5 Tips for Managers When Communicating

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hi everyone and welcome welcome to the second interview of women leading people i’m so excited to have my guest

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melissa k jones joining us today and today’s interview is going to be around five communication tips for new

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managers but really we’re going to be covering all of melissa’s story how she got into management and how she has spent the

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last well melissa you’ll tell us how many years but she’s had 20 years of experience as a leader as a leader and now she

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leads businesses and helps businesses um to drive really great results so really excited to have you here

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melissa thank you so much for joining thank you for the invitation evan i’m excited to be here

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wonderful so this woman leading people has been put together to help to inspire and empower women as people managers and i’m

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trying to bring in as many women leaders as i can to help tell their stories and to help empower you

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with their stories as well now we will be open to any comments or questions that you have so feel free

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at any point in the chat just to type in your question and we’ll try to get through it during the interview as well um so

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melissa will get started can you just start by telling us about your how you got into your first role

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within management yes so my first

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jump into leadership for my career was right around the end of my 20th year

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right before my 21st birthday i was working for a property management company at the time here in the states and had an excellent boss

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and she knew my desire to grow within the company and to move up

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into a leadership role and so it had been something that we had talked about in

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our one-on-one reviews and then when a position had opened up she

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shared it with me so that i was able to apply and so i think one the first

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communication tip if you’re starting out or have a desire to be in a leadership management role is to communicate your

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goals with your boss like people don’t know what you want until you tell them

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and so having that conversation early and sharing your goals and not

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expecting them to automatically like assume that you want a promotion and then keeping that communication

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open over the time even if you don’t get that initial role and you’re waiting for something else to

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open up so that’s really important as well with that initial role i was in that

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position for about three months and then i transferred out to a lateral position

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at another property which required me to move to another state and at that property then i did

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the first hiring and bringing on vendors so it was a big role in really just

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proving myself and who i was and what i was capable of but i would say also just going back to

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like trying to get into your first role it’s really important that your performance shows that you’re capable

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of doing work but also how you work with your peers like what’s that

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relationship look like because management is more about personal relationships than it is about

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high performers yeah so you found yourself pretty early on within the

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stages of your career knowing that that’s what you wanted to do how did you find that transition from

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working with your peers to then obviously managing some of them

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so at a young age i would say it was very hard specifically when that first initial

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role when i’m going directly from peers to then a promotion so the one thing that helped me is i wasn’t

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moving directly above my peers but i was still friends with peers that

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were in the role that i was moving into so the and it continues to happen

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throughout my career any time that you’re going into a leadership role a lot of times it’s sometimes within the

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same department or complementary department that you’ve worked with people in that department before

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so two and the communication tips is make sure that you define what the boundaries are now that

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you’re in this new role or reset what those boundaries are it can be really challenging especially

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if you have closer friendships with peers because they’ll

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want to still have those same type of relationships but when you’re in a management role

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you’re responsible for other people and so you’re not allowed to play favorites

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you need to treat everyone the same there’s information that you can’t disclose because you’re looking out for the

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business and for the team and so defining those boundaries is

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critical in order to maintaining the relationship but also having that respect from everybody that you are now

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responsible for so number two define and reset boundaries and i think

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that’s such a hugely important one because like you said it will be people in different departments who you

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will have had a different relationship with so i’d love to hear in practice how do

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you actually have that conversation how do you sit someone down do you call a meeting and what did you say

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and how did they take it if you have some examples from your first experience so

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telling on my age that was a long time ago i would say over 15 years ago so the way that i feel

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the conversation then was way different than how i would how i’d handle the conversation now

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then i didn’t handle the conversation well i would say like one of the first

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things that i had to do when i that first role where i was only there for three months my first time into leadership

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i had to let go of an employee and that was

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really tough because i considered that person a friend outside of work but also within the workplace like they

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weren’t measuring up to the performance standards and there was different things going on and so

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that was a really difficult conversation for me and i know that i didn’t manage it well at the time and

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the good thing is i think with growth and being adults you understand like

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your role and those situations and so we are still

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acquaintances slash friends for that reason now um we could definitely have a

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conversation i ran into them years later in a different setting and we got along well but at that time i

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would say like now looking back what i would do differently is

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exactly what i explained say you know i enjoy our friendship and i enjoy like

