Management Café

Yes, this is Tim and Pilar's last episode, so we talk about moving on and the importance of wrapping things up. 

In this episode, hosts Tim Burgess and Pilar Orti talk about the dangers of being a perfectionist when managing a team, and why it's different to being a perfectionist individual contributor.  (And you'll hear for yourself how neither Tim nor Pilar are perfectionists...)

Hosts Tim Burgess and Pilar Orti have a good chat about the nature of loyalty, who we should be loyal to at work and what happens when we get the balance wrong. 

Have an excellent start to 2025 - from Tim and Pilar.  www.managementcafepodcast.com  

Who knew that talking about pessimism could be so much fun... even if most of the laughter is self-deprecating. In today's episode, hosts Tim Burgess and Pilar Orti talk about what happens when we let our "inner pessimist" come through.  For more information, visit www.managementcafepodcast.com 

It's not that we want to compare this episode to others, but it's short and sweet, and full of honest self-reflection! Compare your stories to ours: get in touch through www.managementcafepodcast.com/contact

As co-hosts Tim Burgess and Pilar Orti wrap up the Manager Emotions series, they explain why they're moving onto mindset, and how this is different from cognitivie tendencies (and why they might well be mixing the two up!). Plus, some feedback on our episode on Emotional Contagion, and Pilar shares an episode from Workplace Geeks where one of her connections talks about living with long-covid and how this affects her work life. https://www.audiem.io/podcasts/work-life-and-long-covid  Get in touch with Pilar and Tim through the https://managementcafepodcast.com/contact/ 

Our hosts Tim Burgess and Pilar Orti talk about the many times they've been confused, the difficulties in feeling the emotion as individual and manager, and what happens when a team member becomes confused. 

In today's episode, and once they get their heads around what compassion is, our hosts Tim Burgess and Pilar Orti discuss why it's important to demonstrate compassion in our team, and within ourselves. For more detailed show notes, check out https://managementcafepodcast.com/ 

Welcome to the fifth episode of our series on manager emotions, where hosts Tim Burgess and Pilar Orti talk about Pride.  We want to see good work, both in ourselves as managers and also in the teams that we lead. Pride creates a virtuous cycle that rewards and encourages healthy achievement. Do a good thing -> share this achievement with others -> receive recognition -> feel proud -> do more good things. But pride can be a tricky emotion in the workplace. Excessive displays of pride can turn people off. Pride can also clash with other attributes, most notably humility. Humility is a much valued characteristic which dictates that we don't draw attention to our own achievements. Pride can even become arrogance if we use our achievements to assert superiority over others. And to make it even more complex, we must be conscious that people might misinterpret or devalue our emotions. Many of us have had the jarring experience of expressing pride only to have our accomplishment criticised or be accused of self-importance. How then do we navigate pride at work? As leaders when can we express pride in a safe and helpful way? And how do we encourage this in those we manage? Join Pilar and Tim for coffee in the Management Café... 00:45 mins Pride is the feeling that you've done something good which you want to share with others and receive recognition. It can sometimes be confused with arrogance, but arrogance is about dominance. Arrogance says "I know more" or "I did better" and that makes me superior to you. It's the difference between wanting to share vs wanting to dominate. 1:45 When someone wants to "Blow their own trumpet" are they trying to share beautiful music or blast their horn in our ears? 2:45 Claude AI shared this definition of pride: "Pride is a complex emotion that can be defined as a feeling of deep pleasure, satisfaction, or self-respect derived from one's own achievements, qualities, or possessions, or those of someone with whom one is closely associated. Pride is often accompanied by a sense of accomplishment, confidence, and self-worth." 3:30 Tim used to deflect or downplay on the odd occasion people said something nice to him. But to receive recognition and feel proud... it feels amazing. It is very motivating. So he's tried to become more comfortable accepting compliments. But perhaps you, dear reader, could help him practice by sending a little love to https://managementcafepodcast.com/contact/ ? 4:30 Pride is a sharing emotion. And it tells others what we value. 5:30 We can be proud and not share it. There is a difference between feeling proud and expressing our pride to others, they don't have to be done together. And this distinction is especially important in the workplace. 7:00 It is generally safe for managers to express pride in the achievements of their team or the individuals that they manage. This means those individuals don't have to go seeking recognition and their manager is giving them license to be proud of themselves. 8:30 When a manager feels proud in their own work how do they express it? Tim thinks this is better to do amongst peers or up the organisational chart. 10:00 It is good to role model healthy pride to those we manage. 11:30 Humility is generally a more socially acceptable emotion than pride. When we feel pride but express humility there is a disconnect. 13:20 Praising others gives them license to express pride in their work. Similarly we are safer to express pride with people that have given us praise. 14:20 Expressing pride to the wrong audience can be risky. Tim shares a time when he was left totally deflated by someone's response. 16:20 Pilar poses the question: what to do when someone is proud of something that wasn't actually that good? Tim proposes serving up the much maligned feedback sandwich. 18:30 Pilar points out that we can acknowledge their pride now and give the feedback about some aspects of the work later. It's critical that we don't squash their pride in the moment. Their pride comes with vulnerability because they are showing what they care about and they are seeking validation or affirmation. We should also be mindful of the fact that when someone shares their pride with us. they are signalling that they view us as a person who will treat their pride appropriately.   What about you, dear listener? How do you feel and express pride at work? We'd love to hear from you! Get in touch through our Contact Form https://managementcafepodcast.com/contact/   

