26:13] Anne Morriss:
And me, Anne Morris. This episode was produced by Isabel Carter. Our team includes Isabel Carter, Constanza Gallardo, Lidia Jean Kott, Sara Nics, Jimmy Gutierrez, Michelle Quint, Corey Hajim, Alejandra Salazar, BanBan Cheng, and Roxanne Hai Lash. Jake Gorski is our mix engineer.

[00:26:36] Frances Frei:
We'll be bringing you new episodes of Fixable every week, so please make sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

[00:26:42] Anne Morriss:
And one more thing, if you can please take a second to leave us a review, we love hearing from our listeners, particularly when they have nice things to say about us.

[00:26:51] Frances Frei:
We like Scooby Snacks. We'll see you very soon.