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working with you like if they’re not a friend but just like a close acquaintance within the department and say you know i want you to excel and

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i want to do well in my role in order to help everyone that’s on the team so these are the things that

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are going to have to change in order for us to work together so just laying out what the specific

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things are saying like there are certain things that i can’t discuss with you and defining what those

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are so like you can’t define promotions you can’t define salaries you can’t share

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um performance issues like there’s things that you can’t talk about anymore because of the privacy and of

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each individual on the team and respecting those people they wouldn’t want their story told to anybody else so the same applies in that situation

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and again not favoritism so like

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i really had to pull back and not be friends with people that were on

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my team i can be friendly with people on my team i can know them i can know what their interests are i can have like

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great one-on-one relationships because i want to see people excel in their role and be promoted take on

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additional responsibilities but i can’t be your friend because it just creates

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really sticky situations because honestly like we’re all human like we have

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curiosity we want the best for ourselves we tend to be selfish we think things are

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about us when they’re not about us we have a tendency sometimes to overthink situations or to perceive them

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differently based off of like our own personal experiences so really defining in those boundaries and

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having that conversation up front and then also to like if there are things that you notice throughout

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the relationship that you didn’t define initially having that conversation in

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like bringing them back up to speed say like i know i did this in the past this is where i’m at now this is what

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needs to change or what can’t happen and communicating it to them

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if you’re assuming that they know or just like trying to sweep it under the rug

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that’s when elephants grow in the room and it becomes really awkward and it can make

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a bad situation where their performances starts to decline it can increase gossip and so

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as a leader it’s your responsibility to have those hard conversations it’s your responsibility to make sure

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that the elephant doesn’t get in the room and a lot of time the elephant gets in the room because we’re afraid to have those conversations

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definitely and i think those are two great tips so putting yourself forward for the type of role that you want and

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communicating that because people won’t know and also having those difficult conversations setting the

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expectations of the new ways of working together i guess it’s also considering that sometimes

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letting someone go even though it definitely won’t feel like that in the moment is ultimately probably a better move for

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that person because they’re also not getting what they would need to

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excel in their careers so it’s definitely bad news to hear but it probably gives them a much better

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opportunity in future so seeing the potential benefit in the long term that will come from that can

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probably help to make that decision a little bit easier or that conversation a little bit easier

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rather i know that’s definitely something that i’ve had to do as well and it was it was tough um so great so

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having those difficult conversations what’s next

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i would say um in regards to the difficult conversations because i think that’s something that a lot of people

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struggle with like how do i give constructive feedback how do i give feedback when like the performance

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isn’t meeting expectations or you know that someone’s capable of more and i think that first starts with

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making sure that you’re having regular one-on-ones with your team members and really when you’re in a management

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role it’s about people more than it is about performance because if you can get those people

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relationships and you can understand like what stressors they have what motivates them what their goals are

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what their learning styles are all these different things then you can really get out of their way so that they

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can perform really well but also support them and their goals and their

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career whether that’s long term with the company or whether that’s just momentarily within this chapter and they

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do exceptionally well so having those one-on-one conversations is critical because then you build that

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rapport and that trust with the employee that you really care about who they are what their goals are

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that their career path whether it’s within the department or whether they want to long-term move into another role

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or whether this company is a stepping stone for them into something else and that’s completely fine but building

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that trust and rapport because then when it comes time that their performance slides

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or there’s maybe a behavioral issue with a colleague that you can then

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address it and say this is what i’m perceiving

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and then describe the situation ask them [Music] to then share what they saw or

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like what they were doing because you don’t want to automatically assume that you know what was going on

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or to attack them by saying and i put

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parentheses for attack but you don’t want to automatically come at somebody and say i saw you did

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this why did you do this like that automatically makes people close down and become defensive

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and really you are wanting to help them so saying exactly what you observed

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and then asking them to describe the situation to you because there could be and a lot of times there are nuances to

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the situation that you are not aware of so i’ll give you an example one time

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i was sending out emails that had directions for employees in regards to compliance issues

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and i needed them to respond to the email and so majority people responded timely and then i had a

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couple people that were still struggling and hadn’t responded yet and so at the time and

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again this is all part of like the maturity growth curve i saw it as disrespectful because i thought that it was

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intentional that they were choosing to respond and weren’t taking me seriously and