For the fourth episode of our series on manager emotions we talk about Emotional Contagion, as it's something that keeps coming up. Emotional Contagion describes how one person's emotions can induce similar emotions in others. This is often happening at an unconscious level, for example, we mimic someone's facial expression and start to feel the same emotion. Managers should be especially mindful of this phenomenon and its potential impacts. When a leader gets angry or happy or sad, everyone around them also feels a bit of that same emotion. Leaders are a focal point of interaction meaning they are more susceptible to emotional contagion than followers. This brings both challenges and opportunities. Whilst emotional contagion often operates at a subconscious level, leaders can take deliberate steps to guide the emotional state of themselves and those around them. 00:20 mins Emotional contagion is an important concept for managers to understand - that your emotions impact those around you and vice versa. 1:20 Tim shares an example (possibly an urban myth): your co-workers become less happy if your partner has a bad boss. Even though the workplaces are separate, the bad boss means your partner is less happy. And this means you are less happy. And this unhappiness spreads to your co-workers. 2:00 As per the example above, the effects of emotional contagion spread beyond the workplace. Tim became conscious of this when running Shield GEO where many of the employees worked from home. What are the emotions and influences that a digital workplace brings into the sanctity of someone's home? 4:00 Pilar references a 2002 study by Sigal G. Barsade of the University of Pennsylvania titled "The Ripple Effect: Emotional Contagion and Its Influence on Group Behavior". It talks about emotional contagion as the transfer of emotion between individuals. 5:20 Tim shares an embarrassing story of grumbling about his workplace being negative, only for a co-worker to point out that maybe it was Tim's own negativity that was infecting the workplace! This valuable feedback helped him better understand his role in creating the work environment that he wanted. 6:50 Sometimes emotional contagion happens unconsciously. But other times we can deliberately spread an certain emotion. Going back to the Barsade paper it talks about moods as compared to emotions, making the point that these are easily influenced transient states. Our emotions change with time and different environmental stimuli. 8:45 If we are mindful of emotional contagion when going through challenging events like layoffs, it can change our behaviour. e.g. Perhaps we take steps to reduce anxiety. 9:40 Pilar points out that we don't just influence a group's emotions by interacting directly with the whole group. We can also work at a one-to-one level with individual members who will spread those emotions back through the group. 10:20 Emotional contagion gives a powerful argument for managers to moderate their emotional responses. When managers express emotions like anger it doesn't just impact the people they interact directly with. The effects ripple out. This also means there are wonderful opportunities for the manager to model helpful emotional behaviour and reactions. 11:55 Barsade's research showed that the spread starts with mimicking. People spontaneously mimicking each other's facial expressions, body language, speech patterns and verbal tones. And the mimicking triggers people to feel the emotions. Perhaps an argument for cameras off on some video calls? 13:30 Pilar shares that people who have had Botox injections in their face are perceived as less empathetic because they don't mimic, and so, their body doesn't prompt them to feel others' emotions. 15:00 There is also a conscious level of emotional contagion where we compare our mood to those around us and adjust accordingly. Am I the only one who is angry or happy in this group? 16:30 Tim found the ripple effect of emotions to be a helpful guide. When you treat someone with kindness or care, it doesn't end there. They carry that with them and spread it further. 17:45 Pilar points out that this is a good reminder that even small actions have an impact. And even if we don't see an immediate impact our efforts will be making some difference. 18:45 Interestingly the research found that negative emotions don't spread any faster than positive emotions. And in fact sometimes strong positive emotions can be too much. Tim speculates that this is a British attitude but alas, he's quite wrong, the paper came from the University of Pennsylvania. 20:40 Perhaps negative emotions are more inward focussed and therefore less likely to spread. But positive emotions are generally outward focussed. 22:30 The paper showed that most people were unaware of emotional contagion. Both unaware they were impacted by other's emotions and unaware they were impacting other's emotions. 23:15 Our hosts speculate on what to do when they see emotional contagion at work. It starts with awareness and bringing it into the open. Most of us have experienced the opposite - environments where certain emotions, generally "negative" ones, were not able to be expressed. And it can just lead to these forbidden emotions thriving and spreading behind the scenes. 25:00 Leaders also can't be the only ones responsible for the emotional state of the group. Some research has suggested that leaders are actually more susceptible to emotional contagion than "followers". 26:00 Pilar shares that some of her work in the pandemic left her soaking up the emotions of the group. 27:00 Tim has a shocking realisation. When he sold Shield GEO he tried to talk to all the employees about the transition. These 70 odd conversations left him exhausted, which he thought was due to many of the people feeling anxious and afraid. But he now wonders if he was actually the person spreading anxiety and fear through the group... 28:00 Pilar, as always, reframes this learning into a positive light. 29:30 Emotional contagion isn't just a face to face, real-time experience. All our behaviour is underpinned by emotion. So even in a distributed, primarily digital workplace emotions are still spreading. 30:30 We need self awareness about the impacts of our behaviour, both individually and in groups.   What about you, dear listener? Do you think about emotional contagion and how you are impacted by the feelings of those around you? We'd love to hear from you! Get in touch through our Contact Form https://managementcafepodcast.com/contact/   