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so i went and had a conversation with the employee and understanding then like the nuance of

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they were just busy and they were overwhelmed and it had nothing to do with me or a lack of

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respect it was just more a matter of like needing help to manage the amount of information that

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was coming through to them and so i think that’s why it’s so important to have

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those one-on-one conversations and build those relationships because then you can understand like the nuance behind different situations when they

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arise so that way you can help people instead of assume things

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and then discourage them even more yeah i think always giving your team and

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this is probably good for all of your communications assume the best until you’re you’re proven otherwise

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because a lot of the times there there will be things that are missing and you actually brought up a really interesting point you said at the time

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you were worried whether they weren’t taking you seriously or that you weren’t being

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respected which is probably quite a common thing to feel as a new manager right you’ve

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come into the role and you’re asking people to do things and people aren’t doing them and then you just

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you kind of you feel that you feel that so how how did you get around that and how did

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you how did you work with that um and kind of yeah i guess handle it

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so i would also go to say that i don’t think that situation is specific to new

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managers i think that extends throughout the lifetime of being responsible for

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people that our ego creeps up and we take things personally and

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it really requires daily to be self-aware of like what our own personal challenges

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are and making sure that we don’t project those on to situations with the people that we’re responsible for but

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in regards to like having that respect to be taken seriously it really comes

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down to communication again and so piggybacking off the previous

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point is like once you ask them to explain the situation then talk to them to say okay these are

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the things that i need from you and the reason why i need them from you because a lot of

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times we know things and we’re just so busy and like

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managing relationships and managing work and making sure that we’re meeting metrics and all the things for the

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department that we forget to share like the importance or the reasoning

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behind all the asks that we have and so

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taking time to explain it to the individual to say okay this is the importance behind it this is

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how it impacts others on the team this is how it impacts customers whatever the case may be so when you put

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them in that position of then ownership of saying like now i know like

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how my role impacts other people and these are the tools and resources that i

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have and she’s doing this for me then it builds that level of respect i always

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believe that you have to respect somebody else in order for them to respect you like respect ideally

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it’s something that should automatically happen um but also i believe that respect just

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like trust is brene brown talked about it a jar of marbles for trust

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and so like there’s a baseline of coming into a relationship you have a standard of trust and respect

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but with every interaction like you can lose marbles or you can add marbles to the jar

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and sometimes like there’s really bad situations that can occur where you can tip the jar over and then it’s really hard to start

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over again so i think keeping that analogy in mind that

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everything that you do contributes to building respect with a team like do your actions match up with what

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you’re telling them to do and the same with trust so in regards to like do they take me

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seriously do they respect me do your actions match your words it’s

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really easy for people in management positions to say that the rules don’t apply to me because i’m

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like i’m in this role i need to do this for some outlier reason and

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so changing things to benefit you and there are probably certain circumstances

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where there will be different things that apply to the team than you if that’s the case

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then it needs to be clearly communicated why they’re extenuating circumstances that

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allow that otherwise if you’re just personally doing it because you can

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then the team will not take you seriously they’ll not take what you’re asking of them seriously and it just

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then contributes to poor performance and hinders morale and retention on the

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team and so respect and being taken seriously really comes with do you do what you say

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you’re going to do and do you lead by example definitely it’s still so important to be

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leading by example even like you said the rules should still apply to you and you should be setting them for

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your team and living by them as well so what other challenges did you face what

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were some of the biggest challenges that you faced in that in that management role

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i would say some of the biggest challenges is one of the first ones and we talked

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about this briefly was annual reviews and so

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the first time that i did an annual review again it was the first team that i had

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really hired everyone on staff and i

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didn’t know the importance of the annual review i had my own previously

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but i didn’t understand like the impact of the entire

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the importance of it and how it impacts someone’s feelings and their outlook and their

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performance and all of that and so in going through and getting ready for

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the performance review i didn’t prepare for it like i should have i didn’t go through each individual step and

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really be intentional about giving it time and thought i was just checking it off on my list

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and so then when it came down to have that conversation with the employee

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i was really like half effort through it i didn’t give it my all and

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the employee could feel that and they were really discouraged and they

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shared that discouragement with others and it became a learning opportunity for me

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on the impact that my words have on my team how i need to prepare for