Many thanks to Catherine Nicholson from Virtual Training Team for sharing her thoughts on emotions at work and anger, after listening to the first episode of the manager emotions series.  We share her comments directly from her LinkedIn posts, and expand on them.  https://www.linkedin.com/posts/pilarorti_we-kick-off-our-series-on-management-emotions-activity-7211065541115953152-75df If you have any feedback, we'd love to hear from you! https://managementcafepodcast.com/contact/  00:30 mins Our hosts discuss the most popular episode of the “manager emotions” series: episode #81 on Anger. They speculate on why it resonated. 1:45 Pilar shares some great feedback that came in from Catherine Nicholson of Virtual Training Team. She shares that emotional regulation has been a recurring theme in her recent manager workshops. 2:15 Catherine poses the question, is it ok to show frustration at work? And talks about the “delicate connection between having an emotion, recognizing that emotion and then knowing what to do with it.” 3:35 She also talks about the balance between anger and passion. Tim reflects that it took him a long time to understand that sometimes people show frustration when it’s something they care deeply about. 4:30 Tim (badly) paraphrases Stephen M R Covey’s famous quote from The Speed of Trust “…we judge ourselves by our intentions and others by their behavior…”. 5:15 Pilar points out that it is more acceptable to show passion than anger. Someone once tried (incorrectly) to reframe her anger as passion. 6:15 Pilar also thanks the wonderful Theresa Sigillito Hollema for recommending the Management Cafe to the listeners of the 21st Century Work Life podcast. And also a shoutout to Pilar’s mum who enjoyed the episode on anger! What about you, dear listener? Do you have any feedback or thoughts you’d like to share? We’d love to hear from you! Get in touch through our Contact Form https://managementcafepodcast.com/contact/ 

We continue with our Manager Emotions series. 

We continue with our Manager Emotions series. Today’s episode is all about joy. We remind ourselves of what it feels like, but we also wonder whether it’s always ok to express it. Join Tim Burgess and Pilar Orti for coffee - or tea! For full show notes head over to www.managementcafepodcast.com 