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every situation because i may not understand like how it’s received and so i need to be intentional

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with my words and my actions and so i just felt so bad about that because i

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had you know it wasn’t intentional like they were valuable and they did great work but there was

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nothing that stood out to me that was like outstanding and i think that’s like the key here is

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like when you’re a leader you’re going to have team members with all different types of performance

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you’re going to have people that struggle you’re going to have people that do what it needs just to meet the

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performance expectations and then you’re going to have people that go above and beyond the people that go above and beyond are

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going to be easy i mean you can see those accomplishments they’re easy to like

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document to share and to put in their personnel file the people that have challenges again

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same thing like they’re visible you know it you’ve talked about it you’ve observed it but sometimes it’s those

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people that are just like in the middle that are just doing what they need that it’s going to be more challenging

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to have those conversations and so hindsight being 20 20.

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that’s where it’s more critical again to have like those one-on-one conversations to get to know the employee like what’s

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important to them what are their goals like what you know is driving them

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what are their situations because i would say like then years later in a different position i

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had another employee who was a slow learner and it took them a

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while to get up to speed on new information and

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because it was like in a compliance industry it was a lot of detail and so having that conversation with

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that individual was really helpful because then i could understand like the specific things that they struggled with

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but i also saw that they really wanted to learn they really

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wanted to try and so by having that conversation and really understanding them better

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then i could give them more room to learn and tools that they needed and support

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that they needed and then over time they became a mentor for other new employees so i

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think the tying that all together from like the first part where it’s like a huge

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challenge and then just learning like how to better communicate

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and ask those questions and really get to know your employees so that you can support them

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is really critical because it’s the difference between discouraging somebody so that they no

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longer want to show up and perform and they look for another job and someone that then can

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continue to excel because they know that you support them and that they can shine it within that business

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and then help others on the team excel as well that’s awesome so with this hindsight of

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you know the annual reviews are really important what would you say is really important to prepare like what would you prepare

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now before going into an annual review

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so it again ties back to one-on-ones so the more often that you have the

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one-on-ones the more information that you have on a regular basis so it makes that you know reviews a lot easier

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um that wasn’t the case when i first started out and so when it’s been a year and you don’t have

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like documentation of things throughout the year to what they’ve done well at what their

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learning opportunities what challenges they’ve encountered and overcome different things of that nature then it

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makes it a lot more challenging when it comes to annual reviews because i mean we’re human we are not going to

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remember things and so typically then when it comes to that time you’re going to remember the things

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that probably happened within the last quarter the last 90 days which really isn’t reflective of the

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entire year and their growth during that time so the frequency and

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cadence of those one-on-ones is key and making sure that you document them and whether it’s qualitative or

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quantitative and seeing like their progression and growth during that time so that way then you do have

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things that are tangible that you can address and talk about during the annual review so that makes it a lot easier for you as

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a leader but then also more effective when you’re talking about specific metrics or specific company

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values that need to be addressed and ideally both quantitative and qualitative

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in fact we know some large businesses have completely abolished the annual reviews and they just don’t run them

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they’ve replaced that with regular and ongoing feedback so it’s kind of like an exam

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don’t leave it until you know the last week just to cram and do everything you should kind of be putting the work

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in every week or regularly when you’re speaking to your employees to make sure that you have something very valuable and have

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good feedback and we know that people act on feedback much better if they receive it

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um immediately just after something they’re more likely to remember it so i think like you said coming back to

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not just the annual review being the one big time where you where you have communication

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with your your employees so what is what is our next communication tip for managers

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i would say also be aware of your delivery and also your

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physical like presentation meaning like how you come across to people i think it’s really i’ll say for myself

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when i’m extremely focused on my work it’s easy for my presence my face to be very serious

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do you have a seriousness and not approachable can you show us your serious faith when

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you’re watching it’s probably during this call when i’m like very focused on delivering a point

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right exactly but i think so just being cognizant of how you come

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across both in your vocal delivery but also in your physical delivery that you are approachable and how your

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demeanor like if you’re positive negative because the energy that you bring to the room that you bring to the

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team is transferable people vibe off of that and pick it up and so like if you come in to the team i

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know most of us are working online now but like let’s say that you enter a

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virtual meeting like how you immediately like greet people and just like your body

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language is it open is it like smiling is it making eye contact as much as we can through a

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video um just those little things like really allow other people to like show

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up and feel seen and feel comfortable having a conversation and even sometimes like those chats

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where you just say hi i’m glad to see you glad you’re here and then words and how we deliver them

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so i tend to be a very direct person and so i have to be very aware

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that when i do share information or have an ask that how i deliver it is received well

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because otherwise someone may be confused they may take offense and

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really i’m just in the moment and making a direct ask is nothing more nothing less and so i don’t

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think that it’s necessary that we need to be flowery and add like a ton of extra like

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verbiage in order to send the message but i do think that it’s like

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including a greeting and recognizing the person and seeing that they’re there is key and then also

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making sure that you appreciate them i think a lot of times we’re so busy in our own work as managers even as

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employees that we don’t pause to recognize the efforts of people on the team and yes there are things that are just

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part of our job but it doesn’t matter like thank you for being here thank you for showing up thank you for the effort

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that you put into the project all of those things make a huge difference

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and they are breathing oxygen into somebody’s work like it gives them

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the initial fuel and energy that they need to continue going on when they have outside stressors and outside work

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and i can remember like some of my favorite bosses and mentors are ones that

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recognized my work and took time to send a note or a card and i still have those

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now um so i think really like your impact on others is so much greater than sometimes

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we realize because again of the own work that we have so just being aware of

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again your presence how you come across to people what you say what you do it means a lot

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definitely and i remember one of my first managers he would typically come in and say good morning to everyone before

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he sat down and he’d always be quite cheerful and some days he would come in and just

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sit right down at his desk and kind of focus and he’d he’d have that faith i definitely have this face when i’m

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focused on something my my family always tell me why why are you making that face so

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he would make that face and we would all think what’s happened has one of us done something wrong because we always think

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it’s a it’s about us sometimes and i think oh what have we messed up now what account is really angry and we’ve

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caused an issue so i think just just being aware that sometimes you’re almost you shouldn’t be in a bad

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mood or if you are you need to like suck it up and just get on the call and don’t transfer the rest of that bad mood

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to everybody yeah i think yes just being conscious of

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that and i’ll say also to like as leaders we’re human too so you know if there’s something going

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on like you can share to the extent that you’re comfortable i don’t have a tendency to over share

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because i don’t think that it’s relevant or important because

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we’re there to serve the team but also too i think it’s important to still have that relationship that we’re human too

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and that we struggle with different things i think sometimes by opening up and having those conversations then you get your team to open up as well

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because a lot of times they can see us as

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invincible or like there’s this appearance that anybody that’s in position of power is like invincible or perfect or you know

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certain things don’t affect them and i know that that has been the tradition for a lot of years and well i think that

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there is value in emotional maturity and emotional discipline there are times

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where it is helpful to open up and say like these are the things that are going on

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and let’s address them let’s share them let’s have a conversation about it and then like

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keep moving i would say specifically like if there’s you know the pandemic for

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example i think like it stresses everybody so if you’re a leader to say look this

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is stressing me out just as it is you i’m sure and like these are the different things

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that i am doing these are the different areas maybe that i’m struggling with and opening up and having that conversation

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with your team puts everybody at ease because one then they know that they’re not struggling alone

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that you can come together and talk about ideas about how you can work through the situation

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but also like not dwelling on it because the point of being a leader is to inspire hope

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to lead the way and to help people so there’s a balance there and you need to

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keep that in mind when you’re going through those types of conversations and you also bring up a really good

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point about most of us or a lot of us working from home now and communication your physical presence

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your mood will be very different you don’t see people in the office all day so i wonder what advice you might have

33:16

or suggestions for managers who are doing this remotely in order to be able to maintain that for

33:21

their teams

33:28

so like one of what if you’re not able to obviously me and a

33:33

lot of us aren’t anymore you can still have phone conversations like don’t force people to do video

33:39

conversations people are exhausted of video conversations and video meetings

33:44

um oh a walking phone call is so much better because then you can

33:50

both like there’s something about like being out in nature and walking and like you have a little bit more

33:55

clarity of thought and so even if it’s just for like 15 minutes a week

34:00

checking in to say like how are you doing how are your projects doing what do you need help with you know what’s coming up on your plate