This marks the first of our series on manager emotions, where we discuss some of feelings we experience at work. Anger is one of the more complex emotions for a manager to navigate. Anger is about a perceived wrong and our desire to find a resolution. On the one hand, anger can be energising and act as a powerful catalyst for change. It shows us, and others, what is important to us. But when expressed inappropriately anger can be a destructive force. Many people are uncomfortable being exposed to anger and when we show we're angry at work we can run the risk of reduced connection and collaboration. And so much of this is tied to our own experiences and history and interpretations... one person's "slightly frustrated" might be another person's "rage and fury". Being able to express our difficult emotions in productive ways is one of the hallmarks of psychological safety and a high trust work environment. To quote Aristotle: "Anybody can become angry; that is easy. But to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way—that is not within everybody’s power and is not easy." 01:30 mins Definitions of anger and how different authors talk about it. We share definitions of anger from the "Emotion Thesaurus" by Becca Puiglisi & Angela Ackerman, the American Psychological Association and Claude AI. All of which highlight that anger comes from experiencing a perceived wrong or injustice. 3:00 Anger is sometimes a masking emotion disguising someone's true emotional state, for example protecting them from more vulnerable feelings like fear, sadness or shame. Anger can even be a defensive stance - in their book Big Feelings, Liz Fosslien & Mollie West Duffy share a quote from David Kessler that "Anger is pain's bodyguard". 4:50 Anger tells us that there is something we have to pay attention to. It's important to listen to as opposed to being controlled by your anger. 5:30 Many people feel the need to suppress their anger. There can be a lot of judgement about feeling angry or expressing anger. Tim knows people who never express anger, even when he knows that they have experienced injustice. But there are also so many examples of harmful expressions of anger. 6:30 What does anger look and feel like? Some of the ways we can see anger show up in a work context include: irritability, poor listening skills, jumping to conclusions, irrational reactions to inconsequential things, demanding immediate action, impetuosity, taking inappropriate action or risks. And these don't just show we are angry - in many ways they are also affecting how we interact with others. 7:30 Within ourselves we can feel hot, tense, fuzzy, shallow or fast breathing. It can really take hold of us. 8:00 Tim shares an example of when a friend demonstrated anger as a mask for embarrassment or shame. 9:15 Anger exists on a spectrum. It isn't always expressed so strongly that it takes over. 9:50 Anger can be helpful because it helps us understand what is important and it motivates us to take action. It can give us a way to express negative emotions. 11:50 Pilar has had to learn to moderate how she expresses anger, or behaving in ways that might be interpreted as anger, because it makes people uncomfortable. But we also can't bottle it up and then have it all come out. And sometimes to demonstrate that we are upset is more effective than telling people we're upset. 15:15 Tim's experience has been a bit different. He felt better about expressing his anger, but realised it was making other people feel worse. So he has to be careful. He might think he's giving a mild expression of anger but it can be interpreted very differently by someone else. 16:50 Tim talks about a time when just saying that he was feeling angry helped him feel less angry. This served him better in this situation than his customary angry response. 18:50 For Pilar, she needs to find a balance between tailoring her response without controlling everything about her feelings and how they are expressed. 20:15 Tim has another anecdote from a board meeting where one of the participants had experienced an injustice but wasn't allowed to properly express it in the meeting. It lead to a huge frustration and sense of disconnection for them, as Tim discovered when he spoke to the board member afterwards. 22:00 Just to be given the space to be angry and express their feelings can be valuable. This was a takeaway for Pilar in the example she shared at 11:50. 23:30 Managers can take a timeout if their own anger is getting in the way or someone else is expressing their anger in a way that is unproductive. It's important to return to the conversation at a later point. This is kind of what Tim tried to do in his board meeting. 24:30 It can also be helpful to paraphrase what an angry person is saying. This shows their anger is recognised and the injustice is understood. 25:00 It's very easy to skip past anger or frustration in written communication. It can easily escalate in an asynchronous environment. 26:40 We should repair and reconnect if we've expressed our anger in a way that was unproductive. We don't need to apologise for how we felt but rather we apologise for how we interacted. This can show someone that we value them and our connection whilst also staying true to our sense of justice. 28:30 Pilar remembers when a colleague's empathetic reaction helped her identify her emotional state. By choosing to turn towards her in a challenging moment, their connection was deepened. What about you, dear listener? We are finding it therapeutic to talk about our emotions as managers, does it help you too? We'd love to hear from you! Get in touch through our Contact Form https://managementcafepodcast.com/contact/   

Hosts Tim Burgess and Pilar Orti talk about why they think they procrastinate - even though they're not sure what is procrastination and what isn't... If you're reading this near the time of publishing you might notice the show notes are missing... this wasn't the result of procrastination, but due to holiday schedules. The notes will be up soon on the blog, and hopefully, here too.  https://managementcafepodcast.com