34:07

those little things that show that you care that you’re making time for them but also like respectful of like their energy in their

34:14

space i think there’s also this fear that because people are working remotely that they’re afraid that they’re not getting

34:19

their work done or they’re not being asked productive because you can’t see them in the office and

34:25

it’s really important more now than ever is to continue to build in that trust

34:32

and so again just checking in doing the phone call sending them notes

34:39

um even sometimes if it’s just like a meme or a gif that’s relevant to something that

34:45

you know about them i think there’s different people that you have different you know conversations with so for

34:51

example i had an employee that loved uh cartoons comics they had their own comic store

34:59

and i they wanted to run their own business and i knew that was important to them and so like i could share things that

35:05

were relevant to that individual because it made sense to them that wouldn’t make sense to anybody else

35:11

that’s showing that you care about them so i think we can do that more now is like if you have those conversations

35:16

what are the little things that will cheer them up um maybe it’s just sending like an audio book

35:22

a lot of times it doesn’t have to be expensive but and there’s a budget for it within the company but to show that you care and that

35:28

you’re there to support them even if you can’t see them and maybe it’s sending a snack

35:35

there’s a lot of different things that you can do and so i think again just remembering that

35:42

we’re all in this together and i know that it’s a cliche but really like we’re all human we all

35:48

have stresses we all want to be seen and so what can you do to support them

35:54

yeah and like you said it’s really important to just have a personalized approach for every person right because

36:00

everyone’s going to be a little bit different and if you’re paying attention if you’re listening then you can do something that’s going

36:05

to be you know that’s going to hit the mark and we’ve actually got a relevant question that’s just come in i’ll pop

36:11

that up so do you find it uh challenging dealing with cultural differences

36:16

in attitudes and behaviors at work thanks so much neil

36:22

thank you for the question so i think that’s a great question and especially

36:27

in the climate that we’re at in where there’s an increased focus on inclusion diversity and

36:34

[Music] making sure that our numbers within our teams reflect that

36:41

so i’ll start from the beginning that through the entire course of my career

36:48

whether hiring promoting working beside it’s always been diverse

36:53

i’ve been blessed in that opportunity so it’s been rare that i haven’t

36:59

worked with people that were not from a different culture what i would say is that there

37:08

sometimes seems to be within a lot of literature at this time that’s more formalized

37:16

that it makes it tough and just sticky and it’s not it doesn’t need

37:23

to be that way like at the end of the day like what i was saying earlier is we all share similar fears

37:31

similar concerns we all still want the same things out of life so if you just treat the individual

37:38

in front of you with respect and care and ask questions to get to know who they are

37:44

what they value what’s important to them like leave everything outside like

37:50

i don’t care what people’s religion is i don’t care like what their political beliefs are like who are you as a person

37:57

and like what’s important to you and then once you get to know that person then you can like really help them

38:05

and i would say probably 80 of my last team

38:12

and that might be a little bit higher um was from a different culture and

38:19

so i didn’t have a challenge working with them because again i saw

38:25

that as individuals now i will say like each individual is going to have different things that are important to them and so

38:31

yes you will have different challenges with each individual person because they have different desires they have

38:36

different dreams they have different stressors at home but if you have those conversations to get to know who they are

38:43

then it makes it so much easier to work with them and so just making sure that i’m

38:51

answering your question it is the attitudes and behaviors do you think that there are

38:56

behaviors that are innate to certain cultures but also i would

39:03

encourage you to be careful with that because a lot of times we have this

39:09

stereotype of cultures that has been presented to us through the media that’s wrong

39:17

it may apply to certain people but it doesn’t apply to all and so again that goes back to the

39:23

importance of building those one-on-one relationships because you really do yourself a disservice if you assume that because

39:31

they belong to a certain culture they’re automatically going to have this attitude or behavior or belief or whatever the case may be

39:37

every single person is going to be different and so i think if

39:43

anything yes there is a challenge probably when you’re first starting to develop those relationships and that challenge

39:50

comes from fear of being rejected fear of embarrassment phil of like

39:56

it’s awkward to have conversation and not knowing where it is but there’s also strength in being

40:02

vulnerable strength and having the courage to have those conversations and it’s really just like if you’re

40:10

mindful and intentional about your words and how you come across and really genuinely show that you care

40:16

that you’re curious that you want to get to know them for who they are and to help them and then everything else you can wash

40:22

away so i would really encourage to anyone listening like those one-on-one relationships are

40:29

critical whether you’re leading a team or just building relationships with people from different cultures

40:36

thanks so much melissa i think what what came to mind when i was looking at the question as well were

40:42

just attitudes towards work or work-life balance even for example i know this is

40:48

definitely something that comes up when i’m working in the uk when i or europe and talking to people from the states

40:54

working hours or you know taking holidays this is extremely different and when i’m

41:00

managing a team that’s across both um i think that um that definitely

41:06

comes up i’ll just bring up uh response great answer i definitely think that women in senior roles tend to be better at seeing the individual

41:12

rather than necessarily the the cultural differences but what do you think about attitudes

41:18

towards uh work now that’s a great question so

41:24

yes there is definitely a difference between like and european culture

41:32

other um countries

41:37

so one up front i haven’t had to address that i haven’t had that within my

41:42

experience where i need to like figure out how to adapt to that so i think it goes back to like any time when

41:48

you’re in a new situation is getting to know the other person and like what is like their standard

41:55

and then also understanding like what the company needs and then trying to figure out like how can you balance that within the

42:01

middle i would say even within the pandemic like there’s been such a shift in work performance standards

42:08

because people now obviously they’ve had kids at home and so there’s a lot of what was

42:14

structured previously has been thrown out the window and there’s a lot more flexibility and like scheduling

42:20

and projects and work so specifically like i think defining

42:28

what needs to be done like what are the things that the business needs to obtain

42:33

what are the business goals and like what are the individual goals and then how people choose to like achieve it that’s

42:40

where probably we need to have a lot more flexibility and saying like okay if you choose to

42:46

like have a different schedule if you need like more break time or whatever the case may be

42:51

as long as the work gets done me personally i don’t care like as long as the work gets done and the work gets done well

42:59

how you do it or when you do it really doesn’t matter to me now i will say

43:04

how you do it there will be some nuance to that because there are certain industries and certain types of

43:09

work where it is very particular and that’s important but in regards to like cultural

43:16

differences where i think the laid back and get work

43:21

done and work is a i was thinking about this the other day

43:26

i think the biggest is some people choose like

43:31

work just like it’s a means to survival where people other people live to work and so

43:40

that is a huge difference because it impacts how people show up in their

43:45

drive and what they do and

43:51

there’s room for both and there’s a reason for both so i believe that you can find some

43:57

middle ground or balance in between the two so again great question thank you for asking and

44:03

making me think about that well i guess it’s also sometimes a company defining what their

44:08

culture is going to be and i think that’s going to become increasingly important as we’re working more globally and remotely with

44:15

employees everywhere with so much flexibility it’s going to be up to every business to define that and communicate that to

44:22

their organization but i know we’re coming up to time so melissa i’d love to recap you know what you think your five

44:28

communication tips for managers uh are and then also just to hear more about what you’re doing right now

44:35

great thank you so first one share your goals make sure that you clearly define your

44:40

goals if you’re wanting to move up in a position whether you want to move up into management or whether you’re already in management

44:46

want to move up to an executive position then make sure that you define your

44:51

boundaries and reset them as needed when working with peers that you are number three self-aware

44:58

with how your words are received for being open to learning from your

45:03

team asking questions and making sure that you have that open dialogue

45:08

and then five understanding how you may need to adapt your communication style

45:13

to again like the needs of different teams or different cultures like you were saying and so

45:19

just being aware of your presence that’s great so melissa tell us a little bit more about what you’re what you’re working on

45:26

right now so my favorite project right now is a little bit traditional it’s going back

45:33

to having a monthly print newsletter for leaders in business and it focuses on

45:39

three pillars leadership mindset and operations specifically like customer success and i send that out every month

45:47

to readers and i love it it’s an easy way for people to step away unplug and to get some

45:55

information that’s relevant to their role that can encourage them and empower them to be better leaders

46:01

that’s wonderful thank you so much and we will share the details in the comments below so do look out for those but melissa thank you so much

46:09

uh for joining me this evening it’s been an absolute pleasure and hearing your story um yeah feel free

46:15

to post any questions and we will respond to those and yeah i hope you have a great rest of the day

46:22

have a great day thank you bye