A theme we keep coming back to in the Management Café is the importance of context. In each situation there are many variables that influence what happens. For example the company culture, our manager, our team, the particular task and our own capability. Sometimes we have to accept that the current context is not good one for us and we're not going to perform at our best. This can be hard to reconcile, many of us have an expectation that we can handle all challenges. But this realisation, that the context isn't right for us, also brings opportunity. The opportunity to be patient and understanding of ourselves (or others). The opportunity to change the context. Or the opportunity to save ourselves the wasted effort and pain from trying something that will never succeed in that context. So... how do you identify the context that works for you? And can we make progress even from the situations which don't work? Join hosts Tim Burgess and Pilar Orti for coffee and find out! 00:15 mins In episode #74 Pilar shared a story of how a change of context, in this case working with a different team, improved her performance delivering training. 3:30 Acknowledging that the context isn't right for us can open the door to trying something different. 4:30 Tim had an experience recently with a colleague who decided that the organisational culture wasn't a good match. And so they made the decision to leave. This freed the person, and the organisation, to move forward. Pilar references Laszlo Bock's book "Work Rules" and how he incorporated this into the culture at Google. If someone wasn't performing well, then you could work with them directly but also change the context - maybe a different part of the organisation. Or maybe they were best suited to a different organisation. 6:25 Unfortunately companies and employees can sometimes misrepresent or misinterpret their preferred context during the hiring process. Ideally we'd be aware of what environments work best for us and aim for companies and roles that can accommodate us. 7:45 Things can also be quite different to how they appear on the surface. Pilar talks about a case study of a distributed company with a very flat leadership structure. However this organisation had an unofficial hierarchy and a founder dynamic that meant employees struggled to be heard. 10:00 How to identify the context that works for you? It's a big question, especially early in your career. Tim suggests that even a process of elimination, a trial and error process of identifying what doesn't work, is still good progress. 11:15 This is hard to recognise in the moment. But with hindsight we can make sense of what was or wasn't helpful to us. 12:50 We can save ourselves a lot of pain and wasted effort by understanding what will and won't succeed within our context. Pilar shares an anecdote of someone who tried to apply a productivity initiative within an organisation only to violate a cultural norm. This can be one of the big indicators that a context isn't right, when our vision of change is vastly different to the organisation's. We might need to find a new place to work! 16:20 Tim remembers a time when he badly misread the culture of his workplace because his manager had done such a great job of shielding him. A painful lesson which resulted in him being out of a job within 6 weeks of his manager leaving. 17:30 Nini Fritz of The Work Happiness Project shared something that helps her identify when it's worth applying efforts to bring about organisational change. When we see people share our desire for the outcome but they are struggling with implementation, we have the best chance to improve the context. What about you, dear listener? Is this something you think about? How can you tell when the context is right or wrong for you? We'd love to hear from you! Get in touch through our Contact Form https://managementcafepodcast.com/contact/   

In this episode, Tim and Pilar discuss the type of burnout that comes from doing "necessary evils" as part of our job. 

A short bonus episode to let you know what's brewing in the Management Café. In about a month, we'll be starting a new series, on manager emotions. In each episode, we'll dive into a specific emotion, discussing what it feels like, its purpose, and how it can help or hinder us as managers. Our recent episode on regret resonated with listeners, and we both enjoyed it very much! It highlighted the importance of discussing emotions as a manager and how they shape our management practices. So we've decided to cover some other feelings and emotions.  Throughout the series, we'll share our own experiences and those shared with us by others. We'll explore not only the manager's experience of each emotion but also their experience of employees who are going through those emotions. When you think about emotional contagion and the impact of being around someone experiencing a particular emotional reaction, you can see how there will be plenty to get our teeth into.  Some of the emotions we plan to cover include: - Overwhelm - Disconnection - Hopelessness - Anger - Confusion - Joy - Compassion We'd love to hear from you, listeners! If you have any stories, thoughts, or insights related to these emotions or any other emotions you think would make for an interesting episode, please share them with us. You can reach out via email at managementcafepodcast[at]gmail.com or through the contact form on our website, managementcafepodcast.com. Additionally, if you come across any books, articles, or resources that you believe would contribute to the series, please let us know.  Look out for the Manager Emotion Series, where we'll take a deeper look at the human side of management and explore how emotions shape our experiences as managers and leaders. Until then, coffee's over for us, now it's over to you! 

MC77 Evaluating potential in the people we manage